644 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



an inspiration of genius, lie conceived what might be asked of 

 the touch, which is so marvelously developed in the blind. Hav- 

 ing made some characters in relief representing the letters of the 

 alphabet, he undertook, in 1784, the education of a blind mendi- 

 cant named Lesueur. The x^upil's rapid progress soon made the 

 inventor's name celebrated. This attempt was the origin of the 

 Institution for the Blind in Paris. 



Louis Braille, son of an artisan, like Haiiy, completed the 

 work of his predecessor. He was born at Compvray in 1809, and 

 lost his sight, when three years old, in consequence of an injury 

 he received from a knife. He entered the Paris Institution for 

 the Blind in 1819, and became distinguished as a pupil, and after- 

 ward as a professor. He published, in 1829, his admirable " Ana- 

 glyptographie," or method of reading and writing by points in re- 

 lief. He was inspired to this work by observing the crypto- 

 graphic system devised in 1819 by Barbier, the artillery-officer, 

 and constructed a method of admirable simplicity. It is equally 

 well adapted to manuscript work and to printing : it can be ap- 

 plied to orthographic writing, to stenography, to mathematics, 

 and to music. It has been used in printing books since 1849, and 

 is still very generally in favor. 



The basis of the alphabet is a group of six points arranged in 

 vertical lines of three each, like the six of dominoes, which are 



1 . . 4 

 numbered downward, beginning on the left hand, thus : 2 . . 5 



3 . .6 



A first series of ten figures, obtained by a methodical combi- 

 nation of the four upper points, 1, 3, 4, and 5, constitute the fun- 

 damental signs. 



abcdefghij 

 Adding point 3 to these characters, we get the signs of the sec- 

 ond series, embracing letters from h to t. The addition of the points 

 3 and 6 furnishes a third series ; and a fourth series may be ob- 

 tained by adding the point 6 to each of the first ten characters. 

 The points 4 and 6 placed before a letter make it capital ; and 

 there are signs for the punctuation-marks. 



The numerical sign, composed of the points 3, 4, 5, and 6, 

 changes into figures or numbers the signs or groups of signs of 

 the first series which it precedes. Thus, the letter a, preceded by 



this sign, becomes the figure 1 • ; the letter h figure 2, etc. The 

 number 1234, for instance, would be written by prefixing the nu- 

 merical sign to the group of letters a b c d • 



^ & 1 _ J234 



