Valentin Haüy (1745–1822)
Essai sur l’éducation des aveugles (Essay on the education of blind children)
Paris, Imprimé par les enfans-aveugles, 1786
Rare Book Division
Essai sur l’éducation des aveugles (Essay on the education of blind children)
In 1784 Valentin Haüy, an interpreter for King Louis XVI of France, developed an enlarged, embossed font that he used to successfully teach a visually impaired boy to read by touch. Buoyed by this achievement, he opened the first free school for individuals with low vision, the Institution des jeunes aveugles in Paris. He also published Essai sur l’éducation des aveugles, the first book intended for those with limited sight, featuring his newly developed tactile process.
The raised-dot reading method that his student Louis Braille (1809–1852) devised eventually supplanted Haüy’s reading system, but his accomplishment stands as an important landmark in the quest to make literacy accessible to all.
Currently on View at Stephen A. Schwarzman Building
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