Louis Braille Learn English through story level 3
louis braille the man
who created an alphabet for the blind
i became blind when i was a child
there were very few books for people who
couldn’t see it was very difficult for
us to learn how to read and write
we needed an easy system could i
invent one
[Music]
when i was a child i was curious like
most boys
my father had a workshop and made
harnesses for horses
he had a lot of tools that i was
interested in
one day i picked up an awl a very
sharp tool from my father’s table and i
started playing with it
suddenly i tripped and fell they all
hurt my eye badly the doctor tried to
help me
but my eye became infected soon my other
eye became infected too
i was five years old when i couldn’t see
the sun
the fields or the blue sky anymore
we lived in cuprey the small town east
of paris
at school i couldn’t run or play with
the other boys
it was difficult to learn because i
couldn’t read or write
my teacher and the local priest tried
hard to teach me
but i didn’t make much progress i was
slower than the other children in the
class
my parents were very worried about my
future
they didn’t want me to become a beggar
they wanted me to study
one day my father heard of kansva
a school for blind people in paris and
decided to take me there
i was 10 years old and full of hope when
i arrived
to school do you have books for a blind
person
was my first question to dr gil the
doctor in charge of the school
i was pleased to hear that they had this
is the right place for me i thought but
soon i found out
that life with kansva was very hard
the school wasn’t a pleasant place the
building was 500 years old and the rooms
were cold and damp
and dr giel wasn’t a pleasant man
he was a cruel man who hit his students
and used very unkind words to describe
blind people
i was very upset at cancer
students weren’t taught how to read or
write
dr gil wasn’t interested in that
we were taught how to make baskets
chairs
and slippers for dr geal we weren’t
students
we were workers
he sold the beautiful things that we
made
i was sad lonely and a long way from
home
my parents didn’t know that my life was
so hard
although the school was bad it was the
only place that had
books for blind people the books were
large
heavy and expensive the letters were
raised from the page
and i felt them with my fingers the
problem was that i took a very long time
to read
each word when i got to the end of the
sentence
i couldn’t remember the beginning but i
wanted to read
there were 14 books in the school and i
decided
to read them all
[Applause]
things got better when in 1821
dr pinier became the director of the
school
we started to have music lessons i loved
to play music
and it became my favorite hobby it was
much easier than
reading because i didn’t need to read
music
i could play by ear i was asked to play
at many
churches in paris it was good to be
outside the school
people said nice things to me i was paid
for my work
and i had my own money for the first
time in my life
this meant a lot to me
when i was 12 years old charles barbier
who worked for the army
visited our school he told us about the
system that his army used to read in the
dark
they couldn’t use light because the
enemy might see them
so they used a system with 12 dots and
dashes
the system was difficult but it gave me
an idea when i returned home
for a holiday i started working on my
idea
i went to my father’s workshop and
picked up an awl
the tool that hurt my eye to invent a
new system for reading and writing
i used the all to raise dots on a page
barbie’s system had 12 symbols
my system was easier it had only six
in 1824 i was 15 years old and i had a
basic
system five years later the first book
was published
it was called method of writing words
and
music and plain songs by means of dots
for use by the blind and arranged for
them
the system was called the braille system
i was very happy with my system
but most teachers didn’t want to use it
they weren’t blind
and they didn’t need it they preferred
the old system
with raised letters because they didn’t
want to learn
something new but i continued to use it
and started to teach people to use it in
1834
it was shown at an exhibition in paris
i became a teacher at my old school
my students made progress quickly and
this made me very happy
but i was ill and i began to feel
very weak the damp conditions in the
school weren’t good for my health
but the doctor said that i had
tuberculosis
and in 1844 i had to stop
teaching but my students continued to
use
my system and then little by little
the system spread to other schools and
other parts of the world
it became the reading and writing system
for the blind
my students kept the braille system
alive