Braille, Louis

Louis Braille, portrait bust by an unknown artist. [Credit: Archiv für Kunst und Geschichte, Berlin]

4, 1809, Coupvray, near Paris, France—died Jan. 6, 1852, Paris) French educator who developed the Braille system of printing and writing for the blind. Himself blinded at the age of three in an accident, he went to Paris in 1819 to attend the National Institute for Blind Children, and from 1826 he taught there. Braille adapted a method created by Charles Barbier to develop his own simplified system.