author
Valentin Haüy
1745–1822
Best remembered for opening the first school for blind children, he helped change how blind people were taught and understood in France and beyond. His work laid important groundwork for the reading systems that followed, including the world Louis Braille would later transform.
1 Audiobook
Essai sur l'éducation des aveugles
by Valentin Haüy
About the author
Born in Saint-Just-en-Chaussée, France, in 1745, Valentin Haüy became a pioneering educator and is widely known as the founder of the first school for blind children in Paris. Britannica describes him as a French professor of calligraphy and the “father and apostle of the blind,” reflecting the influence of his early work in education and literacy.
In 1785, he founded the institution that became the National Institute for Blind Youth in Paris. He is remembered for creating raised-letter reading methods for blind students at a time when formal education for them was extremely rare, making him an important forerunner to later advances in accessible reading.
Haüy died in Paris in 1822. Though Louis Braille would later develop the reading system that became standard worldwide, Haüy’s efforts helped establish the idea that blind people could and should have access to structured education, books, and intellectual life.