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Quiz about Louis Braille
Quiz about Louis Braille

Louis Braille Trivia Quiz


How much do you know about the man who invented a method of reading and writing for the blind?

A multiple-choice quiz by urlybird. Estimated time: 5 mins.
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Author
urlybird
Time
5 mins
Type
Multiple Choice
Quiz #
273,024
Updated
Dec 03 21
# Qns
10
Difficulty
Tough
Avg Score
6 / 10
Plays
591
Awards
Top 20% Quiz
Last 3 plays: Guest 65 (8/10), Guest 27 (0/10), Guest 154 (6/10).
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Question 1 of 10
1. Where was Louis Braille born? Hint


Question 2 of 10
2. What caused Louis Braille's blindness? Hint


Question 3 of 10
3. How was Louis Braille educated? Hint


Question 4 of 10
4. Who provided the inspiration for Louis Braille's invention of a method of reading and writing for the blind? Hint


Question 5 of 10
5. Louis Braille had created the Braille system by age 15. Blind students readily accepted and learned the new code, but their teachers resisted it. Which of the following was NOT a complaint offered by the teachers who opposed the Braille code? Hint


Question 6 of 10
6. Which one of the following instruments did Louis Braille NOT play? Hint


Question 7 of 10
7. Louis Braille also invented raphigraphy. What is it? Hint


Question 8 of 10
8. After his death a small wooden box was found on which was written, "To be burned without opening." Nevertheless, the box was opened. What did it contain? Hint


Question 9 of 10
9. From what did Louis Braille die? Hint


Question 10 of 10
10. Where is Louis Braille buried? Hint



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Most Recent Scores
Mar 11 2024 : Guest 65: 8/10
Mar 10 2024 : Guest 27: 0/10
Mar 07 2024 : Guest 154: 6/10
Feb 11 2024 : Guest 172: 10/10
Feb 09 2024 : Guest 206: 6/10
Jan 31 2024 : Guest 152: 2/10
Jan 28 2024 : quiztoaster: 8/10
Jan 25 2024 : Guest 157: 0/10
Jan 20 2024 : Guest 182: 6/10

Score Distribution

quiz
Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts
1. Where was Louis Braille born?

Answer: Coupvray

On January 4, 1809 Louis Braille was born in Coupvray, a village 25 miles east of Paris. He was the youngest of four children born to Simon-Rene and Monique Braille.
2. What caused Louis Braille's blindness?

Answer: Accidental injury by a sharp object

At age three Louis accidentally injured one eye with an awl in his father's harness and saddle-making shop. The inflammation from the injury spread and within about a year Louis was totally blind due to sympathetic ophthalmia.
3. How was Louis Braille educated?

Answer: He attended a school for the blind

Louis attended regular school classes with sighted children for several years. In 1819 at age ten he began attending the Institution Royale des Jeunes Aveugles in Paris. This school was established by Valentin Haüy in 1784 and was the first school for the blind. Haüy had devised a method for printing books with embossed letters for blind students.

When Louis began his studies, the school had 100 students and only 14 books with embossed print. The school was housed in a 200-year-old building which was poorly ventilated, had wet clammy walls and smelled of mildew. Water for cooking and washing came straight from the River Seine without any filtering.

The building had previously served as a seminary and a prison.
4. Who provided the inspiration for Louis Braille's invention of a method of reading and writing for the blind?

Answer: Charles Barbier

In 1821 a French army officer, Charles Barbier, presented his night writing code at the school. He created this tactile code to help soldiers communicate during the noise and confusion of battle and also at night so that a light would not betray them to the enemy. The system used 12 raised dots. It was based on sounds and did not have symbols for the actual letters of the alphabet or punctuation marks. Louis created a 6-dot Braille cell, half the size of Barbier's cell. The Braille cell consists of two vertical rows of three dots. There are 64 possible combinations of these 6 dots. He created symbols for the letters of the alphabet, numbers and punctuation marks. He also created a code to read and write musical notations. Unlike Haüy's embossed print letters and Barbier's 12-dot cell, the Braille cell was just the right size to read with the fingertip. You can see the Braille alphabet at: www.deafblind.com/braille.html.
Morse Code was created by Samuel Morse in 1838.
Laura Bridgman, although not as well known as Helen Keller, was the first deaf-blind person to learn language. She was born in 1829, five years after the invention of the Braille alphabet.
Helen Keller was born in 1880. Commenting on the importance of Louis Braille's invention Keller said, "We the blind are as indebted to Louis Braille as mankind is to Gutenberg."
5. Louis Braille had created the Braille system by age 15. Blind students readily accepted and learned the new code, but their teachers resisted it. Which of the following was NOT a complaint offered by the teachers who opposed the Braille code?

Answer: They felt the raised dots would not hold up to heavy use such as in textbooks

The advantage of the Braille code as opposed to the engraved print alphabet was that blind people could not only read but they could also write. However, the teachers were somewhat uncomfortable with the fact that the blind could communicate independently and the teachers could not read this communication unless they learned the code themselves. Braille written with a slate and stylus does create a soft punching noise. No complaints were voiced about the durability of the Braille dots.

In the late 1830s the school director, a former geography teacher, P. Armand Dufau, strongly supported another embossed print code called Alston type.

He was so vehemently opposed to the Braille code that he burned all of the school's books that used Haüy's embossed type and the Braille code.

Although slates and styli were confiscated from the students, they rebelled and continued to write Braille using knitting needles, forks and nails. By 1843 the assistant director had convinced Dufau it was in his best interest to lift the Braille ban.
6. Which one of the following instruments did Louis Braille NOT play?

Answer: harpsichord

Louis Braille played the piano, organ and cello. He supplemented his income as a teacher by playing the organ at Paris churches. His organ playing was praised by Felix Mendelssohn. He created a music code and in 1829 published this in a book entitled, "Method of Writing Words, Music and Plain Songs by Means of Dots, for use by the Blind and Arranged for Them."
7. Louis Braille also invented raphigraphy. What is it?

Answer: A way for blind people to write letters to sighted people

Raphigraphy was a way for blind people to independently write letters to sighted people. Raised dots were used to represent print letters. This process was time consuming (the letter "I" required 16 individually punched dots). In 1841 a blind friend, Pierre Foucault, created a piston board that produced all of the dots for a single letter at once.

This could be considered the precursor to the dot matrix printer of today.
8. After his death a small wooden box was found on which was written, "To be burned without opening." Nevertheless, the box was opened. What did it contain?

Answer: A collection of IOUs

The box contained Braille IOUs from students for the many generous loans made by their teacher. As well as leaving money to his family, Louis left bequests to his former school to help blind students find jobs. He also left money to a sighted boy who acted as his guide, a night watchman and a boy who worked in the infirmary. Louis had forgiven all debts in his will.

The wooden box was burned in accordance with his wishes but only after it had been opened.
9. From what did Louis Braille die?

Answer: Tuberculosis

On January 6, 1852, two days after his 43rd birthday, Louis Braille died from tuberculosis. He had developed the ailment in his mid-twenties. Many students and teachers at the school suffered from bad health, no doubt partially due to the unhealthy environment of the school.
10. Where is Louis Braille buried?

Answer: Paris

Although the students at the institute were enthusiastic about the Braille code, Braille did not become the official method for reading and writing for the blind throughout the world until decades after his death. His death in 1852 was not noted in a single French newspaper, and he was buried without fanfare in the village cemetery of his hometown, Coupvray.

In 1952 on the 100th anniversary of his death, Braille's body was exhumed and buried with great ceremony in the Pantheon in Paris. However, in a somewhat macabre tribute to its world-famous son, Coupvray in the person of its mayor insisted on having Braille's hands removed from his body and buried in the village cemetery.
Source: Author urlybird

This quiz was reviewed by FunTrivia editor Exit10 before going online.
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