1745-1822

French abbot and inventor who is credited with the conception (1771) of an embossed letter system to educate persons with blindness. In 1783-84 Abbot Haüy founded the Institute for the Blind and began training his blind students to read with their fingers. By the end of 1784 he had helped develop a special printing press for the students to expand the Institute's library. Haüy's embossed system was used to educate the blind throughout Europe until the 1829 introduction of an adaptation of a military "night writing" system by Louis Braille, one of Haüy's students.