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    "source_title": "Encyclopaedia Britannica (1911)",
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    "title": "TYPES",
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    "verified_text": "the earliest authentic records of tangible letters for the blind describe a plan of engraving the letters upon blocks of wood, the invention of francesco lucas, a spaniard, who dedicated it to philip ii. of spain in the 16th century. in 1640 pierre moreau, a writing-master in paris, cast a movable leaden type for the use of the blind, but being without means to carry out his plan, abandoned it. pins inserted in cushions were next tried, and large wooden letters. after these came a contrivance of du puiseaux, a blind man, who had metal letters cast and set them in a small frame with a handle. whilst these experiments were going on in france, attempts had also been made in germany. r. weissembourg (a resident of mannheim), who lost his sight when about seven years of age, made use of letters cut in cardboard, and afterwards pricked maps in the same material. by this method he taught mlle paradis, the talented blind musician and the friend of valentin hauy. to hauy belongs the honour of being the first to emboss paper as a means of reading for the blind; his books were embossed in large and small italics, from movable type set by his pupils. the following is an account of the origin of his discovery. hauy's first pupil was francois lesueur, a blind boy whom he found begging at the porch door of st germain des pres. while lesueur was sorting the papers on his teacher's desk, he came across a card strongly indented by the types in the press. the blind lad showed his master he could decipher several letters on the card. immediately hauy traced with the handle of his pen some signs on paper. the boy read them, and the result was printing in relief, the greatest of hauy's discoveries. in 1821 lady elizabeth lowther brought embossed books and types from paris, and with the types her son, sir charles lowther, bart., printed for his own use the gospel of st matthew. the work of hauy was taken up by mr gall of edinburgh, mr alston of glasgow, dr howe of boston, mr friedlander of philadelphia, and others. in 1827 james gall of edinburgh embossed some elementary works, and published the gospel of st john in 1834. his plan was to use the common english letter and replace curves by angles. in 1832 the edinburgh society of arts offered a gold medal for the best method of printing for the blind, and it was awarded to dr edmond fry of london, whose alphabet consisted of ordinary capital letters without their small strokes. in 1836 the rev. w. taylor of york and john alston in glasgow began to print with fry's type. mr alston's appeal for a printing fund met with a hearty response, and a grant of l400 was made by the treasury; in 1838 he completed the new testament, and at the end of 1840 the whole bible was published in embossed print. in 1833 printing for the blind was commenced in the united states at boston and philadelphia. dr s.g. howe in boston used small english letters without capitals, angles being employed instead of curves, while j.r. friedlander in philadelphia used only roman capitals. about 1838 t.m. lucas of bristol, a shorthand writer, and j.h. frere of blackheath, each introduced an alphabet of simpler forms, and based their systems on stenography. in 1847 dr moon of brighton brought out a system which partially retains the outline of the roman letters. this type is easily read by the adult blind, and is still much used by the home teaching societies. the preceding methods are all known as line types, but the one which is now in general use is a point type. [illustration: fig. 1.--moon alphabet.] in the early part of the 19th century captain charles barbier, a french officer, substituted embossed dots for embossed lines. the slate for writing was also invented by him. [illustration: fig. 2. apparatus for writing braille. braille alphabet. the black dots represent the raised points of the sign in their position in relation to the group of six.] barbier arranged a table of speech sounds, consisting of six lines with six sounds in each line. his rectangular cell contained two vertical rows of six points each. the number of points in the left-hand row indicates in which horizontal line, and that in the right-hand row in which vertical line, of the printed table the speech sound is to be found. louis braille, a pupil and afterwards a professor of the institution nationale des jeunes aveugles, paris, studied all the various methods in which arbitrary characters were used. barbier's letter, although it gave a large number of combinations, was too long to be covered by the finger in reading, and louis braille reduced the number of dots. in 1834 braille perfected his system. dr armitage considered it was the greatest advance that had ever been made in the education of the blind. the braille alphabet consists of varying combinations of six dots in an oblong, of which the vertical side contains three, and the horizontal two dots. . . . . . . there are 63 possible combinations of these six dots, and after the letters of the alphabet have been supplied, the remaining signs are used for punctuation, contractions, &c. \"for writing, a ruler is used, consisting of a metal bed either grooved or marked by groups of little pits, each group consisting of six; over this bed is fitted a brass guide, punched with oblong holes whose vertical diameter is three-tenths of an inch, while the horizontal diameter is two-tenths. the pits are arranged in two parallel lines, and the guide is hinged on the bed in such a way that when the two are locked together the openings in the guide correspond exactly to the pits in the bed. the brass guide has a double row of openings, which enables the writer to write two lines; when these are written, he shifts his guide downwards until two little pins, which project from the under surface at its ends, drop into corresponding holes of a wooden board; then two more lines are written, and this operation is repeated until the bottom of the page is reached. the paper is introduced between the frame and the metal bed. the instrument for writing is a blunt awl, which carries a little cap of paper before it into the grooves or pits of the bed, thereby producing a series of little pits in the paper on the side next the writer. when taken out and turned over, little prominences are felt, corresponding to the pits on the other side. the reading is performed from left to right, consequently the writing is from right to left; but this reversal presents no practical difficulty as soon as the pupil had caught the idea that in reading and writing alike he has to go _forwards_. \"the first ten letters, from 'a' to 'j,' are formed in the upper and middle grooves; the next ten, from 'k' to 't,' are formed by adding one lower back dot to each letter of the first series; the third row is formed from the first by adding two lower dots to each letter; the fourth row, similarly, by adding one lower front dot. \"the first ten letters, when preceded by the prefix for numbers, stand for the nine numbers and the cipher. the same signs, written in the lower and middle grooves, instead of the upper and middle, serve for punctuation. the seven last letters of each series stand for the seven musical notes--the first series representing quavers, the second minims, the third semibreves, the fourth crotchets. rests, accidentals, and every other sign used in music can be readily and clearly expressed without having recourse to the staff of five lines which forms the basis of ordinary musical notation, and which, though it has been reproduced tor the blind, can only be considered as serving to give them an idea of the method employed by the seeing, and cannot, of course, be written. by means of this dotted system, a blind man is able to keep memoranda or accounts, write his own music, emboss his own books from dictation, and carry on correspondence.\" the braille system for literature and music was brought into general use in england by dr t.r. armitage. through his wise, untiring zeal and noble generosity, every blind man, woman and child throughout the english-speaking world can now obtain not only the best literature, but the best music. in america there are two modifications of the point type, known as new york point and american braille. in each of these the most frequently recurring letters are represented by the least number of dots. the original braille is used by the institutions for the blind in the british empire, european countries, mexico, brazil and egypt. appliances for educational work the apparatus for writing point alphabets has already been described. frank h. hall, former superintendent of the school for the blind, jacksonville, ill., u.s.a., has invented a braille typewriter and stereotype maker; the latter embosses metal plates from which any number of copies can be printed. an automatic braille-writer has been brought out in germany, and william b. wait (principal of the institution for the blind in new york city) has invented a machine for writing new york point. these machines are expensive, but a. wayne of birmingham has brought out a cheap and effective braille-writer. h. stainsby, secretary of the birmingham institution, and wayne have invented a machine for writing braille shorthand. [illustration: fig. 3.--arithmetic board, pin and characters. a, shape of opening in the board for pin; b and c, pin.] many boards have been constructed to enable the blind to work arithmetical problems. the one which is most used was invented by the rev. w. taylor. the board has star-shaped openings in which a square pin fits in eight different positions. the pin has on one end a plain ridge and on the other a notched ridge; sixteen characters can be formed with the two ends. the board is also used for algebra, another set of type furnishing the algebraic symbols. books are prepared with raised geometrical diagrams; figures can be formed with bent wires on cushions, or on paper with a toothed wheel attached to one end of a pair of compasses. geography is studied by means of relief maps, manufactured in wood or paper. the physical maps and globes prepared for seeing children are used also for the blind. chiefly owing to the unremitting energy and liberality of dr t.r. armitage, in connexion with the british and foreign blind association, all school appliances for the blind have been greatly improved and cheapened.",
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