Valentin Haüy

Valentin Haiiy ( born November 13, 1745 in Saint- Just-en -Chaussée, Oise; † March 19, 1822 in Paris) was a French teacher and brother of the mineralogist René Just Haiiy. Another name heading is Valentin Aj.

Life and work

Valentin Haiiy was the founder of the first educational and teaching institute for the blind, the Institution Royale des Jeunes Aveugles ( Royal Institute for Blind Youth ).

Haiiy devoted himself first to the study of linguistics and later became a civil servant in the French Ministry. He was a teacher in Paris, when he saw how the Place de la Concorde in Paris blind des Quinze - Vingts Hospice during the religious street festival Saint Ovid 's Fair a mockery of the people have been made by a chapel with dunce caps and ( unskilled ) on instruments played. He summed up the plan to ensure similar for blind children, as it had already done Abbé Charles -Michel de l' Epée for deaf-mute children.

With the help of the blind composer, pianist and music teacher Maria Theresia Paradis from Vienna, he was able to develop his ideas and systems to Braille. For Maria Theresia Paradis, a type case had been built, with which they write their correspondence, their scores even print and so blind and sighted students could teach together. In their three-year tour of Europe she performed in Paris - at one of her concerts she learned alongside Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach also Haiiy know who was fascinated by her hutch and also tried to implement this system at his school. His most famous pupil, Louis Braille, the system developed further and created the now valid Braille. 1784 built Haiiy in Paris for this purpose an institution, which was acquired in 1791 by the state. The expansion of the institution to one hundred pupils but was interrupted by the entrance of the French Revolution. Napoleon Bonaparte, who was little inclined to the idealists, thanked him for his work in 1802 and appointed another director. Haiiy immediately founded a private institution for the education of the blind under the title " Musee des Aveugles ". Haiiy but had so little success and fell more and more into a predicament.

In this situation, he was commissioned by Emperor Alexander I to found a home for the blind in St. Petersburg in Russia. He worked in 1803 a plan for from. During the trip to Russia Haiiy met in Berlin the then famous ophthalmologist Dr. Grapengiesser know. The services Fournier, one of his students, the doctor moved such that it led to Haiiy longer stay. The king liked the idea commendable to call an institution for the blind. The plans were Haüys but applied to a large extent for the then troubled times and therefore could not be implemented.

About the successes Haüys in St. Petersburg is not much priced to report he came to eleven years of residence in 1817 returned to Paris to have built without a dummy device. Haiiy died in 1822 in Paris, where he was buried in the Père Lachaise Cemetery.

Works

• Essai sur l' éducation des aveugles is considered the first dummy book. This Haiiy gives information about his views on the education of the blind. As well as e Übers this book "Treatise on the education of blind children " of senior teacher Michel. Fwd to present ed by Dietrich Schabow. Nachdr d ed Paris in 1786 and Duren, 1883 Würzburg. Ed. Bentheim, 1990. ISBN 3-925265-22-8.