Johann Wilhelm Klein

Johann Wilhelm Klein ( born April 11, 1765 in Alerheim of Nördlingen, † May 12, 1848 in Vienna) was a pioneer of education for the blind.

Life

After his early years, he attended high school, and then studied law at the " High School Karl " in Stuttgart. After studying JW Klein earned his living first as Secretary of the princely chief official in Alerheim.

The Napoleonic conquests brought great misery and destitution in the home Klein. Energetically he tried to help, but had to realize that he was not able alone to fight the needy population.

In 1799 he then traveled by ship to the imperial city of Vienna, where he was to spend his life. The progressive conditions in Austria under Emperor Joseph II may have attracted him.

Little is known about the first four years in Vienna. What is known is that he lived in very poor economic conditions and earned his living as a private tutor of the son of the Count of Wallis.

Volunteering, he was called as a poor district director and so Klein had to do with many blind people, which accounted for a large proportion of the poor.

Performance

On May 13, 1804 Small, a young blind man, Jacob Brown, with government support, to teach in the home began. Thus, the first Institute for the Blind was established in German-speaking countries. Klein's mission in life was henceforth concern for the blind, educational and vocational guidance, to make it to " full-fledged members in the world of work ".

1807 Klein presented his "thorn- type apparatus " in front of a printing device with which he could press the uppercase letters of the Latin alphabet in dotted form in the paper. This document, due to the shape of the types known as sting font let himself read by blind and sighted alike. For the blind this writing, however, was not easy to read and to write by hand, even for the sighted hardly. Klein refused to braille from because of their dissimilarity with Scripture seer.

In 1826 he set up in the suburbs of Vienna Josefstadt a " supply and employment institution for adult blind ".

In the midst of civil war riots in 1848, Klein was beaten and died of pneumonia on May 12 the age of 83. He was buried at the cemetery Schmelzer and later in a grave of honor in Vienna's Central Cemetery (Group 0, number 1, number 19) reburied.

In 1862 in Vienna Landstrasse (3rd district) was named the small alley after him.

Works

Even Klein's literary activity should be mentioned. In 1819 he wrote a " textbook for Instruction of Blind". It was considered as a guide for generations of blind teachers.