LESEBUCH FOR BLINDENSCHULEN, III. Theil. 2. Band. [Reader for Schools for the Blind, Part III, Book 2]

Braille Comes Into Its Own

LESEBUCH FOR BLINDENSCHULEN, III. Theil. 2. Band. [Reader for Schools for the Blind, Part III, Book 2]

Edited by S[imon] Heller

1884

First edition of this Austrian lesson books for blind children, part of the famed series from the noted publisher, containing both Braille and an embossed Latin alphabet, showing the field's move toward the Braille system.

Very good.

Price: $1,500.00

LESEBUCH FOR BLINDENSCHULEN, III. Theil. 2. Band. [Reader for Schools for the Blind, Part III, Book 2]

Though Braille is now the dominant alphabet for the blind, "the system was not given an immediate welcome" note Carter and Morison in PRINTING AND THE MIND OF MAN; indeed, Braille was one of several competing writing and printing systems for the blind until 1878, when an international congress for blind education in Paris selected it as the standard. Even so, the output of pedagogical materials did not immediately pivot to Braille. This volume captures that transition, with a title page in raised letter and — more importantly — a raised latter key to the Braille system which follows mounted to a stub at the beginning of the book, a snapshot of the slow but deliberate shift to the new standard.

Austria has been called the "cradle of education for the blind," owing to its early establishment of K.K. Blinden-Erziehungs-Institut, a school for the blind in Vienna in 1804 (Monroe), and its associated press. The editor of this volume from the press, Simon Heller, was director of the Israelitischen Blindeninstituts, which specialized in the education of blind Jewish children. Austrian books for the education of the blind are now difficult to find. One of the largest collection of such books, Alexander Mell's, was "almost completely destroyed by the Nazis" in Word War II, a fate that was common for many such collections (Stuckey).

Read more: Paul Monroe, A Cyclopedia of Education, volume 1 page 396; Kenneth Stuckey, "Samuel P. Hayes Research Library," The Lantern, winter 1980; John Carter and Stanley Morison, Printing and the Mind of Man, page 176.

The Object

Wien [Vienna] and Berlin: IM K.K. Schulbocher-Verlag / Gedruckt Von AD. Schulze, 1884. 13'' x 10''. Quarter brown cloth with marbled boards. 144 pages, with Braille embossment to rectos and versos. Spine cloth sunned, label perished. Some staining internally, unobtrusive. Front hinge started at top. Else sound.

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