High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Valentin Haüy was the founder, in 1784, of the first school for the blind, the Royal Institution for the Young Blind in Paris (now the National Institute for the Young Blind, INJA). In 1819, Louis Braille entered this school. Valentin Haüy's brother, René Just Haüy, is considered a founder of modern mineralogy. Haüy was born into a family of weavers. His father, a full-time loomer, also held the job of ringing the Angelus bells in a local Premonstrant Abbey. The abbey monks educated Valentin and he became a skilled linguist speaking ten different languages of the day. He also studied ancient Greek and Hebrew.