How Christianity Changed the World Paperback – December 12, 2004 by Alvin J. Schmidt (Zondervan)

The Christian impact on the sanctity of life, sexual morality, charity, hospitals, education, science, liberty, music, ad art

The foreword to this book says, "In the ancient world, the teachings of Jesus Christ elevated brutish standards of morality, halted infanticide, emancipated women, abolished slavery, inspired charities and relief organizations, created hospitals, established orphanages, and founded schools. In medieval times, Christianity almost single-handedly kept classical literature alive through recopying manuscripts, building libraries, moderating warfare through truce days, and providing dispute arbitration. Christians invented colleges and universities, dignified labor as a divine vocation, and extended the light of civilization to barbarians on the frontiers. In the modern era, Christian teaching advanced science, instilled concepts of political and social and economic freedom, fostered justice, and provided the single-greatest source of inspiration for magnificent achievements in art, architecture, music, and literature."

This review covers the first seven chapters.

CHAPTER 1: PEOPLE TRANSFORMED BY JESUS CHRIST
The Twelve Apostles
All but John died a martyr's death, believing in the physical resurrection of Jesus from the dead.
Peter was crucified upside down in Rome. James ("the greater") the son of Zebedee was beheaded by Herod Agrippa I in Jerusalem. John was exiled to the island of Patmos and died a natural death in Ephesus. Andrew was tied to an X-shaped cross in Greece. Philip was tied to a pillar and stoned to death in North Africa. Thomas was slain with spears while praying in a cave in India. Bartholomew was beaten and flayed to death in Turkey. Matthew was killed by a sword in Ethiopia. James "the lesser" (also James the Just) was thrown off the temple roof and then clubbed to death in Jerusalem. Thaddeaus was crucified at Edessa. Simon the Zealot was crucified in Britain. Matthias, chosen to replace Judas the traitor, was stoned to death in Jerusalem.

Other Apostles and Christians
Paul was beheaded in Rome under Nero. Mark died after being dragged by horses through Alexandria, Egypt. Luke was hanged in Greece. Jude was killed by arrows. Stephen was stoned to death in Jerusalem (Acts 7). Ignatius of Antioch was thrown to wild beasts in AD 107. Polycarp, a disciple of the apostle John, was burned at the stake in AD 155. Justin Martyr was executed in AD 166. Perpetua had her infant child taken from her as she was cast to wild beasts in AD 202. A Roman edict in AD 303 dictated that all churches and copies of the Scriptures be destroyed.

The non-Christian writer, Pliny, wrote, "Christians bound themselves by a solemn oath not to do any wicked deeds, never to commit any fraud, theft or adultery, never to falsify their word, nor deny a trust when called upon to deliver it." Christians practiced a morality that condemned the common Roman practices of abortion, infanticide, suicide, homosexual sex, patria potestas, and the degradation of women. In contrast, the Roman Emperor Nero killed two of his wives. He kicked Poppaea to death while she was pregnant. He killed his step-brother, sexually molested boys, and forced many Romans to commit suicide. In disguise, he roamed the streets at night with his friends, mugging women and stealing from shops. Nero committed suicide in AD 68.

However, the more the Christians were persecuted, the more their numbers grew. Tertullian rightly said, "The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church." The emperors failed to realize they were persecuting a people who worshiped someone who offered them eternal life, who Himself had physically risen from the dead. Paganism contained no promise that said, "He who believes in Me [Christ] will live, even if he dies." (John 11:25) By the time Constantine had legalized Christianity in AD 313 with the Edict of Milan, the Christians numbered between 5 and 7 million, about 10% of the Roman Empire's 60 million people.

The Emperor Constantine
The night before a battle against the usurper, Maxentius, Constantine prayed to God for help. A vision of the cross appeared in the sky, formed by the Greek letters chi (C) and rho (R), one letter overlaid the other. The letters are the first two letters in the Greek name for Christ. The vision also revealed the inscription "in hoc signo vinces", by this sign conquer. Constantine had his soldiers paint the Chi-Rho on their shields. Although outnumbered, Constantine's army drove Maxentius back across the Milvian Bridge where Maxentius drowned. Constantine believed God helped him win this battle.

Other Christian Examples
Irenaeus, Origen, St. Helena, St. Ambrose, Fabiolo, St. Chrysostom, St. Augustine, St. Olaf, Savonarola, John Hus, Martin Luther, Johann Sebastian Bach, William Wilberforce, David Livingstone, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, C.S. Lewis, and William Wurmbrand.

Why Christianity Did Not Fail
There were ten or more messianic movements in Palestine that failed within 100 years before and after Jesus Christ. Judas the Galilean led a failed movement around the time of Christ's birth. In AD 66-70, Menachem, leader of the Sicarii, was killed by a group of rival Jews. After Eleazar took over as leader, he and his followers marooned on the Masada rock and committed suicide in AD 72. About 100 years after Christ's death and resurrection, Simeon ben-Kosiba was executed after leading a failed revolution. Unlike these leaders, Jesus was no political figure. His disciples were simple, uneducated people. Millions were changed by Christ's message and resurrection. This happened not because His early followers took up weapons, but because they spread His love and forgiveness, believing the words of Jesus: "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me." (John 14:6)

CHAPTER 2: THE SANCTIFICATION OF HUMAN LIFE
Infanticide and Abandonment
Both the Greeks and Romans killed infants, mostly by drowning, if they were born physically deformed or frail. Christians believed this was murder, as infants were made in the image of God, redeemed by Christ. In AD 374, the Christian Emperor Valentinian, outlawed infanticide as well as child abandonment. In the 9th century, the council of Rouen, France, asked women who had "secretly borne children to place them at the door of the church, which provided for them if they were not reclaimed."

Abortion
Abortion was widespread not because of poverty or food shortages, but because marriage was not respected. Juvenal said a chaste wife was almost nonexistent. Countless adulterous acts produced unwanted pregnancies. Abortion destroyed the evidence of their indiscretions. Abortions were induced by administering medicinal potions. In Galatians 5:20, one of the sins listed is "pharmakeia" or the making and administering of potions. Revelation 21:8 condemns "sexual immorality," immediately followed by "pharmakois" because sexual immorality often resulted in unwanted pregnancies being aborted by potions. In AD 374, Emperor Valentinian outlawed abortion. Martin Luther said, "Those who do not spare the tender fetus are murderers and parricides." John Calvin said, "The unborn child...though enclosed in the womb of its mother, is already a human being...and should not be robbed of the life which it has not yet begun to enjoy."

The Depravity of Gladiatorial Shows
Beginning in BC 264, watching gladiators be mauled, mangled, and gored to death was a popular entertainment. Christians, repulsed by such carelessness for human life, boycotted these bloody contests. In Exodus 20:13, God said, "You shall not murder." The church father Tertullian (AD 220) admonished Christians not to attend gladiatorial contests, noting that "the entrails of the very bears, loaded with as yet undigested human viscera, are in great request." It was Christianity's high view of human life and its concern for the weak and oppressed that moved the Christian emperor Theodosius I (AD 378-395) and his son Honorius (AD 404) to ban gladiatorial contests.

Suicide
"Open your veins" was a familiar Roman refrain because suicide was an act of self-glory. But the church officially condemned suicide at the Synod of Elvira (AD 305). St. Augustine opposed the heretical Donatists for committing suicide right after being baptized since they believed there was no forgiveness of sin after baptism. Augustine argued that suicide violate the commandment "You shall not murder," and that if suicide was an acceptable option, Christ would not have told His disciples to flee in times of persecution. The Council of Arles in 452 declared that suicide was the result of demonic forces. The Council of Troyes (878), the Council of Nimes (1184), and the Synod of Sweden (1441) denied burial in church cemeteries for Christians who committed suicide.

The Bible Teaches the Sanctity of Life
During WWII, on a remote island in the Pacific, an American soldier met a native who was reading the Bible. The soldier said, "We educated people no longer put much faith in that book." The native, from a tribe of former cannibals, replied, "Well, it's good that we do, or you would be eaten by my people today."

CHAPTER 3: CHRISTIANITY ELEVATES SEXUAL MORALITY
Marriage
In Rome, a chaste wife was a rarity. Romans were addicted to promiscuity. Wives could be punished for adultery because they were property of their husbands. Wives of high-ranking societies asked to have "their names entered among the public prostitutes" so they no longer exclusively belonged to their husbands and therefore couldn't be punished for adultery. Christians were commanded by God to not commit adultery (Exodus 20:14). The sex act made a couple "one flesh" (Ephesians 5:31) which required faithfulness to each other. "Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral" (Hebrews 13:4). A Christian's "body is not meant for immorality, but for the Lord" (I Corinthians 6:13) and one's body was "a temple of the Holy Spirit" (I Corinthians 6:19).

CHAPTER 4: WOMEN RECEIVE FREEDOM AND DIGNITY
Greek wives had no freedom. According to Plutarch, men kept their wives "under lock and key." They received no education, were not permitted to speak in public, and had little social value. Female infanticide far exceeded that of males. A Roman wife had some education but was under her husband's absolute control. He could divorce her if she went out in public without a veil. She had no property rights and could not speak out in public places. For the Jews, Hebrew women also could not speak publicly nor in their synagogues.

Jesus and Women
L.F. Cervantes said, "The birth of Jesus was the turning point in the history of women." Christ demonstrated that women had value when He spoke with the Samaritan woman at the well. Jews did not speak to Samaritans, and men did not address women in public. When Jesus taught women, He departed from rabbinic law which said (Sotah 3.4), "Let the words of the Law [Torah] be burned rather than taught to women." Many women accompanied Jesus and His apostles. The first witnesses to His resurrection were women.

Women in the Early Church
The Apostle Paul noted that Apphia, "our sister" was a leader in a house church in Colossae (Philemon 2). In Laodicea, Nympha had a "church in her house" (Colossians 4:15). In Ephesus, Priscilla and Aquila had a church that met "at their house" (I Corinthians 16:19), and Paul says Priscilla was one of his "fellow workers" (Romans 16:3). Phoebe was a deaconess in the church at Cenchreae (Romans 16:1-2), and Paul calls her "prostasis" or "leading officer." Paul selected her to deliver his Epistle to the Romans from Corinth to Rome, a distance of 400 miles. In Acts 16 in Philippi, Lydia sold and traded purple goods. Judeo-cultural mores did not support the notion of a woman engaged in business activities. Paul and Silas ignored this convention to share the Gospel with Lydia, who converted to Christianity, and then had her entire household baptized. In Philippians 4:2-3, Paul says that Euodia
Syntyche "contended at my side in the cause of the Gospel along with Clement and the rest of my fellow-workers."

In the late 4th century, St. Chrysostom said, "The women of the early apostolic church were more spirited than the men." Historian W.E.H. Lecky credits women "in the great conversion of the Roman empire" and "women occupied many of the foremost ranks of martyrdom." Constantine the Great's mother, Helena, built many churches, including the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem. Church membership also grew because Christians did not practice abortion or infanticide.

Women's Rights
Roman practice often resulted in fathers giving their daughters in marriage at eleven or twelve years of age. In AD 374, Emperor Valentinian I repealed the one-thousand-year-old "patria potesta", the law which conferred supreme power on the husband over his wife and children. A daughter could now marry someone without her father's permission, and at a later age. A wife could now have right of guardianship over her children. A woman could also stop wearing a veil in public. Women at the time of Christ wore a veil if they were Sumerian, Assyrian, Babylonian, Egyptian, Greek, Hebrew, Chinese, and Roman. Unfortunately, some customs took a long time to change and it was centuries before even church leaders recognized a woman's value. In the 4th century, Tertullian said that women should be veiled and in AD 866 Pope Nikolaus I declared, "women must be veiled in church services."

Monogamy
Polygamy demeaned women. Josephus, the Jewish historian, said, "It is the ancient practice among us Jews to have many wives" (Jewish Antiquities 17.1,2,15). However, Christ only endorsed monogamy. He said, "The two (not three or four) will become one flesh" (Matthew 19:5). Potential bishops of the church had to be "the husband of but one wife" (I Timothy 3:1-2). Husbands were to love their wives as Christ loved the church (Ephesians 5:25,33).

Widows
In India, when a woman's husband died, she had to climb her husband's funeral pyre and be burned alive (the custom of suttee). In Luke 7:11-15, Jesus had compassion on the widow of Nain and raised her son from the dead. He rebuked the Pharisees for taking financial advantage of widows (Mark 12:40). Paul urged Timothy to teach children and grandchildren to honor widows (I Timothy 5:3-5). James said that "pure and undefiled religion...is to visit orphans and widows in their distress" (James 1:27). In 1829, the British outlawed the practice of suttee.

Chinese Foot Binding
For a thousand years, the feet of little girls were bound, forcing four toes to stop growing and growing the foot into a clenched fist. Infection often set in and sometimes a leg had to be amputated. The only reason for this cruel custom was to please men. It made a woman walk tiptoe and sway seductively. In 1912, after years of pressure from Christian missionaries to abolish this custom, the Chinese government outlawed this practice.

CHAPTER 5: CHARITY AND COMPASSION
Christ said, "For I was hungry and you gave Me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave Me something to drink..." (Matthew 25:35-36). Tertullian (AD 220) said early Christians had a common fund, to which they gave voluntarily, that supported widows, the physically disabled, orphans, the sick, and prisoners. They expected nothing in return (caritas), unlike Greco-Roman giving which required the receiver to later return the favor (liberalitas). In the 10th century, Ethelwold, bishop of Winchester, sold all of the gold and silver vessels of his cathedral to relieve the starving during a famine. He said, "There is no reason why the temples of God should abound in riches while the living temples of the Holy Ghost starve for hunger."

The Sick
Compassion was rare among the Greco-Romans. Plato said that a poor man who was no longer able to work because of sickness should be left to die. However, Christians did not hesitate to care for the sick, even at the risk of their own health. Their example was Christ, who told them, "To the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me" (Matthew 25:40). Pachomius, a pagan soldier in Constantine's army, was so profoundly moved when he saw Christians bringing food to his sick and starving fellow soldiers that he became Christian.

Orphans
At the time of Christ life expectancy was short, about thirty years. Many parents died, leaving their children without parents. James said that "pure and undefiled religion...is to visit orphans and widows in their distress" (James 1:27). Before Christianity was legalized in AD 313, orphans were reared in family homes. By the 4th century, institutional structures were often built in the shadow of cathedrals to care for orphans. In the 12th century some religious orders that arose during the Crusades, like the Order of the Holy Ghost, provided for orphans. In 1836, George Mueller founded a home in Bristol, England for thirty orphaned girls. By 1898, more than 8,000 children were being cared for and educated in orphanages. Godparents at a child's baptism would pledge to care for the child if the parents were lost. In 1853, Charles Loring Brace, an American Congregational clergyman, formed the Children's Aid Society. He believed orphans would be best served by living with an American farm family where they would experience plenty of fresh air, good food, discipline, and wholesome family values. Jesus taught, "Let the little children come to Me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these" (Mark 10:14).

YMCA and YWCA
In the 1840s young men came to London from the rural areas to find work. They often turned to the lowest sensual activities. George Williams founded The Draper's Evangelical Union to improve the spiritual condition of the men engaged in the drapery industry. In 1844 it was renamed Young Men's Christian Association. It's objective was "the winning of young men to Jesus Christ, and the building in them of Christian character" through fellowship, prayer, Bible reading, and social activities. By 1851 it spread to America, making temporary lodging available to young men searching for jobs. During WWII it raised millions of dollars to aid prisoners of war and helped found the United Service Organization (USO) to boost the morale of the armed forces. In 1866, the Young Christian Women's Association worked primarily on college and university campuses.

Child Labor Laws
In industrial England, boys and girls from age 7 to 14 worked in cold, wet, and dangerous coal mines, often crawling on hands and knees in low tunnels to fill carts with coal. Others climbed up inside chimneys to clean them. In addition to William Wilberforce, Charles Dickens, and Thomas Carlyle, the children's greatest advocate was Anthony Ashley Cooper, Lord Shaftesbury (1801-85) who served in Parliament. After years of his intense pleadings and countless speeches, the Factory Act of 1833 limited the number of hours to 48 per week for children under thirteen. In 1875 the Chimney Sweeps Act went into effect. Laws continued to improve until they banned all child labor in factories, mills, and mines in Western countries. It has been misunderstood that Karl Marx aroused the British social conscience regarding the tragedies of child labor. When the Factory Act, prompted by Shaftesbury, was passed in 1833, Karl Marx was only 15 years old.

CHAPTER 6: HOSPITALS and HEALTH CARE
Hospitals
"Jesus went throughout Galilee...healing every disease and sickness among the people" (Matthew 4:23). Jesus also sent His apostles "out to preach the kingdom of God and to heal the sick" (Luke 9:2). He commissioned the seventy to enter towns to "heal the sick who are there" (Luke 10:9). During a plague in AD 250, Bishop Dionysius said the pagans "thrust aside anyone who began to be sick, and kept aloof from their dearest friends, and cast sufferers out upon the public roads half dead, and left them unburied, and treated them with utter contempt when they died." The Christians, however, "visited the sick without thought of their own peril, and ministered to them assiduously and treated them for their healing in Christ, died from time to time most joyfully...drawing upon themselves their neighbors' diseases, and willingly taking over to their own persons the burden of the sufferings of those around them." Romans saw helping a sick person as a sign of human weakness. Christians serving the sick believed they were serving God. Second-century Benignus of Dijon "nursed, supported, and protected a number of deformed and crippled children that had been saved from death after failed abortions and exposures."

Charity hospitals for the poor and indigent public did not exist until Christianity introduced them. In AD 325, the Council of Nicaea directed bishops to establish a hospice in every city that had a cathedral. The first hospital was built by St. Basil in Caesarea in Cappadocia in AD 369. The first hospital built in the West was by Fabiola, a wealthy widow and an associate of St. Jerome, in Rome in AD 390. She donated all her wealth to build it and brought the sick from off the streets of Rome. She founded another hospital with Pammachius in Ostia in AD 398. St. Chrysostom had hospitals built in Constantinople in the late 4th century and St. Augustine (354-430) kept adding hospitals in the West. By the 6th century, hospitals had become part of monasteries. By the mid-1500s there were 37,000 Benedictine monasteries that cared for the sick. In the 8th century, four-hundred years after Christians began building hospitals, the Arabs were impressed with their humanitarian work and began constructing their own hospitals. During the Crusades, the Order of Hospitallers recruited women for nursing the sick. By the 14th century, England had 600 hospitals. The British often referred to a hospital as "God's House." Small hospitals in German towns were called "Domus Sancti Spiritus", House of the Holy Spirit.

In 1524, Hernando Cortes founded Jesus of Nazareth Hospital in Mexico City, which is still operative today. By 1583, every principal town in the archdiocese of Mexico had a hospital. Most hospitals that spread across America were built by local churches and Christian denominations (Catholic, Baptist, Lutheran, Methodist, and Presbyterian). In recent years, HMOs have bought up private Christian hospitals and replacing their Christian names.

Mental Institutions
Bishops and monks of the early Christian church "took charge of lunatics at a very early period, and gathered them together in houses." A mental asylum was founded as early as AD 321. During the Middle Ages, the mentally disturbed were cared for in monasteries. But then came a period when the mentally ill were shackled in damp, filthy, dungeon-like asylums. It was believed they could be brought back to sanity by punishment and confinement. But Phillipe Pinel (1745-1826), a French physician and divinity student, entered the asylum at Bicetre, France, cut loose the inmate chains, and showed them love and kindness. His unusual behavior produced a paradigm shift regarding the mentally disturbed. In 1709, the Association of Friends (Quakers) in the United States built a hospital in Philadelphia for "lunaticks." During the American Civil War, Dorothy Dix (1802-87) went from one battlefield to another, assisting wounded soldiers. Motivated by her love for Christ, she fought for humane treatment of the insane in America, England, and Scotland.

Medical Nursing and Florence Nightingale
In early Christian hospitals, widows, deaconesses, and virgins served as nurses. Monks and nuns served in the Middle Ages. The oldest nursing order of sisters were the Augustinian Nuns in the 13th century. In 1833, Theodor Fliedner, a Lutheran pastor in Kaiserswerth, Germany, began caring for one destitute prisoner housed in the backyard of his summer house. Fliedner's work grew into a hospital of 100 beds. He then founded a Lutheran deaconesses order pf peasant women whom he trained as nurses. Eventually he caught the attention of Florence Nightingale. In 1854, she nursed soldiers in the Crimean War. Sometimes she spent 24 hours on her feet or 8 hours on her knees dressing wounds. She often wrote mothers that their sons died holding her hand. She returned to England and devoted the remaining 50 years of her life to hospital reform and nursing. In 1860 she founded the school of nursing at St. Thomas Hospital in London. She elevated nursing to a level of dignity, honor, and medical expertise. Before this humble, compassionate woman died, she asked that a plain cross be placed on her grave bearing only her initials.

The Red Cross
In 1859, Jean Henri Dunant (1828-1910), the son of a wealthy Geneva banking family, witnessed the suffering of soldiers at the Battle of Solferino In Italy. "Never shall I be able to forget the eyes of these victims who wished to kiss my hand." Five years later (1864), he and four associates formed the International Red Cross. He chose the cross of Christ as the organization's emblem. In 1876, the Muslim country of Turkey adopted the humanitarian idea of the Red Cross, changing the cross to the Red Crescent. Although Dunant suffered personal setbacks -- losing his banking fortune, being expelled from Switzerland, losing his good name, and living as a vagrant for many years in Paris -- God did not forsake him. Ten years before he died, Switzerland allowed him to return with honor and dignity. In 1901 he received the first Nobel Peace Prize. He most prized his faith in Christ, as when he was dying he said, "I am a disciple of Christ as in the first century, nothing more."

In the United States, Clara Barton is credited as one of the founders of the American Red Cross. She valiantly nursed soldiers during the Civil War. She often risked her life and was known to say, "Follow the cannon." At the Battle of Antietam, a soldier was killed in her arms. She visited Union prisoners at the Confederate prison at Andersonville.

CHAPTER 7: CHRISTIANITY and EDUCATION
The greatest teacher who ever lived was Jesus Christ. "People were amazed at His teaching, because He taught them as one Who had authority" (Mark 1:22). Just before ascending to His Father, Jesus commanded His apostles to "make disciples of all nations...teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you" (Matthew 28:19-20). Luke said the apostles "never stopped teaching...that Jesus is the Christ." (Act 5:42). The Didache (AD 80-110) was an instructional manual for new converts. St. Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch, urged that children be taught the Holy Scriptures and a skilled trade. In AD 150, Justin Martyr established catechetical schools in Ephesus and Rome. Such schools provided theological and literary foundation for future Christian leaders as Origen (AD 185-254) and Athanasius (296-373). The schools also taught mathematics, medicine, and grammar. Educating both boys and girls in formal settings first occurred in Christian schools. By the 5th century, St. Augustine said that Christian women were often better informed in divine matters than the pagan male philosophers. Educated women included Lioba (700-782), a co-missionary worker of St. Boniface; Hrotsvitha of Gandersheim (932-1002), a canoness who was well-versed in the Latin classics; Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179), who founded her own monastery; Brigitta of Sweden (1303-73), who opposed higher taxes and founded a religious order; Catherine of Siena (1347-80), who labored for peace and wrote letters of counsel to men in authority; Christine de Pizan (14th century), who wrote books; Queen Isabella (1451-1504), who underwrote Columbus's trip to America.

Universal Education for Both Sexes
The most significant move toward universal education occurred with the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century. In 1529, Martin Luther noted that he found that common people had little or no knowledge of Christian teachings. Countless members did not even know the Lord's Prayer, the Creed, or the Ten Commandments. He urged a state school system for both sexes. John Calvin also advocated universal education that included reading, writing, arithmetic, grammar, and religion. Philip Melanchthon (1497-1560) implemented the first public school system in Germany. John Comenius (1592-1670) a bishop of the Moravian Brethren, opened a school at Fulneck in Moravia. Luther believed civic leaders should compel all children to go to school. A hundred years later, La Salle, a Roman Catholic priest, advocated compulsory education in France. Johann Sturm (1507-89), a Lutheran layman, introduced graded levels of education. Kindergarten was introduced by Friedrich Frobel (1782-1852), the son of a Lutheran pastor. He believed young children should grow under the care of an expert gardener (a teacher) in a child's garden (kindergarten).

The Deaf and Blind
In 1775, Abbe Charles Michel de l'Epp, an ordained priest, developed sign language for the deaf in Paris. In 1817, Thomas Gallaudet opened up the first school for the deaf in Hartford, Connecticut. In the early 19th century, Louis Braille, at 3 years of age, accidentally punctured his left eye with an awl in his father's harness shop in Coupvray, France. The injury was so severe he lost sight in his right eye as well. Louis was a devout Christian who attended Mass every Sunday and was a proficient organist. He studied Charles Barbier's raised dots which were used to read military messages at night. By 1834, he developed his own system of raised dots so the blind could read, recognized as the Braille system.