Night writing visited the National Institute for the Blind in Paris, France, where he met Louis Braille. Braille identified the major failing of the code, which was that the human finger could not encompass the whole symbol without moving and so could not move rapidly from one symbol to another. His modification was to use a six-dot cell, the Braille system that revolutionized written communication for the visually impaired. Night writing Night writing, a.k.a. sonography, was a system of code that used symbols of twelve dots arranged as two columns of six dots embossed on a square of paperboard, and is now
How to Read a Book makes a brief argument favoring the Great Books, and explains his reasons for writing "How to Read a Book". There are three types of knowledge: practical, informational, and comprehensive. He discusses the methods of acquiring knowledge, concluding that practical knowledge, though teachable, cannot be truly mastered without experience; that only informational knowledge can be gained by one whose understanding equals the author's; that comprehension (insight) is best learned from who first achieved said understanding — an "original communication". The idea that communication directly from those who first discovered an idea is the best way of gaining understanding is Adler's argument