Rasmus Malling-Hansen

Rasmus Malling-Hansen
Rasmus Malling-Hansen, detail from a painting by Malthe Engelsted's painting L'Hombre (1887).
Born	(1835-09-05)5 September 1835 Lolland, Denmark
Died	27 September 1890(1890-09-27) (aged 55) Copenhagen, Denmark
Nationality	Danish
Fields	Priest, inventor, scientist, educator
Alma mater	University of Copenhagen
Known for	Hansen Writing Ball
Notable awards	Order of Vasa (1876) Order of the Dannebrog (1880)
Signature

Rasmus Malling-Hansen (5 September 1835 – 27 September 1890) was a Danish inventor, minister and principal at the Royal Institute for the Deaf, and one of the true pioneers of the 19th century.

Malling-Hansen developed his Hansen Writing Ball further throughout the 1870s and '80s, and in 1874 he patented a new model jointly in which the cylinder was replaced by a flat carriage on which the paper was fastened. In 1875, the writing ball found its well-known tall shape. With this model, he found a mechanical solution for the movement of the paper, dispensing with the battery. The writing ball was sold in many countries in Europe, but probably due to the relatively high price, it was never a great commercial success. Even so, it was a great success in different exhibitions, Malling-Hansen and Halll, received the first prize medal at a large industrial exhibition in Copenhagen in 1872, and at the world exhibitions in Vienna in 1873, as well as in Paris in 1878. That year Malling-Hansen developed a fast speed writing machine to be used for stenography, called the Takygraf. Malling-Hansen was also the first person to discover the unique possibilities of blue carbon paper, and developed a copying technique he called the Xerografi. It could, in a relatively short time, produce up to one hundred copies of letters and drawings.

Malling-Hansen's period as a principal at the Royal Institute for the Deaf, from 1865 to 1890, was a period of change and new ideas. Malling-Hansen very soon understood that the teaching of deaf-mutes was ineffective because of the large variation of the pupils' abilities. Some of them were totally deaf and had no speech ability, and some were what we today would call mentally retarded. Others had a slight hearing ability, and could also speak. From Malling-Hansen came, in 1867, a proposal to divide the pupils into 3 different groups, depending on their abilities. Malling-Hansen also saw to it that the newest pedagogical method, the speech method (reading of the lips) was put into use for the group called the not originally deaf; those who had a limited hearing ability and could also speak. The sign method was still to be used when teaching the group called the originally deaf, those who had no hearing ability and no language, and the mentally retarded. Together with the Keller Institutions, the Royal Institute divided these groups between them. The Institute was to educate the originally deaf, and the Keller Institutions the not originally deaf and the mentally retarded.