There is in New York City a great building seven hundred and fifty
feet high. It has fifty-three stories, and provides business homes for
ten thousand persons.
If you had watched it rise from story to story, you would have been
amazed at the tons of cable running from the basement towards the
roof. You would have exclaimed in wonder over the miles upon miles of
wire that extended from room to room. Suppose you had asked the
purpose of these wires and cables. Do you know what the answer would
have been? You would have been told that they were placed there so a
person in any room of the building could talk to some one in any other
room within the towering walls; to any one outside in the great city,
and even to persons far away in Chicago and St. Louis. Then you would
have said, "Of course, they are telephone wires."
You use the telephone often, do you not? Probably if you were asked to
say how many times you had talked over the telephone in your life, you
would have to reply, "More than I can remember."
Let us think about the messages we send along the telephone wires from
day to day. They are for the most part of two kinds. We have friendly
talks with persons we know well, and we give brief business orders at
office and shop.
But if we were gunners in the army of our country we should be told by
telephone just when, where, and how we were to fire our guns. We
would not see our target, but would shoot according to the directions
of a commanding officer who knows what must be done and telephones his
orders to us.
If we were acting with hundreds of persons in a great scene for a
motion picture film, we should be told what to do by a man called the
director. He could not make us all hear if we were out of doors and
scattered about in groups, but he would telephone orders to his
helpers. One of these would be with each large crowd of actors.
Perhaps the telephones would be hanging on the side of a tree or set
up in rude fashion on a box. Nevertheless, that would not interfere
with their use and we should receive directions over them to do our
part in the scene then being photographed.
These uses seem wonderful to us, but each year sees the telephone
helping man more and more in strange and powerful ways. It is likely
that we have just begun to know a little of what this great invention
can do for us.
However, if we had been boys and girls in 1875 we should have known
nothing about talking over a telephone, for that was the year when the
public first heard that it was possible to send sounds of the human
voice along a wire from one place to another.
There was a great fair in 1876. It was held in Philadelphia and was
called the Centennial because it celebrated the one-hundredth birthday
of our land. Persons came from foreign countries to attend the fair.
Among these visitors was a famous Brazilian gentleman. He was a man
of great knowledge and was interested in inventions. His name was Don
Pedro, and at that time he was Emperor of Brazil. Because he was the
ruler of a country, the officers of the Centennial showed him every
attention, and tried to make his visit alive with interest.
Late one afternoon they took him to the room where the judges were
examining objects entered for exhibits. The judges were tired and
wanted to go home. They did not care to listen to a young man standing
before them. This young man was telling them that he had a new
invention; it was a telephone, and would carry the sounds of the human
voice by electricity. The judges did not believe this, and were about
to dismiss the young man without even putting the receiver to their
ears and seeing if he spoke the truth. Don Pedro stood in the doorway
listening. He looked at the judges; he looked at the young man, and
was disgusted and angered that an invention should not receive a fair
trial. He stepped forward and as he did so looked squarely at the
young man. To his surprise he recognized in him an acquaintance made
while visiting in Boston.
At once Don Pedro examined the new instrument and then turning to the
judges asked permission to make a trial of it himself. The young
inventor went to the other end of the wire, which was in another room,
and spoke into the transmitter some lines from a great poem. Don Pedro
heard perfectly, and his praise changed the mind of the judges. They
decided to enter the invention as a "toy that might amuse the public."
This toy was the Bell telephone, the young inventor was Alexander
Graham Bell, and he had the satisfaction of seeing the "toy" become
the greatest attraction to visitors at the Centennial. This must have
brought comfort to his heart, for Mr. Bell had been trying for some
time to have people see what a convenience his invention would be.
He had first thought of the telephone while searching for some way to
help deaf mutes to talk. His father and grandfather had both been
voice teachers in Edinburgh and London, so when young Alexander came
to America to seek his fortune it was natural he should teach methods
of using the voice. But his pupils were unfortunate persons who could
not talk because they were unable to hear the sounds of the voice. His
father had worked out a plan for teaching the deaf, that the young man
improved. It was based on observation of the position of the lips and
other vocal organs, while uttering each sound. One by one the pupil
learned the sounds by sight. Then he learned combinations of sounds
and at last came to where he could "read the lips" and tell what a
person was saying by looking at his moving lips.
So you see Alexander Graham Bell knew a great deal about the way we
talk. He kept studying and working in his efforts to help his pupils,
and his knowledge of the human ear gave him the first idea of his
remarkable invention.
He thought if the small and thin ear drum could send thrills and
vibrations through heavy bones, then it should be possible for a small
piece of electrified iron to make an iron ear drum vibrate. In his
imagination he saw two iron ear drums far apart but connected by an
electrified wire. One end of the wire was to catch the vibrations of
the sound, and the other was to reproduce them. He was sure he could
make an instrument of this kind, for he said, "If I can make deaf
mutes talk, I can make iron talk."
One of his pupils helped him to do this by her words of sympathy and
interest. She was a young girl named Mabel Hubbard. While still a baby
she had lost her hearing, and consequently her speech, through an
attack of scarlet fever. She was a bright, lovable girl, and had
learned to talk through the teaching of Alexander Graham Bell. Her
father was a man of great public spirit and the best friend Mr. Bell
had in bringing the telephone before the public. Mabel Hubbard became
the wife of her teacher, and encouraged him constantly to try and try
again until his telephone would work.
Professor Bell made his first instrument in odd hours after he had
finished teaching for the day. You may smile when you hear he used in
making it an old cigar box, two hundred feet of wire, and two magnets
taken from a toy fish pond. But this was because he was very poor and
had scarcely any money to spend on materials for his experiments. But
he kept on working, and after the Centennial he was able to found a
company and put his new invention on the market. The company had
little money, so Mr. Bell lectured and explained his work. By this
means he not only raised money, but established his name as the
inventor of the telephone. There were a number of other students who
had been thinking along the same lines as Mr. Bell, but he went
farther than any one else and was the first to carry the sounds of the
human voice by electricity.
In the year 1877, the telephone was put into practical use for the
public. It grew slowly. People did not realize how it could help them
and they looked upon having a telephone as a luxury rather than a
necessity. It was in the same year that the first long distance line
was established. Today, when we can talk from Boston to San Francisco,
it seems strange to read that the first long distance telephone
reached only from Boston to Salem, a distance of sixteen miles. But
then Mr. Bell thought twenty miles would be the limit at which it
would be possible to send messages. So you see the Salem line was
really quite long enough to satisfy the inventor, whose first
instrument could convey sound only from the basement to the second
story of a single building.
Before long the reward that follows struggles and trials came to
Alexander Graham Bell. The telephone went around the world because so
many countries adopted it. Japan was the first, but she was followed
quickly by others. It went to far off Abyssinia, where it is said the
monkeys use the cables for swings and the elephants use the poles for
scratching posts.
Mr. Bell saw his invention enter every field of activity. It brought
him riches and honor, but, more than all, it became a servant of
mankind, and he could feel he had given a blessing to every class of
people.
* * * * *
_OUR COUNTRY!_
"_And for your Country, boy, and for that Flag, never dream a dream
but of serving her as she bids you, even though the service carry you
through a thousand hells. No matter what happens to you, no matter who
flatters you or who abuses you, never look at another flag, never let
a night pass but you pray God to bless that Flag. Remember, boy, that
behind officers and government, and people even, there is the Country
Herself; your Country, and you belong to Her as you belong to your own
mother. Stand by Her, boy, as you would stand by your mother._"
--EDWARD EVERETT HALE.
[Illustration: EX-PRESIDENT THEODORE ROOSEVELT
Addressing the Home Defense League]