Page:Famous Living Americans, with Portraits.djvu/56

But the most marvelous thing of all about this wonderful achievement is that the chief inventor still lives to observe and enjoy the success of his invention* Recalling the remark of the old brickmaker, if it is such a joy to leave a useful invention to one's fellow men, how rare is the privilege of the inventor, after the struggle of its introduction is over, to live on to witness and assist in its improvement and world-wide adoption.

This fortunate personage is Alexander Graham Bell. He was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1847. He belonged to a family of voice teachers. "His father, also his two brothers, his uncle, and his grandfather, had taught the laws of speech in the Universities of Edinburgh, Dublin, and London. For three generations the Bells had been professors of the science of talking."^[1] Alexander Graham Bell was elected professor of vocal physiology in Boston University in 1873 in his twenty- fifth year. He was commonly known as a professor of elocution. At that time the studies in this subject were chiefly concerned with tones, pitch, modulation, and gesture. But Professor Bell closely investigated also the mechanism of the voice and the philosophy of sound. An element of philanthropy entered largely into these early studies. It was discovered that many mutes were dumb not because of deficiency in the vocal apparatus but simply because they could not hear. In such instances the professor of vocal physiology began to teach these students to make articulate sounds. Progress toward full and precise speech was slow and difficult. But by persistent effort great success was achieved. Doubtless he was stimulated in this work by the fact that his grandfather, Alexander Bell, had invented a cure for stammering, and his father, Alexander Melville Bell, had devised a sign language which he called "visible speech." The work of Professor Bell in this direction gave him great honor. He was for a time associated with Dr. Monroe in his famous School of Oratory in Boston. The writer of this sketch was present at an exhibition given in this school when a "dumb" boy eighteen years