THE TELEPHONE AND ITS INVENTOR. 54 i 



The following pages are a hurried and imperfect abstract from 

 advanced-sheets of this book, which, besides its wealth of historical 

 matter and its affluence of illustration, contains much of scientific value 

 contributed directly by Professor Thompson. 



The biographical sketch of Reis, with which the book begins, pos- 

 sesses an interest independent of his connection with the telephone. 

 Philipp Reis, as he is generally called, was born January 7, 1834, in 

 the small provincial town of Gelnhausen in Cassel, in which his father 

 was a master-baker and farmer. His education began with the best 

 of all teaching object-teaching by his father, and moral and religious 

 inculcation by a grandmother. The German common school followed, 

 in which his early proficiency induced plans for a higher education, 

 which were thwarted by his father's death when Philipp was less than 

 ten years old. 



He, however, went to the institute at Friedrichsdorf, where he 

 became specially interested in the study of English and French, and 

 where the valuable library of the institution was a store of nourish- 

 ment for his mind. At fourteen he was promoted to HassePs Insti- 

 tute at Frankfort-on-the-Main. Here he learned Latin and Italian, 

 and distinguished himself by his devotion to the natural sciences and 

 mathematics. 



Compelled at sixteen to enter as an apprentice in a color establish- 

 ment, he devoted all his leisure time to his continued education. A 

 little later he is at the institute of Dr. Poppe in Frankfort, and one 

 of several young men who mutually instructed each other. This 

 experience induced Reis to look forward to teaching as his future 

 vocation. 



In 1851 he became a member of the Physical Society of Frankfort, 

 of which Professor Bottger, Professor Abbe, and Dr. Oppel were ac- 

 tive members. In 1855 he gave his year of military service. In 

 Frankfort again, with marvelous energy he worked in the laboratory 

 and pursued the higher branches of education. In 1858 he accepted 

 a position as teacher in natural science in the institute of Hofrath 

 Gamier, in Friedrichsdorf, the same in which he had been a student ; 

 and in 1859 he married and founded his peaceful home. 



In 1859 he undertook an original research '' On the Radiation of 

 Electricity," and a paper on the subject, offered to Poggendorf for his 

 " Annalen," was declined the rejection being felt as a serious blow 

 by the young and sensitive teacher. 



His lessons in physics in 1860 stimulated him to the construction 

 of the first electric telephone, which, indeed, he had attempted several 

 years before. In a little workshop behind his house he made the 

 first telephone with his own hands, carrying the wires thence to an 

 upper room of the dwelling, and also from the physical cabinet of 

 Garnier's Institute across the play-ground into one of the class-rooms, 

 for experimental telephonic communication the boys, it is said, being 



