428 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



young women who desired to qualify as teachers of articulation in 

 schools for the deaf. Then he had also undertaken the general educa- 

 tion of a young deaf-mute child who came to him at the age of five 

 years, in October, 1872. 



Thus it was easy to understand how fully occupied the daylight 

 hours were with his professional duties, and how any experimental 

 and research work must necessarily be carried on late at night when 

 most persons had retired. For while ' the income from his professional 

 labors was a fairly good one it was his only means of support.' If he 

 gave up his classes, he would have no income to expend upon experi- 

 ments, nor even to live upon. 



Yet that is what he did in 1875. At the end of the term he dis- 

 missed his classes and by the end of July, 1875, had given up all pro- 

 fessional work save the education of the deaf lad and occasional lec- 

 tures at the Boston University which he had long before been paid to 

 deliver, and the income from which he had expended in telephone 

 experiments. Thus the only income he was in receipt of at the end 

 of July was for teaching the little deaf boy. He would not give up 

 trying to solve the problem of speech transmission, and thus he bor- 

 rowed what money generous friends would loan him, and started in to 

 demonstrate the. practicability of his theory. 



All the world knows how well he succeeded, and that no better way 

 has been found during all the years that intervene. In October, 1875, 

 he commenced to prepare the specifications for the patent office, and 

 had his application ready for filing before the end of the year. Then 

 he waited on friends in Canada who desired him to take no action that 

 would be prejudicial to patents they proposed taking out in foreign 

 countries. These friends failing to respond to his proposition, he 

 finally decided to wait no longer. In December he submitted his appli- 

 cation to the patent attorneys in Washington; it was signed and sworn 

 to in Boston on January 20, 1876. and filed in the Patent Office early 

 on February 14. On March 7, 1876, he was granted the fundamental 

 patent covering both method and apparatus. 



Early in November, 1875, the need of funds to enable him to live 

 forced Alexander Graham Bell to again take up his professional work, 

 and he was soon ' lecturing at various normal schools upon the subject 

 of articulation teaching.' A little later he established a large normal 

 class in Boston, and to be able to properly illustrate his methods, gave 

 free instruction to such deaf-mutes as would serve as subjects for 

 demonstration. Thus by the spring of 1876 he was again in receipt 

 of a fair income and began to repay the sums friends had loaned to him. 



On May 10, 1876. at the solicitation of his friends, he read a paper, 

 entitled i Researches in Telephony,' to the members of the American 

 Academy of Arts and Sciences. Therein he touched upon the inven- 

 tions of Gray and Reis, and the discoveries of Page, Marrian, Beatson, 

 Gassiot, De la Rive, Matteucci, Guillemin, Wertheim, Wartmann, 



