242 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



and where the modern relay multiple switchboard affords every facility 

 for rapid intercommunication. So compact are these improved switch- 

 boards that each subscriber-line reappears in each and every section, 

 thus enabling any one of the three operators allotted to a section to 

 reach the jack connecting with the subscriber line of any one of the 

 many subscribers connected to that given exchange even though they 

 number ten thousand. Under these favorable conditions the average 

 time in which ' Central ' answers a calling subscriber rarely exceeds 

 four seconds, and a local call is completed on an average of less than 

 thirty-five seconds, the time consumed depending largely on the prompt- 

 ness with which the called subscriber responds to ' Central's ' calling. 

 Concerning the rapidity with which telephone connections were 

 secured in pioneer days, we have a statement made in 1887, by Mr. B. 

 E. Sunny, a man of exceptional ability, who was one of the first to 

 comprehend the true function of telephone service and who strove to 

 make his service the best that human effort and improved apparatus 

 could make it. Mr. Sunny said : 



Chicago has tried the division of labor plan on three distinct types of 

 switchboard. On the first switchboard in the central office in about 1880, with 

 four hundred subscribers, we were able to make a connection in about five 

 minutes; on the second type of switchboard, which was the Gilliland, we were 

 able to make connection with five operators in about two minutes. On the 

 third type- of switchboard, which was the Western Electric pattern, but of 

 special make, we came mighty near not being able to make any connection at 

 all ; but after we had hammered away at it for a long time, we got the time 

 down to about two minutes and a half. We changed from that to our present 

 system of the unit of labor, and we make connections on an average of about 

 forty- five seconds. So far as possible we make two operators on all connec- 

 tions, local and trunk, do the work. 



It is also interesting to note that in 1884 Mr. Sunny started a 

 school of instruction for telephone operators in Chicago. When an 

 applicant appeared she was advised to enter this school and receive 

 free instruction, and about one in four of the students were found 

 competent to enter the regular service. When full, the class was com- 

 posed of ten students. The teacher in charge was a former public 

 school teacher, who had also served four years as an operator, monitor, 

 chief operator, etc., under conditions that had enabled her to gain a 

 thorough knowledge of the duties of an operator. The school appa- 

 ratus consisted of three sections of switchboard and a dozen or more 

 telephones connected up at different points in the school-room. Calls 

 were sent in and connections made at the switchboards as nearly as 

 possible according to regular practice. Mr. Sunny found that this 

 method of training 



educates the students in the matter of hearing and talking and handling the 

 cords and handling the cam-levers, so that when they sit down to actual work 

 they have nothing to overcome except the momentary nervousness. In the 

 old system we used to take a new-comer and put her on a section to answer 

 fifty subscribers, and we used to depend upon the subscribers to educate the 

 operator and make her competent to fill that position. 



