75S 



THE TELEPHONE. 



at Eton, then as in Italy, and then according to some theoretical 

 of how the Latins might have uttered them. Then came some English 

 and affected pronunciations, the words 'how odd' being given in 

 distinct ways. Suddenly German provincialisms were introduced ; then 

 of sounds often confiised. Some Arabic, some Cockney English, 

 with an intiwduoed Arabic guttural, some mispronounced Spanish, and a variety 



of rowels and diphthongs. 



"The remit was perfectly satisfactory that is, Mr Bell wrote down my 

 and purposely exaggerated pronunciations and mispronunciations, and 



: :. ! tittd li> lOOa, licit liiivinn; hc;ml tlu-ni, 



ao attend them as to surprise me by the extremely correct echo of my own 



voice Accent, tone, drawl, brevity, indistinctness were all reproduced with 



surprising accuracy. Being on the watch, I could, as it were, trace the 

 alphabet in the lips of the readers. I think, then, that Mr Bell is justified 

 in the somewhat bold title which he has assumed for his mode of writing 

 'Visible speech.' I only hope that for the advantage of linguists, such an 

 alphabet may soon be made accessible, and that, for the intercourse of nations, 

 it may be adopted generally, at least for extra-European nations, as for the 

 Chinese dialect and the several extremely diverse Indian languages, where such 

 an alphabet would rapidly become a great social and political engine." 



The inventor of the telephone was thus prepared, by early training in the 

 practical analysis of the elements of speech, to associate whatever scientific 

 knowledge he might afterwards acquire with those elementary sensations and 

 actions, which each of us must learn from himself, because they lie too deep 

 within us to be described to others. This training was put to a very severe 

 test, when, at the request of the Boston Board of Education, Prof. Graham 

 Bell conducted a series of experiments with his father's system in the Boston 

 School for the Deaf and Dumb. I cannot conceive a nobler application of the 

 scientific analysis of speech, than that by which it enables those to whom all 

 sound is 



"expunged and rased 

 And wisdom at one entrance quite shut out," 



not only to speak themselves, but to read by sight what other people are saving. 



lie successful result of the experiments at Boston is not only the most 



valuable testimonial to the father's system of visible speech, but an honour 



