x PRACTICAL PURPOSE 265 



always be conquered," he used to say, " if we can but 

 find out her weak side " ; and this thought encouraged 

 him to persevere in his questioning and attack until 

 the secret he desired to discover was revealed to him. 

 Even after the brilliant idea of separate condensation 

 had occurred to him, he had to work for more than 

 twenty years before he could see that his steam-engine 

 would bring him anything but disappointment and loss, 

 yet he endured unto the end, and saw his engines used 

 in increasing numbers in mines and manufactures. 

 No invention has had a greater influence upon material 

 progress than Watt's engine, and none has been brought 

 to perfection by a closer combination of genius, scientific 

 study and mechanical ingenuity, all of which were 

 blended in one man James Watt, mathematical instru- 

 ment maker to the University of Glasgow. 



Thomas A. Edison is the embodiment of the method 

 of specialised research with a practical purpose. By 

 quickness of perception, fertility of resource, and per- 

 sistent trial of everything until the best means of 

 achieving his end has been found, he has become the 

 leading inventor in the world. When he was endeavour- 

 ing to find the best material to use for the filament of 

 the incandescent electric lamp, he dispatched agents to 

 search through China and Japan, to explore the American 

 continent from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and to seek 

 in India, Ceylon and the neighbouring countries for a 

 vegetable fibre which could be carbonised most effi- 

 ciently ; and he finally used a strip of carbonised 

 bamboo for the filament. He invented the phonograph 

 in 1877, and from the rough instrument then devised 

 developed the perfect means of recording and repro- 

 ducing sound represented in the modern form of talking 

 machines. He constructed new forms of transmitter 



