in the author’s inimitable style. It would be difficult to improve 
upon that. 
To enter into details regarding these great men and women 
would be too great a task, but it would certainly be most benefi¬ 
cial to all intelligent men and women to become acquainted with 
the lives and struggles of the greatest geniuses, now mostly for¬ 
gotten. I might mention a great many more who had to eke 
out a most niggardly existence and overcome the severest preju¬ 
dice, and had it not been for some kind guardian angel, in the 
form of a generous-hearted philanthropist, most of the greatest 
discoveries would never have been revealed to us. Dozens of 
men, such as Fraunhofer, Geisler, Ruhmkorff, Reiss, Stoehrer, 
Zeiss, Wagner, Ohm, etc., are hardly known to the public, yet 
they discovered some of the most important laws and secrets 
of nature, especially in the science of physics. Where would 
we be now without their teachings? This is the time when the 
individual thinker should have the opportunity to be heard. 
One of the most significant discoveries in electricity is the 
so-called Wagner hammer. Yet Wagner was not a member of 
an organization, he was not even a professor,—merely an ordin¬ 
ary mechanic and bookkeeper, who studied the science of elec¬ 
tricity for love of the subject, and the desire for knowledge. 
The same may be said of Stoehrer, a common mechanic, who 
came in contact with professional and scientific men of renown, 
for whom he made models for scientific apparatuses. Ruhm¬ 
korff and Geisler were also ordinary mechanics. Reiss, a pri¬ 
vate schoolteacher, invented the long distance telephone without 
even having a large laboratory at his disposal. But these things 
are not taught in our schools. We know what we owe to the 
great Siemens and his mechanic, Halske. Siemens did not hesi¬ 
tate to admit the great assistance he received from Halske. The 
world renowned works of Zeiss had their beginning in the efforts 
of a common mechanic. The man who began the study and gave 
to the world the wonderful explanation of spectral analysis, 
who made it possible for astronomers to study the heavens, the 
sun and the firmament, was an apprentice in a glass factory, a 
self-taught man—Joseph Fraunhofer. 
6 
