The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1903-04-17
HOTEL LOBBY GLEANINGS
DIR. ALEXANDER GRAHAM BELL
VISITS INDIANAPOLIS.
Inventor of the Telephone Inspects
Institute for the Deaf and Dumb
Gossip from the LObbies.

DR.. Alexander Graham Bell, of Washing
ton, inventor of the telephone that bears
his name and president of the American
Association for the Promotion of the Teach
ing Of Speech to the Deaf, was in the city
yesterday. guest al the English. DR.. Bell
was on his way home from Milwaukee,
where he attended the formal opening of
new day school for the deaf, and he stopped
off in Indianapolis to visit Superintendent
Richard o. Johnson, of the Indiana Insti-
tute for the Deaf and Dumb, and to inspect
the institution.
DR.. Bell spent the afternoon with Super
intendent Johnson at the institute. He in
spected the various departments and spent
some little time in the classrooms where
speech is taught He is especially interested
in the teaching of speech to deaf mutes,
and has made that his particular hobby.
His father, Alexander Bell, was the in
ventor of what is known as visible speech,
and when DR.. Bell came to this country in
the early seventies he began teaching. One
of his pupils was an attractive young wom-
an who is now Mrs. Bell. Mrs. Bell is to-
tally deaf but she is able TO carry on
conversation with the ease of person in
possession of all his faculties, for she is one
of the most accomplished lip readers in the
country.
Superintendent Johnson is a director of
the association of which DR.. Bell Is presi-
dent, and one of the objects of the latters
visit here was to discuss with Mr.. Johnson
the coming annual convention, which Will
be held in Boston on July 8, following the
convention of the National Educational AS
ISOLATION. DR.. Bell is interested in the or
ganization of a summer normal school for
teachers for the deaf. and he said yesterday
that the normal will in all probability be
perfected this summer. 1t is proposed to
conduct the school for a term of four or
five weeks Immediately following the con-
ventions of the National Educational Asso-
citation each summer in the same city that
the convention is held. The school will thus
be migratory institution.
DIR. Bell invented the telephone In 1875,
but he said yesterday that he has been out
of the telephone business for over twenty
years. He still owns some stock In the
Bell Telephone Company, however, and
Mrs. Bell also holds a large block of the
stock OF recent years DR.. Bell has been
interested in the problem of aerial nayiga-
ton, and at his summer home in Nova
Scotia he has been making numerous tests
of a flying machine. He believes that a
has model which he thinks embodies the
secret. In this work DR.. Bell has been as
sociated with Professor Langley, OF the
Smithsonian Institution at Washington.
DR.. Bell left at o'clock last evening for
Pittsburg, where he will make short visit
before proceeding to Washington be1ore
his departure he expressed himself as well
pleased with the Indiana Institute, and said
that it is well worthy of the national repu-
tation it enjoys. This was his first visit to
Indianapolis. You have beautiful city,
he said, land am sorry that my stay is
so short that I have been unable to see
more of ii. The soldiers monument is mag
nificent-by long odds the finest in this
country and one of the gems of the world.
1 have secured several pictures of It which
shall take with me as souvenirs of very
pleasant visit here"