The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1910-03-02
THE TELEPHONE AN ACCIDENT
Dr.. Bell Says He Stumbled
Upon the lrlvention--H He Was
ExperimentinsWi Methods
to Teach the Deaf and Dumb
When He Made His Great
Discovery - Teaching the
Dumb to Speak His Life Work

Alexander Graham Bell, the inven.
ter and philanthropist, came from
Boston to New York to attend a meet
ing of directors of the American Asso-
citation to Promote the Teaching OF
Speech to the Deaf. DR.. Bell is the
founder of this movement, and at the
time this association was formed en-
dowed it with a fund of $4,000. He
has since given $250,000 toward car
rying on the work.
DR.. Bell said at the Hotel Lorraine
that it is the purpose Of this society
to increase the scope of the move
ment until every deaf and dumb child
in the United States has been taught
the power Of speech. In a measure
the education of the deaf and dumb
has been his life work, for it was
while making experiments in this d.
rection that he was led to the inven-
ton of the telephone.
DR.. Bell said he first became inter-
ested in the subject through a pho
netic alphabet system devised by his
father, who was an elocutionist, to
interpret all languages by a system
of symbols. DR.. Bell used this system
for experiencing with deaf children
and found by this method they could
be taught speech. At the time Dr..
Bell was living in England.
He was compelled to give up his
project for a time on account of i'll
ness and went to Canada in search Of
health. After a year he came into the
States and was invited to demonstrate
the method in the deaf and dumb
schools of Boston.
To teach the deaf to speak was
| comparatively a new thing in this
country and only a few advanced
thinkers had any confidence in it's
possibilities. Miss Hubbard, whom
Dr.. Bell afterwards married. was one
of the very first children in this coun"
try to learn the oral system for the
deaf. After an illness of scarlet fever
she completely lost her hearing when
| she was a little more than three years
of age. Her parents consulted Hor-
ace Mann and DR.. Howe on the sub
ject of educating their daughter and
were advised by these men to con-
| tinue to speak 10 her as they had al
ways done. 1t was not long before
| they saw that she could understand
the movement OF their lips and an in
structor was engaged to assist in
teaching her. Mr.. Hubbard made an
| effort to have a bill passed in the
Legislature of Massachusetts intro
| ducing the system in the schools for
the deaf and dumb, but it was vetoed
for the reason it was considered i'm
practicable. 1t was brought up a Sec
ond time and was finally passed. One
of the members who had voted it
down the first time it was presented,
the father of a deaf and dumb child,
| had been convinced in the meantime
through what had been done for Miss
Hubbard that deaf children could be
taught speech.
DR.. Bell continued his experiments
and introduced other various meth
DDS. He began the study Of the
vibrations of the voice with a mano-
metric flame. He found by speaking
in a tube of the apparatus thar GER
tain sounds produced certain waves in
the flame.
The object was to make the vibra-
ton Of the air as visible to the eyes
as it is audible to the ear. 1t was
found that on account of the colors
in the flame it was impossible to pho
tograph the waves
DR.. Bell next tried a phonauto-
graph, a cone shaped apparatus. The
vibrations were registered on smoked
glass, but they were entirely different
from those produced by the flame.
This proved unsatisfactory, and DR..
Bell went to an a specialist and
asked to have the human a imita-
ted. The specialist suggested that he
make use of a human ear. DR.. Bell
did secure one and took it with him
on his vacation in Canada. At the
same time DR.. Bell was experiment.
ing with an apparatus for transmit.
ting musical tones over the telegraph
wire.
While experimenting with the ear.
he noticed the heavy tones in com"
parison to the membrane that moved
the tones. This suggested to DR.. Bell
to use a heavier piece of iron or steel
in front of an electro magnet, and the
telephone was the result.
Dr.. Bell said yesterday: 81 am not
an electrician, and it was out of ig-
that the invention was born.
l don't believe that that air electri.
clan could ever have invented the
telephone"
Returning to the subject Of the
deaf and dumb, Dr.. Bell said there
are now $4,000 children in these
schools and seventy-three per cent. of
them are having the reading of the
lip method training. He said that
when he founded the association only
a very small per cent. of the children
were being taught by this method. DR..
Bell says there are still deaf teachers
in some of the schools, and though
these teachers may be valuable fol-
certain things they retard this par
ticular work, because they have a
feeling that they will be thrown out
rF n,pn1nrp,nnt hE tho oval mnthn