Page:Famous Living Americans, with Portraits.djvu/57

 38 FAMOUS LIVING AMERICANS old recited a poem of about twenty stanzas. The occasion was of so much interest that several distinguished scholars and philanthropists were present. Among them I remember A. Bronson Alcott, Theodore Weld and Colonel T. W. Higginson. A note was read from Ralph Waldo Emerson expressing his regret that he could not enjoy an occasion which he felt sure signified so much for the reUef of a most deserving class of persons. When Dr. Monroe gave an account of the boy's training and proficiency he held a sheet of paper before his lips so that the boy could not see what he was saying. The student could not hear a word but he was an expert in reading er seeing this boy on the side walk and not knowing that he was deaf and dumb called out to him for the direction to a certain citizen's house. The boy chanced to be looking toward the driver and reading his lips knew what he wanted and in plain speech gave him the desired information. The teach- ing of mutes to speak is now an important department in ev- ery deaf and dumb institution. One of the greatest rewards for original research is the opening of doors to new and higher problems. While the pro- fessor of vocal physiology was seeking relief for the speech- less he was led to study how ordinary speech may become more serviceable in all human affairs. Other experimenters approached the telephone in the study of applied electricity. Professor Bell came to the telephone in the study of the vocal apparatus. The sound box in the voice suggested the possi- bility of a sound box similar to the voice which might emit vibrations not upon the vacant air but upon a transmitter which might convey articulate sounds in definite directions and distances. Professor Bell was not without knowledge of electrical phenomena. In former years he had been a close student and experimenter with this mysterious force. But it was his mastery of the science of the voice that gave him the chief basis for his great invention. He once stated,* **Had I 2 Thirtieth Anniversary of a Great Invention. By John Vaughn, Scrihner's 40:365.
 * * visible speech. ' ' Dr. Monroe stated that recently a bus-driv-