young women who desired to qualify as teachers of articulation in schools for the deaf. Then he had also undertaken the general education of a young deaf-mute child who came to him at the age of five years, in October, 1872.
Thus it was easy to understand how fully occupied the daylight hours were with his professional duties, and how any experimental and research work must necessarily be carried on late at night when most persons had retired. For while 'the income from his professional labors was a fairly good one it was his only means of support.' If he gave up his classes, he would have no income to expend upon experiments, nor even to live upon.
Yet that is what he did in 1875. At the end of the term he dismissed his classes and by the end of July, 1875, had given up all professional work save the education of the deaf lad and occasional lectures at the Boston University which he had long before been paid to deliver, and the income from which he had expended in telephone experiments. Thus the only income he was in receipt of at the end of July was for teaching the little deaf boy. He would not give up trying to solve the problem of speech transmission, and thus he borrowed what money generous friends would loan him, and started in to demonstrate the. practicability of his theory.
All the world knows how well he succeeded, and that no better way has been found during all the years that intervene. In October, 1875, he commenced to prepare the specifications for the patent office, and had his application ready for filing before the end of the year. Then he waited on friends in Canada who desired him to take no action that would be prejudicial to patents they proposed taking out in foreign countries. These friends failing to respond to his proposition, he finally decided to wait no longer. In December he submitted his application to the patent attorneys in Washington; it was signed and sworn to in Boston on January 20, 1876. and filed in the Patent Office early on February 14. On March 7, 1876, he was granted the fundamental patent covering both method and apparatus.
Early in November, 1875, the need of funds to enable him to live forced Alexander Graham Bell to again take up his professional work, and he was soon 'lecturing at various normal schools upon the subject of articulation teaching.' A little later he established a large normal class in Boston, and to be able to properly illustrate his methods, gave free instruction to such deaf-mutes as would serve as subjects for demonstration. Thus by the spring of 1876 he was again in receipt of a fair income and began to repay the sums friends had loaned to him.
On May 10, 1876. at the solicitation of his friends, he read a paper, entitled 'Researches in Telephony,' to the members of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Therein he touched upon the inventions of Gray and Reis, and the discoveries of Page, Marrian, Beatson, Gassiot, De la Rive, Matteucci, Guillemin, Wertheim, Wartmann,
