When it became known that I had studied at the Universities of Cambridge and of Berlin, my English and German friends claimed the credit of the invention for the scientific training which I had received at their universities. I think the French had a better claim, because it was La Grange who helped me more than any other mathematical reading. As a matter of fact, the engineers of the American Telephone and Telegraph Company and the herdsmen of Idvor deserve most of the credit. The first formulated the problem the solution of which led to the invention, and the second taught me the art of signalling through the ground which guided me to the physical principle which underlies the invention. A vice-president of the American Telephone and Telegraph Company, who is a very high authority in telephony, informed me recently that one way to describe, roughly, the value of the invention is as follows: If during the past twenty-two years his company had been compelled to extend its network of conductors so as to give, without employing my invention, the same service which it is giving to-day, it would have had to spend at least one hundred million dollars more than it has actually expended. But after quoting him I wish to call attention to a fact which the public often overlooks. I ask, where are those one hundred million dollars which the invention has saved? I know that not even a microscopic part of them is in the pockets of the inventor. I have figured out also, with the same accuracy with which I once figured out the invention, that those hundred million dollars are not in the pockets of the telephone company. They must be, therefore, in the pockets of the American public. The invention made it possible to give the telephone service, which is now being given, at a lower rate than would have been possible if one hundred million dollars more had been spent. Every good invention benefits the public immeasurably more than it benefits the inventor or the corporation which exploits the invention. I certainly consider myself a public benefactor, and the National Institute of Social Sciences called me so when it gave me a gold medal almost as big as the full moon. But this gift would have made me much more happy if the institute had at the same time given another gold medal to the American Telephone and Telegraph Company.