The idea of telegraphic communication is more than two and a half centuries old. In 1632 Galileo referred to a secret art of communicating at great distances by means of magnetic needles. In 1753 there appeared in the _Scots Magazine_ an article signed "C. M." (since ascertained to have been Charles Morrison, of Greenock in Scotland) setting forth a fairly clear idea of the electric telegraph. Joseph Henry, of Washington, D.C., in 1831 signaled through an electrical circuit a mile in length. The first commercially successful telegraph was devised in 1837 by Samuel F. B. Morse, an American. Samuel Finley Breese Morse was born in Charlestown, Massachusetts, April 27, 1791. He was educated in the common schools of his native town and in Yale University, where he was graduated in 1810. After graduation, like Fulton, the inventor of the steamboat, he went to Europe to study art, and became successful as an artist. On his return to America in 1832, one of his fellow passengers on the ship was Charles T. Jackson, who had been studying electricity in Paris. Jackson told Morse of some experiments in electricity which the French had been making, and remarked that it would be a good thing if news could be transmitted through long distances by electricity. Morse replied, "Why can't it be done?" From that hour he gave his time and energy to the invention of the electric telegraph. During the remainder of the voyage he drew plans for apparatus and tried to devise an electric alphabet. In 1837 he put two instruments at the ends of a short line through which he sent and received messages. About this time he met a man who was destined to be of great service to him in promoting his invention, and one who deserves almost as much credit for it as Morse himself. This was Alfred Vail. Vail was born at Morristown, New Jersey, September 25, 1807. He was a son of Stephen Vail, the wealthy owner of the Speedwell iron works. One day in September, 1837, after Morse had completed his apparatus, he was invited to exhibit it at the University of the City of New York. Alfred Vail was a student in the university at the time and was one of the spectators to whom the apparatus was exhibited. He was much impressed with it. Morse needed money, and Alfred Vail's father had it. Morse was invited to the home of the Vails in Speedwell, where the matter of the invention was talked over. The sum of two thousand dollars was necessary to get the invention started. Stephen Vail agreed to furnish the money. Alfred Vail was to construct apparatus and exhibit it to Congress. For this he was to have one-fourth of the proceeds arising from the patent.