Young Bell had come to America in 1870 in search of health, the family settling at Brantford, Canada. He numbered among his forebears many distinguished professional men. For three generations the Bells had taught the laws of speech in the universities of Edinburgh, Dublin and London. He himself was an accomplished elocutionist and an expert in vocal physiology. During the year spent in Canada in regaining his health, Bell taught his father’s method of visible speech to a tribe of Mohawk Indians and began to think about the “harmonic telegraph.” In 1871 young Alexander Bell accepted an offer from the Boston Board of Education to teach the “visible speech” method in a school for deaf mutes in that city. For two years he devoted himself to the work with great success. He was appointed a professor in the Boston University and opened a school of “Vocal Physiology” which was at once successful. He might have continued his career as a teacher had it not been that his active brain still clung to the “harmonic telegraph” idea and his inventive genius demanded an outlet. [Illustration: PROF. BELL’S VIBRATING REED] So we find him in 1874 working out his idea of the “harmonic telegraph,” the perfection of which meant a fortune to the young inventor. That he never realized his goal was due to the fact that while experimenting, he made a discovery which led to a far greater invention and one that was fraught with more benefit to mankind than the “harmonic telegraph” could ever have been. It was while working with his faithful man Friday, Thomas A. Watson, in the dingy little workrooms on Court Street, Boston, that Bell got the inspiration which made him turn from the “harmonic telegraph” to devote himself to the invention which was destined to make his name famous--the speaking telephone. ~THE FIRST SOUND OVER A WIRE~ Mr. Watson has dramatically described the incident as follows: