The
latter has published a variety of works on the subject, several
of which are well known, especially his treatise on Visible Speech,
which appeared in Edinburgh in 1868. In this he explains his ingenious
method of instructing deaf mutes, by means of their eyesight, how
to articulate words, and also how to read what other persons are
saying by the motions of their lips. Graham Bell, his distinguished
son, was educated at the Royal High School of Edinburgh, from which
he graduated at the age of thirteen. At the age of sixteen he secured
a position as a pupil-teacher of elocution and music in Weston House
Academy, at Elgin in Morayshire. The next year he spent at the University
of Edinburgh. From 1866 to 1867 he was an instructor at Somersetshire
College at Bath, England. While still in Scotland he is said to
have turned his attention to the science of acoustics, with a view
to ameliorate the deafness of his mother.
In 1870 he moved with his family to Canada where they settled at
Brantford, Ontario. Before he left Scotland, Alexander Graham Bell
had turned his attention to telephony, and in Canada he continued
an interest in communication machines. He designed a piano which
could transmit its music to a distance by means of electricity.
In 1873 he accompanied his father to Montreal, Quebec, where he
was employed in teaching the system of visible speech. The elder
Bell was invited to introduce the system into a large day-school
for mutes at Boston, but he declined the post in favour of his son,
who soon became famous in the United States for his success in this
important work. Alexander Graham Bell published more than one treatise
on the subject at Washington, and it is mainly through his efforts
that thousands of deaf mutes in America are now able to speak almost,
if not quite, as well as persons who are able to hear.
At Boston he continued his researches in the same field, and endeavoured
to produce a telephone which would not only send musical notes,
but articulate speech. With financing from his American father-in-law,
on March 7, 1876, the U.S. Patent Office granted him Patent Number
174,465 covering "the method of, and apparatus for, transmitting
vocal or other sounds telegraphically . . . by causing electrical
undulations, similar in form to the vibrations of the air accompanying
the said vocal or other sound.", the telephone. (It should
be noted that the question of who invented the telephone continues
to be debated. It is clear that several people were researching
similar devices. However, supporters of Bell claim that his was
the first fully working design. After obtaining the patent for the
telephone, Bell continued his experiments in communication, which
culminated in the invention of the photophone-transmission of sound
on a beam of light -- a precursor of today's optical fiber systems.
He also worked in medical research and invented techniques for teaching
speech to the deaf. The range of Bell's inventive genius is represented
only in part by the 18 patents granted in his name alone and the
12 he shared with his collaborators. These included 14 for the telephone
and telegraph, four for the photophone, one for the phonograph,
five for aerial vehicles, four for hydroairplanes, and two for a
selenium cell. In 1888 he was one of the founding members of the
National Geographic Society and became its second president. He
was the recipient of many honors. The French Government conferred
on him the decoration of the Légion d'honneur (Legion of
Honor), the Académie française bestowed on him the
Volta Prize of 50,000 Francs, the Royal Society of Arts in London
awarded him the Albert medal in 1902, and the University of Würzburg,
Bavaria, granted him the Degree of Ph.D.
Bell married Mabel Hubbard on July 11, 1877. He died in Baddeck,
Nova Scotia in 1922.
In 2004, Alexander Graham Bell was nominated as one of the top 10
"Greatest Canadians" by viewers of the Canadian Broadcasting
Corporation.
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