At the beginning of 1910, there were in service by the Bell organization about 3,633,900 telephones.  These with the 3,911,400 independent telephones, make a total of 7,545,300, or about one-twelfth as many telephones as there are inhabitants of the United States.  The influence of this development upon the lives of the people has been profound.  Whether the influence has been wholly for good may not be so conclusively apparent.  Lord Bacon has declared that, excepting only the alphabet and the art of printing, those inventions abridging distance are of the greatest service to mankind.  If this be true, it may be said that the invention of telephony deserves high place among the civilizing influences.

There is no industrial art in which the advancement of the times has been followed more closely by practical application than in telephony.  Commercial speech by telephone is possible by means of currents which so far are practically unmeasurable.  In other words, it is possible to speak clearly and satisfactorily over a line by means of currents which cannot be read, with certainty as to their amount, by any electrical measuring device so far known.  In this regard, telephony is less well fortified than are any of the arts utilizing electrical power in larger quantities.  The real wonder is that with so little knowledge of what takes place, particularly as to amount, those working in the art have been able to do as well as they have.  When an exact knowledge of quantity is easily obtainable, very striking advances may be looked for.

The student of these phases of physical science and industrial art will do well to combine three processes:  study of the words of others; personal experimentation; and digestive thought.  The last mentioned is the process of profoundest value.  On it finally depends mastery.  It is not of so much importance how soon the concept shall finally be gained as that it is gained.  A statement by another may seem lifeless and inert and the meaning of an observation may be obscure.  Digestive thought is the only assimilative process.  The whole art of telephony hangs on taking thought of things.  Judge R.F.  Taylor of Indiana said of Professor Bell, “It has been said that no man by taking thought may add a cubit to his stature, yet here is a man who, by taking thought, has added not cubits but miles to the lengths of men’s tongues and ears.”

In observations of many students, it is found that the notion of each must pass through a certain period of incubation before his private and personal knowledge of Ohm’s law is hatched.  Once hatched, however, it is his.  By just such a process must come each principal addition to his stock of concepts.  The periods may vary and practice in the uses of the mind may train it in alertness in its work.  If time is required, time should be given, the object always being to keep thinking or re-reading or re-trying until the thought is wholly encompassed and possessed.