His experiments were made in a little workshop behind his home at Friedrichsdorff; and wires were run from it to an upper chamber. Another line was erected between the physical cabinet at Garnier's Institute across the playground to one of the class-rooms, and there was a tradition in the school that the boys were afraid of creating an uproar in the room for fear Herr Reis should hear them with his 'telephon.'
The new invention was published to the world in a lecture before the Physical Society of Frankfort on October 26, 1861, and a description, written by himself for the JAHRESBERICHT, a month or two later. It excited a good deal of scientific notice in Germany; models of it were sent abroad, to London, Dublin, Tiflis, and other places. It became a subject for popular lectures, and an article for scientific cabinets. Reis obtained a brief renown, but the reaction soon set in. The Physical Society of Frankfort turned its back on the apparatus which had given it lustre. Reis resigned his membership in 1867; but the Free German Institute of Frankfort, which elected him an honorary member, also slighted the instrument as a mere 'philosophical toy.' At first it was a dream, and now it is a plaything. Have we not had enough of that superior wisdom which is another name for stupidity? The dreams of the imagination are apt to become realities, and the toy of to-day has a knack of growing into the mighty engine of to-morrow.
Reis believed in his invention, if no one else did; and had he been encouraged by his fellows from the beginning, he might have brought it into a practical shape. But rebuffs had preyed upon his sensitive heart, and he was already stricken with consumption. It is related that, after his lecture on the telephone at Geissen, in 1854, Professor Poggendorff, who was present, invited him to send a description of his instrument to the ANNALEN. Reis answered him,'Ich danke Ihnen recht Sehr, Herr Professor; es ist zu spaty. Jetzt will ICH nicht ihn schickeny. Mein Apparat wird ohne Beschreibung in den ANNALEN bekannt werden.' ('Thank you very much, Professor, but it is too late. I shall not send it now. My apparatus will become known without any writing in the ANNALEN.')
Latterly Reis had confined his teaching and study to matters of science; but his bad health was a serious impediment. For several years it was only by the exercise of a strong will that he was able to carry on his duties. His voice began to fail as the disease gained upon his lungs, and in the summer of 1873 he was obliged to forsake tuition during several weeks. The autumn vacation strengthened his hopes of recovery, and he resumed his teaching with his wonted energy. But this was the last flicker of the expiring flame. It was announced that he would show his new gravity-machine at a meeting of the Deutscher Naturforscher of Wiesbaden in September, but he was too ill to appear. In December he lay down, and, after a long and painful illness, breathed his last at five o'clock in the afternoon of January 14, 1874.
In his CURRICULUM VITAE he wrote these words: 'As I look back upon my life I call indeed say with the Holy Scriptures that it has been "labour and sorrow." But I have also to thank the Lord that He has given me His blessing in my calling and in my family, and has bestowed more good upon me than I have known how to ask of Him. The Lord has helped hitherto; He will help yet further.'
Reis was buried in the cemetery of Friedrichsdorff, and in 1878, after the introduction of the speaking telephone, the members of the Physical Society of Frankfort erected over his grave an obelisk of red sandstone bearing a medallion portrait.
CHAPTER VIII. GRAHAM BELL.
The first to produce a practicable speaking telephone was Alexander Graham Bell. He was born at Edinburgh on March 1, 1847, and comes of a family associated with the teaching of elocution. His grandfather in London, his uncle in Dublin, and his father, Mr. Andrew Melville Bell, in Edinburgh, were all professed elocutionists. 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 high school of Edinburgh, and subsequently at Warzburg, in Germany, where he obtained the degree of Ph.D. (Doctor of Philosophy). 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 1873 he accompanied his father to Montreal, in Canada, where he was employed in teaching the system of visible speech. The elder Bell was invited to introduce it 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. He published more than one treatise on the subject at Washington, and it is, we believe, mainly through his efforts that thousands of deaf mutes in America are now able to speak almost, if not quite, as well as those who are able to hear.