orgie Sanders and
Mabel Hubbard were his only pupils. Though Sanders and Hubbard were
genuinely interested in Bell and his work, they felt that he was
impractical, and were especially convinced that his experiments with
the ear and its imitations were entirely useless. They believed that
the electrical telegraph alone presented possibilities, and they told
Bell that unless he would devote himself entirely to the improvement
of this instrument and cease wasting time and money over ear toys
that had no commercial value they would no longer give him financial
support. Hubbard went even further, and insisted that if Bell did not
abandon his foolish notions he could not marry his daughter.

Bell was almost without funds, his closest friends now seemed to turn
upon him, and altogether he was in a sorry plight. Of course Sanders
and Hubbard meant the best, yet in reality they were seeking to drive
their protege in exactly the wrong direction. As far back as 1860 a
German scientist named Philipp Reis produced a musical telephone
that even transmitted a few imperfect words. But it would not talk
successfully. Others had followed in his footsteps, using the musical
telephone to transmit messages with the Morse code by means of long
and short hums. Elisha Gray, of Chicago, also experimented with the
musical telegraph. At the transmitting end a vibrating steel tongue
served to interrupt the electric current which passed over the wire
in waves, and, passing through the coils of an electro-magnet at the
receiving end, caused another strip of steel located near the magnet
to vibrate and so produce a tone which varied with the current.

All of these developments depended upon the interruption of the
current by some kind of a vibrating contact. The limitations which
Sanders and Hubbard sought to impose upon Bell, had they been obeyed
to the letter, must have prevented his ultimate success. In a letter
to his mother at this time, he said:

I am now beginning to realize the cares and anxieties of being
an inventor. I have had to put off all pupils and classes, for
flesh and blood could not stand much longer such a strain as I
have had upon me.

But good fortune was destined to come to Bell along with the bad. On
an enforced trip to Washington to consult his patent attorney--a trip
he could scarce raise funds to make--Bell met Prof. Joseph Henry.
We have seen the part which this eminent scientist had played in the
deve