y in the crude telephone
exchanges, the "hello girl" having not yet appeared. So John Carty at
the age of nineteen went to work in the Boston telephone exchange.

The switchboard at which they placed him had been good enough for
the other boys who had been called upon to operate it, and indeed
it represented the best thought and effort of the leaders in the
telephone world. But it did not satisfy Carty, who, not content
with simply-operating the board, studied its construction and began
planning improvements. As Mr. Carty himself puts it:

The little switchboards of that day were a good deal like the
automobiles of some years ago--one was likely to spend more
time under the switchboard than, sitting at it! In that way I
learned a great deal about the arrangement and construction
of switchboards. Encountering the trouble first, I had an
advantage over others in being able to suggest a remedy. So I
have always thought it was a good thing to have troubles, as
long as they are not too serious or too numerous. Troubles are
certainly a great advantage, if we manage them correctly.

Certainly Carty made these switchboard troubles the first
stepping-stone in his climb to the top in the field of telephone
engineering. The improvements which the youngster suggested were so
valuable that they were soon being made under his direction, and
ere long he installed in the Boston exchange the first multiple
switchboard, the fundamental features of which are in the switchboards
of to-day. In his work with the switchboards young Carty early got
in touch with Charles E. Scribner, another youngster who was doing
notable work in this field. The young men became fast friends and
worked much together. Scribner devoted himself almost exclusively
to switchboards and came to be known as the father of the modern
switchboard.

Boston had her peculiar problems and an "express" service was needed.
How to handle this in the exchange was another problem, and this, too,
Carty solved. For this purpose he designed and installed the first
metallic circuit, multiple switchboard to go into service. The
problems of the exchange were among the most serious of the many which
troubled the early telephone companies. Of course every telephone-user
desired to be able to converse with any other who had a telephone in
his office or residence. The development of the switchboards had been
comparatively slow in the past, and the s