Bell spoke to his associate, Thomas A.
Watson, saying: "Mr. Watson, please come here. I want you." These
words, then heard by Mr. Watson in the instrument at his ear,
constitute the first sentence ever received by the electric telephone.
The instrument into which Doctor Bell spoke was a crude apparatus, and
the current which it generated was so feeble that, although the line
was about a hundred feet in length, the voice heard in the receiver
was so faint as to be audible only to such a trained and sensitive ear
as that of the young Mr. Watson, and then only when all surrounding
noises were excluded.

Following the instructions given by Doctor Bell, Mr. Watson with his
own hands had constructed the first telephone instruments and ran the
first telephone wire. At that time all the knowledge of the telephone
art was possessed exclusively by those two men. There was no
experience to guide and no tradition to follow. The founders of the
telephone, with remarkable foresight, recognized that success depended
upon the highest scientific knowledge and technical skill, and at once
organized an experimental and research department. They also sought
the aid of university professors eminent for their scientific
attainments, although at that time there was no university giving the
degree of Electrical Engineer or teaching electrical engineering.

From this small beginning there has been developed the present
engineering, experimental and research department which is under my
charge. From only two men in 1876 this staff has, in 1915, grown
to more than six hundred engineers and scientists, including former
professors, post-graduate students, and scientific investigators,
graduates of nearly a hundred American colleges and universities, thus
emphasizing in a special way the American character of the art. The
above number includes only those devoted to experimental and research
work and engineering development and standardization, and does
not include the very much larger body of engineers engaged in
manufacturing and in practical field work throughout the United
States. Not even the largest and most powerful government telephone
and telegraph administration of Europe has a staff to be compared with
this. It is in our great universities that anything like it is to
be found, but even here we find that it exceeds in number the entire
teaching staff of even our largest technical institutions.

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