rer, and there came under the influence
of Buskin's social teachings. He took a deep interest in trades unions,
and worked for better hours, more sanitary homes, open spaces in cities,
and free libraries.

In 1875 he took lodgings in Whitechapel, one of London's worst slums, in
order to live among the poor and help them in a neighborly way. On
account of his delicate health he was unable to continue there long; but
his example brought other Oxford men, and when he died in 1883 they
organized a social university settlement and called it Toynbee Hall.
This was the first fully equipped institution of the kind, and at once
it attracted attention everywhere and was immediately followed by the
establishment of others in England and America, and later in all lands.
To-day in the United States alone there are more than five hundred such
settlements.

Read "Arnold Toynbee," by F. C. Montague, published by the Johns Hopkins
University Press, and see the "Handbook of Settlements," by R. A. Woods,
published by the Sage Foundation, New York. Clubs may also have a
meeting on Jane Addams and Hull House, and read chapters from the book,
"Twenty Years at Hull House," by Miss Addams (Macmillan).

VI--EDISON--INVENTOR

Thomas Edison is one of the greatest inventive mechanical geniuses who
ever lived. His life story is outwardly uneventful. He was born in Ohio
in 1847, and at twelve became a train boy; he took advantage of an empty
express room in a car and printed a little newspaper called _The Grand
Trunk Herald_, and also carried on chemical and electrical experiments
there. These came to an end when he set fire to the car accidentally,
and was dismissed by the angry conductor.

He learned telegraphy and practiced it in several cities, coming after a
time to New York. There he invented a printing telegraph machine, known
as "the ticker," to record stock quotations. This brought him in forty
thousand dollars and enabled him to set up his famous laboratory at
Menlo Park, in New Jersey.

His first really great invention was the quadruplex telegraph, which
makes it possible to send four messages over one wire at the same time.
Next came the carbon transmitter. Edison's third great work was the
discovery of the carbon filament for the incandescent light, and his
next the phonograph, which has developed into extended and various use.
His work on the cinematograph has brought moving pictures into a
conspicuous place not only for amuse