ce.

MEASURING INSTRUMENTS.--The perfection of measuring instruments did more
to advance electricity than almost any other field of endeavor; so that
after 1875 the inventors took up the subject, and by their energy
developed and put into practical operation a most wonderful array of
mechanism, which has become valuable in the service of man in almost
every field of human activity.

RAPIDITY OF MODERN PROGRESS.--This brief history is given merely to show
what wonders have been accomplished in a few years. The art is really
less than fifty years old, and yet so rapidly has it gone forward that
it is not at all surprising to hear the remark, that the end of the
wonders has been reached. Less than twenty-five years ago a high
official of the United States Patent Office stated that it was probable
the end of electrical research had been reached. The most wonderful
developments have been made since that time; and now, as in the past,
one discovery is but the prelude to another still more remarkable. We
are beginning to learn that we are only on the threshold of that
storehouse in which nature has locked her secrets, and that there is no
limit to human ingenuity.

HOW TO ACQUIRE THE VAST KNOWLEDGE.--As the boy, with his limited vision,
surveys this vast accumulation of tools, instruments and machinery, and
sees what has been and is now being accomplished, it is not to be
wondered at that he should enter the field with timidity. In his mind
the great question is, how to acquire the knowledge. There is so much to
learn. How can it be accomplished?

The answer to this is, that the student of to-day has the advantage of
the knowledge of all who have gone before; and now the pertinent thing
is to acquire that knowledge.

THE MEANS EMPLOYED.--This brings us definitely down to an examination of
the means that we shall employ to instil this knowledge, so that it may
become a permanent asset to the student's store of information.

The most significant thing in the history of electrical development is
the knowledge that of all the great scientists not one of them ever
added any knowledge to the science on purely speculative reasoning. All
of them were experimenters. They practically applied and developed their
theories in the laboratory or the workshop. The natural inference is,
therefore, that the boy who starts out to acquire a knowledge of
electricity, must not only theorize, but that he shall, primarily,
conduct the experime