Transcription
[Music] 65 years ago, about 65 years ago, I came across the ocean from England to the United States, the family settling in Philadelphia. I there attended the public schools and the boy's Central High School eventually, but there was an interval between my attendance of one of the schools; it was not a direct succession. I was forced out of school at 11, to stay out 2 years because the uh entrance age of the boy's high school was 13, and I was only 11. So the problem was what to do with me during the two extra years. Well, some of them said, some of the advisers said, keep him away from books and let him develop uh physically. I said, if you do that, you might as well kill me now because I got to have my books. So they modified the decision into saying, well, you can have them all right. So I got hold of a book which was called The Magician's own book, a book telling of puzzles and tricks and all kinds of little things, chemistry experiments, electrical experiments. The electrical chapter was what struck me at once, and they told how to make an electrical machine out of a wine bottle, and I immediately set to work and made just such a machine and started it in operation, and I got my first view of electric sparks from that machine, my first knowledge of electricity from that machine, and I made a whole lot of apparatus which is recommended to be made, like lighting jars and uh little things of attraction and repulsion, dancing figures and so on. And I had that whole equipment along with a a stool which was made by bottles and the and the board for making an insulated stool in order to insulate a person that wanted to be charged, and we charged them with a with a u an arrangement of this kind. My father rather po foed the magnitude of my efforts, and uh I thought I was got I had to get even with him somehow. So I made a battery of five jars and put them into operation and asked him to take the shot. I never heard after he took that shot anymore derogation, derogatory remarks about my apparat [Music]