an ornamental cap covering the terminals of the wires leading to the bells. A slight pressure of the hand upon the button in the centre forces the spring-shaped terminals of the wires into contact with each other, and allows the current to pass from the battery to the bell.
Consult: Gatty, The Bell: Its Origin and Uses (London, 1848); Andrews, History of Bells (Paisley, 1885); Lukis, An Account of Church Bells and Their Founders (Cambridge, 1857); Briscoe, Curiosities of the Belfry (London, 1883); Otte, Glockenkunde (Leipzig, 1884); Tyack, A Book About Bells (London, 1899). See Bell-Ringing.
BELL, Song of the (Lied von der Glocke). The best-known poem of Schiller, published in the Musenalmanach for 1800. In this poem the operations of casting the bell are correlated with the most important events in the whole course of human life. It is the highest development of Schiller's non-dramatic poetry, perfect in form, and embodying a very broad range of sentiment and conceptions.
BELL, The. (1) An inn at Edmonton, near London, noted in Cowper's ballad of John Gilpin, and as a resort of Charles Lamb. (2) An inn in Warwick Lane, London, the place of Archbishop Leighton's death in 1684.
BELL, Acton. The pen-name of Anne Brontë.
BELL, Alexander Graham (1847 — ). An
American inventor and scientist, distinguished
for his invention of the telephone. He was born
in Edinburgh, Scotland, the son of Alexander
Melville Bell, who was the inventor of 'visible
speech.' He received his education in Edinburgh
and at London University, and in 1870, with
his father, removed to Canada. He was greatly
interested in his father's system of instruction
of the deaf and dumb, and in 1872 he became
professor of vocal physiology in Boston Univer-
sity. Soon thereafter he began experiments
which led to the invention of the speaking tele-
phone (q.v.), and for this, on February 14, 1876,
lie received a patent. Though his claims were
opposed by other inventors, his rights to the
invention were sustained by the United States
Supreme Court, and he is now considered entitled
to the credit of being the first to construct the in-
strument in a practical shape. In an imperfect
form the telephone was exhibited at the (Centen-
nial Exposition of 1876, and was carefully stud-
ied by scientists from abroad. Further experi-
ments led to the improvement of the apparatus,
and a company was organized for its develop-
ment. From this company, which has enjoyed
an almost absolute monopoly of the telephone
business in the United States, Professor Bell
has received large royalties and dividends. He
was also the inventor of the photophone, used
for the transmission and reproduction of sounds
by waves of light, and of the graphophone. an in-
stnunent which mechanically reproduces human
speech. He has been active in scientific investi-
gation. He has always maintained his interest
in the instruction of deaf-mutes, and has carried
on and published important researches in this
field, many of which have been published by the
Volta Bureau, of which he was the founder.
He was elected a member of the National Acade-
my of Sciences in 1883, and in 1881 he received
the Volta Prize from the French Government.
He has served as president of the American
Association to Promote Teaching of Speech to
the Deaf, as president of the National Geograph-
ic Society, and as a regent of the Smithsonian
Institution.
BELL, Alexander Melville (1819—). A Scottish-American educator, born in Edinburgh. From 1843 to 1865 he was a lecturer at Edinburgh University, and in the latter year became lecturer at the University of London. Subsequently he became an instructor in Queen's College, Kingston, Canada, whence, in 1881, he removed to Washington, D. C. He is best known as the inventor of so-called 'visible speech,' a system of instruction very successfully used in teaching deaf-mutes to speak. His publications include Principles of Speech and Elocution (1849), and several other works on orthoëpy.
BELL, Andrew (1753-1832). A Scottish educational reformer. He was born at Saint Andrews, and was educated at the university there. From 1774 to 1781 he lived as a tutor in Virginia, but returned to Great Britain, and took orders in the Church of England. In 1787 he went to India, where he obtained within two years appointments to no less than eight army chaplainships. While at Madras, in 1789, he was intrusted with the management of an institution founded by the East India Company for the education of the orphan children of the European military. As he found it impossible to secure properly qualified assistants, he at last resorted to the expedient of conducting the school through the aid of the pupils themselves. Hence originated the far-famed 'Monitorial System' (q.v.). He superintended this institution for seven years, when the state of his health forced him to return to Europe. In 1797 he published a pamphlet entitled An Experiment in Education, Made at the Male Asylum of Madras, which attracted little attention until Joseph Lancaster published a tractate on education (1803) recommending the monitorial system and admitting Bell to have been the original inventor of it, an admission which he afterwards retracted. The Church founded the National Society for the Education of the Poor, in 1816, and appointed Bell superintendent. He afterwards became a prebendary of Westminster, and Master of Sherburn Hospital, Durham. He left £120,000 for the purpose of founding various educational institutions in Edinburgh, Glasgow, Leith, Aberdeen, Inverness, Cupar, and Saint Andrews. Consult Meiklejohn, An Old Educational Reformer (Edinburgh, 1881).
BELL, Sir Charles (1774-1842). A Scottish surgeon, anatomist, and physiologist, well known for his discoveries in connection with the nervous system. He was born in Edinburgh, the son of the Rev. William Bell, of the Episcopal Church. While a mere youth he assisted his brother John in his anatomical lectures and demonstrations. In 1797 he became a member of the Edinburgh College of Surgeons, and soon after was appointed one of the surgeons of the Royal Infirmary. In 1804 he proceeded to London, and for some years lectured with great success on anatomy and surgery at the academy in Great Windmill Street. Admitted, in 1812, a member of the Royal College of Surgeons, London, he was elected one of the surgeons of the Middlesex Hospital, in which in-
