Others had found out the facts, but Morse
was the first to perceive the practical significance of those
facts; the first to take steps to make them of service to his
fellows; the first man of them all with the pluck and persistence
to remain steadfast to his great design, through twelve long
years of toil and privation, until his countrymen accepted his
work and found it well done.
Morse was happy in his birth and early training. He was born in
1791, at Charlestown, Massachusetts. His father was a
Congregational minister and a scholar of high standing, who, by
careful management, was able to send his three sons to Yale
College. Thither went young Samuel (or Finley, as he was called
by his family) at the age of fourteen and came under the
influence of Benjamin Silliman, Professor of Chemistry, and of
Jeremiah Day, Professor of Natural Philosophy, afterwards
President of Yale College, whose teaching gave him impulses which
in later years led to the invention of the telegraph. "Mr. Day's
lectures are very interesting," the young student wrote home in
1809; "they are upon electricity; he has given us some very fine
experiments, the whole class taking hold of hands form the
circuit of communication and we all receive the shock apparently
at the same moment." Electricity, however, was only an alluring
study.
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