The first practical system of sending messages at all similar to telegraphing, was invented in 1794 by the three Chappe brothers. These three brothers, only boys, were at boarding school. The rules were strict, and did not allow them to visit each other as often as they wanted to. They could see each other from the windows of their rooms so they worked out a way of sending messages. A beam with a small crossbeam at each end was hung on a pivot. The beams and crossbeams could be moved by cords, like the arms of a jumping jack. Each position of the beam and a crossbeam stood for a letter. With this device, it was easy for these boys to spell out messages to each other.

The French government bought the device of the Chappe brothers, building signal stations along the coast, and between Paris and the more important cities. In 1840 there were 1400 miles of signal telegraph. The stations were about three miles apart. The cross-beams of the signal towers were furnished with lights, so that messages could be sent by night as well as by day. An operator could spell out a hundred words an hour.

A system of signaling like that invented by the Chappe brothers was introduced into Russia and England also. There was a line, for example, seventy miles long between London and Portsmouth.

An Englishman wrote in 1828 that the telegraph carried information speedily and distinctly, and that it could be constructed and maintained at little expense.

A similar system was used in America, only large letters were used instead of crossbeams, to spell out the words. Lines were maintained, for example, between New York and Sandy Hook, and between New York and Philadelphia.

"Take this message as quick as lightning," was doubtless an expression often used in connection with messages. It was not a far step from thinking of taking a message as "quick as lightning," to thinking of making lightning carry the message. Messages were sent by electric telegraph as early as 1774. Every few years after that, some inventor brought forward a new system. Hundreds of men were busy, and in 1838 there were upwards of sixty different systems in the field, each inventor working hard to make his the best.

Oersted learned in 1819, that to make the needle of a compass turn to the left or to the right, all that is necessary is to hold a wire near the compass, parallel with the needle, and send an electric current over the wire toward the north or toward the south. In less than a month afterwards, a French scientist pointed out how this discovery could be used in telegraphing messages.

In 1833, Gauss and Weber, two noted German scientists, put up an electric-needle telegraph line, about a mile long. Wires were stretched around a permanent magnet hung at the center on a silk thread. By changing the direction of the electric current, the magnet was turned, at will, to the right or to the left. One turn of the magnet to the right stood for the letter a. One turn to the left stood for e. Two turns to the right stood for i, and so on. Here is the complete telegraphic alphabet of Gauss and Weber. It has often been used by boys and girls, to signal messages to each other, with their hands and arms.

With this code Gauss and Weber sent all kinds of messages. Being too busy to work on their telegraph, they turned it over to Steinheil. Steinheil built and put into use, at Munich, in 1837, his Registering Electro-Magnetic Telegraph. The line was five miles long. Two permanent magnets were hung in the center of a coil of wire. Each magnet could be made, at will, to swing out from the coil. On an arm fastened to the end of each magnet was a little cup for ink. At the bottom and side of the cup was a printing needle. When the magnet swung out, the printing needle touched a moving ribbon of paper, and printed a dot. Dot signals were thus recorded on the paper in two lines.

Steinheil could send messages at the rate of six words a minute, or three hundred and sixty words an hour. His system was adopted by the Bavarian government, and was in use for many years.

Charles Wheatstone, of London, and his business partner also patented, in 1837, an electric-needle telegraph. Five needles were fastened in the center of a diamond-shaped dial, on which the alphabet and numerals were printed. To signal a letter, one needle was turned to the right, and one to the left. The letter signaled was the one at the point where lines running down from the points of the needle crossed. To signal a number only one needle was turned. A line twenty miles long was built, in 1838, on the Great Western Railway. To send messages, it took six wires, one wire to turn each of the five needles, and one to complete the electric circuit, making the system expensive. So Wheatstone invented a two-needle system, and later a single-needle system. From 1838 on, Wheatstone's electric-needle telegraph was in constant use, and for years was the only system which found favor in England.

Many of the great scientists of Europe thus worked to invent a successful system of electric telegraph. But it remained for an American, Samuel F. B. Morse, to invent the most successful system. Morse's system of electric telegraph was so simple, and messages could be sent by it so quickly, that it drove almost every other system out of business. It is the only system now used in most countries. For this reason, Morse is called the inventor of the electric telegraph, although, strictly speaking, that title does not belong to him. He is, however, the inventor of the most successful system; and for his great service in giving to the world this useful invention, he is worthy of the highest honor.

Samuel Finley Breese Morse was born in 1791, at Charlestown, Massachusetts. He was given the best education that was to be had at the time. When seven years old he was sent away from home, to a famous private school, Phillips Academy. There he prepared for Yale University, then Yale College, entering with the class of 1807, and completing the course in 1810.

In those days the sciences did not receive much attention at college. In the little that was taught, Morse took an unusual interest. He studied both chemistry and physics, and he learned almost all there was to be known then about electricity and electric batteries. Once Professor Day, his teacher in physics, sent a current of electricity through a chain in a dark room. Flashes of light could be seen between the links. How little Professor Day knew at the time of the influence this experiment was to have! Many years afterwards, Morse said: "The fact that . . . electricity can be made visible at any . . . part of a circuit was the crude seed which took root in my mind, and grew . . . and finally ripened into the invention of the telegraph."