The young man joyfully agreed, and on the first of April, 1871, crossed the line and became for the remainder of his life an American.
For the next two years his telegraphic work was laid aside, if not forgotten.

His success as a teacher of deaf-mutes was sudden and overwhelming.

It was the educational sensation of 1871.

It won him a professorship in Boston University; and brought so many pupils around him that he ventured to open an ambitious "School of Vocal Physiology," which became at once a profitable enterprise.

For a time there seemed to be little hope of his escaping from the burden of this success and becoming an inventor, when, by a most happy coincidence, two of his pupils brought to him exactly the sort of stimulation and practical help that he needed and had not up to this time received.
One of these pupils was a little deaf-mute tot, five years of age, named Georgie Sanders.