Editing Alexander Graham Bell (section)

===First invention===
As a child, Bell displayed a curiosity about his world; he gathered botanical specimens and ran experiments at an early age. His best friend was Ben Herdman, a neighbour whose family operated a flour mill. At the age of 12, Bell built a homemade device that combined rotating paddles with sets of nail brushes, creating a simple [[dehusking]] machine that was put into operation at the mill and used steadily for a number of years.{{sfn|Bruce|1990|p=16}} In return, Ben's father John Herdman gave both boys the run of a small workshop in which to "invent".{{sfn|Bruce|1990|p=16}}

From his early years, Bell showed a sensitive nature and a talent for art, poetry, and music that his mother encouraged. With no formal training, he mastered the piano and became the family's pianist.{{sfn|Gray|2006|p=8}} Though normally quiet and introspective, he revelled in mimicry and "voice tricks" akin to [[ventriloquism]] that entertained family guests.{{sfn|Gray|2006|p=8}} Bell was also deeply affected by his mother's gradual deafness (she began to lose her hearing when he was 12), and learned a manual finger language so he could sit at her side and tap out silently the conversations swirling around the family parlour.{{sfn|Gray|2006|p=9}} He also developed a technique of speaking in clear, modulated tones directly into his mother's forehead, whereby she would hear him with reasonable clarity.<ref>{{cite book |last=Mackay |first=James |title=Sounds Out of Silence: A life of Alexander Graham Bell |location=Edinburgh, UK |publisher=Mainstream Publishing |date=1997 |page=25 |isbn=978-1-85158-833-6 }}</ref> Bell's preoccupation with his mother's deafness led him to study [[acoustics]].

His family was long associated with the teaching of elocution: his grandfather, Alexander Bell, in London, his uncle in [[Dublin]], and his father, in Edinburgh, were all elocutionists. His father published a variety of works on the subject, several of which are still well known, especially ''The Standard Elocutionist'' (1860),{{sfn|Gray|2006|p=8}} which appeared in Edinburgh in 1868. ''The Standard Elocutionist'' appeared in 168 British editions and sold over 250,000 copies in the United States alone. It explains methods to instruct [[deaf-mute]]s (as they were then known) to articulate words and read other people's lip movements to decipher meaning. Bell's father taught him and his brothers not only to write [[Visible Speech]] but to identify any symbol and its accompanying sound.{{sfn|Petrie|1975|p=7}} Bell became so proficient that he became a part of his father's public demonstrations and astounded audiences with his abilities. He could decipher Visible Speech representing virtually every language, including [[Latin]], [[Scottish Gaelic]], and even [[Sanskrit]], accurately reciting written tracts without any prior knowledge of their pronunciation.{{sfn|Petrie|1975|p=7}}