Editing Alexander Graham Bell (section)

==Continuing experimentation==
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In 1872, Bell became professor of Vocal Physiology and Elocution at the [[Boston University]] School of Oratory. During this period, he alternated between Boston and Brantford, spending summers in his Canadian home. At Boston University, Bell was "swept up" by the excitement engendered by the many scientists and inventors living in the city. He continued his research in sound and endeavoured to find a way to transmit musical notes and articulate speech, but although absorbed by his experiments, he found it difficult to devote enough time to experimentation. With days and evenings occupied by his teaching and private classes, Bell began to stay awake late into the night, running experiment after experiment in rented facilities at his boarding house. Keeping "night owl" hours, he worried that his work would be discovered and took great pains to lock up his notebooks and laboratory equipment. Bell had a specially made table where he could place his notes and equipment inside a locking cover.{{sfn|Town|1988|p=15}} His health deteriorated as he had severe headaches.{{sfn|Groundwater|2005|p=39}} Returning to Boston in autumn 1873, Bell made a far-reaching decision to concentrate on his experiments in sound.

Giving up his lucrative private Boston practice, Bell retained only two students, six-year-old "Georgie" Sanders, deaf from birth, and 15-year-old [[Mabel Gardiner Hubbard|Mabel Hubbard]]. Each played an important role in the next developments. Georgie's father, Thomas Sanders, a wealthy businessman, offered Bell a place to stay in nearby [[Salem, Massachusetts|Salem]] with Georgie's grandmother, complete with a room to "experiment". Although the offer was made by Georgie's mother and followed the year-long arrangement in 1872 where her son and his nurse had moved to quarters next to Bell's boarding house, it was clear that Mr. Sanders backed the proposal. The arrangement was for teacher and student to continue their work together, with free room and board thrown in.{{sfn|Town|1988|p=16}} Mabel was a bright, attractive girl ten years Bell's junior who became the object of his affection. Having lost her hearing after a near-fatal bout of [[scarlet fever]] close to her fifth birthday,<ref>{{cite book |last=Toward |first=Lilias M. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WXjSAAAACAAJ |title=Mabel Bell: Alexander's Silent Partner |location=Toronto, Ontario |publisher=Methuen |date=1984 |page=1 |isbn=978-0-458-98090-1 }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |author-link=Dorothy Harley Eber |last=Eber |first=Dorothy Harley |title=Genius at Work: Images of Alexander Graham Bell |location=Toronto, Ontario |publisher=[[McClelland and Stewart]] |date=1991 |orig-year=1982 |edition=reprint |page=43 |isbn=978-0-7710-3036-9 }}</ref>{{refn| {{harvp|Eber|1991|p=43}} claimed that Mabel had scarlet fever in New York "''...shortly before her fifth birthday...''"; however, {{harvp|Toward|1984}} provided a detailed chronology of the event claiming "...&nbsp;shortly after their arrival in New York [in January 1863]" when Mabel would have been at least five years and five weeks of age. Mabel's exact age when she became deaf would later play a part in the debate on the effectiveness of [[Manualism and oralism|manual versus oral education for deaf children]], as children who are older at the onset of deafness retain greater vocalization skills and are thus more successful in oral education programmes. Some of the debate centred on whether Mabel had to relearn oral speech from scratch, or whether she never lost it.|group=N}} she had learned to [[Lip reading|read lips]] but her father, Gardiner Greene Hubbard, Bell's benefactor and personal friend, wanted her to work directly with her teacher.<ref>{{cite book |last=Dunn |first=Andrew |title=Alexander Graham Bell |series=(Pioneers of Science) |location=East Sussex, UK |publisher=Wayland Publishers |date=1990 |page=20 |isbn=978-1-85210-958-5 }}</ref>