Originally published in Pearson's Weekly (C. Arthur Pearson Ltd.) vol.1 #34 (14 Mar 1891).
Some years ago Professor Nymanover, a learned Swede, published an essay, in which he suggested the invention of "reading machines," or "whispering machines," as they were variously called; and he further proposed the establishment of "machine libraries." The Professor suggested that, by the application of the phonograph, books could be read aloud. For convenience sake, he would place the machine in the hat, and have the sounds conveyed to the ear by wires.
Men have a desire to read more, but pressure of business and long hours of labour make it, for most of them, impossible. A painfully significant sight may he seen any day on London streets. Through dense jostling crowds, in jammed omnibuses, in dimly-lighted railway carriages, you may see men of all conditions, with book or paper in hand, trying to read, risking their eyesight to snatch something from the treasures of knowledge and inspiration.
This widespread hunger would be satisfied, abundantly, fully satisfied, by this wonderful little whispering machine, this automatic reader of the future. It would accompany men to the office, to the factory, to the bench, to the field, to the ditch, down into the mines, whispering into their ears greater thoughts and imaginations, strengthening, ennobling, and refining the mind. This good genius of humanity would be a companion to the house-wife and the maid; and as the labouring man would be by it the better fitted for his duties, so the wife and the maid would be the better fitted for theirs.
Who can predict the advances of science under the increased intellectual vigour of men, and the greater length of time they would be able to devote to their labours. The value of the life of a man of science, as a factor in the world's progress, would be more than doubled.
Inventors, practical scientists, give us what we ask, and before the increased powers and knowledge of coming generations other problems, which perplex you now and seem to you insoluble, will be solved with ease, and other and greater inventions and discoveries will be made of which we in our day scarcely dare to dream. Let us plead for the precedence which this invention should have before all others at present occupying the minds of practical men of science.
It is a perfectly safe statement that, as things now are, one half the power of literature is lost. No book is ever read as its author intended it should be read. Printing was a great invention; but it is manifestly unequal to the task of making known the treasures genius entrusts to it.
The full realization of what the printed book was intended to do will be the glorious mission of the phonographic reading machine. The written word has been made immortal; the genius of man will soon give immortal life to the spoken word. For the first time authors will truly live in their works, the generations will mingle in closer communion, and the dead will speak to the living.