But Edison seems to have been the first
to organise a staff of trained assistants to hunt up useful facts in
books, old and modern, and discover fresh ones by experiment, in order
to develop his ideas or suggest new ones, together with skilled workmen
to embody them in the fittest manner; and all with the avowed object of
taking out patents, and introducing the novel apparatus as a commercial
speculation. He did not manufacture his machines for sale; he simply
created the models, and left their multiplication to other people.
There are different ways of looking at Nature:
'To some she is the goddess great;
To some the milch-cow of the field;
Their business is to calculate
The butter she will yield.'
The institution has proved a remarkable success. From it has emanated a
series of marvellous inventions which have carried the name of Edison
throughout the whole civilised world. Expense was disregarded in making
the laboratory as efficient as possible; the very best equipment was
provided, the ablest assistants employed, and the profit has been
immense. Edison is a millionaire; the royalties from his patents alone
are said to equal the salary of a Prime Minister.
Although Edison was the master spirit of the band, it must not be
forgotten that his assistants were sometimes co-inventors with himself.
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