Electricity for Boys

A workshop bench provides the starting point for James Slough Zerbe's illustrated guide to electrical devices. Written for young learners, the book moves from magnets and coils to batteries, measuring instruments, bells and switches. Chapters on telegraphy and the telephone connect basic ideas about current with the equipment used to send messages and carry speech. The explanations follow the parts of each apparatus, using diagrams to show how those parts fit together.

Later sections extend the discussion to electric lighting, transformers, heating and the use of current to separate substances. A detailed telephone passage traces connections between two stations and explains how lifting a receiver changes the circuit. For readers interested in the history of engineering education, these descriptions show how technical knowledge was presented through familiar machines. The opening warning identifies the experiments as dangerous to attempt, so the book belongs in historical reading rather than present-day workshop practice.