At Cartstatt he was so diligent as to compress the four years’ course into three, and graduated in 1873.  Returning home during an epidemic of cholera, he was stricken down by the disease and suffered so seriously from the consequences that his studies were interrupted for fully two years.  But the time was not wasted, for he had become passionately fond of experimenting, and as much as his means and leisure permitted devoted his energies to electrical study and investigation.  Up to this period it had been his father’s intention to make a priest of him, and the idea hung over the young physicist like a very sword of Damocles.  Finally he prevailed upon his worthy but reluctant sire to send him to Gratz in Austria to finish his studies at the Polytechnic School, and to prepare for work as professor of mathematics and physics.  At Gratz he saw and operated a Gramme machine for the first time, and was so struck with the objections to the use of commutators and brushes that he made up his mind there and then to remedy that defect in dynamo-electric machines.  In the second year of his course he abandoned the intention of becoming a teacher and took up the engineering curriculum.  After three years of absence he returned home, sadly, to see his father die; but, having resolved to settle down in Austria, and recognizing the value of linguistic acquirements, he went to Prague and then to Buda-Pesth with the view of mastering the languages he deemed necessary.  Up to this time he had never realized the enormous sacrifices that his parents had made in promoting his education, but he now began to feel the pinch and to grow unfamiliar with the image of Francis Joseph I. There was considerable lag between his dispatches and the corresponding remittance from home; and when the mathematical expression for the value of the lag assumed the shape of an eight laid flat on its back, Mr. Tesla became a very fair example of high thinking and plain living, but he made up his mind to the struggle and determined to go through depending solely on his own resources.  Not desiring the fame of a faster, he cast about for a livelihood, and through the help of friends he secured a berth as assistant in the engineering department of the government telegraphs.  The salary was five dollars a week.  This brought him into direct contact with practical electrical work and ideas, but it is needless to say that his means did not admit of much experimenting.  By the time he had extracted several hundred thousand square and cube roots for the public benefit, the limitations, financial and otherwise, of the position had become painfully apparent, and he concluded that the best thing to do was to make a valuable invention.  He proceeded at once to make inventions, but their value was visible only to the eye of faith, and they brought no grist to the mill.  Just at this time the telephone made its appearance in Hungary, and the success of that great invention determined his career, hopeless as