In my article of 12 years ago I enumerated among the uses to which the phonograph would be applied: 1. Letter writing and all kinds of dictation, without the aid of a stenographer. 2. Phonographic books, which would speak to the blind people without effort on their part. 3. The teaching of elocution. 4. Reproduction of music. 5. The "Family Record", a registry of sayings, reminiscences etc, by members of a family, in their own voices: and of the last words of dying persons. 6. Music boxes and toys. 7. Clocks that should announce, in articulate speech, the time for going home, going to meals, etc. 8. The preservation of languages... 9. Educational purposes: such as preserving the explanations made by a teacher... 10. Connection with the telephone, so as to make that invention an auxiliary in the transmission of permanent and invaluable records...

- Tomas Alva Edison, The Phonogram, 1890