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Alexander Graham Bell is of great importance in the world of communications. He is best known for his invention, the telephone. He is also known for his association with teaching the deaf and being the president of National Geographic. His background and early education had a great influence on his career. Bell was born on March 3,1847 in Edinburgh, Scotland. His father, Alexander Melville Bell, taught deaf mutes to speak, wrote textbooks on correct speech. His father was the inventor of "visible speech", a code that indicated the position and action of the throat, tongue, and lips in uttering various sounds. The "visible speech" symbols helped to teach the deaf how to "speak". Alexander's mother, Eliza Grace Symonds, was an accomplished musician and portrait painter. When Graham was around twelve his mother began to lose her ability to hear. Graham became an expert in "Visible Speech" so he could help his mother and his father with teaching people. Alexander and his two brothers helped their father give public demonstrations of "visible speech", in 1862. Around the same time, Graham applied for a job as a student teacher at Weston House, an all boys' school near Edinburgh. He taught music and speech in exchange for