Houston HOUSTON, EDWIN JAMES (July 9,1847- Mar. i, 1914), educator and electrical engineer, was born at Alexandria, Va., the son of John Mason and Mary (Larmour) Houston. He at- tended the public grammar schools and the Cen- tral High School of Philadelphia, from which he was graduated with the degree of A.B. in 1864. For a year he taught at Girard College, Phila- delphia, of which he was prefect in 1865. He then spent a short time at the universities of Ber- lin and Heidelberg, returning in 1867 to accept appointment to the newly established chair of physical geography and civil engineering at the Central High School. Shortly afterwards civil engineering was separated from physical geog- raphy and Houston's department became physical geography and natural philosophy, which sub- jects he taught until his resignation from the High School in 1894. A tireless worker, ap- parently, he planned courses of study for his de- partment, designed methods of instruction, and finding that textbooks in the natural sciences were inadequate or lacking, wrote most of those used in his courses. Among them are Elements of Physical Geography (1675), Elements of Nat- ural Philosophy (1879), and Outlines of For- estry (1893). He was one of the earliest edu- cators to appreciate the value of the laboratory method of instruction, and through his efforts the school became notably well equipped. He is said to have done as much as any other one person in raising the Central High School to the high po- sition which it held among the schools and col- leges of the country at the end of the nineteenth century. Both Houston and his colleague Elihu Thom- son, professor of chemistry, were particularly interested in the practical applications of elec- tricity ; and they worked together to produce, in 1879, ^e Thomson-Houston system of arc light- ing. This system, which was the first to maintain constant current in the circuit by the shifting of the brushes of the generator as the load varied, offered such an improvement over the wasteful method then in use of adding lights to the circuit at the power station as lights were taken out of the exterior circuit, that it met with immediate success. The Thomson-Houston patent of Mar. i, 1881 (No. 238,315) describes a device for shifting the brushes automatically. The Ameri- can Electric Company of Philadelphia, organized to commercialize the Thomson-Houston inven- tions, went through several reorganizations, be- coming, much later, a part of the General Electric Company. Though Houston was not associated with the business after 1882, the success of the enterprise focused his efforts, as an educator and Houston scientist, upon electricity, and he became inter- nationally known in that field. In 1884 he was a member of the United States Electrical Com- mission which met at Philadelphia; he was the chief engineer of the International Electrical Ex- position, there, and was president of Section C of the International Electric Congress at Chicago in 1893. He was the first president of the elec- trical section of the franklin Institute and editor of the Institute's Journal. He was a charter member of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers and its president in 1893 and 1894. Besides his continuous research in the scien- tific problems of electricity, he devoted much time to the popular exposition of electrical theory through lectures and textbooks. With A. E. Ken- nelly he wrote what were probably the first ele- mentary electrical textbooks, published as the Elementary Electro-Technical Series (10 vols., 1895-1906). Among the subjects treated were the electric telegraph, electric railways, incan- descent lighting, and electric heating. Resigning from the High School in 1894, he began practice as a consulting electrical engineer, in association with Kennelly, maintaining an office in Phila- delphia until his death in 1914. His important writings other than those mentioned were Elec- trical Engineering Leaflets (3 vols., 1895) and Recent Types of Dynamo-Electric Machinery (1898), both written with Kennelly; and his Dictionary of Electrical Words, Terms, and Phrases (1889). Towards the end of his life he wrote many boys* books of adventure. He never married. He died at Philadelphia. [Proc. Am. Inst. Electrical Engrs., vol. XXXIII, no. 4 (Apr, 1914); F. S. Edmonds, Hist, of the Central High School of Phila. (1902) ; Studies in Applied Elec- tricity (1901) ; Electrical World (N. Y.), Sept. 13, 1890, May 14, 1892, Mar. 7, 1914; Electrical Rev. (London), Mar. 20, 1914; /our. of the Franklin Inst., Apr. 1914; Who's Who in America, 1912-13; Public Ledger (Pbila.), Mar. 2, 1914.] F.A.T. HOUSTON, GEORGE SMITH (Jan. 17, i8n-Dec. 31, 1879), governor of Alabama, United States senator, was born in Williamson County, Tenn., the son of David Houston, a farmer, and his wife, Hannah Pugh Reagan. Houston's father's family was one of many which left Ireland in the eighteenth-century migration, his paternal grandparents having come to North Carolina about 1750 from County Tyrone. His mother was of Welsh ancestry. In 1821 David and Hannah Houston moved to Lauderdale County, Ala., and here their son was educated. He read law and was admitted to the bar in 1831, Admission to the bar led him directly into a po- litical career, for he was quickly recognized as one of the most effective stump speakers in the 26l