"Possibilities of the Phonograph," Cincinnati Commercial, reprinted in the Indianapolis News,
March 30, 1878, p. 4.

It may be thought wild to predict that within the next thirty years we shall become a nation of listeners instead of a nation of readers, and save our eyesight for other and less trying occupations than the perusal of fine or half illegible printed matter.   And yet the probabilities favor the prediction that within that time phonographic machines will be as common and of as daily use as watches and clocks or other household or personal conveniences.

What more agreeable home entertainment than a novel read aloud by the phonographic machine, which never tires, never is hoarse, never coughs, never grows husky, to the family circle.  History, romance, poetry, narratives of travel and adventure, scientific books, sermons--whatever, in fact, interests the human mind, can be reproduced to the ear and in a style perhaps attainable only by professional elocutionists and readers.