Family background; identification with and influence of mentor Harvey Fletcher; bachelor's degree; calling as a Mormon missionary in Chicago, graduate course in physics with Albert A. Michelson. Work on electronics and acoustics at Western Electric at the invitation of Fletcher; influence of the work of Hendrik Johannes van der Bijl and Harold D. Arnold. Resumption of graduate studies at University of Chicago in 1919 and recollection of his work there with Michelson and Robert Millikan; change of dissertation topic to investigation of a hearing problem using vacuum tube circuits.