Just a Boy

For two generations of American boys, the name of A. C. (for Alfred Carlton) Gilbert has evoked the magic of discovery and invention. The firm that Gilbert founded and built into the nation's leading maker of scientific and educational toys, New Haven's A. C. Gilbert Co., pours forth a whole world of challenging and instructive toys that range from his famous Erector set and American Flyer scale-model electric trains to compact lessons in chemistry, biology and physics. Far more than a successful businessman (his firm now sells $13 million a year in some 50 items), Gilbert was long a revered mentor to thousands of budding young U.S. scientists. Each year thousands of boys write to New Haven about their hopes and problems--and always get an answer. A chemistry teacher at Yale once discovered that 70% of his class got their introduction to the subject through Gilbert's chemistry sets.

Life Is a Game. "I've remained a boy at heart," said Gilbert, "I've introduced only items that appealed to me--and I figured they would appeal to all boys." Gilbert's long boyhood began in Salem, Ore., where he won his first contest--a tricycle race--when he was seven, and immediately began to form the philosophy that ruled his life: "Everything in life is a game, and the important thing is to win." A frail boy, Gilbert built himself into a superb athlete, became an expert at wrestling, track, bag punching, pole vaulting and gymnastics (he broke a world's record--since broken again--by chinning himself 63 times). At Yale, where he studied medicine to prepare himself to be a physical education director, he broke the world's record for pole vaulting (12 ft., 7 3/4 in., v. the present outdoor record of 15 ft., 9 1/4 in.), went on to win a gold medal at the 1908 Olympic games.

Gilbert helped pay his way through Yale by mystifying audiences with magic tricks, soon began making simple magic kits for students. When a department store began selling his kits, he set up the Mysto Manufacturing Co. in a New Haven tool shed and, after he received his M.D., went into business. He did not do well until he got the idea for the Erector set while absentmindedly watching a network of girders being erected for the electrification of the New Haven Railroad. He and his wife made the first set from cardboard parts. In 1916 he changed his firm's name to the A. C. Gilbert Co.

Atomic Holocaust? Gilbert went on to become a tycoon. He bought a 600-acre estate outside New Haven, called it Paradise, and stocked it with fish, game and trophies from hunting expeditions. He insisted on punching the time clock each day as he reported for work with his 2,000 employees (he also punched a bag daily), often showed up in old, patched clothes. He kept up his interest in sports as a pole vaulting coach at Yale for many years (he authored the Encyclopaedia Britannica's article on pole vaulting) and, ever the perfectionist, gave up golf after getting his score down to 80 because "I cannot master this game."

The only real disappointment of his business career was an atomic energy set that he introduced a few years ago, with a Geiger counter, uranium-bearing ore and other nuclear equipment. Gilbert was dismayed to discover that people had such confidence in his sets (Columbia University bought five for its physics department) that they feared that boys would make atomic bombs. After a flood of protests, Gilbert dropped the set.

In recent years A. C. Gilbert complained that the flow of ideas no longer came as quickly as it used to. Early this month he suffered a heart attack, and fortnight ago went to Boston's New England Baptist Hospital for treatment. There last week, just when he seemed to be getting his athlete's second wind, Alfred Carlton Gilbert died of another heart attack, still young at 76.

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