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not a bit of it, it’s only puttering around
Anyone can hook up a battery and an electric bell and make it ring, but that isn’t experimenting; not a bit of it — it’s only puttering around. To experiment means to make a thing, to do something, to see some effect and then find out the cause of it, and never rest until you know eactly how it was produced and what produced it.
ex A. Frederick Collins, “Experimenting with Electricity,” in Boys’ Life 6:2 (April 1916) : 22-23, 38, 39
opens to page 39 at archive.org