Assuming you guys already know how radio waves are generated, let's look at Ed's metaphor in A Book in Every Home. Ed mentions how muscles cannot contract without north and south pole magnets. He is right! Electrical current is running through the muscle fibers, causing a proportional magnetic field to be created. In A Book in Every Home, Ed uses an analogy about the facial muscle when he talks about smiling.
"The most striking neglect that comes to my attention is when one is smiling. A smile is always pleasing if it is regulated but without restraint, it is not. When smiling, the teeth only should be shown. As soon as you show the gums, it spoils the good effect. When showing the gums you are doing triple harm. First, the gums never look good; second, you are making too big creases in the side of your mouth and third, your lips come too wide apart. Especially should a girl be careful not to show too abnormally big mouth. Girls should do nothing that would impair their best looks."
-- This is vaguely allegorical; Ed is describing some kind of arrangement of electrically charged metals. If Ed knew the facial muscles must be magnetized, he also knew they send out radio waves when rapidly contracted and relaxed. Any time Ed references a body part, keep that in mind.
"I have seen moving picture stars, public singers and others with their mouths open so wide that you would think the person lacks refinement, but if they knew how bad it looks they would train it out. No doubt they have practiced before a looking glass, but a looking glass does not show such an enormous opening, because while they are looking at the looking glass they are under restraint and so they really don't know how it looks while they are not watching themselves... Your mother and father will do nothing to embarrass you. Your mother will do it better and it should be started while one is still a baby. The first thing the mothers should do is to watch the baby's mouth so it is not hanging open. The mouth, by hanging open, stretches the upper lip and when kept open while growing, then when fully grown, the lips will not fit together any more. Mothers should keep close watch on their children's behavior. As soon as they notice some action and contraction that is not graceful, they should correct it immediately, because their actions leave their effects. To small children, it doesn't matter how ugly they look, but when they are grown up, the good looks will be the best thing, and one with a disfigured face cannot be satisfied with oneself. The foundation for one's best looks will have to be laid while one is small. A graceful smile is pleasing but if it is not perfect, its pleasing effect is marred. To obtain better results, don't make the smile too big by opening the mouth too wide, drawing the lips over the gums, or drawing one side of the lip more than the other, or drawing both lips to one side and have them twisted. Children should not be encouraged to smile too much, smiling in due time will produce creases in the sides of their mouths. It would be better to save the smiles till they are grown up. Children while they are growing should be watched, closely. They are stretching their mouths with their fingers and are jamming too big objects in their mouths and making ugly faces. All these actions should be forbidden for their future's sake. Eyes should be trained to look in the middle between both lids, never through the forehead. If this is done, it will produce creases in the forehead. When the lids of one eye are more narrow than the other it should be trained out and equalized. In case one leg is shorter and one shoulder lower, they can be disguised so that other people would not notice it. In walking the toes should be carried a little out, by carrying the toes out one can walk better. Shorter steps would make the walking more graceful and those who stoop over, higher heels would help to keep the body more erect. Girls should take smaller steps than boys. By taking smaller steps the body would not jump as much up and down or swing from side to side."
-- This is also allegorical. Here, he is likely talking about part of an electrical machine. Everything he says here is about keeping some system in balance. I find it highly unlikely that Ed actually thought it was worthwhile to train out the slight difference between the patency of the eyelids. That sentence must be referring to some kind of sympathetic resonance or balancing an electrical potential.
"The sweet sixteen had to be a beginner and a likeable girl and with a mild disposition; I had to be deserving of her. Everybody's sweet sixteen should be so high in one's estimation that no temptation could induce one to act behind her back"
-- This sounds like a description of steel. A mild disposition (temperament), elevated to a high altitude (like at the top of the tripod?) such that no other north/south magnets can induce a magnetic field below line of sight.
"Pick out any girl you want but do it before she has anything to do with anybody---as soon as she begins to couple herself with somebody. You watch her every day and some day you will see the girl coming home with a red face. One's face is a window for other people to look in on and when it turns red it shows that there was something done that her moral conscience told her should not have been done. It is shocking to imagine that someone else produced that red face to my girl. In such a case she could not be one hundred per cent sweet. As soon as a girl acquires experience the sweetness begins to leave her right away. The first experience in everything is the most impressive. It should be reserved for the permanent partner---the less of the new experience is left, the cheaper the affair will be. That is the reason why I want a girl the way Mother nature puts her out."
--This is a clear metaphor: girl = iron. When she couples herself with a fresh boy and practices in love-making, that is iron and oxygen being chemically wed to form iron oxide. Iron oxide (red, rust) is not ferromagnetic, hence Ed's description of first degree love-making.
"The first degree love making is when the fresh boy begins to soil the girl by patting, rubbing and squeezing her. They start it in that way but soon it begins to get dull and there is no kick in it, so they have to start in on the second degree and keep on and then by and by, when the right man comes along and when he touches the girl, then he touches her like dead flesh. There is no more response in it because all the response has been worked out with those fresh boys."
Argue if you want, but to me, this is clearly a rust analogy.
"My definition of right is... right is anything in nature that exists without artificial modification and all the others are wrong... Only those are right whose thoughts are based on natural facts and inclinations."