EDISON
On February 11, 1847 Thomas Alva Edison was born to Samuel and Nancy Edison in the tiny back room of their quaint brick house. The family lived in the canal village of Milan, Ohio, where Samuel was a successful wooden shingle manufacturer and Nancy was a retired school teacher. Known as "Al" in his youth, Edison was the youngest of four children. His mother had given birth to six before Al, three of which were sickly and died in infancy. This, coupled with the fact that he was the "very image of his mother", made Nancy Edison fiercely protective of her frail, final child (North 13). Although he was also a fragile infant, Al grew into a rambunctious and curious little boy. He was always busy experimenting in and exploring the enticing world around him. "His early experiments included sitting for hours on a nest of goose eggs to see if he could make them hatch. With scrap lumber from one of the sawmills he constructed little plank roads and villages. While trying to dig out a nest of bumblebees he was bunted by an angry ram. Life was continuously exciting" (North 18). He loved to take risks, and was fearless against the prospect of his own mortality. In addition to his explorative antics, little Al asked endless questi
A year after the family was established in their new town, Al was sent to a small tuition school taught by the Reverend Engle and his wife. Al's experience in this little school was brief and unpleasant. The Engle's taught using rote memorization, but young Al wanted to understand what he was learning. He began with his relentless questioning, but the Engle's had no patience for his curiosity. Reverend Engle would punish the boy and send him home in tears. Word got back to Al's mother that the Reverend called her son "addled." Furious by this, she stormed up to the school and gave the Reverend a piece of her mind. "This boy is brighter than you are," she exclaimed, and of course she was correct. Three months after he had started, Nancy took him out of school and taught him herself (Adler 15). ons of anyone who would listen. When he was three years old, covered wagons traveled through Milan on their way to the gold rush in California. Al would ask of the travelers: Where are you from? Where are you going? Why? What for? According to Edison, as he reflected back on those childhood days, "This was my first impression of a great world beyond. I had a great longing to climb those prairie schooners - just to see where they were going. Gold didn't mean a thing on earth to me - in fact it hasn't meant much to me all my life. But I did want to know where those wagons went when they disappeared down the road" (Miller 35). This image was to become a metaphor for his life. Al asked questions of the townspeople, as well. He would venture down to the shipyards and examine every tool that the workmen used, harassing them until they provided him with an adequate answer for the tools use
Some common words found in the essay are:
According Edison, Nancy Edison, Clair River, Word Al's, Reverend Engle, Ohio Samuel, Marion Al's, Experimental Philosophy, Samuel Edison, House Grove, miller 35, st clair river, move family, brick house, according edison, port huron, reverend engle, nancy edison, clair river, school taught, st clair,
Approximate Word count = 1154
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)
|
