Page 159 - Green Butterfly Book 2

Date:
unit 9
Thomas Edison
Read the story carefully.
By Hattie E. Macomber (From Stories of Great Inventors)
Thomas A. Edison was born in Milan, Ohio, February 11, 1847. Thomas had one great help—his mother. She had been a teacher. Her greatest wish for her son was that he should love knowledge.
Thomas had a quick mind. He inquired into everything. He was fond of getting every little thing well learned. He never did things by halves. He loved to try experiments. He went to a regular school for only two months. His father and mother were his teachers.
His father, to encourage him to
read, paid him for every book
which he read. But Thomas did not
need to be paid to read, for he read with pleasure every volume he could get hold of.
When he was ten years old, he was reading such books as Gibbon’s “History of Rome,” Hume’s “History of England,” and Sear’s “History of the World.”
Besides these, he had read several books about chemistry. He loved to read about great men and their deeds.
When he played, it was at building plank roads, digging caves, and exploring the banks of the canal.
When only twelve years of age, he was obliged to go out into the world and earn his own living. He obtained a place as train-boy on the Grand Trunk Railroad, in Eastern Michigan.
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