Although he had only a few months' regular schooling, at ten Thomas
Alva Edison had read and thought more than many youths of twenty.
Gibbon's "Rome," Hume's "England," Sears's "History of the World,"
besides several books on chemistry,--a subject in which he was even
then deeply interested,--were familiar friends. Yet he was not, by any
means, a serious bookworm. On the contrary, he was as full of fun and
mischief as any healthy boy of his age.
The little fellow's sunny face and pleasing manners made him a general
favorite, and when circumstances forced him from the parent nest into
the big bustling world at the age of twelve, he became the most popular
train boy on the Grand Trunk Railroad in central Michigan, while his
keen powers of observation and practical turn of mind made him the most
successful. His ambition soared far beyond the selling of papers, song
books, apples, and peanuts, and his business ability was such that he
soon had three or four boys selling his wares on commission.
His interest in chemistry, however, had not abated, and his busy brain
now urged him to try new fields. He exchanged some of his papers for
retorts and other simple apparatus, bought a copy of Fiesenius's
"Qualitative Analysis," and secured the use of an old baggage car as a
laboratory. Here, surrounded by chemicals and experimenting apparatus,
he spent some of the happiest hours of his life.
But even this was not a sufficient outlet for the energies of the
budding inventor. Selling papers had naturally aroused his interest in
printing and editing, and with Edison interest always manifested itself
in action. In buying papers, he had, as usual, made use of his eyes,
and, with the little knowledge of printing picked up in this way, he
determined to start a printing press and edit a paper of his own.
He first purchased a quantity of old type from the Detroit Free Press.
Then he put a printing press in the baggage car, which did duty as
printing and editorial office as well as laboratory, and began his
editorial labors. When the first copy of the Grand Trunk Herald was put
on sale, it would be hard to find a happier boy than its owner was.
No matter that the youthful editor's "Associated Press" consisted of
baggage men and brakemen, or that the literary matter contributed to
the Grand Trunk Herald was chiefly railway gossip, with some general
information of interest to passengers, the little three-cent sheet
became very popular. Even the great London Times deigned to notice it,
as the only journal in the world printed on a railway train.
But, successful as he was in his editorial venture, Edison's best love
was given to chemistry and electricity, which latter subject he had
begun to study with his usual ardor. And well it was for the world when
the youth of sixteen gave up train and newspaper work, that no poverty,
no difficulties, no ridicule, no "hard luck," none of the trials and
obstacles he had to encounter in after life, had power to chill or
discourage the genius of the master inventor of the nineteenth century.