A Success Story

After drinking the potion, the maid fell to the ground, unconscious. The six-year-old boy looked at her in disappointment. He did not expect this. He had made the potion by grinding different insects. The whole idea was that since birds could fly after eating insects, there must be something in the insects. Instead of making the maid fly, he nearly caused her death. And as usual he was beaten by his parents. This was not the first time. A little while ago, he had lit the whole timber warehouse on fire to see what happen to wood after burning!

His teachers considered him as a dull and mischievous student because he had no interest in syllabus. On the contrary, he would always ask questions from the teachers about almost everything, and consequently, he was expelled from the school. He was taught by his mother at home until the age of 15 when he started peddling goods in trains. At the time, it was prohibited but his daily insistence compelled the authorities to accede. It was a four-and-a-half hour journey and he thought of utilizing this time. He started to collect news from different stations, handwrote them and set as a newspaper. 

It was a wonderful experience as a one man newspaper!

Once while travelling, his foot slipped and he almost fell from the train only to be saved by a guard who caught him by his ear and in the process he lost half of his hearing power. He set up a small lab in one of the train cars and did his little experiments there until it caught fired. As a result there was a huge blast and he was punished and fired. He started job in a telegraph office. At that time one telegram could be received at a time but he introduced the method of sending and receiving multiple messages at a time by changing the system. After a short time he left and started job at a firm in New York, which was responsible for determining price of gold. He invented a modern calculation machine for them.

He started his own factory and built a lab for his research. He invented an automatic telegram, rectified the system of typewriter, made receiver for telephone along improving its sound quality. Today, CD and DVD is the media for almost everything. The ancestor of this, the gramophone was invented by him. And if that was not enough, he went on to invent cinema!

He invented trams, the road train. He introduced electronic street lights in New York from where it spread around the world. And, not to mention, he invented the electric bulb as well. He introduced cement for construction. Money counting machine, mining techniques, dyeing of leather are only a few of his inventions. He also grew the Rubber plant in America for the 1^st time.

He made 20 thousand failed experiments before he could invent the bulb. He made 10 thousand experiments in order to successfully store electricity in battery. And with having about one thousand inventions to his name, the number of failed experiments runs into hundreds of thousands. But he never lost hope and that was what kept him above all others who failed. He was so obsessed with work that once he expressed his desire that had he been born on Mars, he would have had 40 extra minutes a day and would have contributed more.

I wish our educationists would include the biography of this great man to our national curriculum. Our children will learn that how one single person can bring change by his determination and strong commitment. They will realize that failure is not failure indeed but it is the 1^st step to success. You can never be successful in life if you do not face failures. It will surely inspire our youth to know about the life and struggle of the greatest inventor in human history, Thomas Edison.