THE MAN WHO NEVER GAVE UP

Thomas Alva Edison was a great American inventor. When he was a child, he was always asking questions and trying out new ideas. No matter how hard it was, he never gave up.

Young Tom was in school for only three months. His teacher didn't understand why this new pupil had so many strange questions. Most of the questions had nothing to do with his lessons. The teacher didn't want to teach Tom any more. He asked Tom's mother to take the boy home. Tom's mother taught him to read and write, and she found him to be a very good pupil. He learnt very fast and became very interested in science. When he was only ten, he built a chemistry lab for himself.

At the age of 12, he started writing his own newspaper. He printed it and sold copies on the trains. It was the first newspaper sold on trains in America.

One day in August, 1862, Edison saw a little boy playing on the railway tracks at a station. A train was coming near quickly, and the boy was too frightened to move. Edison rushed out and carried the boy to safety. The boy's father was so thankful that he taught Edison how to send messages by telegraph. Edison soon became very good at it and later left home to work in different cities. This gave him a new start in life. At that time, he was only 16.

When he was 22, he moved to New York to be an inventor. With the money he made from some of his earlier inventions, Thomas Edison opened up his own lab in New Jersey. There he worked most of his lifetime. During his lifetime, he had 1,093 inventions. He never gave up. He would keep trying out different ideas until he invented what he wanted.

Thomas Edison thought that no matter how difficult something seemed, he could find the answer. He said that he thought more of a person who has one idea and makes it work, than of a person who has a thousand ideas but doesn't do anything about them.