The story of how the mother of the future great inventor Thomas Edison received a letter from school about his exclusion for mental backwardness, but presented everything to her son as if teachers refuse to work with such a brilliant child is popular. We checked whether it really was.

In canonical form, the story looks something like this:

“Once, Thomas Edison returned home from school and handed his mother a letter from the teacher. Mom read a letter to her son aloud with tears in her eyes: "Your son is a genius. This school is too small, and there are no teachers who can teach him something. Please teach him."

Many years after the death of his mother, when Edison was already one of the greatest inventors of the century, he once reviewed the old family archives and stumbled upon this letter. He opened it and read it: “Your son is mentally retarded. We cannot teach him at school anymore with everyone. Therefore, we recommend that you teach it yourself at home. ”

Edison sobbed for several hours. Then he wrote in his diary: “Thomas Alva Edison was a mentally retarded child. Thanks to his heroic mother, he became one of the greatest geniuses of his age. ”

Of course, this touching story fell into all kinds of publications, including a large number of motivating books. Several video And even a cartoon:

And the aforementioned letter They call it Not otherwise than "changing the world."

But let's take a look at dry facts.

Edison really I went to school for only a few months (sources are called from two to three). Mom taught him to read, write and count, but Thomas was an inquisitive child and discovered a lot for himself. He carried this faith in self -improvement in himself through his whole life.

Believe biographies The inventor on the website of the US Congress library, the school teacher really called the boy “stupid”, which brought the woman to rabies and she forever took Thomas from school. Later Thomas Say:

“My mother made me. She was so sincere, so confident in me. And I felt that I have what I should live for, someone who I cannot be disappointed. ”

There is no question of any letters, and even more so about lies, and this is confirmed by rare interview Edison, which was published in the journal T.P’s Weekly November 29, 1907:

“Once I overheard a conversation in which the teacher told the inspector that I was“ stupid ”and it makes no sense to keep me at school further. The latter offended me very much, I burst out, ran home and told my mother everything. <...> She returned with me to school and angrily told the teacher that he did not know what he was talking about: I have more brains than himself, etc. ".

Thus, the protagonist of this story indirectly confirmed that there was no letter. The story with him is only a beautiful fairy tale, which, however, grew out of real facts.