There is a popular story all over the world about how the mother of the future great inventor Thomas Edison received a letter from school about his expulsion for mental retardation, but presented everything to her son as if the teachers refused to work with such a brilliant child. We checked whether this was really the case.

In canonical form, the story goes something like this:

“One day, Thomas Edison returned home from school and gave his mother a letter from the teacher. Mom read the letter out loud to her son with tears in her eyes: “Your son is a genius. This school is too small, and there are no teachers here who can teach him something. Please teach him yourself.”

Many years after his mother's death, when Edison was already one of the greatest inventors of the century, he one day was looking through old family archives and came across this letter. He opened it and read: “Your son is mentally retarded. We can no longer teach him at school with everyone else. Therefore, we recommend that you teach it yourself at home.”

Edison cried 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 ended up in all sorts of publications, including a large number of motivational books. Several have been filmed based on it video and even a cartoon:

And the above letter are called nothing short of “changing the world.”

But let's look at the dry facts.

Edison really went to school for only a few months (sources say from two to three). His mother taught him to read, write and count, but Thomas was an inquisitive child and discovered a lot for himself. He carried this belief in self-improvement throughout his life.

If you believe biographies inventor on the Library of Congress website, the school teacher actually called the boy “clueless,” which infuriated the woman and she took Thomas out of school forever. Later Thomas will say:

“My mother made me. She was so sincere, so confident in me. And I felt like I had something worth living for, someone I shouldn’t disappoint.”

There is no talk of any letters, much less lies, and this is confirmed by rare interview Edison, which was published in T.P's Weekly on November 29, 1907:

“I once overheard a conversation in which the teacher told the inspector that I was “clueless” and there was no point in keeping me at school any longer. The last one offended me greatly, I burst into tears, ran home and told my mother everything. <…> She returned to school with me and angrily told the teacher that he didn’t know what he was talking about: I have more brains than he himself, etc.”

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