A GREAT INVENTOR.

Taranaki Daily News, 10 May 1918, Page 7

A GREAT INVENTOR.

WHAT HUMANITY OWES TO THOMAS A. EDISON. Few people realise tho number of modern luxuries that are directly the result of the genius of "the wizard of electricity" (writes Walter L. Jolmson in the San Francisco'"Chronicle.") In all the annals of history there is no man who has accomplished more than Tliomos A. Edison, the world's premier inventor, whose accomplishments within the last fifty years have so radically changed old standards of living. The flooding of the world with light second only to that of the aim itself was one of Edison's gift to humanity when he invented the carbon filament lamp. He has captured tho evanescent sounds of the human voice through the phonograph; his dictating machine has reduced the cost of doing business; his dictagraph has been very successful in the detection of crime, and through his invention moving pictures were made possible. Edison's early achievements in tele- 1 yliony are in 110 small measure responsible for the fact that to-day the human veice may span continents, while his improvements of the telegraph have done wonders. The Edison storage battery 'has made a new epoch in electricity and •placed the electric automobile on tho market. A thousand other Edison inventions, all of practical use, have added io the present-dav comfort of living, for long ago this great genius vowed he would never waste time on anything for which there was not a practical use. Probably there is no man in America whose life is so full of achievements. Born 11th February, 1847, at Milan, Ohio, Thomas Alva Edison received exactly three months schooling. "Too stupid to learn," his taacher said of him, and after this one experience he obtained his education from his mother and by reading any books he could ob-

tain. At 10 Thomas displayed his first interest in chemistry and started hig first experiments, but lack of funds handicapped him. At 12 he was working as a newsboy on the trains of the Grand Trunk Railway running between Port Huron and Detroit. At 15 lie added journalism to bis accomplishments, bought a press, which he installed in the baggage car of the train, and then WTote, set up, and sold the "Grand Trunk Herald," which he described as "The first and only newspaper ever published on a railroad train." The paper had over 400 regular subscribers, and ran through forty weekly numbers. Its death was caused by the elimination of Edison, who had set up a laboratory on the train, and one day permitted a stick of phosphorus to fall upon the floor and set fire to the car.