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281
Heroes of the Telegraph
·
John Munro
185
Mr.
Edison
tells
us
that
his
son
never
had
any
boyhood
in
the
ordinary
sense,
his
early
playthings
being
steam-engines
and
the
mechanical
powers.
But
it
is
like
enough
that
he
trapped
a
wood-chuck
now
and
then,
or
caught
a
white-fish
with
the
rest.
He
was
greedy
of
knowledge,
and
by
the
age
of
ten
had
read
the
PENNY
ENCYCLOPAEDIA;
Hume's
HISTORY
OF
ENGLAND;
Dubigne's
HISTORY
OF
THE
REFORMATION;
Gibbon's
DECLINE
AND
FALL
OF
THE
ROMAN
EMPIRE,
and
Sears'
HISTORY
OF
THE
WORLD.
His
father,
we
are
told,
encouraged
his
love
of
study
by
making
him
a
small
present
for
every
book
he
read.
At
the
age
of
twelve
he
became
a
train-boy,
or
vendor
of
candy,
fruit,
and
journals
to
the
passengers
on
the
Grand
Trunk
Railway,
between
Port
Huron
and
Detroit.
The
post
enabled
him
to
sleep
at
home,
and
to
extend
his
reading
by
the
public
library
at
Detroit.
Like
the
boy
Ampere,
he
proposed,
it
is
said,
to
master
the
whole
collection,
shelf
by
shelf,
and
worked
his
way
through
fifteen
feet
of
the
bottom
one
before
he
began
to
select
his
fare.
Even
the
PRINCIPIA
of
Newton
never
daunted
him;
and
if
he
did
not
understand
the
problems
which
have
puzzled
some
of
the
greatest
minds,
he
read
them
religiously,
and
pressed
on.
Burton's
ANATOMY
OF
MELANCHOLY,
Ure's
DICTIONARY
OF
CHEMISTRY,
did
not
come
amiss;
but
in
Victor
Hugo's
LES
MISERABLES
and
THE
TOILERS
OF
THE
SEA
he
found
a
treasure
after
his
own
heart.
Like
Ampere,
too,
he
was
noted
for
a
memory
which
retained
many
of
the
facts
thus
impressed
upon
it,
as
the
sounds
are
printed
on
a
phonogram.
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