"Edison addled" note to mother: Poppycock, right?

[Schlick]

This came across my facebook feed. Can anyone here give credence to it? Otherwise I feel it is poppycock!

One day Thomas Edison came home and gave
a paper to his mother. He told her, "My teacher
gave this paper to me and told me to only give
it to my mother."

His mother's eyes were tearful as she read the
letter out loud to her child: Your son is a
genius. This school is too small for him and
doesn't have enough good teachers for
training him. Please teach him yourself.

Many, many years after Edison's mother died
and he was now one of the greatest inventors
of the century, one day he was looking through
old family things. Suddenly he saw a folded
paper in the corner of a drawer in a desk. He
took it and opened it up. On the paper was
written: Your son is addled [mentally ill]. We
won't let him come to school any more.

Edison cried for hours and then he wrote in his
diary: "Thomas Alva Edison was an addled
child that, by a hero mother, became the
genius of the century."

"[The internet:] where anyone in the world can write anything they want - so you know it's accurate." -Michael Scott, Dunder Mifflin Paper Co.

[colmike1]

My wife, a longtime educator, has heard this story connected with several different famous Americans (including Edison & Mark Twain). Although Edison was sent home from school for being "unteachable", we believe the author has taken some poetic license with the story.

[TinfoilPhono]

As Abraham Lincoln famously wrote in 1864, "The problem with Internet quotes is that you can't always depend upon their accuracy."

[VintageTechnologies]

I read several Edison biographies that were old even when I read them as a kid. They told that story, and the teacher's note said Edison was "addled". Being young, I had to look that definition up! I don't recall if/how Edison's mother explained it to him. Edison did some crazy things that kids will do to see what would happen. I would not be surprised if the modern education system today would prescribe him Ritalin or some other drug.

[Curt A]

I read several Edison biographies that were old even when I read them as a kid. They told that story, and the teacher's note said Edison was "addled". Being young, I had to look that definition up! I don't recall if/how Edison's mother explained it to him. Edison did some crazy things that kids will do to see what would happen. I would not be surprised if the modern education system today would prescribe him Ritalin or some other drug.

Maybe he was in need of some shock therapy and that inspired him to come up with an answer....

[Cody K]

Dude was addled. He tried to make phonographs out of cement. End of story.

[Victrolacollector]

Some of the most eccentric people are the most inventive and wealthy.

I would think that in 2015, he would been prescribed ritalin or some other psychotropic drug.

Maybe as a society we just need to let kids be inquisitive like Tom.

[fran604g]

Some of the most eccentric people are the most inventive and wealthy.

I would think that in 2015, he would been prescribed ritalin or some other psychotropic drug.

Maybe as a society we just need to let kids be inquisitive like Tom.

No doubt. ADD/ADHD presents some very positve aspects that are seemingly ignored in the pursuit to "control" the perceived "negative" aspects.

I know first hand and intimately the effects of both the "disorder" and the treatment of it.

Because of my own personal experience coming from a family prevalent wih this disposition, I believe that if he had been diagnosed and treated for ADD/ADHD, likely he would not have been anywhere near as creative.

Fran

[Edisone]

Dude was addled. He tried to make phonographs out of cement. End of story.

He did make a few, and any of us would fall all over ourselves to get one - delivered, of course!

[Lucius1958]

Some of the most eccentric people are the most inventive and wealthy.

I think it's the other way around:

Wealthy people are "eccentric": poor people are "crazy"...

Bill