own to-day, is his through and
through cannot be questioned.

It is as a scientific inventor that Edison likes to be known. He abhors
the word discoverer, as applied to himself. "Discovery is not
invention," he once said. "A discovery is more or less in the nature of
an accident, while an invention is purely deductive. In my own case, but
few, and those the least important, of my inventions, owed anything to
accident. Most of them have been hammered out after long and patient
labor, and are the result of countless experiments all directed toward
attaining some well-defined object."

There is, however, one modern marvel for which Edison is wholly
responsible, both for the initial idea and for its practical
working-out--the phonograph--but let us tell something of his early
life, before we relate the achievements of his manhood.

Born in a little village in Erie County, Ohio, in 1847, Edison was early
introduced to the struggle for existence. His father was very poor,
being, indeed, the village jack-of-all-trades, and living upon such odd
jobs as he was able to procure. The boy, of course, was put to work as
soon as he was old enough, and of regular schooling had only two months
in all his life. At the age of twelve, he was a train-boy on the
Michigan Central Railroad, selling books, papers, candy, and fruit to
the passengers. He managed to get some type and an old press and issued
a little paper called the "Grand Trunk Herald," containing the news of
the railroad. One day, he snatched the little child of the
station-master at Port Clements, Michigan, from under the wheels of a
train, and in return the grateful father taught the boy telegraphy.

It was the turning-point in his career, for it turned his attention to
the study of electricity, with which he was soon fascinated. At
eighteen, he was working as an operator at Indianapolis, but he was from
the very first, more of an inventor than an operator, and his inventions
sometimes got him into trouble. For instance, at one place where he had
a night trick, he was required to report the word "six" every half-hour
to the manager to show that he was awake and on duty. After a while, he
rigged up a wheel to do it for him, and all went well until the manager
happened to visit the office one night and found Edison sleeping calmly
while his wheel was sending in the word "six." But he nevertheless
developed into one of the swiftest operators in the country, all the
time devis