Dr. Paul Israel

Well, I think that kids tend to be naturally curious, and some retain that, and others become less curious over time.

So Edison retained his curiosity.

I think part of that was, in fact, his education and the environment that he was in.

So in the 19th century, it was easy to be not just curious about technology, but to learn it pretty easily since most kids

technology was mechanical.

You could literally see how a piece of machinery worked.

And then Edison's own education was pretty informal.

He was first in a private school when he was about seven or eight.

And then for a variety of reasons, including possibly the family not being able to pay for this private school in Port Huron, where he grew up, he was born in Milan, Ohio.

And

And so his mother began to teach him by focusing on reading and reading a lot of the books in his father's library.

That's one of the reasons why Edison was sort of imbued with the ideas of Enlightenment philosophers, especially Thomas Paine.

And his father was an entrepreneur.

So one of the things he began to understand was how entrepreneurship worked.

And so between his parents, he developed a love of learning through reading and learning

sort of understanding how one could move from one project to another, not being worried about setbacks, figuring out how to move forward.

And I think all those things were really important to his education.

Edison, as a child and then as a young boy, is surrounded by an environment where there are very exciting technologies happening.

So when they moved to Port Huron, it's a lumber town, but there's also a shipbuilding going on there.

So Edison's first experiments were when he was a kid.