What kind of childhood did Thomas Edison have?

Answer 1

Thomas had a hard childhood, for instance at the age of six Thomas was responsible for starting a fire causing their barn to burn. Thomas' punishment was to be publicly whipped by his father. Roughly a year after the fire incident, the family moved to Port Huron, Michigan where young Edison became ill and had to postpone his schooling until he was eight years of age. The schoolmaster at his school thought Edison to be and incredibly stupid and intractable boy. His mother however, seemed to have different thoughts on the matter. Disgusted at the school, she took her son out and took it upon herself to school the young boy at home. There, she exposed him to books at a far higher level than anyone of his age. Thanks to his mother's teachings, Edison's horizons of knowledge were not limited just to science, but also in such subject as philosophy, English, and history. By the time he was of age eleven, he established his own laboratory in his basement and via this he would acquire yet more of his skills.