Nikola Tesla Books
Morgan's sister, Ann Morgan, who died a few years after Tesla. Tesla had a keen sense of humor and the most impeccable manners. He knew no jealousy. He was the most genuinely modest of men. He never decried the accomplishments of another, never refused to give credit where it was due. He spoke perfect English but with a slight accent.
His life began as the clock struck midnight July 9, 1856, in the small village of Smiljan in the country called Lika, now part of Yugoslavia, A tendency to invent ran in Tesla's family. Men of genius are supposed, sometimes, to inherit markedly from their mother. Tesla's mother was a woman who possessed very extraordinary mechanical skill and a rare strength of intellect and character. Never having seen a loom, she invented one. She produced a wide range of apparel and house furnishings, from common door matts to the most delicate embroideries, beautiful in texture, color and design. His father, too, who was a priest of the Greek Church, spent his spare time making all sorts of things for no special use or profit, but simply for the pure passion of making. His parents wanted him to become a minister. However, Tesla had other ideas. In school, he pursued mechanical and mathematical studies most devotedly, but never neglecting the wonderful literature of his mother-tongue, as well as German, French, English and Italian. Even as a boy, he felt the great desire to learn about nature's secrets. One time, when he was playing in the Alps, with other boys, he rolled a small snowball down the mountainside. The snow was wet and as it gained momentum, it increased in size until it grew into a tremendous snow ball larger than a house. It went thundering down the valley below, creating a great avalance that produced a loud thunder-like roar, causing the ground to vibrate where young Tesla stood. He was both stunned and amazed to think that a tiny snowball had caused a great landslide which had vibrated the earth on which he lived. From that early age, Tesla, the keen observer, became interested in the principles of resonance and vibration, which were the fundamental basis for many of his great inventions.
After graduating from high school in 1873, he devoted himself to the study of electricity and magnetism. His father consented to his taking a scientific course. He entered the Polytechnical School at Cratz. He was not yet twenty years old when he told his professor that it was possible to operate a dynamo without commutator or brushes. From Cratz, he went to Prague and Budapest to broaden his knowledge. After working a short time in the Government telegraph department, he left this work to go to Paris. It was in Paris, that one of Thomas Edison's associates met Tesla and arranged for him to come to America. His passage was soon arranged when he accepted an offer to work in an Edison shop in New York City. As a mere youth, Tesla saw that his invention impressed no capitalists in his own country. He had always longed for America. It seemed to call him with a mysterious voice.. just as Paris called young American artists and London called men of letters in those days. To select environment is a necis sity for genius.
Within a year or so after his arrival in America, Tesla invented an automatic elevator leveling device. He sold this to an elevator manufacturer for the sum of $50,000. This gave him sufficient funds to set up his own laboratory and to buy his own equipment. The temperament of Tesla forbade any close alliance with corporate interests. He felt that he must be entirely free. To make progress in his chosen field, to recap harvests of ideas, rather than to make money, was the law of Tesla's being.
