Nikola Tesla - Pictures and Experiences from Childhood and Education Page 3

Instead of a Foreword

- Addressed to Adults -

Slobodna Misao, a Yugoslav magazine published in Detroit, in the United States of America, in volume IV, no. 47, 48 and 49, from 1926, under the title: “This number is dedicated to the world’s greatest genius - Tesla,” on the opening page it contains these lines:

.....It seems that we, together with the rest of the Slavs, are the most ungrateful people on Earth. We will not and do not know how to appreciate our great sons, as other nations do. Why is it like this? Why should we not, for example, imitate the American people? This nation, like us, has only one genius, Edison. Although Edison is not, as the expert and scientist H. Gernsback himself admits, as great and prolific with inventions as our Tesla, yet sixty books and brochures have been written about Edison and his work. American literature abounds with it. What’s more, he and his works are also shown in the cinema... Every American child knows who Edison is...” - That’s how Americans respect their Edison. What more needs to be said about the English, who say: “No Englishman would give his Shakespeare even for the whole India.” So, for them, one Shakespeare is worth more than the whole India, which is the main source of wealth of the British Empire.

Other nations glorify and celebrate their great sons, too. Some do not even choose the means, but spend fabulous sums of money to attribute other people’s inventions to their sons. They do this because they know that by doing so, in addition to glorifying their people, they are also glorifying their country, their race. That is how other nations have appropriated numerous discoveries of the son of our nation. Many of his inventions and discoveries today are known under someone else’s names.

What then to say about our nation to whom God has given the greatest genius of the world, yet it does not know how to appreciate that gift,