Celebrated Persons Who Had Miserable Report Cards
Albert Einstein
Einstein's parents feared their son was retarded because he spoke haltingly till the age of nine and thereafter would respond to questions only after a long period of deliberation. He performed so badly in high school except mathematics that a teacher asked him to drop out..... telling him, "You will never amount to anything, Einstein". His enrollment at Zurich's Polytechnic Institute was delayed by a year because he failed his entrance exams. Even after graduating from institute, he had trouble finding and holding a job. Meanwhile, he was formulating his first ideas about the theory of relativity.
Sir Issac Newton
The man who now ranks as perhaps the greatest intellect of all time showed little promise as a youth. An idler...... Newton was allowed to continue his education only because he proved a complete flop when entrusted with running the family farm. He was then relegated to the lowest form in the school ....... but he finally snapped out of his mental lethargy when a bully moved him to better his own standing.
Thomas Edison
Edison's peculiar inquisitiveness as a young child impressed nobody but his tolerant mother. His first teacher described him as 'addled', his father as a 'dunce' and his headmaster warned that he 'would never make a success of anything' . Under his mother's tutelage, however Edison became a precocious reader and he was soon making practical inventions. He eventually patented over a thousand inventions whose worth to humankind is incalculable.
Gamal Abdel Nasser
Egypt's first president had a dismal school record. From ages six-sixteen he passed only four grades. He finally managed to graduate from High school, even though his growing obsession with revolutionary politics led to continous confrontations with his teachers. In 1952 he led a military coup to oust King Faruk and establish a republic.
Charles Darwin
The young Darwin did so poorly in a school noted for its classical education that his father once told him, "You care for nothing but shooting, dogs, and rat-catching, and you will be a disgrace to yourself and your family! " After failing dismally in a medical course at Edinburgh University, Darwin languished at Cambridge until his enthusiasm for natural history got him a berth on H.M.S. Beagle in 1831. He transformed the voyage into one of history's greatest scientific expeditions, using his findings from the trip to develop his 'Theory of Evolution'!
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