Do you really need a formal education to prosper or just become incredibly intelligent?
It depends what you study, but in most disciplines, if people are committed enough, they can certainly
teach themselves.
We call these people autodidacts, and sometimes they outshine folks with formal educations.
“The importance of the individual life may always be denied by the ‘educator’ whose
pride it is to breed mass-men,” Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung once said.
Autodidacts are often mavericks, their minds far more capable than the teachers that might
have taught them.
They must work harder, as getting your foot in the door or being published is not always
easy without embossed certificates and contacts made at institutions.
They are a special breed, and today we’ll discuss some of the best of them, in this
episode of the Infographics Show, Ten of the world’s most brilliant uneducated geniuses.
Before we start we’ll add a bit of a disclaimer.
We are not saying that these people had absolutely no formal education, only that for the most
part they were self-taught.
Albert Einstein failed some exams and was likely not even understood by some of his
teachers.
He read Immanuel Kant at 11-years old!
Not an easy thing for an adult.
But he did have a formal education.
Bill Gates left Harvard, but we can’t call him a bone fide autodidact.
Today we’ll focus on people that really did do most of their learning outside of schools
and universities.
As we get to the end, you might just be very surprised who changed the world without an
education.
10: Michael Faraday Who would have thought that this man born
into poverty on the mean streets of South London in the late 18th century would end
up becoming one of the world’s greatest scientists?
He discovered electromagnetic induction and was responsible for the electric transformer
and generator.
As it says in one of his bios, “This discovery was crucial in allowing electricity to be
transformed from a curiosity into a powerful new technology.”
How did this happen?
Well, it wasn’t from going to school.
He left school at age 14 without much of an education and spent the next seven years working
as an apprentice for a bookbinder.
But it was his avid reading of scientific books where he gained all his knowledge.
He eventually got his foot in the door at the Royal Institution, which is a British
organization dedicated to scientific research.
From there the only way was up and into the halls of academic history.
9: Mark Twain One of America’s most renowned intellectuals
whose quotes, or aphorisms, people still frequently use today.
He is probably best known for his novels “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer” and “The Adventures
of Huckleberry Finn” but his wisdom and understanding of human nature was arguably
unsurpassed at the time.
He was much more than a mere novelist, but a social critic and phenomenal man of letters.
Twain was a critic of formal education.
He is famous for saying, “I never let my schooling interfere with my education.”
But he wasn’t always against formal education, just the way it was taught.
He mirrored Jung in that he believed it created mass-men, and was too narrow in its focus.
To prosper one had to read and be more curious.
As for his education, it stopped after Elementary School.
At age 11, or possibly 12, he became an apprentice at a printing firm.
It wouldn’t be long until his own words were being printed.
8: Benjamin Franklin How did a boy that left school at the age
of 10 become a man most Americans agree is one the most important people that ever graced
the new land?
The founding father not only helped pen The Declaration of Independence, but he was what’s
called a polymath, meaning his skills were almost never-ending.
He wrote, he invented, he was a statesman, an activist, a humorist, a scientist, and
all in all a major figure in the American Enlightenment period.
One of 17 children, it’s said his parents couldn’t afford schooling, but that didn’t
matter as the boy was said to be a voracious reader.
Like Twain, he also became a printer’s apprentice.
He ran away to Philadelphia at age 17 and it wasn’t long until he became involved
in community activism, knowing how well printing could further that activism.
He soon got involved with publishing newspapers, among many other things, and you can see his
face now if you get your hands on a $100 bill.
7: Jimi Hendrix OK, so you weren’t expecting this man to
be on the list.
But can you deny that Hendrix wasn’t a musical genius?
Has there ever been a better guitar player?
We want you folks out there to be inspired, so you need to know that Hendrix grew up with
often violent, alcoholic parents.
He left school without anything resembling a decent education, aged 16.
But he had been playing guitar since the age of 11.
So, this is not a case of read, read, read, but practice, practice, practice.
We could also have added David Bowie or Bruce Springsteen, but the list of great uneducated
musicians is endless.
6: Nikola Tesla Mr. Tesla isn’t like the other people on
this list in that he did attend university.
But we are calling him an autodidact as he was a drop-out and never had any outstanding
formal qualifications.
The former gambling addict ended up working as a draftsman and was a long way from being
one of the greatest scientists ever.
But he gradually worked his way into his chosen field, despite a nervous breakdown, and ended
up as chief electrician at the Budapest Telephone Exchange.
He worked from the ground up and soon made a name for himself working for the Société
Electrique Edison aged 26.
11 years later he would form the Nikola Tesla Company.
5: Alan Moore We could have mentioned many, many novelists,
big names like Herman Hesse, Henry Miller, Truman Capote, Joseph Conrad, but we thought
we’d talk about Moore as even you non-readers of novels will likely know him.
Most writers will tell you that like music, you have to practice rather than study.
The British writer has written some of the most profound comics ever written, often way
more insightful than anything out there.
Moore is called an occultist and anarchist, and he is the creator of works that were turned
into blockbuster movies.
Some of those include, “The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen”, “V for Vendetta”, and “Watchmen.”
He began reading avidly at just the age of five, and by the time he was in his early
teens he was accusing the education system of brainwashing students, stating its function
was not to inspire and share knowledge but to teach “punctuality, obedience and the
acceptance of monotony.”
He took LSD, sold LSD, and Moore has said that’s why he didn’t get into university
as his school had warned them that he was a “moral danger.”
For a while he worked as a toilet cleaner and lived on a council estate (the projects
in U.S. terms).
He never stopped reading, writing and drawing.
We’ll leave you with these lines of his, “Everybody is special.
Everybody.
Everybody is a hero, a lover, a fool, a villain.
Everybody.
Everybody has their story to tell.”
4: The Wright Brothers Every time you get on a plane you can in some
ways say thanks to these two guys.
Ok, so many people were working on flying machines, but these two brothers invented
the first airplane and they did it without much of an education.
Both of them went to high school, but they didn’t formally graduate.
Again, like others, they got into printing, but their passion was inventing.
One of the brothers, Orville, once said, “We were lucky enough to grow up in a home environment
where there was always much encouragement to children to pursue intellectual interests;
to investigate whatever aroused curiosity.”
3: Leonardo da Vinci Leonardo da Vinci did not only paint some
of the world’s greatest paintings but he was also a remarkable scientist, mathematician,
engineer, and more.
Again, we can call him a polymath.
We might even compare him with the Wright Brothers?
That’s because he is the person who first drew up a concept for the helicopter, and
also the parachute.
He didn’t have much in the way of an education, but aged 14 he apprenticed with an artist.
We could also say that he was eternally curious, and if curiosity kills cats, it is also the
fuel for intelligence, creativity, and to some extent a useful existence.
2: Richard Branson Can we call billionaires geniuses?
Most of them made their money because they came from money.
Take the case of British billionaire Richard Branson.
He wasn’t exactly from poverty.
Still, this dyslexic teenager deserves credit because he didn’t even finish high school
(expensive private school) and left at age 16.
His headmaster told him that he was either destined to make millions or end up in prison.
You could say Branson was a mover, a quick-thinking entrepreneur with an impervious confidence.
Still a very young man he started a student magazine in the late 60s and then started
selling records under the label “Virgin.”
The young lad would one day have planes flying through the skies and he would own an island.
His attitude can be summed up with this quote.
“You don’t learn to walk by following rules.
You learn by doing, by falling over.”
1: John D. Rockefeller We finish with an another billionaire, John
D. Rockefeller, whose net worth in today’s money was said to be at 1.4 billion, making
him the richest man ever.
He was born into a working-class family, with a tough and shrewd father who taught him the
value of money and how to be cunning.
John did some school, but not much.
Instead, aged 16 he became an assistant bookkeeper.
He gradually built his own empire, and was a proponent of the unpopular term Social Darwinism,
meaning it’s a dog-eat-dog world and some dogs are just built to win.
When he was 86 he wrote, “I was early taught to work as well as play.
My life has been one long, happy holiday.”
We could have included so many more brilliant people on this list- artists, scientists,
thinkers, engineers and business people, but they all have the same things in common: dedication,
perseverance, curiosity, and they all read and practiced just as much as they played.
We hope this is some inspiration to you and that you have learned something.
Can you add to the list?
Do you believe anyone can make it?
Tell us in the comments.
Also, be sure to check out our other video Are You A Genius?
Thanks for watching, and as always, please don’t forget to like, share and subscribe.
See you next time.