You will be surprised to know that your schools, colleges, universities don’t exist, in fact, to help you to become intelligent – no, not at all. I have been associated with universities as a student, then as a professor, for many years. I know the very inner structure of your educational system: it is not concerned with creating intelligence in people. Of course it wants to create efficiency, but efficiency is not intelligence, efficiency is mechanical. A computer can be very efficient, but a computer is not intelligent.
Never think that intelligence and efficiency are synonymous; intelligence is a totally different phenomenon. Efficiency is not intelligence, it is mechanical expertise. The universities are concerned to create efficiency so that you can be better clerks and better collectors and better stationmasters and better postmasters, et cetera. But they are not concerned to create intelligence in fact they are all against intelligence. The whole structure of your educational system all over the world is to make you more and more capable of memorizing things because memory is a biocomputer.
Intelligence is a totally different phenomenon. Intelligence arises out of meditation, intelligence arises out of rebellion intelligence arises not out of memory. But your examinations only take care about your memory. Whosoever has better memory is thought to be more intelligent. But it happens many times that stupid people have beautiful memories, and intelligent people are not so good as far as memory is concerned.
Edison was not good as far as memory is concerned. He discovered one thousand scientific gadgets; nobody else had discovered so many things. Just the quantity of his discoveries is enormous, unbelievable. You may not be aware that you are using Edison’s discoveries every day: the gramophone record, the radio, the electric bulb the fan, the loudspeaker; everything that you are using comes from one single person, Edison. But as far as memory is concerned, his memory was very lousy, very sloppy, so much so that once he forgot his own name which is really very difficult; almost impossible to forget your own name. If you can forget your own name you can forgot anything! This seems to be the last thing. He managed to do the last thing.
In the First World War rationing came for the first time into existence, and he was standing in a queue to take his ration card. Slowly slowly he came closer to the window. Then the last person in front of him moved and they called his name: “Thomas Alva Edison!” And he looked around as if they are calling somebody else; he looked in the queue.
One man recognized his face because many times he has seen his pictures in the newspapers. He said, “As far as I remember, you seem to be Thomas Alva Edison. Why you are looking here and there?”
He said, “You are right! I had completely forgotten! Many many thanks that you reminded me. Yes, I am Thomas Alva Edison.”