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Who really said it

Books will soon be obsolete in the schools

Spoken by Thomas Edison 1847–1931 · American inventor & pioneer of the motion picture
Verified — found on the printed page, where Edison says “in the public schools.” Free to reuse

Edison said it to a reporter, and it went into print on 9 July 1913. Frederick James Smith asked him what he thought motion pictures were worth to education, and Edison answered: “Books … will soon be obsolete in the public schools. Scholars will be instructed through the eye.” The attribution holds up exactly against the printed page — the only difference is that the familiar short form drops the word public (page 24 of the issue ↗).

Last verified 7 Aug 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

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“Books will soon be obsolete in the schools” Thomas Edison, interviewed by Frederick James Smith, "The Evolution of the Motion Picture: VI — Looking into the Future with Thomas A. Edison," The New York Dramatic Mirror, July 9, 1913, page 24: "Books … will soon be obsolete in the public schools. Scholars will be instructed through the eye." The familiar short form — "obsolete in the schools" — drops the word "public." — Quotle.info

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In context

Evoking the world of Thomas Edison — American inventor and businessman; pioneer of the motion picture. Theme: "Books will soon be obsolete in the schools". Atmospheric and restrained, cinematic directional light, a muted period-appropriate palette, fine grain and texture. Compose with generous empty space for the quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

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Provenance

The interview, in print

Source
The New York Dramatic Mirror
Article
The Evolution of the Motion Picture: VI – Looking into the Future with Thomas A. Edison
Published
9 July 1913 — Vol. 70, No. 1803, page 24, column 3; by Frederick James Smith
Form
Signed exclusive interview — the sixth in a series on the motion picture

“What is your estimation of the future educational value of pictures?” I asked. “Books,” declared the inventor with decision, “will soon be obsolete in the public schools. Scholars will be instructed through the eye. It is possible to teach every branch of human knowledge with the motion picture. Our school system will be completely changed inside of ten years.” Verbatim from the 1913 page

Page 24, column 3, transcribed from the Internet Archive scan of the issue ↗. The same page reprinted the first two sentences as a display pull-quote in the sidebar: “Books will soon be obsolete in the public schools. Scholars will be instructed through the eye.”

Newspaper page
The New York Dramatic Mirror, 9 July 1913 (page 24)
Quote Investigator: the full citation history

The paper trail, in order

  • 9 July 1913 — the words appear in print for the first time, in Frederick James Smith’s interview on page 24 of The New York Dramatic Mirror: “Books … will soon be obsolete in the public schools” (Internet Archive scan ↗).
  • September 1913 — segments of the interview are reprinted elsewhere, including the Cleveland Plain Dealer and The State of Columbia, South Carolina. The Oregonian of 28 September prefaces the prediction with an apparently satirical “O joy!” and alters the wording to “instructed entirely through the eye” (Quote Investigator ↗).
  • 16 December 1914 — The Syracuse Herald runs the line under the heading “‘Movies’ Vs. Books in Schools” and calls it a “disconcerting prophecy” (Quote Investigator ↗).
  • 31 January 1986 — a Los Angeles Times article on the future of college education prints the version that became standard: “public” gone, a second “soon” added, “inside” deleted — the form in which the quote circulates today (Quote Investigator ↗).
Public domain

The interview was published in The New York Dramatic Mirror on 9 July 1913, long before the 1931 United States copyright cut-off, so both Edison’s printed words and Frederick James Smith’s surrounding article text are in the public domain in the US. The full issue is freely readable at the Internet Archive ↗.

Rights status is our research, not legal advice — and copyright varies by country and edition. For commercial or published use, confirm with the rightsholder. See terms.

Fact-check

Right man, slightly wrong words

This is the unusual case: the famous name really did say the famous thing. What travels is a lightly worn-down version of it — a word missing here, a word added there, and in one prominent instance the wrong decade entirely.

Thomas Edison One word missing

The 1913 page reads “will soon be obsolete in the public schools.” Quote Investigator notes that in a Los Angeles Times article of 31 January 1986, “the word ‘public’ was omitted from this instance of the quotation, the word ‘soon’ was inserted a second time, and the word ‘inside’ was deleted” (Quote Investigator ↗).

Thomas Edison Added word

There is no second “soon” on the 1913 page: the sentence is simply “Scholars will be instructed through the eye.” The doubled “soon” appears in the 1986 Los Angeles Times version and again in a New York Times Magazine piece of 19 September 2010 (full text of the 1913 issue ↗).

Thomas Edison Wrong date

A classroom-technology timeline in The New York Times Magazine of 19 September 2010 placed the remark in a “c. 1925” entry beside the filmstrip projector. Edison said it in 1913, and he was talking about motion pictures (Quote Investigator ↗).

Thomas Edison Different quote

“I believe that the motion picture is destined to revolutionize our educational system” is often merged into this one. It is a separate, later Edison statement, cited to Hugh Weir, “The Story of the Motion Picture,” McClure’s, vol. 54, November 1922, page 85 (Edison’s education predictions ↗).

Verdict: the attribution is sound and the source is on the page — Edison said it in an interview printed 9 July 1913. Quote Investigator’s conclusion is that “Edison did make a statement in 1913 predicting the obsolescence of books in the public schools” and that “modern versions of Edison’s quotation are typically slightly altered” (Quote Investigator ↗).

Context

Why he said it — and why it keeps getting quoted

Edison was not idly speculating. The interview was the sixth in a Dramatic Mirror series on the future of the motion picture, and the man answering the questions had a stake in the answer: his company was already making what he called “school pictures.” In the very next breath he listed them — films of the fly, the mosquito, the silk-weaving moth, the gypsy moth, butterflies, chemical crystallization — which he said proved the worth of motion pictures in chemistry and physics, “making the scientific truths, difficult to understand from text books, plain and clear to children” (the printed interview ↗).

The line survives because it is the founding text of ed-tech scepticism: the most celebrated inventor alive, confidently wrong, on a ten-year deadline. Newspapers were sceptical almost immediately — a Syracuse paper filed it in December 1914 under “disconcerting prophecy” — and a century on it is still the standard reply to classroom-technology hype. When the U.S. Education Secretary and the FCC Chairman promoted laptops for every schoolchild in 2012, a Los Angeles Times columnist reached straight for it (Quote Investigator ↗).

Scholars will be instructed through the eye.

What else Edison predicted that afternoon

He was asked whether talking pictures would kill the silent photoplay. “I do not think so,” he answered. “Both will be used.” He pulled a strip of colour film from his pocket, called it raw but said natural-colour photography “is going to come,” and expected stereoscopic films with the effect of actual depth. He also thought few homes would own a projecting machine, “although the wealthier people will possess them, no doubt” (The New York Dramatic Mirror, 9 July 1913 ↗).

Edison did not let the idea go. A later statement — “I believe that the motion picture is destined to revolutionize our educational system” — is cited to Hugh Weir, “The Story of the Motion Picture,” McClure’s, vol. 54, November 1922, page 85. It is a separate quotation from a separate source, and is frequently blended with the 1913 one (Konrad M. Lawson, Edison’s education predictions ↗).

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Filed under

More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.

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Go further

Dig deeper

Trusted places to keep pulling the thread — primary archives, fact-checks, and scholarship. We show how we used each one before you leave.

Quote Origin: Books Will Soon Be Obsolete in the Schoolsquoteinvestigator.com

The definitive investigation: the 1913 Dramatic Mirror pull-quote and extended excerpt, the 1913–1914 newspaper reprints, and how the modern short form drifted. Concludes Edison did say it, and that modern versions are typically slightly altered.
The New York Dramatic Mirror, 9 July 1913 (Vol. 70, No. 1803)archive.org

Internet Archive scan of the complete issue. The Edison interview runs on page 24, with the “books will soon be obsolete” sentence also set as a display pull-quote.
Full-text OCR of the 9 July 1913 issuearchive.org

Machine-readable text of the same issue — searchable confirmation that the printed line reads “will soon be obsolete in the public schools. Scholars will be instructed through the eye.”
Thomas Edison’s Education Predictionsmuninn.net

Konrad M. Lawson sets the 1913 Dramatic Mirror passage beside Edison’s later 1922 McClure’s prediction about textbooks, with full citations for both.
Thomas Edisonen.wikipedia.org

Biography of the inventor: born 11 February 1847 in Milan, Ohio; died 18 October 1931 in West Orange, New Jersey; known for the incandescent lamp, the phonograph, electric power distribution and early motion pictures.
New York Dramatic Mirroren.wikipedia.org

The publication that ran the interview: a Manhattan theatrical trade newspaper published 1879–1922, described by historian Frank Luther Mott as the “matchless chronicler of the New York stage.”

The author

About Thomas Edison

Thomas Edison

1847–1931 · American inventor and businessman; pioneer of the motion picture

Thomas Edison built the phonograph, the commercial incandescent lamp and much of the machinery of American motion pictures, and by 1913 was working daily at his laboratory in West Orange, New Jersey. He had a business interest in the prophecy he made here: his company was producing classroom films, and in the same interview he described reels on insects and chemical crystallization intended to make scientific truths “plain and clear to children.” He was wrong about the ten years, and made a similar forecast about textbooks again in 1922.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

Primary source

Frederick James Smith, “The Evolution of the Motion Picture: VI – Looking into the Future with Thomas A. Edison,” The New York Dramatic Mirror (New York), 9 July 1913, vol. 70, no. 1803, page 24, column 3. Edison as printed: “Books … will soon be obsolete in the public schools. Scholars will be instructed through the eye.”

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘Books will soon be obsolete in the schools’?” Last verified 7 Aug 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/books-will-soon-be-obsolete-in-the-schools/

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