Which detail from "Thomas Edison: The Master of Improvement" supports the big-picture idea of the passage? Thomas Edison is well known as a great inventor. However, he was also a fantastic improver. Unlike Davy and Swan, Edison had no formal schooling. He was quite sickly as a child, so his mom taught him at home. That way, all of those long-lasting Edison bulbs would have a ready supply of the electricity they required. Edison himself probably summed it up best when he said, "Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration."