Top 10 Auto-Didacts

5/ A generation of auto-didacts, educated by the Internet & leveraged by technology, will eventually starve the industrial-education system.

— Naval (@naval) September 25, 2017

These visionaries taught themselves. Maybe your own child can direct more of their own learning than you might imagine. For more on how to encourage self-directed learning in children, see our guide to self-directed education.

Libraries raised me. I don't believe in colleges and universities. I believe in libraries because most students don't have any money. When I graduated from high school, it was during the Depression and we had no money. I couldn't go to college, so I went to the library three days a week for 10 years. -Ray Bradbury (American Writer)

1. Abraham Lincoln, American president

2. Benjamin Franklin, American Founding Father

3. Kató Lomb, simultaneous interpreter and polyglot.

4. Truman Capote, novelist, screenwriter, playwright, and actor

5. Frederick Douglass an American abolitionist, writer and statesman.

6. Malcolm X, public speaker, and human rights activist

7. Mark Twain, self-taught writer

8. Frida Kahlo, self-taught artist

9. Sojourner Truth, American Abolitionist and Women’s Rights Activist

10. Yu Jianchun, Mathematician