[Gutenberg 18602] • The Fourth "R"

In George O. Smith's classic THE FOURTH R (also known as THE BRAIN MACHINE) young Jimmy Holden's life is transformed by the "Electromechanical Educator." The educator, invented by his parents, gives him a college education at the age of five. His parents are soon killed over the secret of the educator.

George Oliver Smith (1911-1981) was an accomplished American science fiction writer. Smith began publishing his work in the 1940s, often in popular pulps like ASTOUNDING STORIES. His popularity increased in the 1950s, when he published several well-received novels. Smith was a member of the Trap Door Spiders, an all-male literary club which inspired Isaac Asimov’s fictional mystery solvers, the Black Widowers.