Title: Children Above 180 IQ Stanford-Binet: Origin and Development
Author: Leta S. Hollingworth
Original publisher: World Book Company
Copyright 1942.
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CHILDREN ABOVE 180 IQ STANFORD-BINET: ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT
FOREWORD
Shortly after the year 1924 Leta S. Hollingworth prepared a manuscript on "Children above 180 IQ (Stanford-Binet)" in which she surveyed the material on the topic available up to that date and added accounts of five cases which she had studied individually. [1] As the years went by she held back the manuscript from publication and one by one she found seven more cases to be included in her list. At the time of her death in 1939 she had begun to revise this manuscript, bringing the survey up to date and adding the new cases. The present book gives as much of this revision from her own hand as is available. The Preface and Chapters 1, 2, and 3 are as she wrote them. The accounts of the first five cases are given just as she originally wrote them up, but to them "editorial supplements" have been added in which an endeavor has been made to present for each case such data as have been found in her files, with little in the way of discussion or interpretation.
The seven new cases which the original author had intended to include in the manuscript she had not yet written up. For these, therefore, it has been necessary to study the data she had accumulated for each child, to secure additional data when and where possible, and to present such an account of each as she might herself have written, patterned after her reports of the earlier cases.
Much is lost that would have been contributed had the author lived to complete her project. She knew these cases intimately and at first hand. Some of them she had followed for as long as twenty years, taking a personal interest in the individual children and their problems, advising them, assisting them, continuously observing them, and frequently testing and measuring them.
Particularly inadequate must be the accounts of the later development of the individuals herein described, for many of the details well known to the author she not committed to paper, since she fully expected to complete the manuscript herself. It is to be regretted that a follow-up study of these recent developments could not have been undertaken, and a hope is expressed that this may yet be done.
The chapters summarizing the group of twelve new cases are wholly without Leta S. Hollingworth's touch. It seemed desirable, however, to give such a summary as could be made under the circumstances. Had the original author been able to complete her book, we know that penetrating light would have been thrown on many of the more personal difficulties of these children of rare intelligence. This experience and insight can no longer be recovered. It must suffice to put on record chiefly the factual data now available, leaving it for future workers to follow up, if it should seem desirable, the subsequent career and destiny of the individuals whose early development and background are herein reported. Identification of these children is not made in this book, but the necessary facts for this purpose are on file and identification can be made at any time in the interests of educational research.
The third section of this book as originally outlined by Leta S. Hollingworth was to have dealt with general principles and with the social and educational implications of the study of children of very high intelligence. Up to the time of her death nothing of this character had been written by her explicitly, but throughout the years in which her projected book was developing she wrote a number of papers and reports bearing on the subject, and these were published from time to time in technical journals. It is well known that the content of these papers was dictated by her study of such cases as are herein reported, by her familiarity with the reports of other students in this field, and by her own very concrete and long experience in the organization and conduct of two experimental projects in the schools of New York City. It is, in fact, likely that the final chapters she had in mind for this book would have been a reorganization of the conclusions set forth in these articles.
Consequently, the last five chapters of this book, instead of being an attempt to guess at what the author might have said in them, are all from her own hand. They are either selections from or complete reproductions of papers she had published on what she considered to be the implications of her observations of children of rare intelligence.
The publication of this book has been made possible by funds granted by the Carnegie Corporation of New York. That Corporation is not, however, the author, owner, publisher, or proprietor of this publication, and it is not to be understood as approving by virtue of its grants any of the statements or views expressed herein.
Harry L. Hollingworth
Barnard College
Columbia University, New York
[1] Chapter 9 of Gifted Children, published in 1926, bears the title "Children Who Test above 180 IQ (Stanford-Binet)." Some of the cases described more fully in the monograph manuscript are also sketched in that chapter.
CONTENTS
PREFACE
PART I: ORIENTATION
1. THE CONCEPT OF INTELLECTUAL GENIUS Concepts of the Ancients, Dictionary Definitions, Concepts of Genius, Miscellaneous Observations Tending to Define Characteristics of Genius, Speculation and Comment Concerning Genius
2. EARLY SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF EMINENT ADULTS Origin of Eminent Adults, Yoder's Study, Terman's Inferences from Biography
3. PUBLISHED REPORTS ON TESTED CHILDREN Modern Approach to the Study of Ability, Binet's Method, The Range of Intellect above 180 IQ, Children Observed before the Era of Binet, Children Who Test above 180 IQ by Binet-Simon Tests, Children Who Test above 180 IQ by Stanford-Binet Tests, Generalizations
PART II: TWELVE CASES NEW TO LITERATURE CONCERNING TESTED CHILDREN
4. CHILD A
Family Background, Preschool History, School History, Judgments
of Teachers, Mental Measurements, Traits of Character, Physical
Measurements and Health, Miscellaneous Characteristics
5. CHILD B
Family Background, Preschool History, School History, Traits of
Character, Judgments of Teachers, Mental Measurements, Physical
Measurements, Miscellaneous Characteristics
6. CHILD C
Family Background, Preschool History, School History, Traits of
Character, Mental Measurements, Physical Measurements, Later
School History
7. CHILD D
Family Background, Preschool History, Traits of Character, Mental
Measurements, Physical Measurements and Health, Miscellaneous
Characteristics, School History
8. CHILD E
Family Background, Early History, School Achievement, Mental
Measurements, Social Habits, Tastes, etc., Later Mental Measurements,
Later Physical Measurements, Later Scholastic Records, Extracurricular
Activities, Teachers' Comments, Summary up to 1921, Eventual
Scholastic Records, Researches of E, Summary of Development
9. CHILD F
Family Background, Preschool History, Early School History, Early
Test Scores, Home Rating, Miscellaneous Characteristics, Later
Educational Career
10. CHILD G
Family Background, Educational History, Early Mental Tests,
Later Test Records, Traits of Character, Physical Measurements,
High School Record, G's Brother's Record
11. CHILD H
Family Background, Preschool History, Mental Measurements, Physical
Measurements, Intellectual Ability
12. CHILD I
Family Background, Preschool History, Early Educational History,
Mental Measurements, Physical Measurements and Health, Miscellaneous
Characteristics
13. CHILD J Family Background, Childhood Characteristics, Later Mental Tests
14. CHILD K
Family Background, Early Development, Mental Measurements, Physical
Measurements, Later Educational Progress
15. CHILD L
Family Background, Early History, Achievement at Speyer School,
High School Record to Date of Writing, Later Tests and Inventories
16. SUMMARIES OF HEREDITIES AND EARLY BEHAVIOR Family History and Background, Physical and Behavioral Development
17. SCHOLASTIC ACHIEVEMENT AND CREATIVE ACTIVITY Scholastic Achievement and Educational Adjustment, Creative Work, General Statement
PART III: GENERAL PRINCIPLES AND IMPLICATIONS.
18. ADULT STATUS AND PERSONALITY RATINGS.
Adult Status of Highly Intelligent Children, Critique of the
Concept of "Genius" as Applied in Terms of IQ, Application of
Bernreuter Inventory of Personality to Highly Intelligent Adolescents
19. THE DEVELOPMENT OF PERSONALITY IN HIGHLY INTELLIGENT CHILDREN General Considerations, The Part Played by Physique, Problem of Leadership, Problems of Adjustment to Occupation, Learning to "Suffer Fools Gladly", The Tendency to Become Isolated, The Concept of "Optimum Intelligence", Conclusion
20. THE CHILD OF VERY SUPERIOR INTELLIGENCE AS A SPECIAL PROBLEM IN SOCIAL ADJUSTMENT The Quality of Gifted Children, The Problem of Work, The Problem of Adjustment to Classmates, The Problem of Play, Special Problems of the Gifted Girl, Problems of Conformity, The Problems of Origin and of Destiny, General Considerations
21. THE ELEMENTARY SCHOOLING OF VERY BRIGHT CHILDREN
Considerations in Planning the Curriculum, Enrichment Units at
Speyer School, Special Work, Emotional Education, Matters of
General Policy
22. PROBLEMS OF RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN ELEMENTARY AND SECONDARY
SCHOOLS IN THE CASE OF HIGHLY INTELLIGENT PUPILS
The Elementary School, Transition from Elementary to Secondary
School, Consideration of the Questions Arising, What about Genius?
PREFACE
This study is founded upon the work of Francis Galton, on the one hand, and of Albert Binet, on the other. It goes back to Galton's Hereditary Genius, read as a prescribed reference in the courses of Professor Edward L. Thorndike, in 1912; and to the publication in 1916 of Professor Lewis M. Terman's Stanford Revision of the Binet-Simon Scale for Measuring Intelligence. It comprises observations, measurements, and conversations covering a period of twenty-three years, during which acquaintanceships and friendships, every one of them delightful, have been formed and maintained with the twelve individuals who form the basis of the study.
It was in November, 1916, shortly after taking appointment as instructor in educational psychology at Teachers College, Columbia University, that I saw for the first time a child testing above 180 IQ (S-B). I was teaching a course in the psychology of mentally deficient children, and it seemed to me that my class should if possible observe under test conditions one bright child for the sake of contrast. Accordingly, I asked whether any teacher present could nominate a very intelligent pupil for demonstration.
Miss Charlotte G. Garrison and Miss Agnes Burke, teachers in the Horace Mann School, Teachers College, New York City, thereupon nominated the child who is called E in this monograph. E was presented at the next meeting of the class. It required two full classroom periods to test this child to the limits of the Stanford-Binet Scale, which had just then been published. E exhausted the scale without being fully measured by it, achieving an IQ of at least 187. He was on that date 8 years 4 months old.
This IQ of at least 187 placed E in Galton's Class X of able persons; i.e., more than six "grades" removed from mediocrity. Taking 1 PE#dis# as one "grade," it placed him at least plus 11 PE from the norm; for 1 PE (Probable Error) equals 8 IQ, according to Terman's original distribution of 905 school children. [1] This appeared as sufficiently striking to warrant permanent recording, since it would rate E as one in a million for statistical frequency, assuming "zeal and power of working" to be also abundantly present.
I did not at that time have any expert knowledge of highly intelligent children. I had been working for some years in the hospitals of New York City with persons presented for commitment to reformatories, prisons, and institutions for mental defectives. I had tested thousands of incompetent persons, a majority of them children, with Goddard's Revision of the Binet-Simon Scale, scarcely ever finding anyone with an IQ rating as high as 100. This thoroughgoing experience of the negative aspects of intelligence rendered the performance of E even more impressive to me than it would otherwise have been. I perceived the clear and flawless working of his mind against a contrasting background of thousands of dull and foolish minds. It was an unforgettable observation.
I then began to look for children like E, to observe them with reference to the principles of education. This search has been conducted in a desultory manner, in "odd" moments, ever since 1916. At times, as in 1922-1923 and in 1935-1936, when pupils were being sought for special classes at Public School 165, Manhattan, or at Public School 500, Manhattan, the search has been systematic. Usually, however, the quest has been quite otherwise, for in the course of long searching I have learned that it is nearly useless to look for these children, because so few of them exist. In twenty-three years' seeking in New York City and the local metropolitan area, the densest center of population in this country and at the same time a great intellectual center attracting able persons, I have found only twelve children who test at or above 180 IQ (S-B). This number represents the winnowing from thousands of children tested, hundreds of them brought for the testing because of their mental gifts. Of course there were and are others who have not been found, since [this] search has never been exhaustive.
The most interesting part of this research is yet to come, in the form of a record of the mature performances of these gifted persons observed in childhood. However, I propose to make a report now of origin and development; to be followed, if I live so long, by further reports of adult status. Such researches require more than the life span of one investigator, since time is of the essence of the task. Universities should make provision for institutional prosecution of these long-time studies as distinguished from individual prosecution. In any case, I shall try to leave the records to some younger student who will comprehend them, and who will amplify them if I prove unable to do so myself.
Galton, in his efforts to understand ability, was limited to the study of the eminent adult, dead and gone. The only test he could use was that of reputation, for at the time he was at work on the problem, mental measurement had not yet been developed as a technique. He wished for a more valid method of gauging ability, and he fully realized that it would be of greater advantage to study "the living individual." "Is reputation a fair test of natural ability?" he asked. "It is the only one I can employ . . . am I justified in using it? How much of a man's success is due to his opportunities, and how much to his natural power of intellect?"
Galton's work was finished before Binet's studies made it possible to measure natural ability apart from reputation; and what is most essential of all, to measure natural ability in childhood. It was Binet's great and original service that he rendered it possible to determine accurately the permanent intellectual caliber of an undeveloped human being. It has always been possible to appraise the ability of people forty or fifty years old, after they have met "the tests of life," but for the pursuit of education and social science it is not very practically useful to know what a person is like only at the end of his life. It is essential, rather, to know with a high degree of precision and certainty the mental endowment of persons at the beginning of their lives if anything is to be done in the matter of special training for special children.
The facts derived from the study of the twelve exceptional persons herein described, and from the study of others like them, and the principles deduced from these facts, are of that order of importance for social science which Galton ascribed to them. Nevertheless, to hear of the tremendous differences between the dullest and the most intelligent individual, between the average man and the person who falls more than +10 PE away from him in mental ability, is extremely tedious to the typical American listener. This is only too well known to one who has long tried to interest foundations and moneyed persons in the education of gifted children. There is an apparent preference among donors for studying the needs and supporting the welfare of the weak, the vicious, and the incompetent, and a negative disregard of the highly intelligent, leaving them to "shift for themselves."
Perhaps a wider dissemination of facts such as have been adduced in the studies of Professor Lewis M. Terman and other educators, and in this study, may eventually bring about a more constructive point of view, one more conducive to a recognition of national welfare involved in educational plans for the unusual student.
It is desirable in this introduction to make known some of the etiquette and ethics involved in the scientific study of very gifted children. This is a new area in the field of human relationships and the investigator who works within it comes rather frequently upon certain questions of good manners which do not arise in any other field of psychological research.
For instance, persons who test above 180 IQ (S-B) are almost sure to read and recognize in books and articles whatever has been written about them, no matter how anonymously they may have been described. This is true of them even as children. When the book Gifted Children was published, in 1926, Child A, who is described therein as well as in these pages, was thirteen years old. He read the book within two weeks of publication; for, as he said in mentioning the matter to the author, "I go every week to the Public Library and look first at the shelf of new books." The problem always in the foreground is how to present the whole truth about such matters as family history, social-economic status, and character, without invading the privacy of those described and without identifying them to the general public or to curious persons.
Those who test above 180 IQ (S-B) are characterized by a strong desire for personal privacy. They seldom volunteer information about themselves. They do not like to have attention called to their families and homes. They are reluctant to impart information concerning their plans, hopes, convictions, and so forth. The question arises, then, how to avoid presumption; for it is by no means easy for a young person politely to evade an older person who can lay claim to having known one "all one's life."
Thus, in this study, in order to preserve the privacy of those concerned, some items have been omitted from the histories which would have been of interest to students of child psychology. Let it be understood at once, however, that the omissions include nothing discreditable to any of the twelve individuals studied; rather, many of these items are highly creditable. There have been acts of moral courage, acts of skill, and acts of self-sustaining heterodoxy that if told at all should be told only by those who performed the actions. Perhaps autobiographies may some day be written by these persons, telling whatever they may wish to tell.
In the matter of the attitude of people in general toward gifted children, there are, of course, a majority who are kindly and understanding and helpful, but it is a melancholy fact that there are also malicious and jealous people who are likely to persecute those who are formally identified as being unusual. It may prove a handicap rather than a help to a gifted youngster to have been identified in book or article or school as extraordinary. Some of the children herein described have suffered considerably from the malice of ill-mannered persons, even their instructors, who have felt the impulse to "take them down a peg." Specific instances of such persecution can be cited from public prints, and reference will be made to them in the course of this monograph.
It would be of interest to present a photograph of each child herein observed, to show how in personal appearance they are diametrically opposite to the popular stereotype of the highly intelligent child; but photographs would tend to identification.
These questions of what is right and what is wrong, what is permissible and what is forbidden, in reporting the origin and development of the gifted cannot be fully determined here. The policies pursued in this study have been discussed from time to time with gifted children and their parents, and I have been guided by their advice. Everything has been presented that is consistent both with scientific interest and with the preservation of personal privacy. The work as it stands has taken hundreds of hours of the time of these children and of their parents and teachers, over a period of twenty years. They are all very busy people, yet they have given time and energy for tests, measurements, and interviews as requested. It is obvious that without this coöperation no study could have been made.
Leta S. Hollingworth
Teachers College
Columbia University
New York City
[1] EDITORIAL NOTE. The larger and better sampling of subjects tested for the 1937 Stanford Revision showed a wider variability than the 1916 group and indicates that the true PE of the IQ distribution of unselected children is in the neighborhood of 11 IQ points, according to Terman.
[2] All such records have been deposited in the psychological laboratory of Barnard College, Columbia University.
PART I ORIENTATION
CHAPTER ONE THE CONCEPT OF INTELLECTUAL GENIUS
It would be an ambitious project to find and discuss all the definitions of genius that have ever been offered in writing. To do this is beyond our present purpose, which is, rather, to illustrate the various concepts that have been formulated and to take guidance from them in the consideration of children of great ability. It will perhaps be many years before it will be apparent whether the children studied herein are geniuses or not. Perhaps this can never be determined, as the word "genius" may eventually be found to have no meaning that can be agreed upon. All we know about the status of the subjects of the present study is that they test above 180 IQ (S-B) and are thus more than +10 PE removed from mediocrity in general intelligence. [1] It may be possible to arrive at some comparison between their characteristics and performances on the one hand, and the concepts of genius that have been offered on the other.
CONCEPTS OF THE ANCIENTS
The concept of the genius is very ancient. Ovid (12), [2] referring to Caesar and his preparations to complete the conquest of the world, notes the manner in which a genius acts in advance of his years:
Though he himself is but a boy, he wages a war unsuited to his boyish years. Oh, ye of little faith, vex not your souls about the age of the gods! Genius divine outpaces time, and brooks not the tedium of tardy growth. Hercules was still no more than a child when he crushed the serpent in his baby hands. Even in the cradle, he proved himself a worthy son of Jove.
The Greeks called that person's "daemon" which directed and inspired his creative work. Dictionaries refer to the Roman concept of genius as "a spirit presiding over the destiny of a person or a place; a familiar spirit or a tutelary." The genie was one of the powerful nature demons of Arabian and Mohammedan lore, believed to interfere in human affairs and to be sometimes subject to magic control.
Thinkers in any and every field, no matter how remote from that of psychology, have confidently discussed the nature of genius. Philosophers, poets, litterateurs, physicians, physiologists, psychiatrists, anthropometrists, lexicographars, encyclopedists— all have offered definitions, each according to his light. It has been deemed a subject on which anyone might legitimately express an opinion. The result is, as might be expected, an interesting miscellany of contradictions.
DICTIONARY DEFINITIONS
By derivation the word "genius" means to beget or to bring forth, coming from genere, gignere. Samuel Johnson's Dictionary—from which Galton took his point of departure in choosing the word "genius" for the title of his work on ability—defines a genius as "A man endowed with superior faculties."
Funk and Wagnall's Dictionary offers the following definition: "Very extraordinary gifts or native powers, especially as displayed in original creation, discovery, expression, or achievement."
Webster's New International Dictionary defines "genius" as "Extraordinary mental superiority; esp. unusual power of invention or origination of any kind; as, a man of genius."
The Dictionary of Psychology defines "genius" in part in terms of IQ, but at the same time denies the word any special meaning as a recognized scientific term: "Genius—a very superior mental ability, especially a superior power of invention or origination of any kind, or of execution of some special form, such as music, painting, or mathematics. . . . It has no special technical meaning, but has occasionally been defined as equivalent to an intelligence quotient (IQ) of 140 or above."
Generally speaking, then, dictionaries define genius as a superior or superlative degree of intellectual capacity, and avoid claiming it for any concept of an added, different, or abnormal element in human faculty.
CONCEPTS OF GENIUS
As a manifestation of abnormal psychology. A number of thinkers in fields allied to psychology have laid emphasis upon a supposed connection between genius and nervous instability or insanity. This idea is embodied in the statement by Pascal: "L'extrême esprit est voisin de l'extrême folie." Lamartine refers to "la maladie mentale qu'on appelle génie." Lombroso (10) is perhaps the most widely quoted among those who have held or who hold this point of view.
As constituting a different species. The idea has been expressed by thinkers other than professed psychologists—and at times by psychologists themselves—that men of genius are a separate species, partaking of qualities not shared in any degree by persons at large. This concept is at one with that which would regard the idiot and the imbecile as distinct in kind, not in degree only, from the mass of mankind. Genius would thus be not merely more of the same but a different sort altogether. Thus Hirsch (7) specifically declares:
The genius differs in kind from the species, man. Genius can be defined only in terms of its own unique mental and temperamental processes, traits, qualities, and products. Genius is another psychobiological species, differing as much from man, in his mental and temperamental processes, as man differs from the ape.
As a hypertrophied and highly specialized aptitude for specific performance. The thought has been advanced that intellectual genius is a matter of specialization; that the mind of a genius will not, typically, work on all data with superior results, but that it is adapted only or primarily to certain kinds of intellectual performance. In other words, the genius is thought to lack general ability. A recent statement by Carrel (2) seems to express in part at least this theory:
There is also a class of men who, although disharmonious as the criminal and the insane, are indispensable to modern society. They are the men of genius. They are characterized by a monstrous growth of some of their psychological activities. A great artist, a great scientist, a great philosopher, is rarely a great man. He is generally a man of common type, with one side over-developed.
As a combination of traits. Galton (6) thought of genius as that which qualifies a person for eminence, and he believed that achieved eminence must be founded on a combination of no less than three essentials. He wrote:
By natural ability I mean those qualities of intellect and disposition which urge and qualify a man to perform acts that lead to reputation. I do not mean capacity without zeal, nor zeal without capacity, nor even a combination of both of them, without an adequate power of doing a great deal of very laborious work. But I mean a nature which, when left to itself, will, urged by an inherent stimulus, climb the path that leads to eminence, and has strength to reach the summit . . . one which, if hindered or thwarted, will fret and strive until the hindrance is overcome, and it is again free to follow its labour-loving instinct. It is almost a contradiction in terms to doubt that such men will generally become eminent.
Again, Galton says:
We have seen that a union of three separate qualities—intellect, zeal, and power of work—are necessary to raise men from the ranks.
Lehman (9) has recently expressed this same idea, as a result of a statistical study of the most productive years of intellectual workers:
Indeed, it is doubtful that genius is solely the fruit of any single trait. It is the belief of the writer that the fruits of genius are, on the contrary, a function of numerous integers, including both the personal traits of the individual worker, environmental conditions that are not too hostile, and the fortunate combination of both personal traits and external conditions.
As quantitative. Galton (6) was the first to place the study of genius on the basis of quantitative statement, so that comparisons might be made and vertifications be effected. Galton formulated the theory that genius (great natural ability) is nothing more nor less than a very extreme degree in the distribution of a combination of traits—"intellect, zeal, and power of working"— which is shared by all in various "grades" or degrees. Reasoning thus, Galton applied for the first time in human thought the mathematical concepts of probablity to the definition of genius.
Quetelet (13), drawing objects from congeries of known composition, had elaborated the form which the probabilities take of drawing a given combination. This form, with the law of deviation from the average governing it, is now, of course, a commonplace in psychological laboratories, so that it is hard to realize that when Galton made the mental leap from this curve to the abilities of men, no one had ever thought of human minds as "fitting" the curve drawn by Quetelet. Such a "fit" had already been thought of in connection with measurements of physique, and had been demonstrated for measurements of the shrimp (16) and for physical traits of persons. But that "natural ability" should be susceptible to the probability curve and "the curious theoretical law of deviation from an average" as length is among shrimps, or as circumference of the chest is among Scottish soldiers (as shown by Quetelet), was not conceived. With the modern methods of mental measurement it is easy enough to perceive the truth of this. But Galton was working in the dark, entirely without instruments of precision; and his table of frequency "for the classification of men according to their natural gifts" must be regarded as one of the most prescient statements in the history of social science.
Working with the tables devised by Quetelet, Galton proposed the tabular "classification of men according to their natural gifts" shown [below].
CLASSIFICATION OF MEN ACCORDING TO THEIR NATURAL GIFTS
GRADES OF NATURAL NUMBERS OF MEN COMPRISED IN THE SEVERAL GRADES OF NATURAL ABILITY, WHETHER IN RESPECT ABILITY, SEPARATED TO THEIR GENERAL POWERS OR TO SPECIAL APTITUDES BY EQUAL INTERVALS
Below Above Proportionate; In Each Million In Total Male Population of the United Kingdom, Say Average Average viz., One in of the Same Age 15 Millions, of the Undermentioned Ages 20-30 30-40 40-50 50-60 60-70 70-80 a A 4 256,791 651,000 495,000 391,000 268,000 171,000 77,000 b B 6 161,279 409,000 312,000 246,000 168,000 107,000 48,000 c C 16 63,563 161,000 123,000 97,000 66,000 42,000 19,000 d D 64 15,696 39,800 30,300 23,900 16,400 10,400 4,700 e E 413 2,423 6,100 4,700 3,700 2,520 1,600 729 f F 4,300 233 590 450 355 243 155 70 g G 79,000 14 35 27 21 15 9 4 x
All grades All grades below g above G 1,000,000 1 3 2 2 2 0 0
Interpreting this theoretical tabulation, Galton (6) wrote:
It will be seen that more than half of each million is contained in the two mediocre classes a and A; the four mediocre classes a, b, A, B, contain more than four fifths, and the six mediocre classes more than nineteen twentieths of the entire population. Thus, the rarity of commanding ability and the vast abundance of mediocrity is no accident, but follows of necessity from the very nature of these things.
On decscending the scale, we find by the time we have reached f that we are already among the idiots and imbeciles. We have seen that there are 400 idiots and imbeciles to any million of persons living in this country; but that 30 per cent of their number appear to be light cases, to whom the name of idiot is inappropriate. There will remain 280 true idiots and imbeciles to every million of our population. This ratio coincides very closely with the requirements of class f. No doubt a certain proportion of them are idiots owing to some fortuitous cause . . . but the proportion of accidental idiots cannot be very large.
Hence we arrive at the undeniable but unexpected conclusion that eminently gifted men are raised as much above mediocrity as idiots are depressed below it; a fact that is calculated to enlarge considerably our ideas of the enormous difference of intellectual gifts between man and man.
MISCELLANEOUS OBSERVATIONS TENDING TO DEFINE CHARACTERISTICS OF GENIUS
In addition to the formulation of the rather definite concepts of genius which have been discussed, there are to be found in the literature of this topic a large number of general observations ascribing certain characteristics to persons of genius. There are also many remarks as to the conditions of living, of education, of genetics, and so forth, which are alleged to foster or to hinder the development of genius. Many of these observations and remarks emanate from others than professed psychologists, some of the most interesting coming from litterateurs and philosophers.
One of the most penetrating discussions of genius by a litterateur is that of Shaw (15) in his Preface to Saint Joan. Shaw regards Saint Joan as a young genius, and in introducing his readers to this point of view he says:
Let us be clear about the meaning of the terms. A genius is a person who, seeing farther and probing deeper than other people, has a different set of ethical values from theirs, and has energy enough to give effect to this extra vision and its valuations in whatever manner best suits his or her specific talents.
Here is brought out the tendency to heterodoxy which characterizes genius and is the source of much of its difficulty. Shaw dwells upon these difficulties in saying:
But it is not so easy for mental giants who neither hate nor intend to injure their fellows to realize that nevertheless their fellows hate mental giants and would like to destroy them, not only enviously because the juxtaposition of a superior wounds their vanity, but quite honestly because it frightens them. Fear will drive men to any extreme; and the fear inspired by a superior being is a mystery which cannot be reasoned away. Being immeasurable it is unbearable when there is no presumption or guarantee of its benevolence and moral responsibility; in other words, when it has official status.
This is the same trend of thought which Mill (11) follows in his Essay on Liberty, noting the originality that characterizes genius and the troubles that result from it, and insisting upon freedom for genius in the interests of the general welfare.
It would not be denied by anybody that originality is a valuable element in human affairs. There is always need of persons not only to discover new truths, and point out when what were once truths are true no longer, but also to commence new practices, and set the example of more enlightened conduct, and better taste and sense in human life. . . . It is true that this benefit is not capable of being rendered by everybody alike; there are but few persons in comparison with the whole of mankind, whose experiments, if adopted by others, would be likely to be any improvement on established practice. But these few are the salt of the earth; without them, human life would become a stagnant pool. . . . Persons of genius, it is true, are and are always likely to be, a small minority; but in order to have them, it is necessary to preserve the soil in which they grow. Genius can only breathe freely in an atmosphere of freedom. Persons of genius are, ex vi termini, more individual than any other people . . . less capable, consequently, of fitting themselves, without hurtful compression, into any of the small number of moulds which society provides in order to save its members the trouble of forming their own character. If from timidity they consent to be forced into one of these moulds, and to let that part of themselves which cannot expand under the pressure remain unexpanded, society will be little better for their genius. If they are of strong character, and break their fetters, they become a mark for the society which has not succeeded in reducing them to common-place, to point with solemn warning as "wild," "erratic," and the like; much as if one should complain of the Niagara River for not flowing smoothly between its banks like a Dutch canal.
Mill says further:
I insist thus emphatically on the importance of genius, and the necessity of allowing it to unfold itself freely both in thought and in practice, being well aware that no one will deny the position in theory, but knowing also that almost everyone, in reality, is totally indifferent to it.
Mill, indeed, had much to say about the conditions under which the exceptional individual contributes to social change and progress, which bears immediately upon the education of highly exceptional children.
Bearing further upon the persecution to which genius is often subject as a penalty for nonconformity, Havelock Ellis (5) after studying a large number of British men of genius says:
It is practically impossible to estimate the amount of persecution to which this group of preëminent persons has been subjected, for it has shown itself in innumerable forms, and varies between a mere passive refusal to have anything to do with them or their work and the active infliction of physical torture and death. There is, however, at least one form of persecution, very definite in character, which it is easy to estimate, since the national biographers have probably in few cases passed over it. I refer to imprisonment. I find that at least 160, or over 16 per cent, of our 975 eminent men were imprisoned, once or oftener, for periods of varying length, while many others only escaped imprisonment by voluntary exile.
This is a conclusion reached by one investigating the condition of genius among what are probably the most liberal people in the world—the British, a nation of protestants.
Another condition of genius frequently alleged is that of personal isolation. Shaw makes Saint Joan say, "I was always alone." Schopenhauer (14) says: "It is often the case that a great mind prefers soliloquy to the dialogue he may have in the world." Hirsch (7) dwells at some length upon isolation:
The genius is constantly forced to solitude, for he early learns from experience that his kind can expect no reciprocation of their generous feelings. . . . Solitude can best be defined as the state in which friends are lacking or absent, rather than as the opposite of sociability. . . . Solitude is but a refuge of genius, not its goal. Time after time one detects, from the lives or writings of genius, that solitude is not its destiny but only a retreat; not the normal fruition of its being, but an empty harbor sheltering it from the tortures, griefs, and calumnies of the world. . . . It is a grievous error to credit the genius with an innate inclination to shun men. But in his youth he learns by experience that solitude is preferable to suffocation, stupefaction, or surrender.
Alger (1) sees isolation as a necessary corollary of the insistence upon perfection and accuracy which characterizes genius:
A passion for perfection will make its subject solitary as nothing else can. At every step he leaves a group behind. And when, at last, he reaches the goal, alas, where are his early comrades?
These references to the early experience of the genius in meeting the uncordial response of the world as constituted, with its resultant tendency to isolation, connect themselves with an account found in the Apocryphal New Testament, in a portion called the Hebrew Gospels.
And Joseph, seeing that the child was vigorous in mind and body, again resolved that he should not remain ignorant of the letters, and took him away, and handed him over to another teacher. And the teacher said to Joseph: I shall teach him the Greek letters, and then Hebrew. He wrote out the alphabet and began to teaching him in an imperious tone, saying: Say Alpha. And he gave him his attention for a long time and he made no answer, but was silent. And he said to him: If thou art really a teacher, tell me the power of the Alpha and I will tell thee the power of the Beta. And the teacher was enraged at this, and struck him.
SPECULATION AND COMMENT CONCERNING GENIUS
The ecology of genius has evoked speculation and comment.
Thus Churchill (3) says:
Mountain regions discourage the budding of genius because they are areas of isolation, confinement, remote from the great currents of men and ieas that move along river valleys. They are regions of much labor and little leisure, of poverty today and anxiety for the morrow, of toil-cramped hands and toil-dulled brains. In the fertile alluvial plains are wealth, leisure, contact with many minds, large urban centers where commodities and ideas are exchanged.
The origins of genius have also engaged the attention of speculative thinkers. For instance, Dixon (4) and also Hirsch (7) offer the hypothesis that racial mixture is an antecedent of genius. Kretschmer (8) would by inference subscribe to this theory, since he holds that genetically genius results from the union of unlike elements, to which he refers as "bastardization":
The investigation of the family history of highly talented individuals demonstrates very clearly the effect of biological "bastardization," and shows why it may lead to the production of genius. . . . It results in a complicated psychological structure, in which the components of two strongly opposing germs remain in polar tension throughout life. . . . This polar tension acts as an effective and dynamic factor and produces in the genius the labile equlibrium, the effective super-pressure, that continuous, restless impulsiveness, which carries him far beyond placid, traditional practice and the simple satisfaction of life. On the other hand, in regard to his intellectual abilities, the polar tension creates in the genius his wide mental horizon, the diverse and complicated wealth of his talent, the all-embracing personality.
Kretschmer also allies himself with those who hold the concept of genius as closely related to insanity, quoting selected cases in proof:
"Bastardization" produces internal contrasts and conflicts, affects tensions, highly strung and uncompensated passions, and a spiritual lability. It consequently creates a predisposition to genius . . . but also [points] to psycho-pathological complications. Thus the research on "bastardization" becomes closely interwoven with the old, familiar questions, leading us back to the problem: "Genius and Insanity."
BIBLIOGRAPHY
1. ALGER, WILLIAM. The Genius of Solitude, page 144.
2. CARREL, ALEXIS. Man the Unknown. See pages 140-141. Harper & Brothers, New York; 1935.
3. CHURCHILL, ELLEN SEMPLE. The Influence of Geographic Environment on the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropogeography. Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston; 1909.
4. DIXON, ROLAND B. The Racial History of Man. Charles Scribner's Sons, New York; 1923.
5. ELLIS, HAVELOCK. A Study of British Genius. Constable, London; 1927.
6. GALTON, FRANCIS. Hereditary Genius. The Macmillan Company, London; 1914.
7. HIRSCH, N. D. M. Genius and Creative Intelligence. Sci-Art Publisher, Cambridge, Massachusetts; 1931.
8. KRETSCHMER, E. The Psychology of Men of Genius. Translated by R. B. Cattell. Harcourt, Brace & Co., Inc., New York; 1931.
9. LEHMAN, HARVEY C. "The Creative Years in Science and Literature." Scientific Monthly (August, 1936).
10. LOMBROSO, C. The Man of Genius. Scott, London; 1891.
11. MILL, JOHN STUART. Essay on Liberty. See page 76 ff. The Macmillan Company, New York; 1926 Ed.
12. OVIDIUS NASO, PUBLIUS. Ars Amatoria (The Love Books of Ovid). Translated by J. Lewis May. Privately printed for the Rarity Press, New York; 1930.
13. QUETELET, M. Letters on Probability. Translated by Downes. Layton & Co., London; 1849.
14. SCHOPENHAUER, ARTHUR. "Essay on Genius," in The Art of Literature, Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer. Willey Book Company, New York.
15. SHAW, GEORGE BERNARD. Saint Joan. Dodd, Mead, & Co., Inc., New York; 1924, 1936.
16. WELDON, W. F. R. "Certain Correlated Variations in Crangdon Vulgaris," Proceedings of The Royal Society, Vol. 51, page 2 (1892).
[1] See endnote [1] in Preface.
[2] Numbers in parentheses refer to correspondingly numbered references in the Bibliography at the end of each chapter.
CHAPTER TWO EARLY SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF EMINENT ADULTS [1]
Because, strictly speaking, the present study is limited in its interest and data to childhood, no attempt will be made to review in detail the somewhat numerous studies of exceptional adults.
ORIGIN OF EMINENT ADULTS
Such studies as those undertaken by Galton (11, 12), De Candolle (9), Ellis (10), Odin (17), and Cattell (4, 5) show that those who, as adults, become eminent in intellectual work, are in disproportionately great numbers the children of the "upper" (nobler or professional) classes; and that they are usually born either in cities or on large country estates (in France, in the chateaux). Very few eminent adults have originated in the families of laborers, and relatively few have been born in agricultural districts, in countries long settled. Beyond these facts of origin, the investigators of eminence in adults have not given much information about their subjects of inquiry in respect to childhood.
YODER'S STUDY
We shall begin our detailed reference to previous observations with Yoder's study, published in 1898. Yoder (25) made a systematic attempt to gather data about the boyhood of very eminent men. He thus tracked down certain facts about fifty great persons concerning whom he could find data bearing on their childhood. From these he was able to make the following generalizations:
1. The child who will become a great man may be born at any time, over a very wide range of the productive period in the lives of parents. The mothers of the fifty great persons studied ranged in age from 18 to 44 years, when the great man was born, with a median of 29.8 years. The fathers ranged in age from 23 to 60 years, with a median of 37.7 years.
2. The average number of siblings of these persons was 5+, not including half brothers and sisters.
3. In families of more than one child, there was found to be a strong tendency (chances of nearly 2 to 1) for the great man to be in the elder half of the siblings.
4. Of those listed, 17 were only sons, either by order of birth or by death of other sons born. (This is not to say that they were only children.)
5. There was found no evidence that the great were sickly or physically weak in childhood, to a more marked extent than average.
6. There appeared a tendency to great height among them than among persons in general, "though the tendency is not very marked."
7. Play interests were keen among these children, though the play was often of an unusual kind. "Solitary play" is repeatedly described. Of Emerson, his biographer says: "I don't think he ever engaged in boys' plays, not because of any physical disability, but simply because from earliest years he dwelt in a higher sphere." Others are said to have been "disinclined to general intercourse." Instead of joining in the usual childish games, Newton preferred to play with his machines, Darwin with his collections, Shelley to read, Stevenson to make clay engines, and Edison to mix his chemicals. Of Byron it was written: "The love of solitude and of meditation is already traceable in the child. He loves to wander at night among the dark and solitary cloisters of the abbey." To quote Yoder: "Solitude seems to have played a rather striking role in the lives of these great men. Either by nature or by opportunity, they have stayed a great deal alone."
Nevertheless, many of the fifty persons studied by Yoder enjoyed physical activity. Washington loved outdoor sports, Schiller was a leader in athletics, Byron was an enthusiastic swimmer and rider, and Lincoln was the champion wrestler and woodcutter of his neighborhood.
8. The popular idea that great men owe their success to their mothers' influence upon their education does not receive verification from a study of these cases. The mother's place seems very often to have been filled by some other person, frequently an aunt, either because the mother had died, or because there were many other children to care for. "The role of the aunt stands out prominently."
9. These great persons were, in the decided majority of cases, derived from well-to-do families. Most of them were privately educated, by tutors or in private schools. Very few were "self made."
TERMAN'S INFERENCES FROM BIOGRAPHY
Terman (20) has effected an interesting advance over Yoder's method, in the interpretation of evidence from the biography of adults. [2] By analyzing data in the biography of Francis Galton, and by relating these data to modern knowledge of mental tests, Terman derives that the IQ of Francis Galton in childhood must have been not far from 200.
As Terman has elsewhere pointed out, these attempts to study genius in childhood by inference from the biography of adults are very unsatisfactory. In the first place, only those whose potentialities have been realized are included in such study. Since factors other than innate intellectual power act also as determinants of eminence, we cannot be sure whether equal capacity for selective thinking may have existed in persons who died before the age of achievement, who were younger sons, who were girls, or who were the children of the poor. Moreover, such evidence as can be gleaned concerning those who have achieved eminence is comparatively unsystematic and unreliable as regards childhood.
Most clearly related to our present study are the previously reported observations of children made directly, during childhood, by trained investigators. The modern development of mental tests has now enabled psychologists to identify young children who deviate from average in the direction of superiority as regards selective thinking, and to follow their development for some years. Eventually, therefore, it will be known how to recognize those children who can become "great," and whether extreme deviation in mental tests is a basis of prophecy.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
1. BINET, A. _Psychologie des grandes calculateurs et joieurs d'échecs. Hachette, Paris; 1894.
2. BRIMHALL, D. "Family Resemblances among American Men of Science," American Naturalist, Vol. 56 (1922) and Vol. 57 (1923).
3. CASTLE, C. S. "Statistical Study of Eminent Women." Archives of Psychology, Vol. IV, No. 27 (1913).
4. CATTELL, J. McK. "A Statistical Study of Eminent Men." Popular Science Monthly (1903).
5. ——— "Families of American Men of Science." Popular Science Monthly, Vol. 86, pages 504-515 (1915).
6. CLARK, E. L. American Men of Letters: Their Nature and Nurture. Columbia University Press, New York; 1916.
7. COX, C. M. The Early Mental Traits of Three Hundred Geniuses. Genetic Studies of Genius: Vol. 2. Stanford University Press, Stanford University, California; 1926.
8. DAVIES, G. R. "A Statistical Study of the Influence of the Environment." Quarterly Journal of the University of North Dakota (1914).
9. DE CANDOLLE, A. Histoire des Sciences et des Savants depuis Deux Siècles. Geneva, Switzerland; 1873.
10. ELLIS, HAVELOCK. A Study of British Genius. Hirst and Blackett, London; 1904.
11. GALTON, FRANCIS. English Men of Science. The Macmillan Company, London; 1874.
12. ——— Hereditary Genius. The Macmillan Company, New York, 1914. (Original edition, London; 1869.)
13. LEHMAN, HARVEY C. "The Creative Years in Science and Literature." Scientific Monthly, Vol. XLIII, pages 151-162 (1936).
14. LOMBROSO, C. The Man of Genius. Scott, London; 1895.
15. MIDDLETON, W. C. "The Propensity of Genius to Solitude." Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, Vol. 30, pages 325-332 (1935).
16. MITCHELL, F. D. "Mathematical Prodigies." American Journal of Psychology, Vol. 18, pages 61-143 (1907).
17. ODIN, A. Genèse des Grands Hommes des Lettres Français Modernes. Paris et Lausanne; 1895.
18. RASKIN, E. "Comparison of Scientific and Literary Ability: A Biographical Study of Eminent Scientists and Men of Letters of the Nineteenth Century." Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, Vol. 31, pages 20-35 (1935).
19. SCHUSTER, E. "The Promise of Youth and the Performance of Manhood." Eugenics Laboratory Memoirs, Vol. 3, pages 16 ff. London; 1907.
20. TERMAN, LEWIS M. "The IQ of Francis Galton in Childhood." American Journal of Psychology, Vol. 28, pages 209-215 (1917).
21. VISHER, S. S. "A Study of the Type of Place of Birth and of the Occupation of Father of Subjects of Sketches in Who's Who in America." American Journal of Sociology, 1925.
22. ——— "The Comparative Rank of the American States." American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 36, pages 735-757 (March, 1931).
23. WHITE, R. K. "Note on the Psycho-pathology of Genius." Journal of Social Psychology, Vol. 1, pages 311-315 (1930).
24. ——— "The Versatility of Genius." Journal of Social Psychology, Vol. 2, pages 460-489 (1931).
25. YODER, G. E. "A Study of the Boyhood of Great Men." Pedagogical Seminary, Vol. 3, pages 134-156 (1894).
[1] EDITORIAL NOTE. No revision of this chapter has been found among the author's papers. In the earlier manuscript reporting but five cases, there was a brief section entitled "Inferences from the Study of Adults," and in the incompletely revised manuscript a list of references is given for this chapter which had not yet been written. The earlier sections and the revised bibliography are, therefore, all that is available for this chapter. The bibliography will be sufficient to guide any reader who may be further interested in the details of the scientific study of adults.
[2] EDITORIAL NOTE. Had these pages been written at a later date, or revised by the author, of course the more recent work of C. M. Cox (7), inspired by Terman, would have been considered.
CHAPTER THREE PUBLISHED REPORTS ON TESTED CHILDREN
Galton and those who built directly upon his pioneer thought about ability were limited to the study of those who had passed the tests of life itself, the study of the old and the dead, upon whom developing theories and processes of education have no bearing. Today one of the principal reasons for obtaining knowledge concerning able persons is that they and others like them may be properly educated for the social functions which they alone can perform. Inferences from study of eminent adults are, therefore, of negligible importance compared to the identification and education of today's gifted children.
MODERN APPROACH TO THE STUDY OF ABILITY
In 1905 Binet and Simon (3), announcing their scale for the measurement of intelligence in children, rendered it possible to know at the beginning of a human being's existence where—within narrow limits of error—he or she, in comparison with all others, grades in caliber of general intelligence. This work, relating itself to work done also by others—notably Spearman (21) and Thorndike (28, 30)—created a new epoch in the study of ability and inaugurated the so-called modern, or present-day, approach to the subject.
BINET'S METHOD
No extended discussion of what "general intelligence" is will be undertaken in these pages, as it would not be germane to the purposes of this monograph. It will be sufficient to refer to the concept which Binet had in mind in standardizing his scale (4): "It seems to us that there is a fundamental faculty, the alteration or the lack of which is of the utmost importance for practical life." It is this "fundamental faculty" which Binet named "judgment" that is the variable upon which rests the extreme position of the children who are to be studied herein.
The quantitative methods which make possible the study of the status of these children when they have reached adulthood are those developed in recent years by Thorndike (30) and his students. As the children identified years ago by Binet's method grew to adulthood, there were developed in the various laboratories of Columbia University methods of measuring the intelligence of superior adults, based on the fundamental principles which are the same for mental measurement at all periods of development. Methods have thus been made available for making quantitative statements of the status of these individuals both during development and at maturity.
THE RANGE OF INTELLECT ABOVE 180 IQ
It is pertinent to inquire what are the limits of variation in terms of standard use in respect to human intelligence. How far superior to the average person are the most highly intelligent individuals currently produced? Galton's (9) X grade of man was defined in terms of incidence as "one in a million." But this X man was not a product of one variable. Galton's X man resulted from an intellect in combination with "zeal and power of working." The incidence of this combination of traits would probably be less than the incidence of intellect alone in degree sufficient for X.
Our purpose in this chapter will be to consider investigations, made by direct methods, of the origin and development of children of a type extremely rare in occurrence, incidence being based on one variable only; i.e., intelligence measured in terms of IQ (S-B). For this purpose the line might be drawn at any point farther than +7 PE or +8 PE from the mean. A choice of 180 IQ (S-B) as a minimum insures a degree of plus deviation very rarely found even in metropolitan cities and their suburbs, as is clear from the reports of mental surveys conducted during the present century. The choice of 180 IQ (S-B), instead of 179 or 181 or some other amount of IQ in the extreme upper range, is obviously arbitrary and is adopted merely for the purpose of defining a point at and above which there are very few children who score.
Frequency of occurrence. Just how often does a child testing above 180 IQ (S-B) appear in the juvenile population of the United States? We cannot tell exactly until we know more about the spread of the distribution of IQ (S-B). In terms of PE (1 PE = ±8 IQ), according to Terman's original findings (24) we should come upon a deviate of +10 PE only once in more than a million times, provided the distribution of IQ corresponds exactly or even rather closely to Quetelet's (17) curve of probability as respects spread; for on this curve cases above or below ±5 PE approach zero in frequency.
It is certain, however, even from existing data, that the distribution of IQ extends for at least ±10 PE (even assuming that wider data will define 1 PE as ±10 instead of ±8 as found by Terman. It is probable that children who test above 180 IQ are actually present in our juvenile population in greater frequency than at the rate of one in a million. This does not mean that intellect when finally measured in true units may not conform in variability to the mathematics of chance; it means only in terms of IQ (in terms of ratio and not of absolute units) the conformity is probably not exact, as respects the law of deviation.
There may be one, or two, or three, or more children among every million born in the United States under present conditions who test at or above 180 IQ (S-B). In any case, however, they are extremely rare, and the study of their origin and development is of correspondingly great interest. In the course of discovering about 1000 children testing at or above 140 IQ (S-B) in the state of California, Terman (26) found 15 who tested at or above 180 IQ (S-B). Children who test at and above 140 IQ (S-B) are as 1 in 250 of children in large California cities and environs. Thus 140 IQ (S-B) defines a frequency of about 4 in 1000 of urban juvenile population in California. About 1.5 per cent, therefore, of those children who are as 4 in 1000 reach the status of which we are here treating; i.e., 180 IQ (S-B). [1] Nor can we take the children of California urban districts as a true sample of the population of the United States at large, since there is reason to believe that among urban children there is an uncommon proportion of intelligent individuals (8). Also it should be conceded that California has a total population that is above the average of the United States in general as regards mental ability (37). In any case, it may be guessed with some degree of approximation to fact how very few there are among American children who test at or above 180 IQ (S-B).
CHILDREN OBSERVED BEFORE THE ERA OF BINET
Scattered observations of children estimated by more or less competent persons as very unusual are to be found dating from quite early years. In this period the literature of child psychology was still in the state of narrative. The earliest of these narrations bears the date of 1726 (1) and concerns the child Heineken.
Christian Heinrich Heineken. Born February 6, 1721, the "Little Heineken," of Lübeck, was the son of an artist. When the child was 10 months old, his elders first noticed that he was looking with sustained attention at the figures wrought in gold on a grotesque that decorated the walls of his room and that were also on a white stove that stood therein.
Den 3 Dezember 1721 bemerkte man zuerst, dass das kind diese Figuren hin und her, eine Zeitlang ohne Unterlass ansah und seine Äugelchen auf eine derselben gleichsam anklebte. Man sagte ihm daher die Namen dieser Figuren, das sei eine Katze, das ein Turm, ein Schäfchen, ein Berg. Den andern Tag, den 4 Dezember, fragte man es wieder, wo die Katze, der Berg, das Schäfchen wäre und siehe da, das Kind deutete mit seinen kleinen Fingerchen hin und traf immer das rechte Bild, das man ihm genannt hatte. Noch mehr, nun gab es sich Mühe, die ihm vorgesagten Wörter: Katze, Berg, Turm selbst nachzusprechen: es sah daher mit unverwandten Blicken dem Redendend nach dem Munde, gab auf die Bewegung der Lippen und der Zunge desselben beständig acht, lallte das Wort nach und wiederholte dies so oft, bis es endlich eine Silbe nach der andern herauspresste. [a]
By the time this child was 14 months old he had learned all the stories in the New Testament. At this age he was still not weaned from the breast of his nurse, and had an antipathy to other foods. In order to get him accustomed to other forms of food, the family took him to sit with them at meals, but instead of eating "he did nothing but learn." When he saw the various appurtenances he asked persistently how the dishes were named, where they came from, what else could be made from the things, and did not rest until he had discussed every piece of information.
In this mode of life the child remained always happy and in good humor. He was lovable. Only when at times he was refused answers to his questions, because it was feared that he might be injured by too many remembrances, the child was "sorely grieved." The extent of his learning in the fourth year of life was as follows:
Es konnte gedruckte und geschriebene Sachen lateinisch und
deutsch lesen.
Schreiben konnte es noch nicht, seine Fingerchen waren zu
schwach dazu.
Das Einmaleins konnte es in und ausser der Ordnung hersagen.
Auch numerieren, subtrahieren, addieren und multiplizieren
vermochte es.
In Französischen kam es soweit, dass es ganze Historien in
dieser Sprache erzählen konnte.
In Latein lernte es über 1500 gute Sprüche aus lateinischen
Autoren.
Plattdeutsch hatte das Kind von seiner Amme, von der es nicht
lassen wollte, gelernt.
In der Geographie fuhr es fort, das Merkwürdigste eines jeden
auf der Landkarte steheneden Ortes zu fassen.
On a journey across the sea to Copenhagen, undertaken for the boy's health, a storm arose and the passengers were badly frightened, all but the child, who said, smiling "Qui nescit orare, discate navigare." When subsequently the ship came safely to anchor, he remarked, "Anchora navis sistitur; deserit ille suos nunquam, qui cuncta gubernat."
When the boy was brought before the Danish king, he said of the diamond order that the king gave him to hold, "C'est l'Ordre d'Elephant, garni de diamant." And gazing at the diamonds, he added, "Les bijoux sont precieux, mais la vie du Roi est plus precieuse."
The "little Heineken" died at the age of 4 years 4 months, in accordance with the popular superstition that early death awaits the highly intelligent child, "a wonder for all time."
Karl Witte. The father of Karl Witte (35) has furnished a somewhat elaborate account of his son's development, from which we learn that the young Karl could read fluently before his fourth birthday. He learned to write soon thereafter. At the age of 7 years 10 months a public demonstration of his ability to read was given, covering Italian, French, Greek, and Latin. He passed tests of preparedness to matriculate at the University of Leipsic [Leipzig] when he was 9 years old. In the field of mathematics he pursued analytical geometry at 11 and calculus at 12 years of age. At 14 he achieved the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, and was awarded the degree of Doctor of Laws at 16. At 23 he became full professor of jurisprudence at the University of Breslau. He was then called to Halle, and continued there for the remainder of his life, teaching and writing. At the age of 83, still vigorously engaged in mental tasks, he died, thus outliving the melancholy promise of early death which had often been prophesied to his father.
Pastor Witte, who directed his son's education, did not claim for him extraordinary intelligence. "Any man normally well endowed can become a great man if properly educated," he wrote (35). His special method of educating the boy seems to have been simply to afford him companionship. He describes the child as strong, healthy, and playful, without vanity or conceit. From the total record one must conclude that Karl Witte's intelligence quotient in childhood was in excess of 180, comparing his history with those studied in this monograph. His performances in childhood compare favorably with those of the children we have known with IQ (S-B) in the range above 185.
Otto Pöhler. IN 1910 Berkhan (2) recorded the performance of Otto Pöhler, "the early reading child of Braunschweig," the son of a master butcher (erstes und einziges Kind der Sclachtermeisters), born August 20, 1892. This child learned to walk and talk and his teeth erupted "at the right time." At the age of 1 year 3 months, when his grandmother led him forth on short neighborhood walks, she would read to him from signs on the streets. And at this period she wrote for him his name, "Otto." Soon he could recognize the word "Otto," when he saw it in the newspaper. Then the grandmother explained to him the alphabet, and read him single words. When Otto was taken to Dr. Berkhan, he was 1 year 9 months old, and he could read incidental matter, such as "April 27," written in Latin across the calendar in Dr. Berkhan's office.
Otto Pöhler, geborn den 20 August 1892 zu Braunschweig, erstes und einziges Kind des Schlachtermeisters, bekam zu rechter zeit Zähne und lernte zu rechter Zeit laufen und sprechen. Als er 5/4 Jahre alt war, führte ihn die Grossmutter vor die Tür und in die nächsten Strassen und nannte ihm dabei die Namen, welche auf den Haus- und Strassenschildern standen, auch hatten ihm Angehörigen mehrfach seinen Vornamen Otto aufgeschrieben. Als das Kind nun eine Zeitung in die Hände bekam, zeigte es den mehrfach in derselben gedruckten Namen Otto. Von da ab erklärte ihm die Grossmutter die Buchstaben und las ihm einzelne Worte vor; dabei ergab sich, dass das Kind ein ungeheures Gedächtnis für Buchstaben, Worte, und Zahlen hatte.
Als mir der kleine Otto zugeführt wurde, war er wie ich vorhin anführte 1 3/4 Jahre alt. Er tat sehr vertraut, kletterte sofort mehrfach auf meine Kniee, zeigte sich überhaupt sehr beweglich und unruhig. Als er einen neben dem Schreibtisch hängenden Wandkalender erblickte, las er unaufgefordert laut die auf demselben lateinisch gross gedruckte Anzeige: April 27 = "April zwei sieben. . . ."
Im Oktober, 1894, stellte ich den jungen Otto im Alter von 2 Jahren und 2 Monaten dem ärztlichen Landesverein vor. Als derselbe nach Beendigung meines über ihn gehaltenen Vortrags in den Sitzungssaal geführt wurde, zog einer der Ärzte den Börnerschen Medizinal-Kalender hervor mit der Aufforderung, die lateinische Aufschrift zu lesen. Er las fliessend: "Re—ichs Medizinal-Kalender. Begründet von Dĕr Pa—ul Börnēr. Eins acht neun vier." [c]
When Otto was 4 years old, Stumpf reported concerning him in the Vossiche Zeitung, of January 10, 1897, describing him as "not strongly yet not poorly developed, physically." The back of the skull was said to be conspicuous; the face, delicate; and the eyes, "wise and alive, taking on a remarkably concentrated expression in thinking." The general impression was that made by a merry, unspoiled youngster, seeing the world. His great passion was still for reading, and the most important things in the world to him were history, biography, and geography.
Er ist körperlich nicht stark, aber auch nicht schlecht entwickelt. Auf den ersten Blick fällt der lange Schädel und der starke Hinterkopf auf. In dem zierlichen Gesicht fesseln kluge, lebhafte Augen, die beim Nachsinnen einen merkwürdig ernsten konzentrierten Ausdruck annehmen. . . . Im ganzen macht er keineswegs den Eindruck eines ungesunden, abgematteten, sondern eines noch ganz frisch und lustig in die Welt schauenden Jungen. . . .
Seine grösste Leidenschaft ist noch immer das Lesen, und das Wichtigste in der Welt sind ihm historische, biographische und geographische Daten. Er kennt die Geburts- und Todesjahre vieler deutscher Kaiser, auch vieler Feldherren, Dichter, Philosophen, zumeist sogar auch Geburtstag und Geburtsort; ferner die Hauptstädte der meisten Staaten, die Flüsse, an denen sie liegen u. dergl. Er weiss Bescheid vom Anfang und Ende des dreissigjährigen und des siebenjährigen Krieges, von den Hauptschlachten dieser und anderer Kriege. Das alles hat er sich nach Aussage der Mutter ohne fremdes Zutun durch das emsige Studium eines "patriotischen Kalenders" und ähnlicher im Hause vorfindlicher Literatur, auch durch Entzifferung von Denkmalsinschriften in den Städten (wofür er besondere Leidenschaft hat) angeeignet. Als ihm auf zwei verschiedenen Blättern nacheinander 2 zwölfstellige Zahlen gezeigt wurden, die sich nur durch eine der mittleren Ziffern unterschieden, las er sie sogleich als Milliarden und konnte dann, ohne die Blätter wieder anzusehen, mit Sicherheit angeben, worin der Unterschied lag. [d]
Stumpf further said:
. . . Dr. Placzek u.a. die den Knaben früher beobachteten, den bestimmten Eindruck gewannen eines besonders geweckten, rasch und scharf denkenden und zugleich eines gutartigen, durchaus liebenswürdigen Kindes. An den Eltern und zumal an der Mutter hängt er mit der grössten Zärtlichkeit. [e]
When Berkhan saw Pöhler in July, 1907, the boy was an Obersekundaner in a gymnasium [f]. In April, 1909, aged 16 years 8 months, he appeared as an intelligent, wonderfully retentive, cultured young man, who oriented himself easily and who, although favored over and above his contemporaries, had kept a modest and lovable nature.
Jetzt, fast 17 Jahre alt, ist er ein intelligenter, mit einem bewunderungswerten Gedächtnis ausgestatteter, kenntnisreicher, sich auffallend leicht orientierender junger Mann, der, obgleich in seiner Weise vor der Mitwelt bevorzugt, sich ein bescheidenes, liebenswürdiges Wesen bewahrt hat. [g]
Pöhler's plan, when seen on this final occasion, April, 1909, was to go at Easter, 1910, to the university, to become a student of German history.
Other cases. General discussions of mental gifts in children which bear interestingly upon the subject here under discussion but fail to present any specific instances of individuals who exemplify extreme status, are those by Dolbear (7) and by Hartlaub (12), and the lectures given in 1930 before the Hungarian Society for Child Research and Practical Psychology (31). Among the cases cited by Waddle (33) there are none that belong to our study. In the research of Cox (6), the following eminent persons were rated as having been in childhood at or above 180 IQ (S-B): John Stuart Mill, Johann Wolfgang Goethe, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Blaise Pascal, Thomas Babington Macauly, and Hugo de Groot (Grotius). We would, however, venture to guess, from what we have observed over a long period of the work of persons who in childhood tested from 135 to 200 IQ (S-B), that a large number of the persons included in Cox's study would have tested in childhood at or above 180 IQ (S-B); and that the reasons why they failed of such rating as studied by Cox were two: (1) the data of childhood requisite for the valid rating were lacking; (2) the raters were not sufficiently familiar with what is required in terms of IQ to make possible the evaluation of those studies, because only a few children testing so high could have been seen by any rater, and nothing was as yet known of the performance of tested children at any stage of maturity. Many of the persons studied by the methods of Cox were rated at 140, 150, 155 IQ (S-B), whose performances in early maturity were far in excess of what can be expected of persons who represent nothing better than what the upper quarter of American college students can do (6). It is only when children test at least as high as 170 IQ (S-B) that they render performance in early maturity that suggests anything like the achievements of the persons studied by Cox.
CHILDREN WHO TEST ABOVE 180 IQ BY BINET-SIMON TESTS
After the publication of the Binet-Simon tests (3), a few cases of children testing very high by means of them were reported in the literature which resulted from the tests before they were revised by Terman (24). At that time, which was previous to the appearance of the Stanford-Binet tests, the IQ was not used in expressing mental status, but we are able to calculate what this was from the data of Mental Age. These early cases, definitely measured, are as follows:
Bush's daughter, B. In 1914 Bush (5) reported upon the mental examination of his daughter, B, who at the age of 3 years 6 months tested at 6 years by the Binet tests of 1911. Her IQ would thus be proved at about 185, calculated from her father's detailed record of responses. This report was rendered primarily to show that the Binet tests were too easy, as no child could possibly be really so advanced mentally as was B. "B's state is in no wise extra-normal, or beyond what it should be. She represents the norm."
Additional data concerning B are that she "is of a happy disposition . . . strong and well of body," and that her parents are both teachers. This record clearly reveals a child of surpassing intelligence, contrary to the father's belief that "she represents the norm."
Elizabeth, recorded by Langenbeck. In 1915 Langenbeck (15) contributed observations of a 5-year-old girl, Elizabeth, who tested at a mental level of about 11 years by the Binet-Simon tests of 1911, administered in the Psychological Laboratory at John Hopkins University. This would yield an IQ of about 220 (assuming the tests of 1911 to be approximately comparable with Stanford-Binet in power to distribute intellect).
Elizabeth is described as an only child. At 16 months she had a speaking vocabulary of 229 words, some English and some German, as she had a German nurse. At 5 years of age she had a speaking vocabulary of 6837 words, which are inscribed in the record. The observer writes of her as follows:
Her quickness of thought and readiness with an instant and convincing answer were typified one dusty, blustering day when we were out walking. A cloud of dust enveloped us, to her great indignation, and being a very vehement character she exclaimed, "I should like to kill the dust!" In answer to my reproof, "Do not be so foolish. How can anyone kill the dust?" she replied, "Very easily—pour a little water on it." This was at the age of 4 years. . . . She is highly imaginative, and lives largely in a dream world of her own creation. Her games are nearly all pretense that she is someone else, and that she is surrounded by companions, sometimes purely fictitious, though often characters out of books that have been read to her. . . . When being read to, she asks the meaning of every unfamiliar word, and rarely forgets it, using it thereafter in its proper place. . . . Many of her forebears have been distinguished men and women, and on both sides her family have been people of more than average capacity and cultivation. . . . From an early age she has shown unusual muscular coördination, using her fingers daintily and with precision. From her eighth month she used a paper and pencil, drawing recognizable figures. At 4 years she could illustrate a little story composed by herself. . . . The source of much of her knowledge is a mystery to her parents, and can only be explained by her keen observation and retentive memory, as well as by a power of comprehension much beyond her years. However absorbed she may appear to be in her play, talking vigorously to herself and to imaginary companions all the time, she nevertheless hears everything that is said in her presence, though months will often pass before she alludes to it. . . . She taught herself her letters from street signs and books, and could print them all before she was three, and during the next few months would write letters of several pages, of her own composition, having the words, of course, spelled for her. . . . She has an accurate ear and could sing a tune correctly before her second birthday, and dances in excellent time. . . . Every new thought or impression is at once associated with some previous idea. Hence, doubtless, her marvelous memory. For example, in a country walk she noticed a typical Virginia snake fence, having never seen one before. After a single moment's hesitation she said, "You see that M or W fence?" . . . At the age of five years she had coined twenty-three words— e.g., laten, to make late; neaten, to make neat; plak, to pretend; up-jar, pitcher.
Rusk's case, from Scotland. In 1917 Rusk (19) published an account of a Scottish boy whose IQ, calculated from Rusk's detailed record, was 166 on first test and about 200 on second test given two and a half years later, the Binet-Simon tests of 1911 being used. This child was the son of a widow in Dundee, who lived and supported her two sons by letting rooms to lodgers. The young brother of this boy was not judged to be remarkably intelligent, but no test was given to substantiate this impression. Details of family history are not recorded.
The boy was brought to attention at the age of 5 years by his teachers, who noted particularly his aptitude for mathematics. The mother was unaware of her son's extraordinary intelligence, but she had noticed that he spent a considerable amount of time on the floor, counting. He would count such objects as cigarette coupons begged from lodgers. Also the mother observed that he "had learned before going to school, or being taught to read, to recognize certain words."
CHILDREN WHO TEST ABOVE 180 IQ BY STANFORD-BINET TESTS
Beatrice. Terman and Fenton (25) first described Beatrice in 1921 under her own name. In 1930 Terman (27) again described this child, under the name of Beatrice (evidently being then convinced that pseudonyms are to be preferred in designating children studied), adding data about development.
The child's four grandparents were respectively of Swedish, German-French, English, and Scottish descent. "The mother is a woman of more than average intelligence, and of considerable musical ability. The father's line of ancestry includes several notables, among them a Lord Mayor of London. The father is a physician, and the author of the Ford Stitch, favorably mentioned in standard texts on surgery. Betty [Beatrice] has no sisters or brothers."
Beatrice was born in San Francisco, January 21, 1912, and was first tested six weeks before her eighth birthday, by Stanford-Binet, yielding then a mental age of 14 years 10 months and an IQ of 188. Her speaking vocabulary was at that time 13,000 words. A variety of mental tests gave nearly the same composite result as that achieved by Stanford-Binet. At the time of testing, the child had never attended school but had been given a little private instruction at home. Her scores on standard tests of scholastic knowledge ranged, nevertheless, from fifth-grade norms (in the four fundamental processes in arithmetic) to second year of college (in tests of poetic appreciation). Her median score in eight scholastic tests was about eighth grade (where the median birthday age of pupils is about 14 years, and where pupils have been in school on an average of eight years).
Ratings for traits of character and for physique gave this child a score much above average in both respects. She weighed 11 pounds and 15 ounces at birth, and at the age of 8 years 2 months corresponded to the standard for 9 years 6 months in weight and for 10 years 6 months in stature. Her hand grip at this time was equal to that of the average 10-year-old. She began to walk at 7 months of age, which is the earliest age of walking recorded for any of the children so far studied, including those who are the special subjects of this monograph. At 19 months she talked clearly and knew the alphabet; and at the age of 4 years 6 months she was discovered reading Heidi, a book of about fourth-grade degree of difficulty. Her parents did not know that she could read, and they have no idea when or how she learned. By her eighth birthday Beatrice had read approximately seven hundred books, many of them twice. At that age it was one of her favorite pastimes to write stories or poems and to illustrate them with original drawings. Her health was said by her parents to be excellent. The measurements given show her to be large and strong for her age.
Beatrice was not entered at school until she was 11 years old, but studied at home under her mother's guidance. There was little formal instruction—as a rule there was arithmetic, from ten to twenty minutes daily. At 11 years of age Beatrice entered the ninth grade of a private school for girls, which she attended for two years. She entered the university when she was 14 years 8 months old, and graduated at 17. In college Beatrice earned A and B grades in English and languages and C's in science. She fell barely short of Phi Beta Kappa Election. Throughout her life she has had few playmates and few intimate friends. Her desire is for a literary career.
Root's case, VIII A. In 1921 Root (18) described a boy who at the age of 8 years 0 months scored at a Mental Age of 16 years 0 months, with an IQ (S-B) of 200. Other tests agreed in placing this boy near an average adult level in processes of thought. The stature of the child at this time was 4 feet, and the weight 59 pounds.
The ancestry in the case is predominantly English. Father and mother both graduated from high school. The father was a railroad engineer. Two maternal aunts held prominent places in the public schools. The family had "all comforts but few luxuries." "The aunt who has guided the [boy's] education seems a rare combination; her educational ideas are a happy union of radical, common sense, and practical factors." "Nervous temperament" is judged by Root to be characteristic of the family on the mother's side.
This boy was an only child. His mother stated that he had never been ill, but it is to be considered that she was a Christian Scientist. He was educated at home until he was 7 years 6 months old, learning reading and arithmetical processes through multiplication. He had read the Young Folks' Cyclopaedia of Common Things "over and over." His chief interests were at this time games and reading and, to a lesser degree, animals and flowers.
The following is a letter from his aunt, describing his home education:
At the age of three he learned his letters untaught by anyone apparently, and was spelling words. It was felt that this would interfere with his learning to read later on, so he was taught to read by the phonic method. This was done with no more time and personal attention than any first-grade teacher, with ordinary numbers of pupils, could give to each one, provided she were generously supplied with different books, and not limited to one or two sets—state series or otherwise. A few months after his fourth birthday he was reading with independence and an almost perfect power to recognize new words. His only noticed failures were such foreign words as "Chevrolet" seen on billboards, and unusual words like "aisle," used without context, which he pronounced "alicie." His ease in reading was, of course, made possible, or at least greatly facilitated, by the fact that an effort had always been made to use an extended vocabulary in talking to him. Even at two, he would surprise acquaintances and strangers with expressions which meant no greater effort to him than a child's baby-talk; such as, "Oh, the spider has attached his web to the board."
This ability to read opened a new world, for he read car-signs, billboards, newspapers, magazines, and books. His books and magazines were carefully selected. His access to newspapers, especially the funny sheets, had the most questionable results. But The Child's Garden of Verses and others proved a veritable dream world—as real as the everyday one. He once asked his mother, "Does Robert Louis Stevenson know when I'm naughty?" At another time he wrote a letter to some of the characters in another book. At the age of six he read Swiss Family Robinson and Champlin's Cyclopedia of Common Things—the two books which have been and still are his favorites. Other books which he read before entering school at seven years were: Overall Boys, Brownie Book, Kipling's Just-So Stories (read over and over for two or three years), Swift's Gulliver's Travels, Kingsley's Heroes, Aesop's Fables, Tolstoy's Stories for Children, Grimm's Fairy Tales, Arabian Nights, Barrie's Peter Pan and Peter and Wendy.
He entered school at seven and a half years and was put in the B1 (beginner's) class. In the two days he was kept there, he developed a distinct aversion to school since nobody discovered he could do anything and the class confinement and need for sitting still (coupled with the fact that he did not find the toilet for over a week) made school most disagreeable to him. On the third day a member of the family intervened and the teacher very reluctantly allowed him to enter the second grade. She insisted that he could not do the work, as he did not know his sounds. Of course he did "know his sounds," but perhaps he refused to do such baby-work, although he never expressed his unwillingness at home, and seemed quite afraid of displeasing his teacher. In the second grade he was forced to sit for 20 to 25 minutes, studying a reading book, which he could have read through in that time. At home he was told to take some work to school, but the teacher refused to let him read in school, even the Cyclopedia of Common Things. At the end of a week and a half he was in absolute rebellion and was taken out of school.
The family then took this child to a teacher of fourth grade, who was personally acquainted with him, and asked her to examine him for proper placement. This resulted in a more appropriate adjustment. By February of his first year in school he had reached Grade 5A in school placement, and had had thirteen different teachers, including those for special subjects such as music, nature study, and the like. His initial aversion to school lessened, but he found no positive joy in attending. Root describes the temperament of the boy as "somewhat irascible." This case illustrates in extreme degree the maladjustment to school which is characteristic of children testing above 180 IQ (S-B).
Twins A and B. In 1922 Gesell (10) reported the case of twin girls, both of IQ 183 (S-B). Gesell was interested but incidentally in the IQ ratings of these girls, his main interest centering in the condition of twinning. Measurements were taken with a view to comparing twins, and therefore many details that would be of interest for our present purpose—for instance, those of family history—are omitted from the report.
A and B were born by Caesarean section, somewhat prematurely, weighing 4.3 pounds and 5.3 pounds, respectively. Notwithstanding their premature birth, in six months A was able to rise spontaneously to a sitting posture in her mother's lap, and very soon thereafter B did likewise. At 11 months both had begun to walk, and to talk in sentences. At the age of 3 years they began the study of French, and in less than a year from that time they were reading elementary English, French, and Esperanto. At the age of 4 they could distinguish parts of speech. They entered the third grade in school at the age of 6 years, and at the time of report they had achieved the seventh grade and were engaged in junior high school work at the age of 9 years.
They are not prigs: they are attractive, animated, sociable children, with a bubbling sense of humor. They are popular with their playmates. They can take charge of a gymnasium class in which most of the members are two to four years their seniors, and preserve excellent attention and discipline. They speak mature but not pedantic English, and they speak French with the fluency of a native. They have read the Book of Knowledge in its entirety in French; and a year ago embarked on Russian. They play duets on the piano, but not with rare distinction. They swim; they ride horseback; they write jingles; and they read by the hour. Their school work does not tax them; they do not worry about it; and they are far from fastidious in regard to the form of their written work.
A complete family chart of the twin sisters, A and B, would show evidence of superior endowment in the immediate ancestry on both the maternal sides. Scientific and linguistic ability of high order and physical energy are some of the traits which are found in the two immediate generations. The trait of twinning likewise has a hereditary basis in this instance, for the mother also bore two boys, twins who died in infancy.
Measurements of physique show A and B to be slightly smaller than children of their age in good private schools, but very well nourished. The children have no living brothers or sisters.
Elizabeth, reported by Hirt. Elizabeth was reported from the public schools of Erie, Pennsylvania, in 1922, by Hirt (13). She was born January 16, 1914, and was tested June 14, 1921, aged 7 years 5 months. Her Mental Age was found to be 14 years, 0 months, yielding an IQ of 189 (S-B).
Elizabeth's mother was a member of a large family of children brought from Germany to America by their parents. The father (Elizabeth's maternal grandfather) died soon after their arrival in America, and the mother (Elizabeth's maternal grandmother) worked hard to keep her family together and to give them all an elementary school education. Elizabeth's father is of Pennsylvania German descent. He has a high school education, and attended a business college. His occupation in 1922 was that of a postal mail clerk.
This child weighed 10 pounds at birth, 22 pounds at 6 months, 28 1/2 pounds at 12 months, and at the age of 7 years 5 months she weighed 61 pounds and was 51 inches tall. Superior size was thus consistently maintained from birth to the time of first report, in 1921. Two teeth erupted before she was 5 months old. She was not quite a year old when she began to repeat words. He first sentence was, "Open the door, Daddy," uttered at the age of 17 months. The parents remembered this sentence as a sudden transition from one-word communications into sentence structure.
The only illness Elizabeth had ever had until she was 7 years 4 months old was mumps, which came on at that age.
Hirt's report continues as follows:
Among Elizabeth's first toys was a set of cubical blocks with letters and numbers on four sides. One of the baby's favorite amusements was to hold up a block and point to one side after the other for her entertainer to tell what was on the side of the block indicated. Gradually the game changed, and the baby held up the block and pointed to the picture called for by the entertainer. At the age of 15 months she made no mistakes in finding the animals called for, and very soon afterwards she could find the letters in the same way.
One of her first books was The Story of the Naughty Piggies. The child seemed never to tire of hearing the story read, and by the time she was two and a half years old, when she sat in the lap of the reader, she could turn the page at just the right place in the story. About that time the two leaves in the center of the book loosened and dropped out. The German grandma made a mistake in sewing them in, putting the second first. Elizabeth quickly discovered the mistake and was very unhappy about it. She followed her grandmother about, asking her to fix it. The grandmother could not understand what the child meant, and finally appealed to the child's mother, who discovered what was wrong. Elizabeth was not yet three years old, and they could not believe that the child detected the difference between these two pages of the book. But after the grandmother ripped out the stitches and replaced the leaves in their proper sequence, the little girl showed unmistakable satisfaction and content.
At three and a half years of age, Elizabeth was spelling everything she saw printed and asking what the letters spelled, and she could recognize many words. At four years, she read the advertisements in the streetcars, as well as everything in all the books she possessed. During all this time there was no attempt on the part of the parents to make their daughter precocious. They were pleased with her readiness to learn, but they did not look upon her as an unusual child.
In September, 1920, Elizabeth was enrolled in the first grade, in the public schools of Erie, Pennsylvania. She was then 6 years, 8 months old. On her second day in school her teacher discovered that should could read anything that was placed before her. The principal put her in the second grade until she had time to investigate her case. She spent forty-two days in the second grade, during which time the principal observed her closely, and decided to place her in the fourth grade.
Elizabeth had no trouble in completing that grade in the remainder of the school year, the principal giving her some special help in spelling and arithmetic. . . . Elizabeth is not a skillful writer, as far as penmanship goes, but she seldom makes a mistake in either spelling or punctuation, and the content of her letters and compositions is superior, even for the advanced grade in which she is now working. . . . Intellectually speaking, this child takes everything to which she is exposed, and she is not satisfied unless she understands the subject fully. Unfamiliar words or terms bring from her the question, "Just what does that mean?" She has a cheery disposition, and laughs often and heartily. She is contented in any environment, because her imagination makes it as she wishes it. . . . When she is reading or studying, she becomes so engrossed that it is hard to attract her attention to anything outside her book. . . . She is slow in her written work, and she is slow and rather awkward in some of her motor coördinations.
After less than a month in the fifth grade, in September, 1921 (age 7 years 8 months), Elizabeth was promoted to the sixth grade, where she is doing superior work. In the examinations at the end of the last semester she ranked about the middle of the class, due to the fact that she is still slow in her written work. But in comprehension she easily leads the class.
Thus far nothing has been done for this exceptional child except to move her along from grade to grade five times as rapidly as the average child can go. When we see her at times very evidently bored while a teacher is trying to make a subject clear to pupils of average ability, we wonder what would have happened if Elizabeth were now in the second or third grade where most eight-year-old children are found.
In 1925 Hirt again reported upon the child, Elizabeth, as follows:
By February, 1923, she had completed the work of the six elementary grades, and she was promoted to the junior high school. Now, at the end of her fifth year in school, she is ready for the second semester's work in the ninth grade. . . . After her promotion to the junior high school, some of her teachers complained that she was lazy; others said that she was very inattentive; and all declared that she was "very silly." The school psychologist had a conference with these teachers, and it was decided that Elizabeth should be given a heavier schedule, and Latin was added to her program. She has been enthusiastic over this subject from the very first. . . . During the past year there has been a steady improvement in Elizabeth's attitude toward her school work as well as in her behavior in general. Though some of her teachers still consider her "silly," they all recognize her unusual mental ability. While they give her B and C grades in most of her subjects, they realize that she could easily do A work in every subject if she cared to. They say that she wastes much time, though her mind seems always to be busy. Her mother says that when she is at home "she writes, and writes, and writes, covering reams of paper." Elizabeth has told her mother that she is writing a book and a play.
In the spring of 1925, when a friend asked Elizabeth where she was going to spend her summer vacation, the child replied, "Why, I expect to take a trip around the world." Then seeing the surprise in her friend's face, she explained, "Of course, it is not probable that I shall go far from our porch swing, but I find the swing a very satisfactory conveyance; it is perfectly safe, and it always takes me exactly where I want to go."
When Elizabeth entered the tenth grade, in senior high school, in 1926, she was 12 years 8 months old. Her social behavior was at about the level for this age, and her teachers were coldly critical, unable or unwilling to reconcile her conduct with her physical size and intellectual maturity. She made very few friends. She was graduated from high school in June, 1929, with the reputation of being lazy. She excelled in the languages, but her work in other subjects was mediocre.
After she was graduated from high school, funds were not available for Elizabeth to attend college away from home or to pay tuition. Consequently, because she must live at home she enrolled in a State Teachers College, though she had no desire to become a teacher. She was 15 years 8 months old at this time, and her work was very uneven in excellence. When the time arrived for practice teaching, she was assigned to teach high school pupils of about her own age, and failed in this branch of the work, so that she was not graduated. She received, however, an honorable discharge from the college. During these years, 1929-1933, her situation was further complicated by the passing of a state law prohibiting students below 17 years of age from attending the State Teachers College. As Elizabeth was then still below the age specified in the new law, she was forced to withdraw and wait for time to pass, resuming her studies as soon as she fell within the law.
When Elizabeth was discharged from the Teachers College, interested friends made attempts to secure for her a subsistence and tuition scholarship at some good liberal arts college, but no such opportunities were found. One college otherwise interested in granting a tuition scholarship now found her "too old," she being then aged 19 years.
The scholastic history of Elizabeth is too long to be told here in greater detail. It affords an instructive and tragic example of the blindness of current educational practice in dealing with children who test in the highest ranges of intellect. At 22 years of age Elizabeth lives at home, without suitable occupation, writing poetry and helping with the tasks of the household. Her education as conducted has not provided her with any recognized equipment for enter for entering into the intellectual life of her world, although she possesses one of the best intellects of her generation.
The case of J. M. The history of J. M., a 10-year-old girl of IQ 190 (S-B), was presented by Washburne (34) in 1924. This girl was a pupil in the public schools of Winnetka, Illinois, where the plan of individualized instruction is followed, with individual subject promotions.
At the age of 10 years 6 months, J. M. was 54.5 inches tall and weighed 88.5 pounds. This is decidedly in excess of the standards for average children, as regards size. She was doing work of good quality in the eighth grade, and could have been in high school had not the school authorities checked her progress in the seventh grade by giving her a large amount of extra work to do. Her school record shows that she entered the public schools of Chicago in the first grade, in September, 1919. The teacher of first grade immediately discovered that she knew too much for that grade and brought about her placement in the second grade. There she remained until the following April, when her family moved to Winnetka.
In Winnetka, J. M. entered the second grade and was promoted in June. Her reading, tested by the Monroe and Gray tests, was up to fifth-grade standard when she reached third grade, and had reached the sixth-grade standard by December, 1920. Her progress in other school subjects was such that in September, 1921, she entered the fifth grade. Her rapid progress was halted somewhat, as she "was carrying a double language course, finishing the fourth grade and beginning fifth-grade work simultaneously." When in May, 1922, she began the sixth-grade work, she completed it in two weeks. "June, 1922, found her, therefore, doing advanced sixth-grade reading, through with sixth grade spelling, almost through with sixth-grade arithmetic, and promoted to the seventh grade in language. She was then nine years old." In the course of this progress, the grade standard in penmanship was last to be achieved. The perplexities which now arose in connection with this child's education are set forth as follows, by Washburne:
In spite of the fact that she was so clearly ready for seventh-grade work in the fall of 1922, we hesitated about having her come from the lower grade school to our junior high school. She was smaller and younger than any of the children in the junior high, and we felt that she was already so far advanced that still more progress was perhaps undesirable. But she had formed a warm attachment for two girls a year or so older than herself, both possessed of high IQ's, and she felt that there would be nothing for her to do in the sixth grade if we held her back. This was so obviously true that we admitted her to the junior high school with an agreement that she would remain there until she was twelve years old.
We felt that while she doubtless could do the work of the junior high school within a year, or at the most in a year and a half, since our junior high contains only the seventh and eighth grades, she ought not to go to the senior high school too young. We agreed to give her a widely enriched curriculum of electives and special courses, to keep her active and happy for three years. But it didn't work!
When she found that no effort on her part would get her through any sooner, she stopped making effort. The end of the first year (June, 1923) found her with seventh-grade cooking, seventh-grade art, and seventh-grade pottery, all incomplete. She had taken up general science toward the end of the year, and of course had not finished it either. She had, on the other hand, completed all of the seventh-grade English and arithmetic, including some advanced work; had done exceptionally well in French. In dramatics she first had a know-it-all attitude, owing to her mother's success in amateur theatricals, but later did very good work. In social studies she had been inclined to superficiality, trusting to her quick grasp on a single reading of the material (Rugg's Social Science Pamphlets) and doing little real thinking. But she was interested, and finished the course within the year.
The general feeling of the teachers, and of J. M. herself . . . was that she had "loafed on the job" a good deal, had been over-confident, and had "let down" generally when the stimulus of rapid advancement was taken away. This gives us some inkling as to what would have happened to her in a regular school system, where the class lockstep is the rule. This year J. M. is taking a straight eighth-grade course with one elective, and is tying up the loose ends left undone at the end of last year.
. . . The child's strong desire to move forward with the children who are now her friends, and the undesirable effect on her of our last year's experiment in holding her back regardless of her effort or ability to go forward, have resulted in our decision to let her graduate this coming June.
Her parents, however, have requested that we keep her in our junior high school for a postgraduate year, because they feel that the influence of this school is needed by J. M. We shall, therefore, try to provide a special course for her next fall. If we found out that it does not work out successfully, we will enter her in the senior high school in February, 1925. If, on the other hand, we find that we can give her the sort of education that will be helpful to her in our junior high school and that she responds rightly, we shall hold her here until June, letting her enter the senior high school at the age of twelve and one half years.
Interpreting and summarizing our experience with J. M.: Our system of individual instruction has permitted her to make full use of her intellectual ability. When we tried to depart from it to prevent her progress from becoming too rapid, she showed a lack of interest and in some parts of her school work she did not work up to capacity, and even became to a slight extent a discipline problem. Given, however, an incentive to first-class work and the training in social behavior which we are trying to give in our junior high school, J. M. developed successfully and well. On the whole, our system has enabled us to deal with her flexibly and as an individual. It has prevented us from prolonging our mistakes. Probably no system, or uniform plan, can be made to fit children of such exceptional mental endowments. The most we can hope for is a flexibility which will enable us to deal with such children as individuals, feeling our way as we go along.
As for family background, J. M. originates from ancestors of very superior intelligence. Her parents were both tested by means of Army Alpha and both scored far above the generality of adults. Her father was educated as an electrical engineer but subsequently went into investment banking. J. M.'s paternal grandfather was an architect, trained in Manchester School of Science. He also attended the University of Edinburgh. The paternal great-grandfather was an architect and shipbuilder, expert in laying out factories, and he was descended from a line of builders. The paternal grandmother was an English woman, educated by her aunt, "who had advanced ideas on what a girl should study." The father of this grandmother was a dealer in building materials.