Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1854-04-26
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WEDNESDAY,, APR1L 20, 1854.

CEyER AND DULL BoYs.--There is rage for
eleyerness in these days Clever people are
admired. They "get on in the world, and
make people talk about them, both of which
are pleasant things. Clever children are pet
ted and admired, and sometimes they are
made prodigies and show things of, at which
foolish parents are delighted. The clever hoy's
clever sayings are cited for admiring visitors,
and the clever girls perched upon a music
stool to play a sonata OF Beethoven, 1t is
doubtless, very wonderful, but sometimes is al
so very lamentable. Cleverness may be dear
bought-in the young especially so. The
pearl Is serious matter for the oyster, its pros
duction being the result of disease. And
so cleyerness in the young is very often
achieved at the cost Of their physical and even
their mental health. By early mental culture,
it is quite possible to make any child "clever'',
as it is called, and to cram its little head with
knowledge, which is in the child quite out of
place. But your precocious children-your
prodogies of infantile wisdom--are rarely long
lived; and if the strength of their constitution
should bear them through, very often it is with
shattered frame and an enfeebled intellect.
Tasso's childhood was distinguished by signs
and wonders. The peasants pointed out to
strangers the marvellous boy whom the
wood-pigeons covered with leaves, and the
black viper and prowling bear had left UNI
harmed: Ere six months had passed over
the infant Tasso, he began, says Manso, "not
merely to move his tongue, but to speak clear
ly and fuently." When put to school at an
early age, his progress in learning was extra
ordinary, his ardour and intelligence being al
most incredible. He would rise and study Ill
the night, and the day never surprised him in
bed. At Is he produced his first epic poem;
and bsaT bh
and died in that state at the age af 80, after a
long and lamentable confinement in dun
geon. Keats was clever boy at school; he
was so devoted a student there, that his mas
ter had frequently to force him in to the open
air for his health, and then he would walk out
with a book in his hand Having precocious-
ly ''beat his music OUT he died at the early
age of25. Kirke Whites was similar melan-
choly case. Southey and Moore were also clev-
er and sensitive children, born, as they were,
with the true temperament Of poets. Walter
Scott was not an actual /" Ounce" as some
of his biographers have stated.
In childhood he was attacked by a disease
in his right leg which rendered it necessary
for him to be removed into the country, where
he remained for several years, at SandylSnowe,
merely negotiating. The limb affected became
shrunk and contracted, and remained so all
his life; but his general health was greatly
by his free exposure to the air,
and by his boyish sports here; so that, speak
ing Of it himself in his autobiography, he
says, 81, who in city, had probably been
condemned to hopeless helpless decrepitude,
was now Tin his sixth year, a healthy, high
spirited, and, my 1aneness apart, a sturdy
lad. He was not taught to read until he
had reached his seventh year, and then it was
at dame school at Bath. Afterwards he
went to the High School at Edinburgh; but
there, he says, ~ did not make any great fig
ure." He was careless about his tasks, and
often Disguised his kind master by his negli-
gence and frivolity. Take Chatterton, the So
called s'boy Of genius" Yet, so far from be-
ing boy of genius when sent to school, he
either could not or would not learn, and he
was returned upon his mothers hands as ga
fool, of whom nothing could be made" His
mother then tried to teach him, but she also
failed. ct the boy learned fast enough when
he began to educate himself, and obtained
stimulus to the acquisition of learning. Burns,
a greater genius than either of
two last-named poets-was by no means
precocious youth Up to the years of his man
hood, Burns spent his vacant hours chiefly in
leaping, dancing, wrestling. quitting Cor
throwing the stone, and in feats of physical
LIOWesS, uy WINCH MS DOullyt powers We're |
thoroughly matured and developed; and it |
was not till he had fallen many times head
over ears in love that he began to write verses.
Dryden displayed no evidences of more than
ordinary intelligence until he reached mature
and johnson says of Goldsmith,
hat he was ga plant that lowered late. -
schiller was a very idle scholar, and much
onder Of ball and leap-fro than of books.
The great majority of distinguished men have
een altogether undistinguished in their boy
lood. Napoleon and Wellington were both
Iull boys. Intantile prodigies are things out
/ keeping with nature-lttsus nature. Very
ften your prodigy is but disease, and ought
% more to be admired than wen or crook
d back. And what is the endof your young
losciuses? Utter feebleness, il not cut short
y deaththe frequent penalty of premature
xcitement Of the brain.
M l