Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1890-06-25
PRECOCIOUs BOYS.
Several Examples of Premature
Mental Development.
The Linguistic Achievements Of Young
ConDOp ThIrlwan aud John Stuart 1Iiu
-MOzart's Early Successes-An
American Prodigy.

It has been observed that most pre-
cocious boys have from their infancy
been associated chiefly with persons of
mature age, says tho New York Ledger.
When such boys get into the company
OF other boys they usually lose their
remarkable talents and in few years
they are not moro advanced than other
boys who did not promise so well in
early youth. This would almost cause
one to believe that home education is
the best, and that great deal of genius
Is wasted by allowing boys to 60 to
school; but few examples will show
that most young prodigies failed to full
fill the bright hopes entertained for
them.
Connop Thirlwall, afterward Bishop
of st. Davids, could read Latin when
three years old, and at the age of four
all who heard him. At seven he COM
posed an essay "On the Uncertainty Of
Human Life" which was afterward
| printed in his "PrimitiB' or First
Fruits," published when the boy was
only eleven years old. The history of
literature perhaps does not contain
the name Of another whose first book
was published when the writer was not
yet in his teens. This book contains
about forty sermons, together with sew
eral essays and poems.
John Stuart Mill is another remarka-
BILE example of precocity. He began
Greek at the age of three, and by the
time he was eight years old he had read
far more Greek than most college gradu-
ates, besides all the works of Hume,
Gibbon, Robertson, Rollin and many
other books of a similar character
When twelve years old, he read "Aris-
totle's Logic" in the original, a work of
great difficulty even for an accomplished
scholar.
Another example of precocity in a diff
ferent line was the composer Mozart. In
his fourth year he played the piano well.
In his fifth year he composed several
pieces. When he was six years old, his
father took him on concert tours, when
he astonished all who heard him by his
skill on the piano and the violin. At
the age of seven, he astonished all Paris
by his compositions as we'll as by his
performances on various instruments.
at this time he published some sonatas
for plano and violin, and in the follow
ing year he composed his first symptom
les. At the age of twelve he composed
an opera. He became a very great mu-
sician, but, after all, he is not generally
rated higher by the musical world than
Richard Wagner, who did not devote
himself to music until he was sixteen,
and composed nothing worth speaking
of until he was twenty.
Our own country has also produced at
Least one example of precocity that was
Of no value TO its possessor in after life
This was Zerah CoIburn, born in Cabot,
VT, in 1904. His powers lay chiefly in
the line Of mathematics. Before he was
six years old, he displayed On astonish-
ing readiness in solving arithmetical
problems, especially in multiplication.
At the age of eight, he was taken to
London and his skill tested in the pres
ence OF eminent mathematicians On
being asked what number multiplied
into itself gave 10s,9 before the fig
ures could be written down he replied
S27; when asked the cube root of $685.
336, 12S, he answered with equal readi-
ness, 646. He was asked how many
minutes there are in 4s years and before
the question could be written down he
said 25, 22a, 500, which is correct II no al
lowance is made for leap year.
Unfortunately, at least for the science
of mathematics, Colburn's remarkable
talent left him as soon as he began to
train his mind in q systematic way. In
later years he taught school in various
places; was for time an itinorant
Methodist preacher, and in 1885 was
made professor, not of mathematics, but
OF languages, in the university at Nor
wich, Vt. He died in 1910. leaving be-
hind him no works worthy Of mention