Evening star., 1898-12-24
RIPEN TOO QUICKLY
Infant Prodigies Never Amount to
Anything in Later Life.
TALES OF some REMARKABLE YOUTHS
Mere BabesWho Have Been Great
Mathematicians and Linguists.
LIKE HOT-HoUsE PLANTS

Written for The Evening Star.
Moritz Frank. mathematical prodigy and
show child" Of Vienna, recently attempt
| ed suicide by leaping from a bridge into
| the Danube. Why? 1t is hardly necessary
| to ask His phenomenal powers were fail
ing him. AS show he had lost his value;
he didn't know what to do with himself
| or how to live. So he decided that 1t wasn't
worth while trying to live. Hence the Dan
Gbe.
Doubtless, too, he was morbid in tenn
peramsnt. You can't be a prodigy, in
rant or other, without being more or less
| abnormal. You must pay the price; and
the price Is much too high-a bad bargain.
1t is fine thing to be little above aver
age IN some way; but not too much Some
body has said that to be one foot above
| or below the average stature of man means
lifelong misery; for to be monster, wheth-
er dwarf or giant, is wretched fate. 1t
is quite as bad to be abnormal in mind
as even genius can testify. If you are just
an average wholesome, happy human be-
ing, you may well thank heaven. 1t is
not such as you who leap from Danube
bridges, seeking oblivion.
But even among abnormal creatures
the lot of the infant prodigy is peculiarly
hard. Quick to ripen. quick to rot-that
seems to be the law of nature. Especially
II one has been a ''show child" accustomed
to the wonder and applause of crowds, the
chanse which must come, from the hot
house atmosphere Of the theater to the
coid, dry air of everyday life is cruel
ordeal.
What becomes Of them? We rarely hear
OF them after the nine-day craze is over.
Genius, indeed, is often notably precocious:
put the true infant prodigy rarely redeems
his promise Many die even without the
aid Of the Vienna boys water cure. 9th
ers, after brief meteor flight, collapse
and sink into obscurity-a dismal sequel
The story of these gifted unfortunates is
IN many cases extremely interesting.
Mathematical Prodigies.
Since Frank posed as a mathematical
prodigy, 1t Is most natural to begin with
performers Of that class. Here the typi-
cal wonder worker is Zerah Colburn. The
mental arithmetic of this otherwise COM
monplace youngster makes us gasp with
aStonishment but his feats are we'll at
tested
He began his display at the age of six
Born In Vermont hamlet not quite hun
dred years ago, there was nothing in his
antecedents to lead one to expect mathe-
matical miracles; yet they came and grew
and amazed the, nsighborhood. Have you
heard about that little Zerah Colburn %
was on everybody's Lips.
The elder Colburn was ready reckoner,
TOO, as 1t would seem; but after quite an
other fashion. AT the first hint of possi-
Die dollars he took the road. making his
Son an 1tinerant show. himself the show
man. Thus they Travelled all over New
England.
The father. seemingly, was a Yankee of
the Wooden-nutmeg type. but thers was
no humbug about the boy. He was repeat
edly examined in the most thorough man
ner by college professors and other experts
The genuine ness Of his gift is beyond ques-
ton.
At Boston, perched amid a circle of in
credulous Investigators, the little fellow
was tried with all sorts of unexpected
questions. NJ
How many days and hours in 1911
years?" 49,
They held their breath for the answer
literally, for it came in twenty seconds.
Six hundred and sixty-one thousand and
fifteen days, 15, 1854 800 hours"
Take your pencil and put down on paper
the figures that must have raced through
the chi1ds brain in that twenty seconds
See how long it takes you.
How many seconds in eleven years?"
But that was an easy one The answer
came in four seconds-346, 500, 900. =
Like a Trick Animal.
The president of Dartmouth College
thereupon offered to educate the lad at his
own expense. For several years little
Zerah was paraded about the United States
and exhibited like trick animal Then he
was taken to Europe.
The child was now nine years old, and his
facility had reached its highest point In
Paris he made a sensation. The savants
there tossed him such bagatelles as this:
What is the square OF 999,399? Multiply
this square by 40 twice, and by % once"
AS the answer only runs into quadril-
liens seventeen f1gures) a few seconds time
vas quite enough for Zerah. He solved the
problem in scarcely more than the time
needed to grasp the full import of the
words.
How did he do it? The thing savors of
| magic. Yet In after years Colburn de.
clared that his processes were much the
same as those Of ordinary mortals Doubt
less he had in an extraordinary degree that
same picturing power which enabled Nor
| ply and other chess players to play blind
folded a dozen games at time. Just as
they saw each board and all its shifting
pieces, in imagination, so baby Zerah saw
his swiftly evolving figures in a sort of
kinetoscopic vision, as plainly as if he had
written them with chalk.
Made No Mistakes.
But this will not explain ALL His French
irquisitors once asked him for the factors
of 4, ,204 1857. 297. He named them almost in
stantly-G, zoo, AT multiplied by GAL. This,
though absolutely correct, was news to
questioners, who supposed that they had
given him a prime number; it was so set
down in their tables. He made no mis-
offered he detected the fact just as
promptly.
How could he see these things? It Is a
faculty hard to understand; 1t seems like
divination. Perhaps. however 1t had some
thing in common with the power some per-
sons possess Of determining large numbers
at a glance, without regard to grouping
and without counting Any one can do this
up to three or four; many up to seven or
eight. You can easily test your own apti-
tude in this respect by throwing down an
uncertain number of pennies and announc-
ing the total at the first glimpse; it is an
experiment worth trying. There are a few
who are able To carry this automatic pro-
cess up to thirty without error. Dase, for
example, could instantly give the number
of a herd of cattle within that limit. Yet,
reason as we may. Colburn's marvellous
powers remain a mystery.
Hts Later Life.
1t did not last. At twenty he was NO
longer remarkable; his youthful gift had
passed from him as, strangely as it came.
Then at his fathers q suggestion, he tried the
stage, but failed. Later, he was more sue.
:. II
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