Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1909-01-21
BRIGHTEST BOY IN THE WORLD.

Most OF US nowadays stumble through Ne with
lust enough mental arithmetic to figure out how
much change the landlord will give US back out OF
our salary check, When we want to figure interest
we do it Chinese fashion, on the ten fingers Of our
two lly-white hands. About all the Latin VIC hnow
is "spiritus frumenti" and "habeas corpus" The
only Greek We recognize Is The word MARATHON,
and we wouldn't know that # we SOW 1t WITH ia
A.hen!an makeup on. On other things we're .ast
as shcky. We aren't sure that calculus isn't a chemi-
cal. and that metaphysics hasn't got something %
DO with the pill business.
But az Tufts College. in Massachusetts, & hoy VIII
graduate next June at the age OF fourteen, and SO
will all have to take off cur mortar board caps to
aim. He is Norbert Wiener, the son OF a Harvard
Professor. This remarkable boy was born in Co!um
b,a, Missouri, November %, 1894. lie could repeat
tho alphabet ut the age Of eleven months, could
read aud write at three years, and at the age Of
eight he was fitted for college IN mathematics.
philosophy, modern languages, and the sciences. II
required less than three years of schooling, after
DOMINIC short trousers, for him to prepare for col
lege. Boys seldom do this in less than ten OF
eleven years; usually it requires an even dozen. ana
often longer.
When Norbert Wiener entered Tufts in the al,
tumn of 1906, he had gone further in chemistry and
philosophy than the average senior. lie was re
CURED to take several entrance examinations, mathe
mates among them, in which he was found to be
far in advance Of the freshman class. SO, as 1
freshman. he did upperclass work in the theory o.
equations and in doterninants, while in philosophy
it was found necessary to place him in a class by
himself. He had read Spencer. Haechol, Darwin,
Huxley, and many others. Now he has read Locke,
Hobbies, and other ENGLISH philosophers; he has
translated Homer and several plays of A~eschylus.
as well as a similar amount Of Latin. In mathema-
tics. he has delyed into the Galois Theory of equa-
tons, and has completed diferential and integral
calculus. He will continue this branch this year.
and win study the PHILOSOPHERS of Leibnitz. Spinoza.
and Kant. In Greek. he will read I%erodotus and So
phocles; the rest Of his time will be taken up by
biology and organic chemistry. In June. 1909, he
Will have completed the regular fouryear course in
three years, receiving the degree OF Bachelor u
Arts before he has reached the age OF fifteen. BG-
the work he has covered will equal the amount usual
ly completed by a candidate for the degree OF Doc
tor Of Philosophy.
In the autumn following his graduation at Tufts
College, he will enter the Harvard Graduate School,
where he will elect work in higher mathematics.
with a supplementary course in biology or chemistry.
After receiving the doctors degree NJ seventeen
an age when many students are not yet corfenplat-
ing the entrance examinatlons-he will spend two
or three years in Germany anG France. devotins
himself to philosophy and science. That IS, at an
age when the average bog has still two years OF
work ahead OF him for his bachelors degree, young
Wiener will be doing advanced scientific work among
the Cray.bearded savants OF a German university.
Prof. Leo Wiener, OF the department Of Slavic
languages at Harvard, is OF Russian parertage; the
boys mother is a native of Missouri. The other
children of the family do not differ from other boys
and girls OF their ages. Apart from the fact that
his capacity for learning is phenomenal, Norbert
Wiener is like other boys. His physical develop
moat is excellent; he is q good tennis player and
IN expert swimmer. He is a tall boy, and a strict
vegetarian. His head is normal in size, but his
blazing, black eyes arc almost uncanny in their
power. Personally, he chooses mathematics as bis
fayorito study. Philosophy he calls his f%airyland. .