Arizona republican., 1910-01-17
Haryard's Boy Prodigy.

| body that gives any attention to edu-
 cational matters. Curiosity was di-
 rected to the manner of his prepara-
 ton for college, and has followed his
 progress at Harvard
 This boy, Sidis by name, has just ] self by submitting to the mathemat- 1 ical society of the university a paper
 on the much controverted fourth di-
 mension." The society has not made public it's appraisal of the boys paper.
 but the reports of the incident show
 that the society holds in high esteem
 his extraordinary intellectual power. The world has been familiar with
 several examples of notable precocity, ! and mathematical prodigies of all ages
 have demonstrated to the satisfaction of students of such matters that a
 phenomenal aptitude for mathematics
 does not necessarily imply intellectual
 strength in other directions. Indeed, some of the most astonishing feats in the line of lightning calculation"
 have been by persons of the most or dinary intelligence and lacking almost
 wholly in education. Such persons
 are freaks of nature. and they are l unable to explain how they arrive at
 their remarkable but correct mathe- nautical conclusions.
 Young Sidis. however. stands apart
 from this class. He is quite as bright
 In philosophy. language and history
 he has shown a greater natural apti-
 tude than in the study of mathe-
 matics And this brings us to the really interesting feature of his case
 His father insists that the boy is not freak, and not even a genius but
 merely a bright boy who has been educated by rational methods. The father is regarded by his neighbors as somewhat of crank in theories of education. He denounces the meth ods Of the public schools as irrational and mechanical, and as tending to suppress rather than develop the nat ural tendencies of the child to learn.
 For these reasons he did not send young Sidis to school. but himself took in hand the boys education from the primary steps to his preparation for college. In the details of this schooling at home the mother. how ever, took an important part The teaching of the boy began when he was about four The father says that in the beginning the child seemed to be no brighter than the average child and he attributes the sensational re- suits to the methods that were fol- lowed. There is nothing mysterious in these methods The elder Sidis' plan comprises, simply, a healthy stimulation of the child's natural cu- riosity and wish to learn, by making learning a pleasure. He makes study a pleasure by never permitting the child to grow discouraged by failure to understand. Not matter how much patience or how much trouble, it may require on the teachers part to ex- plain over and over again, and from as many angles as necessary. a diffi- cult lesson, and at the same time keep sustained the child's wish to get everything clearly in mind. he insists that this course must be followed if the pupil is not to become more or less a laggard.
 In mathematics. for example. the | elder Sidis explains that young Sidis l was an unpromising student Even the elementary lessons in arithmetic l were hard for the child when he be- i gan, and he soon told his father that | he did not like to study figures and | did not believe he could ever under | stand them. But tactfully and pa tiently the father aroused the boys | praised his successful steps | as he progressed through the primary | problems. and soon had the lad talk ing a delight in learning arithmetic 1 And so it went with all other studies, | with such success that the world was | startled when told that boy had | entered Harvard at eleven
 Of course. there is nothing very new in the theory that child's edu- cation ought to have the utmost indi- vidual attention of the teacher All educators admit the correctness of the theory The difficulty of it's ap- plication lies in requiring a teacher to take care of a large number of pupils, which is a necessity of the public school system-especially in schools crowded like our Phoenix schools. for instance.
 But the elder Sidis has apparently proved the soundness of his methods of teaching by giving to Harvard an infant phenomenon.
 The Sidis case has raised anew the question whether such precocity as