The Marion daily mirror. (Marion, Ohio) 1892-1912, 1911-11-25
MAKE boy 4 GENIUS
Proper Training, Says Sidis, viii
Produce Race of Mental
Giants.
HOW BOY WONDER GREW UP
Father OF Twelve-Year-old Harvard
Student Whose Amazing Precocity
Has Startled Educators, Tells
OF His Training.

We are drifting into national de-
generacy We are becoming a crowd
of we'll drilled, well disciplined. com
monplace individuals. with strong Phil
istine habits and notions OF general
mediocrity. We have clever business
men, cunning artisans, resourceful pol
iticians, adroit leaders OF new cults,
but no artists, no scientists, no phi
losophers, no statesmen, no genuine
talent, and no true genius.
Boris Sidls, one of the leading
psychologists of the times, says we
are blind to the barbaric evils OF our
environment-in fact, he calls us bat
blind, stock blind, mole blind, and
stone blind.
In his essay, "Philistine and
Genius" recently published, Sidis APP
peals to the fathers and mothers CT
the country to wake up to these evils
OF the times, to strive for the educa-
ton of genius, and not the training of
Philistines. AS the father of William
James Sidis, the twelve-year.old boy
| student of Harvard whose amazing
precocity has startled staid educators
the world over he is peculiarly quail
fed to speak with authority on sys-
TENS of education, since he claims
that the boys remarkable development
is not in the least due to heredity or
abnormality, but is entirely a result
of careful training. Here is what he
says of him:
"As fathers and mothers, II may in
terest you to learn of one OF those
! boys who we're brought up in the love
and enjoyment OF knowledge for its
own sake At the age of twelve, when
other children Of his age are hardly
able to spell and read, and drag
miserable mental existence at the
apron strings of some antiquateo
school dame, the boy is intensely en-
joying courses in the highest branch
es OF mathematics and astronomy at
one of our foremost universities. The
Had and the Odyssey are known to
him by heart, and he is deeply inter
ested in the advanced work OF elassi-
cal phiology. He is able to read
Herodotus, Aeschylus, Sophocles.
Euripides, Arlstophanes, Lucian and
other Greek writer's with the same
zest and ease as our schoolboy reads
his Robinson Crusoe,' or the produc-
tions of Cooper and Henty.
"The boy has fair understanding
Of comparative philology and mythol-
ogy. He is well versed in logic, an
cient history. American history, and
has a general insight into our politics
and into the groundwork OF our con
stitution. AT the same time he is OF
an extremely happy disposition, brim-
ming over with humor and fun. His
physical condition is splendid. his
cheeks glow with health"
AT the time that the Sidis boy. then
eleven years old, gave his lecture on
-Four Dimensional Bodies" before
Harvard's Mathematical club. when
seventy-nve erudite professors gaped
at the youngster In knickerbockers
4 glibly wrestling with Euclidian theo.
ries. his father gave out few inter
4 esting facts about his early training
) When the child was but a few months
/ old he was trained to identify the ele-
2 ments of sound by means Of alphabet
: blocks that were held up before him
and named, day after day, either by
DR.. Sidis or his wife, who co-operated
= with her husband enthusiastically In
all his educational theories. After a
, time he learned to spell by means OF
these same blocks, which were formed
into words on the floor and the CORE
spending objects pointed out to him
5 Thus, before he was two years old he
was able to read and spell easily. He
e was taught to count in much the same
n manner, and when he was five years
= old he had devised a method TO tel
on what day of the week any given
date would fall
Seeing his father operate the type
! writer one day, he at once recognized
the superiority of this method OF ex
pressing himself over laborious hand
J writing. and quickly picked up the
/ trick of manipulating 1t.
; The main principles OF DR.. Sidis' ed
, ucational theories are based uDor
r what he calls the law of reserve men
. tai energy-the principle of stored up
/ dormant, potential, subconscious en-
\ ergy. The ordinary stimuli OF lifS
+: are quite unable TO reach this store OF
, unused energy, and even have a ten
. dency to choke 1t up and strangle 1t
4 You may have had the experience
A yourself, after prolonged mental work
. of feeling greatly fatigued; but 4
: necessity required you to keep or
: working, after time this feeling O
n fatigue seemed to pass away Yol
/ are then drawing on your reserve
n mental energy. There is nothing, h,
/ afirms. that viii prevent the liberia
n tlon of tbs reserve energy so much al
n fixed adaptations, stable habits.