Alexandria gazette. [volume] (Alexandria, D.C.) 1834-1974, 1922-12-28
PSYCHOLOGIST
EXPLAINS 1T
How to Distinguish Gen;as in Chill
dren-Many Dull Children Be
come Great Men.

81 was talking one day with the
mother of a great writer" says Ruth
Danehower Wilson in an article on
The Backward Child and the Prodigy
eff | had only realized when ne
was a child what talents he had the
mother said sadly, how differently
should have treated him! l was al
ways fighting him, trying to get him
TO be like other boys and to study SUD
iects in which he had no interest. We
should be more in sympathy to day II
| had understood him better as child.
He feels that he has accomplished MS
career in spite of me-
"If that mother could have known
some of the recent studies of psyeho-
logists and sociologists," Mrs. Wilson
saws. "she would have understood her
. bow better. Psychology throws
great light on the nature of the child
genius through painstaking studies OF
the childhood of great men and women
"The backward child stands about
the same chance of future greatness
as does the infant prodigy, There Is
now general agreement with the con,
cIusion of Havelocka Ellis that real
affinity of genius is with born imbecli-
itv. The studies of the childhood OF
great men show that geniuses natural
" fall into two classes-those VINO
we're exceptionally stupid and those
who were infant prodigies.
San example of the backward type
is Sir Walter Scott, who was consider
ed a Ounce. Hume was described by
his mother as uncommon weak-mlnd-
ed The mother of the poet Chatter
TON summed him up at the age OF SIX
as little better than an absolute TOOL.
A long list of geniuses who were con-
sidered billiards as children, includes
Dayv. Darwin, Linnaeus, Humboldt,
pasteur. Watt. Fulton, Schiller, HeIne,
Goldsmith, Beecher, Rosseau, Froeoei,
Whistler, Patrick Henry, and Poe
examples of geniuses who were OIL
the child-prodigy type are Mozart;
who composed music at age OF b, ana
Mendelssohn, who at eight corrected
an oratorio of Bach and at fourteen
performed the fourteenth opera ne had
composed. Other geniuSes who were
precocious children are Dante, brown
ing, Pope, Macaulay, Handel, VERDI
Brahms, Bach, Corot, Murillo, Rapn-
ael. Michelangelo, and Turner.
"Where the mother most needs help
from the psychologist is to learn how
70 distinguish between the dullard-ge
Minis and the dullard- dunce-forever; be
+,,,oar tho nercocious child who is a
budding genius and the precociouss
child who is only "a small fatigued
''Foy so many genuises have shown
their remarkable powers as children
that il has been said, He VINO never
all On the other hand there are
created in youth will never create at
many infant prodigies who never be-
come anything greater.
..EiIs feels that to be born unsuted
to many OF the ordinary activities Oh
daily life gives a favorable condition
! for the development OF extraordinary
abilities in some one line. Theschlld
\ who is born inapt along many lines
will center all his attention on devei-
oping any one kind of aptitude ne may
| possess.
For the problem OF recognizing
among precocious children those whose
pereminence is not merely passing
thing. a false dawn we can lay down
two general rules. First, if the preco'
lcious child's accomplishments are those
that would not be mark OF genus
| in a grown person with equal oppor'
tunities of instruction, we may con
clude that the child is not genius.
Second, if the child has some spe
cial gift dependent on sense lmpres
sions. such gift as BY no means eve
nv normal grown-up possess, and II
added to this, the child has power
Iof sustained attention, the chance
1 are that he has real genius"