Newspaper Page Text
34
THE MAROON TIGER
!
t
T
X
4<t«>^KX"XXx ,, xx , 'X , *xx*‘
THE MONTH
•x»:-x«x«:»:.x-x->-x-<«x-x**:*<*<-:~vX“X»
I
WHO HAS A BRIGHT CHILD?
SERVANT OF THE IDEAL
H AST DECEMBER marked Ihe seventy-two years
gone by since the mystery of birth gave life to
a baby, in Staunton, Virginia, destined to grow
to the stature of a Statesman. Four years have
passed since Woodrow Wilson who knew, as few other
men have known, the extremes of “deification and dam
nation,” who, after “meeting and missing several ap
pointments with destiny,” broken in body yet with ever
the brave spirit, was swallowed up in the enigma of
death.
The passion and partisanship that noised about his
head while yet living is far enough removed to pause
for a moment to lay a wreath of words upon the tomb
of this distinguished leader.
Whatever the skeptical scruples we might have of
its practicality, hardly one, we think, will care to gain
say the spiritual discernment, the depth of vision and
the moral audacity of his dream of a new world in which
all nations—great and small—should be set at liber
ty by “self-determination” and federated by “self-dedi
cation” to a world-wide cooperation.
“His blue-prints of a federated world may need exten
sive revision, but his brave faith that a federated world
is possible is likely to haunt the councils of diplomacy
for a century to come.” How is it that Mr. Wilson came
no nearer his objective? Many answers and varied have
been given. Many have searched his character for
signs of inherent weakness, many have explored his
spirit if haply the explanation might be seized upon.
Whatever the adequate answer to his “failure,” it must
be said that his task was a stupendous one, and that fail
ure, if it were, was probably a by-product of the subli
mity of his dream and his too passionate absorption in
it.
The hour of disillusionment was his as it has been
that of every “high-priest” of the ideal.
Perhaps he did not well gauge the inertia of his
fellows, and like many another servant of the ideal,
read his own golden faith into them.
He had little patience with men who temporized, de
tested diplomacy, with its delicate nuances and vague
romanticisms and subtle subterfuges: to him a straight
line was the shortest distant between two points.
Too, it is probable that he frequently exaggerated the
power of his own side and underrated that of the oppo
sition. Sad to say, yet even the servants of the ideal
must match wits with men who have “the conspirator’s
technique.”
“In diplomacy good must still be done by stealth.”
As Mazzini visioned a united Italy, so Mr. Wilson,
the baby become a statesman, dreamed of a federated
world. The federated Italy came, and who dare say
the federated world is not in the process of becoming?
That fancy may become fact and that vision may turn
to vow, is the hope of the idealist. And so momentary
“failure” must never dampen the spirits of “dreamers
dreaming greatly.”
Most parents are cocksure as to the brightness of
their children. Who are the bright children? Prof.
Lewis M. Terman, distinguished Stanford psycholigist,
has painstakingly attempted the answer in his two vol
umes called “Genetic Studies of Genius.”
Some of the results of his researches:
You cannot tell the brightness of your child by his
school marks alone; he may be bright but lack ambi
tion ; he may be so bright that the tasks set for him
fail to challenge his interest.
A gifted child may be an unsatisfactory pupil in
school, although the majority of gifted pupils are sat
isfactory.
The bright child is neglected by our school system
more that the dull-witted child.
It is positively uncomfortable to have a bright child
in a classroom; initiative, curiousity, a hunger to know—
these prevent a teacher from handing out neat and nice
packages of canned information and letting it suffice.
The brightness of a child is shown less by what he
can do than by the ease with which he can do it.
If a child is really gifted, he will reach the point in
characteristic development at ten years of age that the
average, not particularly gifted, child will need fifteen
years to reach.
If the child is really gifted, he is no more likely to
be one-sided than the ordinary child.
Great ability in one direction does not argue defi
ciency in another.
Brightness and balance, despite the popular notion
to the contrary, are more likely to go hand in hand
than stupidity and balance or even mediocrity and bal
ance.
There is no convincing evidence that genius is the
forerunner of nervous instability.
Professor Terman’s study calls to mind the cases of
such men as Dr. Johnson, Oliver Goldsmith, the ever
present blockhead in school, Shelley, Poe. and a list of
others, who in one way or the other fall within the find
ings of the Professor.
A SAD COMMENTARY
A statement by Premier Mussolini, of Italy, in a re-
ent issue of the Roman newspaper, Impero, saying that
Berlin was “a dying city of superannuated people”
has drawn a reply from Dr. Gustav Boess, Lord Mayor
of Berlin.
Mussolini, in keeping with his policy, was informing
Italians “to be fruitful and multiply,” as well he
might do; and cited Berlin as an example to be avoided
of a city grown by influx from without instead of by
a natural, healthy increase in its own population.
Dr. Boess, in replying through the column of a
Berlin newspaper, acknowledged with regret that Berlin
with its four and a quarter million inhabitants has the
lowest birth rate of any of the world’s capitals. Be
tween 1921 and 1925. with an increas of 213,374 in pop-