BOY PRODIGY

Hokitika Guardian, 9 February 1935, Page 6

BOY PRODIGY

A HIGH I. Y DEVELOPED DRAIN

MEDICAL EXPERTS BAFFLED

A hoy of seven and a hall' lias the most highly-developed hrai n the world lias even known, and he is batfling British educationists and doctors with the wide range of his mental powers. 'His intelligent quotient is said to be higher than that of Professor Einstein. His name is Arthur Greenwood, Imt I,is parents and teachers are reluctant to see him become known as a prodigy. The hoy is of Jewish parentage. His father is a teacher and his mother was one before her marriage. He is now in the Brooklyn Ethical Culture School Airs Henry Neumann, head of the school, told the “Sunday Chronicle” recently that he came from the Guidance Bureau of the Board of Education. where lie had revealed an intelligence comparable to that of a hoy of 16.

Arthur astonished his examiners further by arriving at the difficult system whereby intelligence quotients are determined. In the course of a test he was asked to give in his own words the thought expressed in a six-line passage which was read to him and which was intended for '‘superior adults.” This was the child’s reply: ‘‘The general mediocrity of life prevents it from being radically unjust.” The lad shows, too, an uncanny sense of music. Once, after hearing a tune on tlie radio, he sat down at a piano and devised a system of numerical notation which competent musicians have examined and have declared practicable.

Dr Augusta Alport, the psychologist at the school, who arranged for the hoy’s transfer from a public school to a special group, stated that he was a large baby, but did not walk until lie was 14 months and never talked until lie was 20 months old. But when he bean to talk be did it intelligently and grammatically, choosing his sentences well and using qualifying clauses. Ho began at two to discuss topics far beyond the scope of the average child. He learned numbers while still a baby and at two learned to read without instruction and bv orniploying lettered bricks and other children’s toys. Dr Alperfc says that in other re spects the boy is normal. He disliked lights and ’arguments ‘lucidly observing, “As a rule they are needless and pointless, since nothing is settled by th*m.” He is Unskilled at all games requiring the use of his hands, and if he is unable to win at anything lie shows a tendency to cry. At school he is surrunded by children of bis own age and no effort is being made to set him apart from the rest. After luncheon an hour is devoted to story-telling, and here the boy reveals bis superiority. His stories are clear and mature. He recently told tlie class of a trip be had made with his ihilrctnijg *o 'Washington and 'concluded with an accurate description of the city’s street plan and its abstruse system of street numbering

There is unusual in the child’s physical development, according: to Dr Alport, who said that his high intelligence ratine was not balanced by an equally high physical rating. The child is evidently overcoming a. tendency to clumsiness in using his fingers, but lie still exhibits no greater skill in games than wouM be expected of a boy of his age. The chief desire of Arthur’s teachers is to equalise his intellectual development as far as possible, so be is not allowed to associate with older children. It is definitely established that even now he could soon enter a university and hold his own intellectually. but his teachers consider that such a step would ruin him for ever.

The hoy has been seen and photographed in the classroom, but it would be impossible to tell from the group photograph which is the child who possesses the most highly-developed brain over known.

When the facts were put before a leading West End doctor bp confessed himself dumbfounded by the child's precocity. “Nothing in the history of medical science approaches this human phenomena,” he su'd. “Certainly we have had no parallel in British records.”