PRECOCIOUS CHILDREN.

Otago Witness, Issue 972, 5 September 1889, Page 32

PRECOCIOUS CHILDREN.

John Philip Baratier was born at Schwobach, in the Margravate of Anspach, in 1721. At the age of four he conversed with his mother in French, with his father in Latin, and his servants in German. In his eleventh year he translated "The Travels of the Babbr Benjamin of Tudela " from Hebrew into French. He was elected a member of the Royal Academy of Science at Berlin, and was offered the degree of M.A, at the Halle University, to which he was admitted on drawing up and defending 14 theses in philosophy and the mathematics (1735). He died at the early age of 19. Another marvellous child was Christian Henry Heinecker, who was born at Lubeck, February 6, 1721 — just 27 days after Baratier first saw the light of day. He could recite the principal facts in the Pentateuch when but 1 1 months old ; the entire history of the Old and New Testament was familiar to him at 14 months ; at two and a-balf years he could answer the principal questions in ancient and modern history.

Goethe is said to have known German, French, Italian, Latin, and Greek before he was eight years. On January 20 of the present year the New York Sun gave an ac-

count of a little negro — Oscar Moore — who knew all of Appleton's " Encyclopaedia " by heart, and could recite anything he had ever heard ! — American Notes and Queries.