AN INFANT PRODIGY.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XIV, Issue VIII, 23 February 1895, Page 188

AN INFANT PRODIGY.

A WONDERFUL child is at present on view in Berlin ; though scarcely two years old this mite can read fluently, not merely printed matter, but manuscript, and that whether the Gothic or the Latin character be employed. This small prodigy began to exhibit a taste for literature towards the end of his first year, without being in the least pushed or incited thereto by bis parents, who are ordinary illiterate folk. He commenced by asking the meaning of the inscriptions beneath pictures, and proceeded thence to the titles of books exposed in shop windows. When a number of movable letters are given him he arranges them into words, and even sentences, and will then pronounce the result in a tone of voice in ’no way differing from that of any other infant of the same age, a circumstance which adds immensely to the quaint effect produced by the spectacle of such immature eruditiou.