CHAPTER NINE CHILD F
Child F was a boy whose ability was identified as the result of a mental survey made with group tests in P.S. 14, Manhattan. [1] His score in these tests was unbelievable, and he was summoned for testing with the idea that he must have been coached. An individual Stanford-Binet test, however, showed a phenomenal record similar to all other tests given him, including an Army Alpha. He was referred to a Special Opportunity Class at that time being organized in P.S. 165, Manhattan.
FAMILY BACKGROUND
Although detailed study of F's ancestry is available, a brief summary of the facts appears to be all that is here needed, for the ancestry throws little light on the boy's extraordinary mental ability.
F's paternal grandfather was of Scottish parentage, born in Canada. He was a reasonably successful worker in the printing trade, appears to have been well balanced and socially adjusted, and showed no exceptional traits. He had little education and no special interests. He died of apoplexy at 51 years of age.
F's paternal grandmother, born in Albany, New York, had a public school education (probably). She is still living [1924], clerking in a store after her husband's death. She appears to have no special interests outside her home life; is said to be quick and nervous, easily excited, and prone to worry.
F's maternal grandfather was born in New York State, of German parentage. He is still alive [1924], at the age of 70, and is very active. His education was limited, but he is an excellent reader and is well informed. He is fond of music, is an active churchman and a choir leader. He is said to be quick-tempered, impulsive, and affectionate. He mixes well with people, and has some leadership qualities. He has always worked as a paper hanger and painter, his business being on a small scale.
F's maternal grandmother was born in New York State; the nationality of her parents is not recorded. She had a public school education. Her interests are limited to home and Red Cross activities. She is friendly and sociable, impulsive, affectionate in disposition, and has a keen sense of humor.
F has several uncles and aunts, none of whom presents any qualities of striking interest. All appear to be normally effective and well adjusted, competent on a small-town scale, enjoying their homes, and taking part in local activities and organizations.
F has one brother, younger than himself, born April 2, 1920. He was given a Stanford-Binet examination, May 13, 1924, by Leta S. Hollingworth, being then 4 years 1 month of age. His Mental Age was 6-0, yielding an IQ of 147. This brother has strong musical inclinations, was a choir boy, and subsequently took instruction in singing.
Father. The father of Child F was born in Albany, New York. He had a high school education and business college training. He has always done clerical and office work, especially bookkeeping. He is fond of athletics, reads only newspapers and magazines, is quick, alert, and active, has an even temperament, is seldom worried. He has no interest in clubs or organized activities. Seems to take an interest in his children. (In later years the father lost the balance and evenness of temperament here reported and became unemployed much of the time. He died in March, 1935, at the age of 41, "apparently accidentally drowned.")
Mother. The mother of F went to high school for two years and earned a teacher's certificate. She taught two years in rural schools but disliked this work and had no patience with children. She liked music, however, and studied piano and voice for a short time, but now pays little attention to it. She has always regretted going to high school, believing that if she had devoted that time to music, she might have had some success in it. Her interests are limited to home affairs. She says she has few friends and does not mix well with people. She appears calm and does not worry, is sensible in her dealings with her children, takes no part in organized activities, but always sends the children to Sunday School. She is a very good home manager, and runs things effectively on small resources.
PRESCHOOL HISTORY
F was born in upper New York State, November 14, 1914. The period of gestation was of normal length; at birth he weighed according to the father 9 pounds, according to the mother 11.5 pounds. No records of early infancy were kept, so that many such details are given from memory, either by the father or by the mother. The child was the mother's first-born. She reports that much of the infant's weight at birth was due to his enormous head, which necessitated instrument birth. Birth was difficult, the mother was severely injured, and the child's head "was so distorted from the instruments that it was weeks before it could be molded into normal shape."
F was bottle fed from birth to one year. His first teeth appeared at about 10 months. He talked (short sentences) at about 12 months, learned to walk alone (several steps) at 14 months, learned to read at between 4 and 5 years of age. His childhood illnesses were measles, whooping cough, chicken pox, and scarlet fever, all between 6 and 8 years of age. Cried little as a baby. His mother says "he was a lovely baby to take care of." No sensory defects or signs of physical weakness. Adenoids were present, to be removed shortly after the initial interview in 1924 (age 10 years). He sleeps soundly.
EARLY SCHOOL HISTORY
F started school at the age of 5 years 10 months, in a two-room rural school in upstate New York in the town where he was born. He could already read well at that time; it was first noticed that he could read when he was "around 5 years of age." Riding in streetcars, he would take words apart and put them together again. He had learned the letters before his third year.
At school he was received in the first grade. It was soon found that he was memorizing his reader and the teacher gave him a more advanced book. This school was a practically ungraded one; the first four grades were together in one room, and grades five to eight were in the other room. The teacher did not know what to do with F; so he was allowed to go into the second room and listen, in an orderly manner, to the fifth to eighth grades.
When he entered New York City schools at the age of 7 years 10 months, the rural teacher gave F a transfer for the fifth grade. The mother presented the letter of transfer to the Manhattan principal, who pooh-poohed the idea that the boy could belong in the fifth grade at that age. He refused to accept the recommendation from the ungraded school and placed F in the third or fourth grade. After the first week the boy's teacher reported that he did not belong in that grade. When the principal insisted that F could not go into the fifth grade, the boy himself spoke up and said if they would give him an examination they would see that he could do it. The principal ordered him to keep still and not to talk so much. He was, however, eventually placed in the fifth grade in the year in which his eighth birthday occurred. At the end of that year he was promoted to Grade 6A, then into 6B, and he was shortly after received into the Special Opportunity Class at P.S. 165.
He had always been fond of school up to this time, although he later developed a distaste for it and became a chronic truant. He spent much of his time helping the teachers, carrying books, and running errands, in order to keep occupied. When his mother requested his transfer to the Special Opportunity Class, the principal of the school he was attending, at first refused, saying that he liked to have bright pupils in his classes too. After futilely arguing for half an hour, the mother finally threatened to move to another part of town, thus forcing a transfer, whereupon the principal relented and gave the transfer. F said he liked the new school because he was allowed there to say what he thought.
In his early school years he once won a prize, which was to be a book. Several books, supposedly of interest to boys, were offered him from which to choose. He looked them over and then said if it made no difference to the teacher, he would rather have a dictionary instead. This volume was given him, and it was used constantly thereafter.
EARLY TEST SCORES
In March, 1924, at the age of 9 years 4 months, F was given a mental test, using Army Alpha, by L. M. Potter. He was then in Grade 6B, P.S. 14, Manhattan. His score was recorded as 124 points. But there is also a copy of an Army Alpha Test, Form 7, given F in the fall of 1924 upon his entrance to P.S. 165, on which the score is 163 points.
On April 14, 1924, at the age of 9 years 5 months, F was given a Stanford-Binet test by M. V. Cobb, in P.S. 165, Manhattan. His Mental Age shown at that time was 15-2, and an IQ of 162 was reported. Strength of grip measures were also recorded as of May 15, 1924. These were made by Leta S. Hollingworth, three trials for each hand. The records were (median of three), right, 10.5; left, 9.
On April 22, 1925, at the age of 10 years 5 months, F was given a Stanford-Binet examination by Leta S. Hollingworth as a demonstration before a class of 60 adults. His Mental Age was 19-0, and the IQ is recorded as "over 182, unmeasured by the scale."
On May 8, 1926, at the age of 11 years 6 months, F was again tested with the Stanford-Binet [by L. S. H.]. He passed at this time all the Superior Adult tests and was thus unmeasured. He was at this time in his first year of senior high school.
January 7, 1933, at the age of 18-2, while a college freshman, his score on Army Alpha, Form 8, was 198 points.
Music tests. F showed no active musical interests but became very fond of listening to good music, being particularly fond of string quartets. As was the case in every field to which his interests turned, he quickly acquired a fund of information about it which he took pleasure in exhibiting.
F was given the Seashore Music Tests four times [by L. S. H.] over a period of 11 years. Perhaps the record of these successive examinations will have some intrinsic interest, and such a tabulation is here provided.
SEASHORE TESTS OF MUSICAL TALENT SCORE
(Per Cent Correct)
MAY 7, DECEMBER JUNE JUNE
1924 23, 1924; 18, 1925; 14, 1935;
9 YEARS 10 YEARS, 10 YEARS 20 YEARS
6 MONTHS 1 MONTH 7 MONTHS 7 MONTHS
Pitch 79 82 78 81
Intensity 76 — 94 94
Time 71 62 — 70
Tonal memory 80 — 88 98
Consonance 64 — 74 76
Rhythm 72 — 88 86
Character rating. After six months' acquaintance, on September 14, 1924, when F was about 10 years old, he was rated by Leta S. Hollingworth for various estimated traits on a 7-point rating scale as follows:
Extraordinarily good (Grade 1) Prudence and foresight, will power and perseverance, appreciation of beauty, sense of humor, sensitiveness to approval or disapproval, desire to excel, freedom from vanity and egotism, conscientiousness, desire to know, originality, common sense, general intelligence.
Decidedly superior (Grade 2)
Self-confidence, musical appreciation, leadership, popularity
with other children, sympathy and tenderness, truthfulness.
Rather superior (Grade 3)
Cheerfulness and optimism, permanency of moods, generosity
and unselfishness, mechanical ingenuity.
Average (Grade 4)
Health, amount of physical energy.
Rather weak (Grade 5)
Fondness for large groups.
Although there is no formal record of the fact, it is known that fifteen years later this rater would have made different judgments on most of these traits not relating to strictly cognitive characteristics. Other judges acquainted with F rather unanimously disagreed with the high ratings here accorded such traits as prudence and forethought, will power and perseverance, sensitiveness to approval or disapproval, freedom from vanity or egotism, common sense, leadership, popularity, sympathy and tenderness, truthfulness, generosity and unselfishness, and these ratings are as a matter of fact inconsistent with F's subsequent history.
HOME RATING
On May 6, 1924, the home of F was visited by a social worker trained in the use of the Whittier Scale for Home Rating. The rating was reported as 21, with a possible score of 25. Neighborhood was average, in a fair section of New York City. Details were as follows:
Necessities. Father bookkeeper with steady, small salary, adequate only for necessities. Food and clothing of good quality, conditions neat and clean but plain. Heat, light, sleeping facilities fair. Grade 4.
Neatness. Sanitary conditions good; rooms well kept and clean; apartment rear, second floor, little view. Considering the equipment, household run in an efficient manner. Grade 4.
Size. Four small rooms and bath for two adults and two children. Conditions crowded. Grade 4.
Parental condition. Parents socially adaptable; there appears to be harmony in home; parents have too few outside interests. Mother practically always at home; father at home evenings. Grade 5.
Parental supervision. Parents keenly interested in development of children. Their own education is limited, which is a handicap in directing and educating the children. Little need of discipline in home, though mother is lax about carrying out threats. Parental example good. Grade 4.
MISCELLANEOUS CHARACTERISTICS
Play interests. F preferred playmates of his own age and sex. He would spend hours at a time "using marbles for soldiers and working out military formations." Being with older children in school, he was somewhat backward in joining in their outdoor games.
Reading interests. From 6 to 10 years of age F read a great variety of books, "particularly geography and history" and "averaging probably 20 hours weekly." He was especially interested in dictionaries and encyclopedias; would always look up new words in detail. Most of his leisure time was preferably spent in reading.
LATER EDUCATIONAL CAREER
As already recorded, F was transferred in 1924, at the age of 10 years, to the Special Opportunity Class in P.S. 165, Manhattan, then being organized for experimental purposes connected with the education of children of rare intelligence. He graduated from this class into senior high school. He and another boy (Child C, Chapter 6) led this highly selected group of children in achievement tests. As he was at this time, Leta S. Hollingworth wrote of him:
I have never met with a more interesting child than he was, and the same creativeness and inexorable logic which characterized him then have always continued.
He entered, after a brief experience in a progressive private school, a public high school in New York City, in 1925. His high school career was a checkered one, typical in some respects of his later educational history. For one thing, he was a constant truant, and he refused to do the required work in physical education. He had always been averse to physical activity and loathed manual work to the end of his career. He said that the gymnasium work always left him feeling "worse," gave him colds, and was of no use to him. Perhaps his subsequent medical history throws some light on the reasons for these observations.
His truant hours were spent partly in the public library, where he read continuously in technical volumes in a great variety of fields and accumulated an amazing fund of general information and esoteric lore. Law, theology, history, science, and literature were some of his favorite fields.
When not in the library, he would usually be at a chess club to which he had been granted access and where he had learned the game. He rapidly developed into an expert chess and bridge player, and in Eastern chess tournaments is said to have achieved the ranking of seventh in the national list. He always managed to appear at high school to take the necessary examinations, and passed all his subjects with good standing and even with phenomenal records. But his inexplicable truancy and his refusal to do the required work in physical education baffled the educational authorities. They finally refused to graduate him with his class— although his record was among the best—until he had redeemed himself by doing the gymnasium work in a fifth year. In 1930 he did this, and also carried some additional courses and thus was allowed to finish high school, requiring longer than the conventional period for this because of his refusal to accommodate his own interests and ideas to the regular routine.
In spite of irregular attendance, F took some part in high school activities. His main activities, of the extracurricular sort, were chess club, chess team, poetry club, debating society, mathematics club, board of publications, program committee. He was executive member of the debating society and of the law society, vice president of the poster club, and two or three times section president. His record, of course, shows no athletic history and no physical activities engaged in.
For the four years following 1930 F continued to frequent the public library, the chess club, and the bridge games. At one time a patron friend made it financially possible for him to enter college at the College of the City of New York. He quit before the end of the first term, again because he hated the required gymnasium work and said he always got a cold and felt bad after such exercise. Although he was again and again urged by people who knew his ability not to waste it at chess and bridge, he showed no apparent interest in going on with college. He replied that he could always make a living some way or other. Uncongenial home circumstances and the general unemployment situation prevailing at the time perhaps heightened this indisposition and lack of ambition. While other boys who had been in the same grade school and high school classes with him were finding part-time employment and working their way through college, F was contented with his chess games, with an occasional bit of money won at cards, and with his hours in the public library.
In 1934 he was asked to take the CAVD tests by the Institute of Educational Research at Teachers College, Columbia University, to help determine the highest scores to be expected on this scale. He and another boy, both selected because of their known phenomenal range of information and intellectual alertness, "went through the ceiling" on this scale, thus again confirming the earlier records of his mental level so far as intelligence was concerned. On the same occasion he was given the Coöperative General Culture Test, by Dr. Lorge. In this his score exceeded that of superior college graduates.
In September, 1934, F was again persuaded, through financial assistance practically forced upon him, and after much urging and long discussion, to try college. He enrolled in Columbia College, once more a freshman. He carried a heavy program, tried to do certain outside jobs as assistant provided for him, and probably overworked. He had declined one patron's offer to give him a stipulated sum of money for the year if he would abstain from chess for that period. In fact, only vigorous prodding led him to go to college at all at this time, even with the way opened for him.
The outcome appeared to be another fiasco. In January, as the examination period drew near, he became ill, developed pneumonia, and for the second time withdrew from college before completing a term of work. In this instance his illness appeared to justify the act.
In the autumn of 1935, having been nursed back to reasonable health through patrons interested in his case, he was urged by them to make a fresh start and to try the University of Chicago plan, under which students could progress as rapidly as they were able to satisfy the requirements through comprehensive examinations. He entered the University of Chicago that fall, for the third time a college freshman, agreeing to do this without any great enthusiasm of his own but as part of what was called an "educational experiment."
Of his record on entrance the following comment was made by the chief examiner:
The examiners have called my attention to a freak case in our records for the incoming students. . . . His performance seems almost unbelievable. On the freshman classification tests his performance was as follows: first in the vocabulary test; first in the reading test; second in the Intelligence Test of the American Council; third in the English placement test; third in the physical science placement test . . . in the freshman class of about 750 students.
In addition, he also took four Comprehensives with the following grades: Biological Science, A; Humanities, B; Social Sciences, A; Physical Sciences, D.
The year at Chicago was not without episode. F was held up by two gunmen, engineered the capture of one of these, and was advised to disappear for a time during the excitement. Impetuously, and without resources except the provisions made by his sponsor for his own subsistence, he married a young Jewish girl. But the "Chicago Plan" kept its word, and by the end of the year F had passed all the Comprehensives required to give him his B.A. degree. In doing this he acquired a good deal of newspaper and popular magazine notoriety, and his photograph, and that of his young wife, were often reproduced in the public prints.
Although he fancied he would like to be a lawyer, F finally decided to go in for graduate work. Some uncertainties prevailed in connection with his acceptance by some of the graduate schools because, although he had been three times a college freshman (a point never brought out in the newspaper accounts of his educational progress), he had completed but one year of college residence.
Eventually he was awarded a graduate fellowship in Teachers College, Columbia University, for study toward the Ph.D. degree in education, and he completed a year of work there, accomplishing, in addition to the class work, a minor experimental study, a report of which was subsequently published. For the following year he was appointed Assistant in Psychology at Barnard College. At the last moment, just before the beginning of the new term, he decided to shift to law, which was one of his boyish ambitions. He was enabled to return to Chicago for this purpose.
Chess, bridge, and racing continued to intrude themselves into his activities, although he was pledged to abstain from them. His marital affairs did not run smoothly; contrary to his promises he incurred additional indebtedness; but he continued to carry on his law studies with passable records. Then he suddenly became seriously ill and was discovered to have an inoperable abdominal cancer. Again his educational career was interrupted and he returned to New York for care and treatment. Before another year was over, in December, 1938, he died of this affliction, at the age of 24 years.
In spite of a brilliant mental endowment, early discovery, much educational encouragement, and material assistance, a Bachelor's degree and a few chess prizes and bridge victories represent F's final achievement. The chief causes of this relative failure to make the most of his potentialities appeared externally in the form of character traits. His parents said of him that it was never necessary to stimulate his desire to learn; they also reported him to be "willful and head-strong." These unpropitious traits were as a matter of fact apparent in his early school days. They became magnified as he was given freer opportunity for self-expression and activity. We know so little about the identification and genesis of character traits that the case makes little or no contribution to our understanding in this direction. It is not known how early the physical disability that finally terminated the picture had been operating; it may even have been at the bottom of what appeared socially as a personality defect.
[1] This chapter was written by H. L. H.