GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS
Obviously, it is not possible to discuss every aspect of personality in the limited number of pages of this book. We shall confine ourselves, therefore, to a few of the more important phases of development which are unique in the case of gifted children; particularly to such complexities as arise from the combination of immaturity and deviation, these continuing for approximately twenty-one years. This is the period when development is taking place as distinguished from the period of maturity.
It should be stated emphatically at the outset that children of very superior intelligence are not, as a group, socially annoying. The problems of personality adjustment are those of the child, not those of society as ordinarily understood. If the gifted child should annoy society, society would pay more attention to him. Society builds splendid institutions and provides expert care and guidance for vicious and feeble-minded children. That society does not pay such attention to the gifted is in itself evidence of social acceptability. The researches of Terman, [2] of Hartshorne and May, [3] and of Haggerty, [4] among others, have shown that highly intelligent children are more stable emotionally than are children in general, are much more resistant to childish temptations, and exhibit far less of undesirable behavior than is exhibited by the dull. Teachers do, however, report them for "restlessness" and "lack of interest" somewhat more often than they report children of 100 IQ for these behaviorisms. The researches of Burt [5] and of Healy and Bronner [6] show few children testing above 130 IQ among delinquents, in proportion to their frequency in the population as a whole.
With these facts as to generally superior adjustment before us, let us inquire whether there are, nevertheless, special perplexities in the life of a gifted child, and at what point in the range of intellect these perplexities begin. Is it possible that a child who varies as far above his contemporaries as an imbecile or an idiot varies below them, will find only advantages and no special difficulties of development created for him by the fact of his wide deviation from the norm?
Observation and measurement of gifted children as they have grown from early childhood to maturity have made it possible to formulate definitely some of the special problems of development which arise from being an extreme and infrequently occurring deviate. The more intelligent the child, the more likely he or she is to become involved in these puzzling difficulties. Let us consider some of these problems.
THE PART PLAYED BY PHYSIQUE
The "looks" of a person has much to do with his social adjustment. If highly intelligent children really resembled the cartoonist's idea of them, there would be little chance of excellent development. Fortunately, the researches of the past twenty years have proved that the popular notions about the poor physiques of the gifted and the weird ugliness of their physiognomies are not only erroneous but the exact opposite of the truth. These are superstitions, founded perhaps on the unconscious longing for "a just nature" which will distribute gifts somewhat equally instead of bestowing everything upon a few persons.
It has been amply proved, by measurements, that highly intelligent children are tall, heavy, strong, healthy, and fine looking as a group, exceeding the generality of children in all these respects. This does not mean that every individual among the gifted is physically superior, but it does mean that a gifted child is more likely to have a fine body than is a child taken from the general population.
As for beauty of face, in two separate series of photographs in which the faces of highly intelligent adolescents were compared with the faces of adolescents of ordinary mentality, the faces of the former were found to be more beautiful. This was the impression made upon "naïve" judges who knew nothing concerning the comparative intelligence of those judged. It may be that one reason why teachers often do not identify gifted children accurately, is that they are looking for pupils who correspond to the cartoonist's picture, and thus are led away from consideration of the beautiful and the well grown!
As gifted children approach and reach maturity, they reap the benefits of superior vitality, size, and beauty. However, many of them suffer, while growing up, from feelings of inferiority connected with size and strength, for typically they are somewhat accelerated in school status and they naturally choose children older than themselves as chums. Thus in physical competitions they are at a disadvantage. Observation shows that they tend to develop sedentary forms of play, or forms of physical enjoyment that do not depend upon being included in a group; such as swimming, skating, horseback riding, and walking.