Much more might be said of the program of intellectual training, but I must pass on to consider what may be even more important— their training in attitudes, emotions, and drives; in other words, their emotional education. How shall we avoid the conditions which, under the prevailing system of mass education, tend to produce emotional habits destructive of leadership?
Of all the speical problems of general conduct which the most intelligent children face, I will mention five, which beset them in early years and may lead to habits subversive of fine leadership: (1) to find enough hard and interesting work at school; (2) to suffer fools gladly; (3) to keep from becoming negativistic toward authority; (4) to keep from becoming hermits; (5) to avoid the formation of habits of extreme chicanery.
In the ordinary elementary school situation children of 140 IQ waste half of their time. Those above 170 IQ waste practically all of their time. With little to do, how can these children develop power of sustained effort, respect for the task, or habits of steady work? I could entertain you for some time telling you the various sorts of bizarre and wasteful activities that were taking up the time of the most intelligent elementary school children in this nation yesterday in their classrooms, but we must pass on to other things.
A lesson which many highly intelligent persons never learn as long as they live is that human beings in general are incorrigibly very different from themselves in thought, action, and desire. Many a reformer has died at the hands of a mob which he was trying to improve. The highly intelligent child must learn to suffer fools gladly—not sneeringly, not angrily, not despairingly, not weepingly—but gladly, if personal development is to proceed successfully in the world as it is. Failure to learn how to tolerate in a reasonable fashion the foolishness of others less gifted leads to bitterness, disillusionment, and misanthropy, which are the ruin of potential leaders.
Every day at school the opportunity presents itself to learn this lesson. Especially hard for these intelligent children to bear is the foolishness of accepted authority. For instance, our pupils found it stated in their encyclopedia that Mr. Orville Wright is dead. As is likely to be the case, a child in the group immediately identified error. "Mr. Orville Wright is as much alive as I am," declared this child. This was subsequently verified by the class as a whole. They wrote to Mr. Wright, fiercely protesting against the foolishness of the encyclopedia. They wanted to throw the false authority out at once.
The teacher discussed the incident on the basis of "glad suffering." I can't take time to describe the conversation that pivoted on this incident, but I can say that it was valuable as emotional education. The pupils still have the offending encyclopedia.
As a form of failure to suffer fools gladly, negativism may develop. The foolish teacher who hates to be corrected by a child is unsuited to these children. Too many children of IQ 170 are being taught by teachers of IQ 120. Into this important matter of the selection of the teacher we cannot enter, except to illustrate the difficulty from recent conversation with a ten-year-old boy of IQ 165. This boy was referred to us as a school problem: "Not interested in the school work. Very impudent. A liar." The following is a fragment of conversation with this boy:
What seems to be your main problem in school?
Several of them.
Name one.