Pöhler's plan, when seen on this final occasion, April, 1909, was to go at Easter, 1910, to the university, to become a student of German history.
Other cases. General discussions of mental gifts in children which bear interestingly upon the subject here under discussion but fail to present any specific instances of individuals who exemplify extreme status, are those by Dolbear (7) and by Hartlaub (12), and the lectures given in 1930 before the Hungarian Society for Child Research and Practical Psychology (31). Among the cases cited by Waddle (33) there are none that belong to our study. In the research of Cox (6), the following eminent persons were rated as having been in childhood at or above 180 IQ (S-B): John Stuart Mill, Johann Wolfgang Goethe, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Blaise Pascal, Thomas Babington Macauly, and Hugo de Groot (Grotius). We would, however, venture to guess, from what we have observed over a long period of the work of persons who in childhood tested from 135 to 200 IQ (S-B), that a large number of the persons included in Cox's study would have tested in childhood at or above 180 IQ (S-B); and that the reasons why they failed of such rating as studied by Cox were two: (1) the data of childhood requisite for the valid rating were lacking; (2) the raters were not sufficiently familiar with what is required in terms of IQ to make possible the evaluation of those studies, because only a few children testing so high could have been seen by any rater, and nothing was as yet known of the performance of tested children at any stage of maturity. Many of the persons studied by the methods of Cox were rated at 140, 150, 155 IQ (S-B), whose performances in early maturity were far in excess of what can be expected of persons who represent nothing better than what the upper quarter of American college students can do (6). It is only when children test at least as high as 170 IQ (S-B) that they render performance in early maturity that suggests anything like the achievements of the persons studied by Cox.
CHILDREN WHO TEST ABOVE 180 IQ BY BINET-SIMON TESTS
After the publication of the Binet-Simon tests (3), a few cases of children testing very high by means of them were reported in the literature which resulted from the tests before they were revised by Terman (24). At that time, which was previous to the appearance of the Stanford-Binet tests, the IQ was not used in expressing mental status, but we are able to calculate what this was from the data of Mental Age. These early cases, definitely measured, are as follows:
Bush's daughter, B. In 1914 Bush (5) reported upon the mental examination of his daughter, B, who at the age of 3 years 6 months tested at 6 years by the Binet tests of 1911. Her IQ would thus be proved at about 185, calculated from her father's detailed record of responses. This report was rendered primarily to show that the Binet tests were too easy, as no child could possibly be really so advanced mentally as was B. "B's state is in no wise extra-normal, or beyond what it should be. She represents the norm."
Additional data concerning B are that she "is of a happy disposition . . . strong and well of body," and that her parents are both teachers. This record clearly reveals a child of surpassing intelligence, contrary to the father's belief that "she represents the norm."
Elizabeth, recorded by Langenbeck. In 1915 Langenbeck (15) contributed observations of a 5-year-old girl, Elizabeth, who tested at a mental level of about 11 years by the Binet-Simon tests of 1911, administered in the Psychological Laboratory at John Hopkins University. This would yield an IQ of about 220 (assuming the tests of 1911 to be approximately comparable with Stanford-Binet in power to distribute intellect).
Elizabeth is described as an only child. At 16 months she had a speaking vocabulary of 229 words, some English and some German, as she had a German nurse. At 5 years of age she had a speaking vocabulary of 6837 words, which are inscribed in the record. The observer writes of her as follows:
Her quickness of thought and readiness with an instant and convincing answer were typified one dusty, blustering day when we were out walking. A cloud of dust enveloped us, to her great indignation, and being a very vehement character she exclaimed, "I should like to kill the dust!" In answer to my reproof, "Do not be so foolish. How can anyone kill the dust?" she replied, "Very easily—pour a little water on it." This was at the age of 4 years. . . . She is highly imaginative, and lives largely in a dream world of her own creation. Her games are nearly all pretense that she is someone else, and that she is surrounded by companions, sometimes purely fictitious, though often characters out of books that have been read to her. . . . When being read to, she asks the meaning of every unfamiliar word, and rarely forgets it, using it thereafter in its proper place. . . . Many of her forebears have been distinguished men and women, and on both sides her family have been people of more than average capacity and cultivation. . . . From an early age she has shown unusual muscular coördination, using her fingers daintily and with precision. From her eighth month she used a paper and pencil, drawing recognizable figures. At 4 years she could illustrate a little story composed by herself. . . . The source of much of her knowledge is a mystery to her parents, and can only be explained by her keen observation and retentive memory, as well as by a power of comprehension much beyond her years. However absorbed she may appear to be in her play, talking vigorously to herself and to imaginary companions all the time, she nevertheless hears everything that is said in her presence, though months will often pass before she alludes to it. . . . She taught herself her letters from street signs and books, and could print them all before she was three, and during the next few months would write letters of several pages, of her own composition, having the words, of course, spelled for her. . . . She has an accurate ear and could sing a tune correctly before her second birthday, and dances in excellent time. . . . Every new thought or impression is at once associated with some previous idea. Hence, doubtless, her marvelous memory. For example, in a country walk she noticed a typical Virginia snake fence, having never seen one before. After a single moment's hesitation she said, "You see that M or W fence?" . . . At the age of five years she had coined twenty-three words— e.g., laten, to make late; neaten, to make neat; plak, to pretend; up-jar, pitcher.
Rusk's case, from Scotland. In 1917 Rusk (19) published an account of a Scottish boy whose IQ, calculated from Rusk's detailed record, was 166 on first test and about 200 on second test given two and a half years later, the Binet-Simon tests of 1911 being used. This child was the son of a widow in Dundee, who lived and supported her two sons by letting rooms to lodgers. The young brother of this boy was not judged to be remarkably intelligent, but no test was given to substantiate this impression. Details of family history are not recorded.