PRECOCIOUS CHILDREN

Phrenologists, from the days of Gall and Spurzheim, have written much in regard to the premature development and decay of children. In their practice as phrenologists, they found that “forward children,” of which foolish parents are usually most proud, are, as a rule, either short-lived, or that, if they come into the full stature of men and women, that they develop less character than those more slow and backward in ripening.

The business of childhood is to grow, to grow bodily, to take on constitution, to lay in a stock of vitality for future use. Many parents seem to suppose the business of childhood to be to get an education, and they lose sight of the more important part, that of getting bodily health, strength, and vigor. Put a young colt into harness or under the saddle when not half grown, and lie remains a weak and spiritless animal, if not almost worthless, and (lies at the age of a dozen years; whereas, if first permitted to get his growth, to become strong, firm, and vigorous before breaking into service, lie will work steadily for twenty years. And so it is with human beings; they must not be forced. In a hot-house, plants may be stimulated into flower before their time, but they decay as much sooner.

Says a recent writer: A beautiful, fascinating lady, came in yesterday to arrange for the admission of her son to the Gymnasium. She exhibited her darling with a glow of pride and declared that she never saw such a creature; he never played like other children, but would sit from morning till night with his book. Although he was but eight, he had read everything, and was now going over Josephus for the second time.

In a polite way I warned her against such a course, and assured her if he had not learned to read, it would be far better for him, that, in brief, the chances were very strong that he would turn out a nervous, unhappy, feeble-minded man, but I fear she went away not only unconvinced, but pretty firmly resolved not to come again. Good physical education might perhaps save him, but it is almost sure he will do up his thinking before he is fifteen, and as a man will prove a regular noodle. A man at five may be a fool at fifteen.

Precocity is not genius, though it is often mistaken for it. We not unfrequently see mere children so precocious as to become very prodigies. They shine, for a time, as “bright particular stars” in some sphere or other, and then sink into obscurity, or mediocrity at best—sinking all the lower because of the extraordinary expectations, awakened by their debut, never being met in adult years!

The walks of literature are strewn with withered flowers, resulting from precocious culture. And in no department are they found more numerous than that of poetry, where they spring forth exotically, as it were, only to wither beneath the first touch of criticism, and teach the writers, and their ill-advising friends, how sadly they had mistaken their mission.

We always experience a feeling of sadness in beholding a precocious youth. We cannot free our mind from the thought of the great temptations that lie in the pathway of such. To be beautiful, to be gifted, is to be exposed to the flattery, the adulation and the smiles of the unthinking, the unreflecting portion of mankind. Pull of peril is the life, the boyhood of such a child. It is to be petted, to be spoiled, and ere the gravity of manhood has settled on the brow—too often— to be lost.  We tremble for precocious youth. The pitfalls in their pathway are too many and too dangerous for their safety, they fall like premature fruit, ripening and decaying e their youth has fairly blossomed.

It is a great misfortune to be a precocious child. Precocity should not be confounded with genius; the one is unnatural, the other only uncommon; the one is pre-maturene of power; the other superior power. The former should be constantly head in check; the latter may be safely cultivated. In the case of a precocious child one faculty has run away from its fellows, and should be strapped down until those faculties, which should accompany it, can catch up.

Two of the most dangerous evils children can experience is to be born with a gold spoon in the mouth and to be endowed by nature with some remarkable faculty of mind. The first evil may correct it self; the last is almost certain to so strain the childhood as to throw it, wrecked, upon manhood’s shore. Our great men and women come not from precocious childhood; our useful ones never do. To be great, or useful, requires a harmonious combination of powers; the existence of one astonishing faculty betrays the 1 commonly, of some corresponding weakness. Where there is a flood in one direction, there must be a drain in another direction. Precocity is an unnatural growth, and unless art can hold nature in check when it takes a “freak,” and train it properly to the framework of our physical and mental being, the plant becomes a monstrosity.

Baillet mentions one hundred and sixty-two children endowed with extraordinary talents, among whom few arrived at an advanced age. The two sons of Quintillian, so vaunted by their father did not reach their tenth year. Hermogenes, who, at the age of fifteen, taught rhetoric to Marcus Aurelius, who triumphed over the most celebrated rhetoricians of Greece, did not die, but at twenty-four lost his faculties, and forgot all he had previously acquired. Pica di Mirandola died at thirty-two; Johannes Secundus at twenty-five, having at the age of fifteen, composed admirable Greek and Latin verses, and be come profoundly versed in jurisprudence and letters. Pascal, whose genius developed itself at ten years old, did not attain the third of a century. In 1791, a child was born at Lubeck, named Henry Heinneken, whose precocity was miraculous. At ten months of age he spoke distinctly, at twelve learned the Pentateuch by rote, and at fourteen months was perfectly acquainted with the Old and New Testament. At two years he was as familiar with ancient history as the most erudite authors of antiquity. Sauson and Danville only could compete with him in geographical knowledge. In the ancient and modern languages he was a proficient. This wonderful child was unfortunately carried off in its fourth year.

A boy may be dull and yet have a superior mind. There is all the difference possible between a dull boy and a dunce. The latter can never know much; on the contrary, a dull boy only requires that the instruction given should be slowly communicated, and in greater division and subdivision. Many a clever boy is ruined by being hurried over subjects more rapidly than he can comprehend.