Genetic Studies of Genius Vol 3: The Promise of Youth: Follow-up Studies of a Thousand Gifted Children

Abstract

IF we allow one developed ‘genius’ to 100,000 children born (which is a liberal allowance), what is the chance that in the 250,000 Californian children, corresponding to 2.5 adult geniuses, one of these will have been picked out in the five or six hundred gifted children now remaining out of those selected in 1921–22 by the fact of their intelligence quotients (I.Q.'a) being 140 or above? Supposing one such should occur, shall we be able to differentiate him from the remaining 500 gifted children by the surprising record of facts concerning these children accumulated by Prof. Terman and his colleagues? We scarcely imagine that a Shakespeare, a Beethoven, or a Rembrandt would have been associated with a high intelligence quotient when six to eight years of age. It would seem to us that a more fitting title for this work would be “An investigation as to whether the promise of childhood is fulfilled in adolescence and (supposing the investigation can be still carried on) in adult life”.

Genetic Studies of Genius. Vol. 3: The Promise of Youth: Follow-up Studies of a Thousand Gifted Children.

Barbara Stoddard Burks Dortha Williams Jensen Lewis M. Terman Alice M. Leahy Helen Marshall Melita H. Oden. Pp. xiv + 508. (Stanford University, Cal.: Stanford University Press; London, Calcutta and Sydney: George G. Harrap and Co., Ltd., 1930.) 21s; net.