PRODIGIES & DULLARDS

Hokitika Guardian, 12 February 1926, Page 1

PRODIGIES & DULLARDS

(Children’s Doctor in “ Daily Mail.”)

Dr Cyril Norwood, the newly appointed headmaster of Harrow, has been commenting on the frequent failure of brilliant schoolboys in alter-life. This is one of the most recurrent of educational' problems, only equalled in frequency of appearance by its converse. iho dullard at school who afterwards becomes a great success. There is one explanation of these two perplexing phenomena, and that is that ability may he an exhaustible quality. In some children it manifests itself early and is eagerly expended in the breathless digestion of school lessons, leaving the youth with a dull residuum with which to face life. Tn others it looks as if the mental faculties, carefully husbanded through adolescence. come to fruition late. Another important factor is physical development. The child with sound digestion and sturdy physique is much more likely than tho weakly to develop in accordance with the educalional system. Bur probably the true explanation of variation in scholastic ability is that anything which is easy of accomplishing is not worth doing. The little boy mind, however attractive it may he to teachers and parents, is something which has had an undue valuation placed upon it. It is not car-memory or eye-memory which is going to he the conquering force in life, hut fundamental intelligence. Under present collective methods of education it is difficult to see how we can possibly ascertain a child’s mental standard during school life. Wo say that a child at the age of eight should ho able to do this, and a child of ten that, without considering the thousand and one things influencing individual variation. So obsessed are wo with what wo call the normal Child that it is little to he wondered at that the poet, the statesman, and the merchant prince pass by on the other side. The pity of it all is that we do not got another chance with these elusive minds—though sometimes I wonder, as a child-lover, if if would ho to their ultimate benefit if we did.