CHILD PRODIGY.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXV, Issue 4682, 2 April 1924, Page 4

CHILD PRODIGY.

GENIUS AS A BOA. A CLERK AT 25. The career of William James Sidi.s, whose name and fame ten years ago were nated by every idle American schoolboy, is the subject of widespread discussion among educationalists. He is the son of the late Dr. Boris Sidis, a celebrated- authority o>n nsycho-pathblogy, who reared him in accordance with his own theories. The result was that young Sidis became a brain prodigy. History records that when he wa« aged: Two—He could read and write. Seven —He has mastered arithmetic and passed the Harvard Medical School examinations in anatomy. Eight—He possessed a knowledge of Lol in and Greek, could speak French, Russian, English, and German ; and passed the entrance examination of Massachusetts Institute of Technology'. Ten—He entered Tufts College. Eleven—He entered Harvard University. and lectured before an amazed gathering of professors and mathematicians on the Fourth Dimension. Sixteen—He received his bachelor of arts degree. Eighteen—After two years spent in the school of arts and sciences and at the law school at Harvard, he became an instructor in the Rice Institute, at Houston, Texas.

Nineteen. —He was arrested with eleven others at a Socialist demonstration at Boston, charged with assaulting a police officer and with riotine, and was sentenced to eighteen months in the House of Correction. He appealed and disappeared, two warrants being issued for his arrest. Twenty-five (his present age).—lb was given employment as a clerk in a New York business concern at a salary of £5 a week. HIS ONE AMBITION. When William James Sidis entered Harvard University'* at the age of It his father published a brochure, entitled “Philistine and Genius,” in which he furiously assailed the modern system of education.

Young Sidis was discovered a few davs ago by a newspaper interviewer engaged in his humble clerical duties Ho was working an adding machine. The interviewer quotes him as saying thal his chief ambition is to "earn a little greater margin than 1 have, so that 1 may pul something aside for a rainy day.”

The former prodigy of youthful learning was clad in a “cheap brown suit, much too tight for his fleshv frame.” His mop of mouse-coloured hair was in need of trimming, and he was unshaven. He tells his friends that he wants work which does not require thinking.