INFANT PRODIGIES.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXVI, Issue 4869, 24 August 1925, Page 2

INFANT PRODIGIES.

SOME NOTABLE EXAMPLES. OLD BEFORE BEING YOUNG. When we hear of young musical geniuses who perform at the immature age of live or six, We are apt either to deplore such precocity, or to extol the advantages of our wonderful age, regardless of the fact that from time immemorial there have appeared such prodigies, not in music only, but in spheres more remarkable, says John p’ London’s Weekly.. Baillet, writing over a hundred years ago, mentions 163 children endowed with extraordinary talents, most of whom died at an early age. Beginning with the sons of Quintilian, renowned for their knowledge of languages and for their skill 'in debate before their death at the age of teii, he tells of many cases, all well enough authenticated, of one Johannus Secundus, for instance, who, when 12 years of age, composed Latin and Greek poems of such excellence as to make him envied by his teachers, and was profoundly versed in law and literature. He also mentions that the Emperor Marcus- Aurelius was taught rhetoric -by a youth of 15, Hermogenes, an orator without equal in Italy . and Greece in his time ; and that Pascal, w.ho was recognised as a’genius. at the age of nine, carried out much of his celebrated work while in his teens.

The most remarkable case on record, however, is that of Henri Heineken, born, in- 1791, who . died four years later. At the age of nine months he spoke perfectly ; at 12 months he had learned the Old Testament by rote, to which accomplishment he added a knowledge of the Gospels two months later. When he reached the age of two he was deeply versed in history, spoke Latin as he did his mother tongue, was proficient in three modern languages, and had made a special study of theology. He was, naturally enough, the pride of his parents,, to whom he imparted instruction, and the object of . admiration of his and of erudite travellers. Premature old age followed his premature development, and, "as the proverb says, "the sword wore out the sheath.”

Such premature decay is by no mean's unknown to science, nor unrecorded in history. In 1754, to quote one case, there died in Glamorganshire one John Hopkins, aged 17 years. Before his death he showed all the signs of approaching dissolution, his eyes becoming dim, his hair grey, and his wits wandering. His sister of 12 is said to have had the appearance of an old woman. It seems difficult to find an explanation for such peculiar but well enough authenticated cases. There appears to be onefeature common to them all —that they die young. Modern science is now well aware of the action of tlie thyroid gland and other substances on the growth and development, and it is perhaps not venturing too far into the realms of the speculative to suggest that infant prodigies are due to some extraordinary accelerating effect of some of the products of the ductless glands. Why are nearly all the infant prodigies boys ?