Youthful Prodigies by Charlotte W. Eastman

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Oct 14, 1902

Youthful Prodigies

By Charlotte W. Eastman

What you should have in mind is so to educate and develop your child that the best possible results may be attainable when he is grown. You snatch the first indication that the little mind unfolds to you. You are filled with an unspeakable joy if he shows an early love for books. If he loves to lie for hours looking at pictures, and if before you are aware of it, he has learned to read, you are sure that you have a remarkable child. You easily convince yourself that no ordinary child has been given to your care; perhaps he may be a real genius. Or, if while yet a baby, he surprises you with some remarkable feat in numbers or memory, or unexpectedly hums some familiar tune, you are sure, so very sure, that your child is remarkable. You tingle with a desire to begin at once to cultivate that wonderful gift, and if you are a particularly foolish woman, you exhibit him to your admiring friends, and as soon as possible you have him appear on the platform of the Sunday-school entertainment. At the earliest possible age, he is sent to school. Then, not satisfied with the normal progress he is making, you begin drilling him at home. After he is in bed, you drill him on his spelling or number work. You are not satisfied that he leads the class; you want him to shine more and more. You furnish him unlimited reading, and tell with a quiver of pride how he has read almost two hundred books. Or, if the talent seems to be for music, you absorb half his play time in practice.

You do not think for a moment that all this driving and exhibition is anything but your desire to use the precious hours of childhood for laying the foundation of future usefulness. Yet it is quite true that silly love of ostentatious show is driving many a little fellow at a pace that is absolutely certain to ruin his future success.

There is no rule that can be laid down as invariable in human development, but it is near enough to it to make every mother of a prodigy shudder, that great men and women seldom develop from children who startle their friends with their brilliancy. The course that is absolutely necessary for that child is repression, a keeping in the background. A child that loves to read should never be led to believe that it is a great virtue, as he surely will if he hears his mother boasting about it. In fact, unrestrained reading will usually make a listless absorber, the most ineffective of all men. The literary taste which it indicates may in time direct his efforts in that channel; and if he is fortunate enough to have his lot cast in a large family where little attention is paid to his inclination, and wholesome work fills most of his time, he may develop into a strong literary power, but undirected reading of itself amounts to very little.

With remarkable quickness in the numerical powers, it is still truer that the youthful prodigy fails to develop. He will shine up to about sixteen years, seldom later, only to be pushed aside by some roustabout of a boy who has never been conspicuous for anything but a love of mischief and sport. In after years he will find himself entirely unable to compete with the country-reared boy who spent his young years cultivating strength and ability for hard work, while our prodigy was shining in the lower grades. His light has gone out forever, unless his wise parents have made little of his brightness, and compelled him to produce results where effort was necessary; for the capacity for work, hard work, is the great gift. . . .

It is a wise mother who checks her remarkable child, and who realizes that only disappointment is in store for both of them, if they build castles upon his childish ability.

The child mind should not get ahead of the body, and childish tastes and enjoyments should be natural to childhood for the production of men and women who have physical force enough to enable them to put into active service the powers of their brain. The sharp competition of to-day leaves far behind the man who depends on comfortable, easy effort for results, and our petted prodigy is fortunate if the love of his mother is wise enough to look with doubt and misgiving on his youthful brilliancy.—Charlotte W. Eastman, in American Mother.