Page:American Journal of Psychology Volume 21.djvu/294

282 to bring their powers to maximal tension; they do not have to steel their wills and train their sense of duty.

In this case, as before, preliminary pedagogical and psychological work must be done. Supernormal young people must be psychographed with the greatest precision and with reference to every sort of endowment. The significance of inheritance, milieu, and education in their develppment must be determined. We must discover whether there is not possible, even in early life, a clear differentiation between "infant prodigies" in the strict sense (i.e., children with accelerated development, who later soon come to a standstill) and real child geniuses, like Mozart, who afterward as adults retain their supernormality. Finally, the correlation between different sorts of supernormal endowments must be studied, and that between supernormal endowment and general intelligence.

From the practical point of view there must be roused in society the conviction that it has special duties not only toward the mentally inferior, but also toward the mentally superior. Proposals have already been made with this in view which must be tested: Separate classes in the common schools for specially brilliant pupils; èlite gymnasia, with wholly different courses of study and different requirements, for picked groups of those most exceptionally talented, without reference to family or property; legal measures to protect the "infant prodigies' ' from exploitation and to secure for them, remote from publicity, suitable training in their specialties combined with general education.