otherwise, for in the course of long searching I have learned that it is nearly useless to look for these children, because so few of them exist. In twenty-three years' seeking in New York City and the local metropolitan area, the densest center of population in this country and at the same time a great intellectual center attracting able persons, I have found only twelve children who test at or above 180 IQ (S-B). This number represents the winnowing from thousands of children tested, hundreds of them brought for the testing because of their mental gifts. Of course there were and are others who have not been found, since [this] search has never been exhaustive.

The most interesting part of this research is yet to come, in the form of a record of the mature performances of these gifted persons observed in childhood. However, I propose to make a report now of origin and development; to be followed, if I live so long, by further reports of adult status. Such researches require more than the life span of one investigator, since time is of the essence of the task. Universities should make provision for institutional prosecution of these long-time studies as distinguished from individual prosecution. In any case, I shall try to leave the records to some younger student who will comprehend them, and who will amplify them if I prove unable to do so myself.

Galton, in his efforts to understand ability, was limited to the study of the eminent adult, dead and gone. The only test he could use was that of reputation, for at the time he was at work on the problem, mental measurement had not yet been developed as a technique. He wished for a more valid method of gauging ability, and he fully realized that it would be of greater advantage to study "the living individual." "Is reputation a fair test of natural ability?" he asked. "It is the only one I can employ . . . am I justified in using it? How much of a man's success is due to his opportunities, and how much to his natural power of intellect?"

Galton's work was finished before Binet's studies made it possible to measure natural ability apart from reputation; and what is most essential of all, to measure natural ability in childhood. It was Binet's great and original service that he rendered it possible to determine accurately the permanent intellectual caliber of an undeveloped human being. It has always been possible to appraise the ability of people forty or fifty years old, after they have met "the tests of life," but for the pursuit of education and social science it is not very practically useful to know what a person is like only at the end of his life. It is essential, rather, to know with a high degree of precision and certainty the mental endowment of persons at the beginning of their lives if anything is to be done in the matter of special training for special children.

The facts derived from the study of the twelve exceptional persons herein described, and from the study of others like them, and the principles deduced from these facts, are of that order of importance for social science which Galton ascribed to them. Nevertheless, to hear of the tremendous differences between the dullest and the most intelligent individual, between the average man and the person who falls more than +10 PE away from him in mental ability, is extremely tedious to the typical American listener. This is only too well known to one who has long tried to interest foundations and moneyed persons in the education of gifted children. There is an apparent preference among donors for studying the needs and supporting the welfare of the weak, the vicious, and the incompetent, and a negative disregard of the highly intelligent, leaving them to "shift for themselves."

Perhaps a wider dissemination of facts such as have been adduced in the studies of Professor Lewis M. Terman and other educators, and in this study, may eventually bring about a more constructive point of view, one more conducive to a recognition of national welfare involved in educational plans for the unusual student.

It is desirable in this introduction to make known some of the etiquette and ethics involved in the scientific study of very gifted children. This is a new area in the field of human relationships and the investigator who works within it comes rather frequently upon certain questions of good manners which do not arise in any other field of psychological research.

For instance, persons who test above 180 IQ (S-B) are almost sure to read and recognize in books and articles whatever has been written about them, no matter how anonymously they may have been described. This is true of them even as children. When the book Gifted Children was published, in 1926, Child A, who is described therein as well as in these pages, was thirteen years old. He read the book within two weeks of publication; for, as he said in mentioning the matter to the author, "I go every week to the Public Library and look first at the shelf of new books." The problem always in the foreground is how to present the whole truth about such matters as family history, social-economic status, and character, without invading the privacy of those described and without identifying them to the general public or to curious persons.

Those who test above 180 IQ (S-B) are characterized by a strong desire for personal privacy. They seldom volunteer information about themselves. They do not like to have attention called to their families and homes. They are reluctant to impart information concerning their plans, hopes, convictions, and so forth. The question arises, then, how to avoid presumption; for it is by no means easy for a young person politely to evade an older person who can lay claim to having known one "all one's life."

Thus, in this study, in order to preserve the privacy of those concerned, some items have been omitted from the histories which would have been of interest to students of child psychology. Let it be understood at once, however, that the omissions include nothing discreditable to any of the twelve individuals studied; rather, many of these items are highly creditable. There have been acts of moral courage, acts of skill, and acts of self-sustaining heterodoxy that if told at all should be told only by those who performed the actions. Perhaps autobiographies may some day be written by these persons, telling whatever they may wish to tell.

In the matter of the attitude of people in general toward gifted children, there are, of course, a majority who are kindly and understanding and helpful, but it is a melancholy fact that there are also malicious and jealous people who are likely to persecute those who are formally identified as being unusual. It may prove a handicap rather than a help to a gifted youngster to have been identified in book or article or school as extraordinary. Some of the children herein described have suffered considerably from the malice of ill-mannered persons, even their instructors, who have felt the impulse to "take them down a peg." Specific instances of such persecution can be cited from public prints, and reference will be made to them in the course of this monograph.

It would be of interest to present a photograph of each child herein observed, to show how in personal appearance they are diametrically opposite to the popular stereotype of the highly intelligent child; but photographs would tend to identification.

These questions of what is right and what is wrong, what is permissible and what is forbidden, in reporting the origin and development of the gifted cannot be fully determined here. The policies pursued in this study have been discussed from time to time with gifted children and their parents, and I have been guided by their advice. Everything has been presented that is consistent both with scientific interest and with the preservation of personal privacy. The