Promise of Youth: Follow-Up Studies of a Thousand Gifted Children

The purpose of this series is to throw light on the factors which make for superior achievement, particularly achievemeht in the realm of intellect. How to identify the individual of extraordinary gifts and how to make the most of his potentialities are questions which philosophers, scientists, and educators have pondered from the days of Plato to the present moment. That the scientific study of genius should have had to wait until the middle of the last century was inevitable, considering the modern development of biology, genetics, psychology, and the social sciences. With the growth of these basic disciplines the problems of genius become for the first time open to scientific approach. Already workers in great numbers have been attracted to the field which the pioneer researches of Galton and Cattell have opened up so effectively. Thanks to the rapid development in the underlying sciences, the outlook for progress in the study of genius was never so promising as it is today. The biology of genius, its psychological identification, the factors innate and environmental which mold it, and the social forces which limit its influence or make possible its utilization can now be investigated far more fruitfully than was possible even a couple of decades ago, and by methods which did not then exist.

Of the two approaches to the problem, one by the study of matured geniuses, the other by following the development of gifted children, it is the latter that is especially favored by recent scientific advances.