There may be one, or two, or three, or more children among every million born in the United States under present conditions who test at or above 180 IQ (S-B). In any case, however, they are extremely rare, and the study of their origin and development is of correspondingly great interest. In the course of discovering about 1000 children testing at or above 140 IQ (S-B) in the state of California, Terman (26) found 15 who tested at or above 180 IQ (S-B). Children who test at and above 140 IQ (S-B) are as 1 in 250 of children in large California cities and environs. Thus 140 IQ (S-B) defines a frequency of about 4 in 1000 of urban juvenile population in California. About 1.5 per cent, therefore, of those children who are as 4 in 1000 reach the status of which we are here treating; i.e., 180 IQ (S-B). [1] Nor can we take the children of California urban districts as a true sample of the population of the United States at large, since there is reason to believe that among urban children there is an uncommon proportion of intelligent individuals (8). Also it should be conceded that California has a total population that is above the average of the United States in general as regards mental ability (37). In any case, it may be guessed with some degree of approximation to fact how very few there are among American children who test at or above 180 IQ (S-B).
CHILDREN OBSERVED BEFORE THE ERA OF BINET
Scattered observations of children estimated by more or less competent persons as very unusual are to be found dating from quite early years. In this period the literature of child psychology was still in the state of narrative. The earliest of these narrations bears the date of 1726 (1) and concerns the child Heineken.
_Christian Heinrich Heineken_. Born February 6, 1721, the "Little Heineken," of Lübeck, was the son of an artist. When the child was 10 months old, his elders first noticed that he was looking with sustained attention at the figures wrought in gold on a grotesque that decorated the walls of his room and that were also on a white stove that stood therein.
Den 3 Dezember 1721 bemerkte man zuerst, dass das kind diese Figuren hin und her, eine Zeitlang ohne Unterlass ansah und seine Äugelchen auf eine derselben gleichsam anklebte. Man sagte ihm daher die Namen dieser Figuren, das sei eine Katze, das ein Turm, ein Schäfchen, ein Berg. Den andern Tag, den 4 Dezember, fragte man es wieder, wo die Katze, der Berg, das Schäfchen wäre und siehe da, das Kind deutete mit seinen kleinen Fingerchen hin und traf immer das rechte Bild, das man ihm genannt hatte. Noch mehr, nun gab es sich Mühe, die ihm vorgesagten Wörter: Katze, Berg, Turm selbst nachzusprechen: es sah daher mit unverwandten Blicken dem Redendend nach dem Munde, gab auf die Bewegung der Lippen und der Zunge desselben beständig acht, lallte das Wort nach und wiederholte dies so oft, bis es endlich eine Silbe nach der andern herauspresste. [a]