At 9 years: Passed entrance-examinations to one of the largest Western universities.

At 10 years: Was elected president of the Junior Peace League of America.

At 11 years: Began specializing in music, art, and dancing, continuing her academic work and physical training. At 12 years: Ready for graduate work in any university in the country.

Her mother, Mrs. James Buchanan Stoner, wrote to the author under date of June 10, 1915, from the United States Marine Hospital at Wilmington, N. C., as follows:

Winifred is now in the adolescent period, and I am striving to guard her from undue excitement of either mental or physical nature. As you know, I am a firm believer in filling the child's mind full of good material for educational foundations during the memory period from 2 years to 12, and now that the reasoning period has begun she has something about which to reason.

Winifred has no set lessons, but from early training she has become such a lover of good literature that she would be most unhappy if deprived for a single day of converse with her book companions. She reads at least for an hour each day. At present she is reading everything she can find about Japan, as she plans to write a play on this subject. For two hours she helps me as my secretary, answering letters, and working on "The Natural Educational Manual" and "Natural Educational Game Book," two books to be ready in fall. Winifred and I will be joint authors of these books, and another book belonging solely to the kiddie, and which she calls "Facts in Jingles," will be published by Bobbs-Merrill in a few weeks. Winifred has corrected proof of this book since returning from New York.

She practises for perhaps an hour each day on both her violin and piano, and amuses herself playing for little colored children who live in cabins facing our reservation, playing for them on the mandolin, jew's-harp, or orchestra bells.

One or two afternoons of each week she goes to the beach to swim, and on Wednesday evening she is allowed to attend a little dancing club until 9.30 P. M,

Nearly every pleasant Saturday afternoon she goes with several friends of her age canoeing or botanizing. As you know, North Carolina is the home of some very interesting plants, among them the Venus fly-trap, bladderwort, pitcher-plant, and other carnivorous members of the plant family. Winifred is intensely interested in these plants and has sent specimens to a number of our friends in northern cities.

Each morning she plays at least one game of tennis before breakfast, and after dinner in the evening she and I play croquet or take long walks through the white sandy tracts around our home.

At least fifteen minutes is spent in the kitchen each day gaining knowledge of culinary matters, and yesterday Winifred made a skirt for herself.

On one of our up-stairs porches I have a regular gymnasium, and here every afternoon, when we are at home, we exercise for at least one-half hour before taking a shower-bath and rub-down.

The little girl has learned how to drive an automobile and occasionally I let her drive when we take motor-trips. She drives also her horse Coupon, and occasionally rides horseback.

Some of her time is taken in training a menagerie of pets. We are trying our N. E. theory on all sorts of young things, and you will laugh at the mixture. In her pet house, which is a large screened tent, formerly used as a mess-room by some of our officers, Winifred has three baby rabbits, four kittens, two pigeons, two baby chickens, a baby catbird, a pup, and an alligator. I have always contended that any animals could be made to care for each other if they were raised together, and it is a wonderful sight to see the cats kiss the catbird and not hurt it. I am going to try to get a photo of the rabbits sleeping in their nest, the bird sitting on a small tree by the side of the kittens, and the chickens pecking peacefully at their plate of corn. A number of people are watching the outcome of Winifred's experiment with much interest and they predict that the kittens will eat the birds and chickens and rabbits.

Winifred has a canary which she has tamed and taught to do many wonderful tricks, and while she writes her stories on the typewriter he sits on the carriage of the machine and sings to her. To-morrow she is to receive a monkey and poll-parrot from a sea-captain, and then you will believe that there will be

no time for study of books, as the pets will take up every spare

moment.

I am writing to you of these trivial matters so as to paint a picture of the simple, happy, full life Winifred leads at this chrysalis time of life, when no child must be forced to study or to play.

The picture showing her in a eurhythmic pose with co-ordination of mind and muscle is perhaps the best.

She is five feet and three inches tall, weighing 130 pounds.1 Although she does not look overfat and her flesh is very firm and solid, I am using tennis before breakfast to train off a few pounds, as I do not want her to be a heavy-weight champion. Up to the present time she has never been beaten by any boy of her age in any athletic match.2 She is certainly a perfect specimen of physical health and strength, and Doctor O'Shea says that she knows more and can do more than the average college graduate.

I am proud of her strong body and cheerful disposition, but most of all I rejoice in her lack of conceit. She does not think that she knows anything, and she always objects to showing off. She cares nothing for public applause, and during our last visit to New York she consented very unwillingly to help me on the stage.

She is now to keep away from public life as much as possible for the next six years and see if she can grow up with the same unaffected manner and lack of conceit which has characterized her childhood days.

It is certainly gratifying that Winifred has not paid the penalty of conceit for the great publicity which has been given her education and accomplishments. From the interesting statements of her mother it appears that the child had, at the time of this writing, not reached puberty, so that in the matter of the development of the most vital feminine function she is not as advanced

1 These measurements are excessive. Tall girls of 14 or 15 reach that height, which is the mean for girls of 19 and 20. The weight exceeds that of the tallest girls of twenty by about five pounds.-M. P. E. G. No boy of her age can equal her in size and weight.-M. P. E. G.

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as she is in mental performances. But her physical growth, otherwise, is most pronouncedly in excess of girls of her age, so that her nervous system is supported by bodily resources. It is further important to note that Mrs. Stoner recognizes the period in her child's life completed so far as the "memory period," the "reasoning period" just having begun. As a matter of fact, what I have seen of the child's literary productions is characterized by a good use of memory, with strong power of imitation and imagination, rather than mature and independent reasoning. How she can, under the circumstances, compete with a really mature college graduate would not seem quite clear. She is certainly "book-minded" to a degree, with some disregard for manual and practical training. Maybe she is predisposed for this literary quality by hereditary and environmental influences no more than by the gift of an exceptionally good visual and aural memory, such as will be described later in the discussion of other types of exceptionally bright children.

Mrs. Stoner has rendered a distinct service to education by giving us an insight into the details of her methods with her exceptionally gifted child, and the author of this book has no desire here to enter into any detailed review or criticism. She calls her procedure, which she does not call a distinct system (being rather the application of good educational principles to a special case), the "natural education." It is very doubtful, however, whether it is safe to generalize from her experience with the one child-an only child at that, surrounded by certainly unusual life conditions. Winifred's life is by no means as "simple" as Mrs. Stoner thinks, if we compare \the girl's opportunities with those of other girls. One