BORN, NOT MADE

It will be a noteworthy move if the New York City Board of Education adopts a plan it is considering for a special school for children of marked ability. The mass production methods of American education have justly been under fire, and the regimentation of all types of mind in the big public schools has been the extreme example of the evil.

Many schools, in reaction to the traditional rigidity of education, have made complete freedom for individual expression their guiding principle and this freedom has proved especially profitable for children of outstanding talent. A similar plan in New York would give gifted pupils an opportunity which they now lack, to develop their capacities.

The establishment of such a public school would certainly be a progressive step. On the other hand, it is improbable that, as a headline suggests, the school would be able to bring out "budding genius." Genius has a habit of cutting across barriers, of refusing to be classified. The great artist or poet who failed at school is a familiar figure. Even if a classification is made specially to fit the unusual student, there will be a rub somewhere. A school for talent may fare well. A school for genius amounts to a contradiction in terms.