Miraca Gross' Book "Exceptionally Gifted Children"
   "Some interesting facts: I've been reviewing Miraca Gross' "Exceptionally Gifted Children", looking for indications concerning whether or not today's children are more, and more-often precocious than yesterday's children. Miraca Gross' 1993 book profiles 15 Australian children with IQs above 160, including 4 with ratio IQs of 200 or above. (One would expect to find 500 children with ratio IQs of 160 or above for every child with a ratio IQ of 200 or above.) The median age at which these children with ratio IQs above 160 started to read was 2 years, 7 months, compared with a median age of a little more than 3 years for Leta Hollingworth's children above 180 IQ. The book also mentions that only 43% of the (1921) Terman children with IQs above 170 started to read before they were 5 and that only 13% of them began reading before they were 4. This would be consistent with the idea that real intelligence is rising because of the Flynn Effect, although it is far from a confirmation of this proposition. One of the children learned to read by watching Sesame Street. Sesame Street wasn't around in 1921. In other words, the educational climate might have been more conducive to early reading in 1985 than it was in 1921. Although all of these children were tested using the Stanford Binet, it isn't clear to me just which version of the S. B. Dr. Gross used to derive her IQ scores for her 15 children. Also, Dr. Gross applied certain requirements regarding the definition of what constitutes reading that might have been more stringent than Dr. Hollingworth's standards. So although these results are tantalizing, I personally must consider them to be suggestive but far from conclusive."

        RESURRECTION OF A POET

Heaven flared up
Like a candle lit
And there I stood
In the heart of it.

There in the heart
Of a clean, bright flame
I heard a voice
And it spoke my name.

I looked to the left
And I looked to the right
And I saw God's saints
All robed in white.

From left to right
And all around
His white-robed saints
Looked back and frowned.

At me and my shirt
That was wild as sin,
And my crazy boots
With the soles danced thin.

Beyond their faces
I saw a Face
And I wanted to flee
From that holy place.

But clear as the sound
Of a silver chime,
I heard my name
For the second time.

I heard my name,
And the voice said, "Stay,"
And the saints moved back
To clear the way

When the Son of God
Left His golden throne
To welcome me
As His very own

"Come in, come in!
There is nothing here
That a wandering bard
From earth should fear.

"I was a mortal
Once like you,
A vagabond
And an outcast too.

"I took my chances,
I cut my loss
And I died at last
On a common cross.

"But I went to a wedding,
I went to a feast,
And I was a poet
As well as a priest."

He clasped my hand
And the saints closed in
And took my measure
From head to chin.

They gave me wings
Of the finest down
And fitted my head
With a jeweled crown.

They brushed away
At the dust and dirt,
But I kept my boots,
And I kept my shirt,

And I kept the songs
I had brought with me
From the misty mountains
Of Tennessee.