Cradles of
Eminence
Second Edition
Childhoods
of more than 700
famous men and women.
by Victor
Goertzel, Mildred
Goertzel, Ted
Goertzel
and Ariel M.W. Hansen
Although
Cradles of Eminence was published in 1962 (by
Little, Brown and Company), it continued to be cited on
lists of
suggested readings for parents and educators. The Child's
World
Online
Learning Site describes it as: An
absorbing
study of the childhoods of some 400 prominent people
that seeks to
relate early-childhood factors to eventual success in
life. It brings
together biography, autobiography, and professional
literature about
gifted children and adults. Unfortunately,
the book went out
of print, and library copies became hard to find. I
(Ted
Goertzel, Mildred and Victor's son) checked
amazon.com (on May 3, 2001) and found two used copies
being offered,
one for $125.00 and one for $245.00 (with Victor's
signature). When I
checked amazon.com on July 28, 2001, however, I couldn't
find the book
at
all.
I occasionally received emails from people asking where
they might find
a
copy. Fortunately, Great Potential Press published
a second
edition in 2004, including an update chapter by me and my
niece, Ariel
M.W. Hansen. The paperback should be available in
June.
In
addition to Cradles of Eminence, Mildred, Victor and
I
collaborated in a sequel called Three Hundred Eminent
Personalities
(Jossey-Bass, 1978). It is also out of print, and was
selling for
$125 on amazon.com, but was not on their site when I last
checked. It can be found in
libraries, and findings from it are summarized in the second
edition of
Cradles of Eminence.
Material
from my book Turncoats
and
True
Believers, still in print, is also included.
Here is an
excerpt from Chapter
11: "Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking" (pages
271 to 274
in the first edition, 281-283 of the second edition.)
THERE
IS
A DANGER in trying too hard to be conclusive and of being
drawn into
tidying data to give easy answers to difficult problems.
Such
efforts
too often lead to putting the right saddle on the wrong horse.
An
uncritical
adoption of new ideas has already caused many abrupt
reversals in methods of child-rearing. Parents reared on
strict
schedules are convinced of a need for demand feeling for their
own
infants. Fathers and mothers reared permissively are
attracted to
the idea that setting limits makes for emotional security in
their own
children.
There
are
no easy answers as to how to rear capable, creative children
who
will happily make effective use of their talents and
skills.
However,
an over-all view of the experiences of the Four Hundred may
stimulate
us
to some informed and serious guessing as to the best way to
initiate a
new
level of creativeness and flowering of excellence.
RECONNOITERING AMONG
THE
FINDINGS
Most
of
the eminent are not born in the great metropolitan centers but
drift into the larger centers from the farms, villages, and
smaller
cities. Stage celebrities more often come from the
cities than do
persons of other occupations.
In
almost
all the homes there is a love for learning in one or both
parents, often accompanied by a physical exuberance and a
persistent
drive toward
goals. Fewer than ten percent of the parents
failed to show
a
strong love for learning.
Three-fourths
of
the children are troubled - by poverty; by a
broken home; by rejecting, overpossessive, estranged, or
dominating parents; by financial ups and downs; by
physical
handicaps; or by parental dissatisfaction over the
children's
school failures or vocational choices.
One-half
of
the parents were opinionative about a controversial subject
which set them apart in their own time but is accepted with
little or
no
animus today. Opinionative parents reared nearly all the
statesmen,
the humanitarians and the reformers.
None
of
the twenty poets among the four Hundred is the son or daughter
of a poet.
Seventy-four
of
eighty-five writers of fiction or drama and sixteen of
twenty poets come from homes where, as children, they saw
tense
psychological dramas played out by their parents.
Twenty-one
of
thirty-two physicians, lawyers and scientists come from
family backgrounds which give them opportunities for outdoor
explorations, considerable personal freedom, and early
responsibility. They are often physically active, make
collections, and are mischievous.
Nearly
half
the fathers were subject to traumatic vicissitudes in their
business or professional careers.
One-fourth
of
the mothers are described as dominating, but only
one-twentieth of the fathers warrant this description.
Wealth
is
much more frequent than is abject poverty. One family
had public assistance; one subject was reared in a
work-house; two were in orphanages. Five
others
experience extreme deprivation. There are twenty-one
families
which lived on inherited income or were known to be very
wealthy.
Three hundred and fifty-eight families (some wealthy) can be
classified
as representing the business or professional classes.
Handicaps
such
as blindness; deafness; being crippled,
sickly, homely, undersized, or overweight; or having a
speech
defect occur
in the childhoods of over one-fourth of the sample. In
many of
these
individuals, the need to compensate for such handicaps is seen
by them
as
a determining factor in their drive for achievement.
Among
explorers
and adventurers, there is almost always a history of
accident-proneness.
Dictators,
military
men and poets have the highest percentage of
dominating or overpossessive (smothering) mothers. An
over-possessive parent
of a peer-rejected child (especially a mother who dislikes her
husband)
is
the most likely to rear a dictator or ;military hero who
enjoys the
carnage
of battle.
The
loss
by death of a brother or sister id described as extremely
traumatic by fifty-seven persons.
Stepmothers,
of
whom there were fourteen, played a helpful role to
eleven stepsons or stepdaughters, and are not appreciated by
three
stepsons.
Among
the
children of twenty-three alcoholic fathers, there are
fourteen
who are humorous writers, actors or actresses, or singers.
The
homes
of the Four Hundred were exceptionally free of mental
illnesses requiring hospitalization.
The
children
enjoyed being tutored, whether by professional tutors or
by
their parents.
The
secondary
school was the most frequently disliked, and the prestige
college was the best accepted.
Three-fifths
of
the four Hundred expressed dissatisfaction with schools
and schoolteachers, although four-fifths showed exceptional
talent.