Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 259, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 October 1913 — Little Georgie, “The Boy With a Mirror Brain” [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Little Georgie, “The Boy With a Mirror Brain”

Detroit, mich.— "The boy with the mirror brain” Is what they call four-year-old George Herbert Van Vleet. His exceptional mental activity dates back to early babyhood. At an age when the average youngster’s vocabulary consists of a series of sounds that no one but a doting parent could by any stretch of the Imagination construe as representing even “googoo,” George was talking distinctly, repeating words that would stump many a grownup. By the time he was sixteen months old he astonished physicians who had been attracted by stories of his'ability when such simple words as spondylootherapy, polycotyledon, metapterygold, limnanthaceae rolled off his tongue as easily as though they contained but one syllable. Today, just turned four, there Is not a word in the English language that, having heard once, he will not repeat, with astonishing clearness of enunciation. He has never been taught to read. All letters look alike to him when they are coupled together, yet here la

a feat sufficient to confound those who would attribute his powers to any training he may have received: Take a map of the world, spread It out in front of him, arm him with a toothpick—all geniuses have their little eccentricities, and his consists of a partiality for a topthplck to be used as a pointer—and he will indicate every country on the map and name it without a second’s hesitation. He knows the capitals of many of these and the chief cities as well. One of his pastimes is sitting down with a geography and hl*- toothpick and locating out-of-the-way lands that •ha»f at some time or other been pointed out to him. »