Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 146, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 June 1916 — “GENIUS” ALMOST EPITHETIC [ARTICLE]

“GENIUS” ALMOST EPITHETIC

Misuse of Word Gives Meaning That Cripples It—An Erratic Behavior Mistaken. People of all conditions and convictions love to read of the vagaries of genius—provided those vagaries are of a sort to bear relating In print. For most people like to believe that exceptional creative ability Implies a grotesque personality; and when the news of the day seems to confirm the belief, they can nod wisely—they have found something that they can explain by formula. So the wild-faced youth who routed a Boston police station at checkers and boasted of having defeated the whole phalanx of players at the Psychopathic hospital will be immediately set down as a genius. There was a weird twinkle in his eye, the policemen said; and he could play checkers. Genius is therefore conceded on the first ballot. That word "genius” is coming to be more and more misused. Although lunatics have made wonderful contributions to art and letters, and have shone even in mechanics, the real genius, in the proper meaning of the term —the real builder and creator — is most likely to be a person of logic, a cold, calculating individual who works with will as well as with , imagination. “Genius" and another fine word, “temperament,” are used to cover much that is unpraiseworthy or unmoral. The popularly designated genius is often one whose mental equipment falls far short of greatness, one who has -gifts without balance, more often subnormal than supernormal, more deserving of pity than of worship. "Genius” is growing to be almost an epithet. We may soon have to cease applying it to great engineers and inventors, diplomats and statesmen, authors, artists and the rest of the necessarily long-headed tribe that keeps the world at its pace of advance.