Extremely Bright Boys

"Extremely Bright Boys"

Storybooks tell of curious old King John of England, who once amused himself by posing this question to the Abbot of Canterbury: "How soon can I ride around the world?" A clever shepherd, substituted by the baffled Abbot, answered: "You must rise with the sun and you must ride with the sun until it rises again the next morning. As soon as you do that you will have ridden around the world in 24 hours." For this stroke of sagacity the shepherd's reward was four pieces of silver per week for life.

A monarch in his way, Inventor Thomas Alva Edison can also indulge his propensity for asking trick questions, rewarding him who gives the wisest answers. Nine years ago he compiled for his prospective employes a list of puzzlers which provided table talk in U. S. homes for weeks afterward. Last year he gathered 49 handpicked boys just graduated from their high schools, offered a prize of expenses and tuition to any college for four years to the one who did best in an examination he submitted to them (TIME, Aug. 12, 1929). Last week 49 more boys journeyed to West Orange, N. J., to compete in the second annual Edison Scholarship Contest. Theoretically each was the brightest boy in his State, plus the District of Columbia's brightest.

Two days of fun preceded the test. The boys were shown through the Edison laboratories, shook hands with Henry Ford, Harvey Samuel Firestone, Lewis Perry (principal of Phillips Exeter Academy), Hubert S. Howe (Columbia neurologist), William Lowe Bryan (President of Indiana University). During this ceremony each boy was permitted to step up to a microphone and speak his name and State. There was a banquet at which they formally met last year's winner, Wilber Brotherton Huston of Olympia, Wash., M. I. T. sophomore. There was also a dance to which the Edisons invited 52 of New Jersey's nicest young ladies. "Alabama" picked out the one he wanted from a newspaper picture the day before.

A preliminary "horse sense" examination given by Professor Howe counted 15% on the final grade. After his inquisition, Professor Howe enthusiastically applauded this year's examinees: "They are extremely bright boys and it is a pleasure to see them and how excellently they show up. They are far above the average in intelligence."

Two days later the "extremely bright boys" filed into a room in the Edison plant, sat down at broad desks, began frowning and screwing up their mouths over the questionnaires. Sophomore Huston looked over the test, appraised it as no harder than last year's, promised to try his hand at it later, settled down to read a tabloid newspaper.

Half of the examination was composed of questions on chemistry, physics, mathematics, general information which every high school boy is supposed to know and to which definite answers could be given. But Part II was full of characteristically Edisonian posers. Almost as whimsical as King John's query were, among others, these:

If you owned the following items, set down the approximate price in dollars and cents for which you would sell them, and the sort of purchaser you would select: (a) Ford coupe which had run 5,000 mi. (b) Basic patent which will reduce the cost cf manufacturing shoes 20-c- a pair. (c) Secret process for manufacturing a drug which will definitely cure cancer. (d) Ten acres of land in a good farming section of Iowa. . . .

Perhaps because of its gravity, this question attracted most public interest: You are the head of an expedition which has come to grief in the desert. There is enough food and water left to enable three people to get to the nearest outpost of civilization. The rest must perish. Your companions are: 1. A brilliant scientist 60 years old. 2. Two half-breed guides ages 58 and 32. 3. The scientist's wife--interested mainly in society matters, age 39. 4. Her little son, age six. 5. The girl you are engaged to marry. 6. Your best friend, a young man of your own age who has shown great promise in the field of science. 7. Yourself. (Which would you choose to live and which to die. Give your reasons.}

Enterprising newspapers sent out reporters to put this question to theologians, psychologists, men-in-the-street. One opinion, printed in the New York Herald Tribune, came from Director George Herbert Sherwood of the American Museum of Natural History. Said he: "Presumably if anyone is to reach civilization at all, there must be one guide selected for the trip. If the two guides are equally effective, I should select the younger man as probably possessing the greater stamina. Under such circumstances, there is no doubt in my mind but that the leader should remain. There is little probability that the son could stand the hardship. He would be too poor a risk. His mother probably would not wish to be separated from him and it would not be advisable to separate them. I should not select the scientist of sixty since presumably most of his work would have been achieved. I should select the young scientist, not because he was my best friend but because of his promise to the scientific world, and I should select the young girl whom I was engaged to marry."

Mr. Edison's own answer was: "The guides must be saved and it is not essential that the leader die." Only one of the boys decided to save himself. He was Robert H. Smith of Las Vegas, N. Mex,. who said: "I live in the desert country and I know what it's like. It's all right to have theories about who you'd save, but I know what people actually do when they get into a situation on the desert. They save themselves."

Edison representatives thwarted efforts by the press to find the full answer to the desert question, or any other question, given by the winner--freckle-faced, pompadoured Arthur Olney Williams, Jr., 17, of East Providence, R. I. As soon as his victory was announced his 48 competitors lifted him on their shoulders, cheered "One, two--good luck to you, Williams!" Winner Williams announced that he would go to M. I. T. If he had not won the scholarship, he said, he would have worked his way through his hometown institution, Brown. His father is chief clerk in the Provident Gas Co., a descendant of Roger Williams, founder of the Rhode Island colony.

Nine competitors who received honorable mention: G. Dudley Mylchreest of Hartford, Conn.; Gordon K. Burns of Maplewood, N. J.; De Wolf Schatzel of Findlay, Ohio; Frederick C. Roop of the District of Columbia; Charles H. Cloukey of Lansdowne, Pa.; Walter Wrigley of Haverhill, Mass.; Gordon K. Carter of Charlottesville, Va.; James H. Compton Jr. of Wichita, Kan.; Royal E. Peake of Detroit, Mich.

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