Young & Lexiphanic

At 2 1/2, brown-eyed, curly-haired Florence Jacobs is at an awkward age--too young for kindergarten and too old for alphabet blocks. Since she was eleven months old. Florence has been able to recite the alphabet. She can also tick off, alphabetically, in singsong style, the 50 states, the countries of Latin America, the planets and their satellites. She can spell Mississippi and hippopotamus. A child of the space age. Florence warns that an astronaut's hazards include "cosmic rays, micrometeorites, ultraviolet rays and infra-red emissions.'' Last week Florence earned what for her age is the Nobel Prize for Literature: her own library card.

How much of all this Florence understands is another question; much of the information she spews has been recorded by her mother, a high-school graduate, on index cards that are used to drill the child in her amazing assortment of information. "I tell her all the time that words are beautiful,'' says Mrs. Jerome Jacobs, in New York City accents that have crossed the Hudson River to the Jacobses' middle-class apartment in suburban West New York, N.J. Eight months ago Florence was already reading, writing, and using such words as "expectorate." Supplying her with enough books has since become a big problem, even though she is reading sixth-grade stuff.

Mrs. Jacobs appealed to the mayor to let the child choose her own books. Happily, he agreed. Last week, during a round of interviews that left Florence groggy.

Mother got her wish. But Florence has her limitations. She returned one book, Great Ships, without reading it. "It's too complicated for me." she told the librarian. "It's beyond my comprehension."

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