There has always been an interest in geniuses and prodigies. 天才和神童一直都是大家关注的焦点。 The word 'genius', from the Latin gens (= family) and the term 'genius', meaning 'begetter', comes from the early Roman cult of a divinity as the head of the family. “天才”一词源于拉丁语“gens”（意指家庭）；“天才”一词当理解为“生产者”，意指古罗马早期的祭神仪式中的家族领袖。 In its earliest form, genius was concerned with the ability of the head of the family, the paterfamilias, to perpetuate himself. 最早“天才”一词指家族首领永保自身地位的能力，希腊语为“paterfamilias”。 Gradually, genius came to represent a person's characteristics and thence an individual's highest attributes derived from his 'genius' or guiding spirit. 经过漫长的演变过程，“天才”后来表示一个人的性格特征，再后来则表示个人的最为优秀的特质，此种特质是与生俱来的，或者说是主宰其灵魂的。 Today, people still look to stars or genes, astrology or genetics, in the hope of finding the source of exceptional abilities or personal characteristics. 现在的人们还关注星座、基因、星相学和遗传工程学，就是为了能找出这些特质或个人能力的根源。

The concept of genius and of gifts has become part of our folk culture, and attitudes are ambivalent towards them. 天才和天赋的概念已成为民间文化的一个组成部分，大家对天才的态度也褒贬不一。 We envy the gifted and mistrust them. 人们有的对其羡慕不已，有的对其心存怀疑。 In the mythology of giftedness, it is popularly believed that if people are talented in one area, they must be defective in another, that intellectuals are impractical, that prodigies burn too brightly too soon and burn out, that gifted people are eccentric, that they are physical weaklings, that there's a thin line between genius and madness, that genius runs in families, that the gifted are so clever they don't need special help, that giftedness is the same as having a high IQ, that some races are more intelligent or musical or mathematical than others, that genius goes unrecognised and unrewarded, that adversity makes men wise or that people with gifts have a responsibility to use them. 古往今来关于天才的史料记载中，人们对天才持有如下一些普遍看法：天赋人一技之长，亦赋人一计之短；智者无智行；神童者，耗余生之智于韶华，故早衰也；天赋才者，其言行异于众；智强体虚；天才与白痴，一线之差也；天才者乃世代相传；早慧者，聪慧过人，无需外力之助；天才即高智商；个别民族拥有较高的智商、音乐天赋或数学天赋；天妒英才，天才皆不被认可，有才而难有财；逆境出人才；天生我才必有用。 Language has been enriched with such terms as 'highbrow', 'egghead', 'blue-stocking', 'wiseacre', 'know-all', ' boffin' and, for many, 'intellectual' is a term of denigration. 同天才相关的词句非常丰富，如：学富五车、高素质人才、知识女性、万事通、百科全书、技术专家，还有知识分子——对于大多数人来说，这个词语多带有贬义。

The nineteenth century saw considerable interest in the nature of genius, and produced not a few studies of famous prodigies. 19 世纪以来，人们对探究天才的本质就表现出浓厚的兴趣，研究神童的案例也不胜枚举。 Perhaps for us today, two of the most significant aspects of most of these studies of genius are the frequency with which early encouragement and teaching by parents and tutors had beneficial effects on the intellectual, artistic or musical development of the children but caused great difficulties of adjustment later in their lives, and the frequency with which abilities went unrecognised by teachers and schools. 也许对于现代人来说，过去对天才的研究在如下两个方面最有参考价值：家长和教师的早期鼓励和早教对孩子的智力、艺术或音乐培养有积极的促进作用，但另一方面可能也会阻碍孩子以后适应社会；更有甚者，很多家长和老师都认识不到孩子身上的天赋。 However, the difficulty with the evidence produced by these studies, fascinating as they are in collecting together anecdotes and apparent similarities and exceptions, is that they are not what we would today call norm-referenced. 然而，这些研究虽然收集了不少有意思的奇闻轶事、共通案例和特例，这些数据都难以归为现今我们所定义的常模参照。 In other words, when, for instance, information is collated about early illnesses, methods of upbringing, schooling, etc., we must also take into account information from other historical sources about how common or exceptional these were at the time. 换言之，当我们参考早期的病例分析、教育方式、学校教育水平等信息时，我们仍然需要考虑其他历史因素，如在当时的年代上述信息是否具备普遍性及其普遍程度。 For instance, infant mortality was high and life expectancy much shorter than today, home tutoring was common in the families of the nobility and wealthy, bullying and corporal punishment were common at the best independent schools and, for the most part, the cases studied were members of the privileged classes. 例如，从前的婴儿死亡率比现在要高，人均寿命比现今的要短，只有有钱的贵族家庭才有家教，校园暴力和体罚事件在当时最好的私立学校也屡见不鲜，而大部分的研究数据的针对对象都只是特权阶级。 It was only with the growth of paediatrics and psychology in the twentieth century that studies could be carried out on a more objective, if still not always very scientific, basis. 直到 20 世纪，儿童科学和心理学的发展才让有关天才的研究开始走客观路线，只是仍然没有充足的科学基础。

Geniuses, however they are defined, are but the peaks which stand out through the mist of history and are visible to the particular observer from his or her particular vantage point. 无论我们对天才的定义如何，所谓天才，不过只是在历史的迷雾中脱颖而出的佼佼者，而且也只是被某个特定的伯乐在特定的角度发掘。 Change the observers and the vantage points, clear away some of the mist, and a different lot of peaks appear. 如果我们将伯乐和角度适加改变，再拨开一些迷雾，可能更多的天才就会浮出水面了。 Genius is a term we apply to those whom we recognise for their outstanding achievements and who stand near the end of the continuum of human abilities which reaches back through the mundane and mediocre to the incapable. 天才，就是我们对那些在某些领域突破了常人的能力极限而取得突出成就的人的一种既定术语。 There is still much truth in Dr Samuel Johnson's observation, 'The true genius is a mind of large general powers, accidentally determined to some particular direction'. 在撒谬尔 • 杰克逊博士关于天才的专业研究中，我们可以看到很多真相，他说道：“真正的天才必然具备超强的思维能力，只是很偶然地在某一特定的领域有突出表现。 We may disagree with the 'general', for we doubt if all musicians of genius could have become scientists of genius or vice versa, but there is no doubting the accidental determination which nurtured or triggered their gifts into those channels into which they have poured their powers so successfully. ”可能有些人会对这种“普遍性”心存怀疑，因为我们会去质疑是否所有有天赋的音乐家都可以跨行业成为一流的科学家，反之亦然。但至少有一点我们必须肯定：偶然的决心和信念触发了他们的天赋，使得他们在这一领域的成就如此卓越。 Along the continuum of abilities are hundreds of thousands of gifted men and women, boys and girls. 而我们身边拥有这种能力的各色男女有成千上万。

What we appreciate, enjoy or marvel at in the works of genius or the achievements of prodigies are the manifestations of skills or abilities which are similar to, but so much superior to, our own. 我们经常会欣赏、喜欢，甚至惊叹于天才们的成就和作品，而我们真正惊叹的是他们对技巧和能力的展现，这些技能本质上同我们所拥有的相似，却比我们的更为优质。 But that their minds are not different from our own is demonstrated by the fact that the hard-won discoveries of scientists like Kepler or Einstein become the commonplace knowledge of schoolchildren and the once outrageous shapes and colours of an artist like Paul Klee so soon appear on the fabrics we wear. 但事实已然证明，他们的大脑明显无异于普通人的大脑，比方说，开普敦和爱因斯坦珍贵的研究成果很快就成为了学龄儿童的必备常识；还有艺术家保罗 • 克里，他曾经身穿造型诡异、颜色夸张的奇装异服上街示人，但他的设计很快就出现在我们每个人的服饰上。 This does not minimise the supremacy of their achievements, which outstrip our own as the sub-four-minute milers outstrip our jogging. 这些细枝末节都不曾影响他们的伟大，而他们的成就却比我们自己取得的成就要辉煌得多，就好比一位可以在 4 分钟内跑完 1 英里的专业运动员的速度和一般人的龟速的差距一样。

To think of geniuses and the gifted as having uniquely different brains is only reasonable if we accept that each human brain is uniquely different. 只有我们承认每个人的大脑都独一无二，那么认为天才拥有独一无二的大脑这一观点才说得通。 The purpose of instruction is to make us even more different from one another, and in the process of being educated we can learn from the achievements of those more gifted than ourselves. 教育的目的是为了让我们更加与众不同，在接受教育的过程中，我们也能从天才的成就中吸取更多营养。 But before we try to emulate geniuses or encourage our children to do so we should note that some of the things we learn from them may prove unpalatable. 但是在我们想要努力赶超天才，或者鼓励我们的孩子也这样做之前，我们还应该注意到，我们从天才那里学习到的知识和信息，也许在将来的某一天会被证明不一定全部准确。 We may envy their achievements and fame, but we should also recognise the price they may have paid in terms of perseverance, single-mindedness, dedication, restrictions on their personal lives, the demands upon their energies and time, and how often they had to display great courage to preserve their integrity or to make their way to the top. 我们也许仰慕他们所取得的成就和声望，但我们也应当意识到他们曾经付出过的代价：坚持、专注、牺牲和隐忍，还有他们付出的精力和时间，以及他们独上巅峰的勇气。

Genius and giftedness are relative descriptive terms of no real substance. 天才和有天赋之人实质上只是两个空泛的描述性术语。 We may, at best, give them some precision by defining them and placing them in a context but, whatever we do, we should never delude ourselves into believing that gifted children or geniuses are different from the rest of humanity, save in the degree to which they have developed the performance of their abilities. 我们充其量只是给它们进行了人为的区别和定义，把它们放在了一个特定的情境中。但无论我们做什么，我们绝不能认为有天赋的孩子天生就跟常人不一样，暂不考虑他们的潜能发挥到了什么程度。