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Spotty Spotters. But some thought that total freedom was unwise. "Most college freshmen, at 17, aren't secure enough to tolerate the absence of intellectual con trols without anxiety," said Psychologist Weir. Added Caltech's George Beadle: "Isn't there a fallacy in complete freedom? Most of us have to have a push to get things done." M.I.T.'s Soderberg: "Since our students are relatively immature at the beginning of college, completely unrestricted freedom probably can't be applied until the third year."
How to spot the budding genius in time? Ideally, said Weir, it should be done at the secondary level. But this is often impossible because, of 22 or so schools in the U.S. that train teachers to handle ex ceptional children, all but two schools are interested in training them for "the exceptionally handicapped, rather than the exceptionally bright." Added Caltech's Frederick Lindvall: "There's a stigma attached to being called a brain. The athletic department is much more successful than we are at singling out its exceptional students."
However difficult it might be to locate the highly exceptional student, the educators agreed that it was worth the search. Summed up M.I.T.'s Antoine Gaudin: "When we find him, it's like love: you know it's there, but you don't know how it came about."