Conceptions of Giftedness and Talent

Robert J. Sternberg
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Conceptions
of Giftedness
and Talent

Edited by
Robert J. Sternberg · Don Ambrose
Conceptions of Giftedness and Talent
 Robert J. Sternberg • Don Ambrose
Editors

Conceptions of
Giftedness and Talent
Editors
Robert J. Sternberg Don Ambrose
Department of Human Development Department of Graduate Education
Cornell University Rider University
Ithaca, NY, USA Lawrenceville, NJ, USA

ISBN 978-3-030-56868-9    ISBN 978-3-030-56869-6 (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56869-6

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature
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This book is dedicated to all the gifted children in the world, those who have
been identified and those who have not been but, we hope, soon will be!
 Preface

Many parents of schoolchildren (including one of the editors, who is a parent

of five children) are frustrated with the relatively narrow criteria schools use to
identify gifted children. Typically, the schools use scores on tests of academic
skills and achievement as well as teacher recommendations. They then end up
identifying as gifted those who excel at the mechanics of verbal and symbolic
processing and willingly doing what they are told to do but who are not neces-
sarily excellent in other ways. This is especially the case when we consider
skills that may be more important, say, for the survival of the world as we
know it. Scores on standardized tests will not tell us who will become the
active, concerned citizens who try to make a positive, meaningful, and endur-
ing difference to the world—the ones, in other words, who are truly gifted
and talented in terms of what they have to offer the world. Can the world,
given its current state, really afford to identify children simply on the basis of
skills that lead to high school grades but not necessarily a whole lot more? This
is not to say that traditional conceptions of giftedness and talent are necessar-
ily “wrong” but rather that they are woefully incomplete.
Current conceptions of giftedness lean heavily on the conception put for-
ward by Lewis M. Terman early in the twentieth century. Terman identified
children in California largely on the basis of their scores on the Stanford-Binet
Intelligence Scales. It certainly makes sense to look at IQ as one component
of giftedness: People with higher IQs tend, on average, to be more successful
than people with lower IQs in many avenues of life, such as in careers and in
their personal lives (Deary & Whalley, 2009; Terman, 1925; Terman & Oden,
1959). But such “success” is not necessarily the kind that changes the world
for the better. Indeed, there are many “successful” graduates of the most pres-
tigious universities who go on to make a total mess of things, as witnessed by

vii
viii Preface

the global financial collapse in 2008 and current fiascoes in the US govern-
ment (the shutdown of 2019), in the British government (the badly mishan-
dled Brexit of 2018–2019), and in governments around the world (the
panoply of ill-conceived responses to the coronavirus pandemic of 2020).
Many people—laymen and experts alike—have believed that there is a
need for broader conceptions of giftedness. To address this belief, Robert
J. Sternberg and Janet E. Davidson edited the volume Conceptions of Giftedness,
first published in 1986 (Sternberg & Davidson, 1986) and then appearing in
a second edition in 2005 (Sternberg & Davidson, 2005). The goal of the book
was to present broader and more diverse conceptions of giftedness than had
been prevalent in the field prior to the publication of the volumes.
The second edition of the book is now quite out of date. A great deal of new
work has appeared since 2005. For example, Goleman’s (2005) book on emo-
tional intelligence appeared the same year as the revision of Conceptions of
Giftedness. Sternberg and Jordan’s (2005) Handbook of Wisdom appeared in
the same year. Keith Stanovich’s What Intelligence Tests Miss: The Psychology of
Rational Thinking (Stanovich, 2009) did not appear until four years later.
Ambrose, Sternberg, and Sriraman’s (2012) book on confronting dogmatism
in gifted education did not appear until seven years later. As a result, topics
such as emotional intelligence, wisdom, and rational thinking received essen-
tially no attention in the revised Conceptions volume. Given the state of the
world today—which some would argue is much more precarious than in
2005—attributes such as emotional intelligence, wisdom, and rationality
would appear to be more important than ever to conceptions of giftedness
and talent. Moreover, the 1986 and 2005 editions were largely (although not
exclusively) US-centric. They placed a very strong emphasis on North
American views.
To address these issues, we have edited a new volume, Conceptions of
Giftedness and Talent: Worldwide Perspectives. We have added the term “talent”
because it refers to skills that are not necessarily highly general and also more
implies modifiability than the term “giftedness” typically does. This book,
therefore, could be viewed as a new start entirely.
As an additional note, Janet E. Davidson co-edited the first two editions of
Conceptions of Giftedness with Robert J. Sternberg, but she was unable to par-
ticipate as a co-editor in this new volume. We are grateful to Dr. Davidson for
her invaluable contributions to the earlier two volumes. Sternberg asked Don
Ambrose, one of the most prominent individuals in the field of giftedness and
the editor of a premier journal on giftedness, Roeper Review, to join him in
this venture. Ambrose and Sternberg have edited several volumes together and
were delighted to team up for this new endeavor.
 Preface ix

The main goal of the book is to present diverse conceptions of giftedness and tal-
ent viewed from a variety of worldwide perspectives. We seek to cover classical
views, emphasizing IQ, but also to get away from the common exclusive
emphasis on IQ-based skills.
We asked authors to write in a way that would be accessible to students of
giftedness, scholars, educators, and parents as well. We believed that the book
would accomplish our aim of changing the way gifted education is done only
if the chapters were written in a way that educators and parents, not just
scholars, could understand. At the same time, we asked authors to preserve
scholarly integrity of the highest order because we are aware, as are many oth-
ers, that giftedness as a field has attracted many “snake-oil salesmen” who
know little about the theory and research in the field and merely look to
peddle their commercial ideas in the hope of making money, whatever may
happen with the children who are affected by their efforts.
Authors were given free rein to write about their conception as they best
could communicate it. Nevertheless, to ensure coherence of the book, we
asked authors to ensure that they deal with five basic questions:

1. What is your conception of giftedness and talent?

2. What is the empirical evidence that supports your conception?
3. How would one identify gifted and talented children, based on your
conception?
4. How would one teach gifted and talented children, based on your
conception?
5. What do you see as the advantage of your conception over traditional ones?

We believe that the book has special features that will make it especially
attractive to readers and hence eminently salable:

1. Editors who are eminent in the field of giftedness and talent but also who
represent the newer views on what giftedness and talent mean.
2. Authors who are among the most eminent scholars and, in many cases,
also practitioners in the field of giftedness and talent. All of the authors
have top scholarly credentials.
3. Worldwide points of view, not only North American ones.
4. Relatively short chapters that recognize our readers have limited time and
need to receive presentations of material within relatively tight space
constraints.
5. A concluding chapter by the editors integrating the different points of
view and showing ways in which major ideas, even when given different
x Preface

names, can be integrated to provide a holistic and integral viewpoint on

giftedness and talent.

We hope you enjoy this book. We all have worked hard on it and hope that
it provides you with a broad introduction to the field of giftedness that will
help you to move forward in your own endeavors to understand and apply the
latest ideas in the field of giftedness.

Ithaca, NY, USA Robert J. Sternberg

Lawrenceville, NJ, USA  Don Ambrose

References
Ambrose, D., Sternberg, R. J., & Sriraman, B. (Eds.) (2012). Confronting dogmatism
in gifted education. New York, NY: Taylor & Francis.
Deary, I. J., & Whalley, L. J. (2009). A lifetime of intelligence: Follow-up studies of the
Scottish mental surveys of 1932 and 1947. Washington, DC: American Psychological
Association.
Goleman, D. (2005). Emotional intelligence. New York, NY: Bantam.
Stanovich, K. E. (2009). What intelligence tests miss: The psychology of rational thought.
New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Sternberg, R. J., & Davidson, J. E. (Eds.) (1986). Conceptions of giftedness. New York,
NY: Cambridge University Press.
Sternberg, R. J., & Davidson, J. E. (Eds.) (2005). Conceptions of giftedness (2nd ed.).
New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
Sternberg, R. J., & Jordan, J. (Eds.) (2005). A handbook of wisdom: Psychological
perspectives. Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/
CBO9780511610486
Terman, L. M. (1925). Genetic studies of genius: Mental and physical traits of a thou-
sand gifted children (Vol. 1). Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Terman, L. M., & Oden, M. H. (1959). The gifted group at mid-life: 35 years’ follow-
­up of the superior child. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
 Contents

1 Interdisciplinary Exploration Guiding Conceptions of

Giftedness  1
Don Ambrose

2 Talent Development, Cultural Diversity, and Equity: The

Challenge of the Andean Countries 21
Sheyla Blumen

3 The Trouble with Conceptions of Giftedness 37

James H. Borland

4 Overcoming Structural Challenges Related to Identification

and Curricula for Gifted Students in High-Poverty Rural
Schools 51
Carolyn M. Callahan and Amy Price Azano

5 Where Does Creativity Come from? What Is Creativity?

Where Is Creativity Going in Giftedness? 65
Dowon Choi and James C. Kaufman

6 A School-Based Conception of Giftedness: Clarifying Roles

and Responsibilities in the Development of Talent in Our
Public Schools 83
Tracy L. Cross and Jennifer Riedl Cross

xi
xii Contents

7 Evolving Complexity Theory (ECT) of Talent Development:

A New Vision for Gifted and Talented Education 99
David Yun Dai

8 What Is Distinctive About Artistically Gifted Children?123

Jennifer E. Drake and Ellen Winner

9 Equity-Based Gifted and Talented Education to Increase the

Recruitment and Retention of Black and Other
Underrepresented Students141
Donna Y. Ford, Kristina Henry Collins, Tarek C. Grantham, and
James L. Moore III

10 Approaches to the Identification and Development of Gifts

into Talents in Russia163
Elena L. Grigorenko, Elena V. Shmeleva, and Dmitry V. Ushakov

11 Urban Bilingual Gifted Students181

Sandra N. Kaplan and Eugenia Mora-Flores

12 Cognitive Ability, Personality, and Privilege: A Trait-Complex

Approach to Talent Development195
Barbara A. Kerr, Jonathan D. Wright, Jonathan M. Huffman,
Maxwell Birdnow, Miriam Reder, Olivia A. Stull, and
Robyn N. Malmsten

13 Eminent Women Were Once Gifted Girls: How to Transform

Gifted Potential into Eminent Talents215
Leonie Kronborg

14 Finnish Conceptions of Giftedness and Talent235

Sonja Laine and Kirsi Tirri

15 Children with High Intellectual and Creative Potential:

Perspectives from a Developmental Psycho-­Environmental
Approach251
Sylvie Tordjman, Maud Besançon, Caitriona Pennycook, and
Todd Lubart
 Contents xiii

16 Giftedness, Talent, and Human Evolution: A Framework for

Understanding Extreme Behavior281
Roland S. Persson

17 Smart Contexts for 21st Century Talent Development295

Jonathan A. Plucker, Jacob McWilliams, and Jiajun Guo

18 Creative Productive Giftedness in Women: Their Paths to

Eminence317
Sally M. Reis

19 The Three Ring Conception of Giftedness: A Change in

Direction from Being Gifted to the Development of Gifted
Behaviors335
Joseph S. Renzulli and Sally M. Reis

20 Relationships Between Talent, Training, Polymathy, and

Creativity357
Robert Root-Bernstein and Michele Root-Bernstein

21 The Fuzzy Conception of Giftedness371

Ugur Sak

22 Giftedness, Talent, and Genius: Untangling Conceptual

Confusions393
Dean Keith Simonton

23 A New Model of Giftedness Emphasizing Active Concerned

Citizenship and Ethical Leadership That Can Make a Positive,
Meaningful, and Potentially Enduring Difference to the World407
Robert J. Sternberg

24 The Talent Development Megamodel: A Domain-Specific

Conceptual Framework Based on the Psychology of High
Performance425
Rena F. Subotnik, Paula Olszewski-Kubilius, and Frank C. Worrell

25 A Conception of Giftedness as Domain-­Specific Learning:

A Dynamism Fueled by Persistence and Passion443
Joyce VanTassel-Baska
xiv Contents

26 Futures Studies and Future Thinking Literacy in Gifted

Education: A Multidimensional Instructional-Based
Conception467
Hava E. Vidergor

27 Giftedness as a Propensity to Use Creativity-Generating

Intellectual Styles489
Li-fang Zhang

28 Uniform Points of Agreement in Diverse Viewpoints on

Giftedness and Talent513
Robert J. Sternberg and Don Ambrose

Index527
 Notes on Contributors

Don Ambrose is Professor of Graduate Studies at Rider University and edi-

tor of the Roeper Review. He leads numerous interdisciplinary scholarly proj-
ects involving eminent researchers studying creative intelligence. He serves on
the editorial boards of numerous major journals and several book series.
Ambrose’s publications include many books and articles that clarify and
expand the conceptual foundations for gifted education and neighboring
fields. He has invented new creative and critical thinking strategies based on
concepts borrowed from more than 30 academic disciplines and professional
fields. Ambrose has won international, national, regional, and institutional
awards including the National Association for Gifted Children (NAGC) dis-
tinguished scholar award. He has delivered invited keynote presentations
throughout the world.
Amy Price Azano is an associate professor in the School of Education at
Virginia Tech and focuses her scholarship on rural education, a critical peda-
gogy of place, and the educational needs of special populations in rural com-
munities. She is the co-principal investigator of Promoting PLACE in Rural
Schools, a federal grant designed to support gifted education programs in
high-poverty rural communities. She is nationally and internationally known
for her work in rural education and rural gifted education.
Maud Besançon is a psychologist and Professor of Differential Psychology at
the University of Rennes 2. As a psychologist, during the past ten years, her
practice concerned primarily children and adolescents with school-related dif-
ficulties and possible high intellectual or creative potential. Her research has
focused on creativity with a work on factors influencing the development of
creative competencies in children and adolescents, in particular cognitive fac-

xv
xvi Notes on Contributors

tors such as logical-mathematical reasoning and inhibition, environmental

factors taking into account pedagogical practices, and the distinction between
high intellectual potential and high creative potential. In order to target better
the development of children’s creative competencies, Maud Besançon con-
tributed to the creation of the EPoC battery (Evaluation of Potential for
Creativity) with Todd Lubart and Baptiste Barbot. She is also the co-author
with Todd Lubart of a French book entitled Creativity in children : evaluation
and development. Currently, her research examines the development of twenty-­
first century skills such as creativity and critical thinking but high potential as
well with a multidimensional approach including socio-emotional competen-
cies (such as theory of mind, social creativity, humor, etc.)
Maxwell Birdnow is a research team member of the Counseling Laboratory
for the Exploration of Optimal States who also serves as its outreach coordina-
tor. He is a doctoral candidate in counseling psychology and has completed a
graduate certificate in women, gender, and sexuality studies at The University
of Kansas.
Sheyla Blumen is Professor of Psychology and Dean of the School of
Graduate Studies at the Pontificia Universidad Catolica del Peru. She runs
Future Minds, a center for gifted children, and promotes talent development
toward excellence in ethnic-linguistic diverse and multicultural young schol-
ars. She was instrumental in the launching of the Peruvian Law supporting
high achievers, and in the development of the state-funded Academies of Arts
and Sciences for high achievers coming from high-vulnerable contexts in the
Andean and Amazon regions.
James H. Borland is Professor of Education at Teachers College, Columbia
University, where he directs the programs in the education of gifted students
and chairs the Faculty Executive Committee. He has lectured on the educa-
tion of gifted students across the United States and abroad, and he has con-
sulted with numerous school districts, primarily as an evaluator of programs
for gifted students. Borland is the author of numerous books, journal articles,
and book chapters. He is the editor of the Education and Psychology of the
Gifted series and is past co-editor of the section on Teaching, Learning, and
Human Development of the American Educational Research Journal. Borland’s
1989 book, Planning and Implementing Programs for the Gifted, was named
one of the “top ten” books in the field by the Roeper Review in 1996. His
article, “Identifying Young, Potentially Gifted, Economically Disadvantaged
Students,” co-authored with Lisa Wright, is the most frequently cited article
in the history of the Gifted Child Quarterly. Borland was awarded the Gifted
 Notes on Contributors xvii

Child Quarterly Paper of the Year Award for 1994 and 2000 and the Award for
Excellence in Research from the Mensa Education and Research Foundation
in 1989–1990 and 1999–2000.
Carolyn M. Callahan is Commonwealth Professor of Education Emeritus
at the University of Virginia and has been principal investigator on projects of
the National Center for Research on Gifted Education (formerly NRC/GT)
and principal investigator on five Javits grants including Project PLACE,
focusing on the identification and provision of services to rural gifted stu-
dents. Her work with the NRC/GT and with the Javits projects has focused
on curriculum development and implementation. She has been recognized as
Outstanding Professor of the Commonwealth of Virginia and Distinguished
Scholar of the National Association for Gifted Children, and she has served as
President of the National Association for Gifted Children and the Association
for the Gifted and as Editor of Gifted Child Quarterly. Callahan has published
over 250 articles and 50 book chapters. She is the co-editor of the recently
published book, Fundamentals of Gifted Education: Considering Multiple
Perspectives (2nd ed., 2013) and Critical Issues in Gifted Education (3rd
ed., 2020).
Dowon Choi is a Combined Counseling and School Psychology doctoral
student and fellow at Florida State University. She has authored ten academic
publications and engaged in international media; these have included giving
a TEDxUConn talk, interviewing giftedness experts on YouTube, being fea-
tured on Vietnamese podcasts/magazines, and writing weblogs for the Korean
Ministry of Education.
Kristina Henry Collins is the core Talent Development faculty and LBJ
Institute Research Fellow at Texas State University. Collins holds a PhD in
Educational Psychology and an EdS in Gifted and Creative Education from
the University of Georgia. She holds an MSEd in Mathematics (Jacksonville
State University) with certifications in technology education and computer
science; a BS in Engineering (University of Alabama); and a military science
diploma (USN) in cryptology and electronic surveillance. Collins is the proud
recipient of the 2011 Mary Frasier Equity and Excellence Award presented to
her by the Georgia Association for Gifted Children (GAGC) for her work in
advancing educational opportunities for underrepresented students in gifted
education. She is serving as president of Supporting Emotional Needs of the
Gifted (SENG) and member-at-large for the National Association for Gifted
Children’s board of directors. Her research foci include multicultural gifted
education, STEM identity development, and mentoring across the lifespan.
xviii Notes on Contributors

Tracy L. Cross is the Jody and Layton Smith Professor of Psychology and
Gifted Education and the executive director of the Center for Gifted Education
and the Institute for Research on the Suicide of Gifted Students at William &
Mary. He is the past editor of numerous journals, including Gifted Child
Quarterly, Roeper Review, and Journal for the Education of the Gifted. He has
been president of the National Association for Gifted Children and The
Association for the Gifted. Cross has received many awards for his research
and service in the field of gifted education, including the 2020
Palmarium Award.
Jennifer Riedl Cross is Director of Research at the William & Mary Center
for Gifted Education. She is the co-editor, with Tracy L. Cross, of the
Handbook for Counselors Serving Students with Gifts and Talents (2011) and
co-author of the second edition of Suicide Among Gifted Children and
Adolescents (2013). Cross is a member of the leadership team of the newly cre-
ated William & Mary Institute for Research on the Suicide of Gifted Students.
Her research in the field of gifted education emphasizes its social aspects, from
individual coping with the stigma of giftedness to attitudes toward giftedness
and gifted education.
David Yun Dai is Professor of Educational Psychology and Methodology at
University at Albany, State University of New York. He holds a doctoral
degree in Psychology from Purdue University and worked as a postdoctoral
fellow at the National Research Center on the Gifted and Talented, University
of Connecticut. Dai has published 9 authored or edited books and over 100
articles in general psychology, educational psychology, gifted and talented
education, and creativity. Dai was the recipient of the Distinguished Scholar
Award conferred by the National Association for Gifted Children in 2017.
Dai is serving as a member of editorial boards of Gifted Child Quarterly,
Journal for the Education of the Gifted, Roeper Review, and the Academic Journal
of Special Education (Taiwan).
Jennifer E. Drake is Associate Professor of Psychology at Brooklyn College
and the Graduate Center of The City University of New York (CUNY). Her
research program focuses on the psychology of the arts. In one line of research,
she examines the emotion regulation benefits of engaging in drawing for chil-
dren and adults. In a second line of research, she studies the cognitive and
perceptual processes underlying graphic representation skills in autistic, non-
autistic, and gifted children. Her research has been funded by grants from the
National Endowment of the Arts, the Imagination Institute supported by the
John Templeton Foundation, and PSC-CUNY. Her research has been fea-
 Notes on Contributors xix

tured in Scientific American Mind, The Atlantic, The Wall Street Journal,
National Geographic, and The New York Times and on National Public Radio.
She was named a 2015 “Rising Star” by the Association for Psychological
Science (APS) and an outstanding early career in 2018 by the American
Psychological Association (APA) for her work on the emotion regulation ben-
efits of everyday art-making.
Donna Y. Ford is a distinguished professor in the College of Education and
Human Ecology. She is also a faculty affiliate with the Kirwan Institute. Ford
is in the Department of Educational Studies, the Special Education Program.
Ford has written over 300 articles and book chapters, has more than a dozen
books, and has made over 2000 presentations. Ford conducts research primar-
ily in gifted and talented education and culturally responsive/multicultural/
urban education. Specifically, her work focuses on the following: (1) the
achievement gap; (2) recruiting and retaining culturally different students in
gifted education; (3) multicultural curriculum and instruction; (4) culturally
competent teacher training and development; (5) Black identity; and (6)
Black family involvement. She consults with school districts and educational
and legal organizations on such topics as gifted and talented education under-
representation and Advanced Placement, multicultural/urban education and
counseling, and closing the achievement gap.
Tarek C. Grantham is a professor in the Department of Educational
Psychology at the University of Georgia where he teaches in the Gifted and
Creative Education Graduate Program. He co-directs the University-School
Partnerships for Achievement, Rigor, and Creativity (Project U-SPARC) ini-
tiative. Grantham’s research addresses equity for underrepresented ethnic
minority students in advanced programs, gifted Black males, motivation, and
creativity policy. Grantham serves on the Advisory Board of the University of
Georgia African American Male Experience (GAAME) of the University
System of Georgia and the Board of Directors for the National Association for
Gifted Children. Grantham was honored as an E. Paul Torrance Creativity
Award recipient by the Georgia Association for Gifted Children for recogniz-
ing creative strengths in economically disadvantaged students, mentoring,
and developing creativity in students, especially those from underserved
populations.
Elena L. Grigorenko holds a PhD in General Psychology from Moscow
State University, Russia, and a PhD in Developmental Psychology and
Genetics from Yale University, United States; and has re-specialization in clin-
ical (forensic) psychology from Fielding University, United States. Grigorenko
xx Notes on Contributors

is affiliated with five universities: Baylor College of Medicine, University of

Houston, and Yale University in the United States, and Moscow State
University for Psychology and Education and St. Petersburg State University
in Russia. Grigorenko has published more than 500 peer-­reviewed articles,
book chapters, and books. She has received multiple professional awards for
her work, obtained funding for her research from numerous federal and pri-
vate sponsoring organizations in the United States and other countries, sup-
ported multiple nonprofit organizations, including as a board member, and
served as editor-in-chief for professional journals. Grigorenko has worked
with children and their families in the United States as well as in Africa
(Kenya, Tanzania and Zanzibar, Ghana, the Gambia, and Zambia), India,
Saudi Arabia, and Russia.
Jiajun Guo is Assistant Professor of Educational Psychology at East China
Normal University in Shanghai, China. His research focuses on creativity in
education and designing schools that promote twenty-first-century skills.
Jonathan M. Huffman is a project coordinator at Juniper Gardens Children’s
Project and a research team member of the Counseling Laboratory for the
Exploration of Optimal States. He is a doctoral candidate in counseling psy-
chology and has completed a graduate certificate in women, gender, and sexu-
ality studies at The University of Kansas.
Sandra N. Kaplan is Professor of Clinical Education, University of Southern
California, and has been a teacher, administrator, and consultant to State
Departments of Education and local school districts in the areas of differenti-
ating curriculum and instruction for advanced and gifted Pre-K-12 grade stu-
dents. She is past president of both the California Association for the Gifted
and the National Association for the Gifted Children. Research efforts have
focused on differentiating curriculum and instruction through projects related
to Models of Teaching, Thinking Like A Disciplinarian, Prompts of Depth
and Complexity, Learning Centers, and most recently Early Childhood
Education. Written articles, chapters, and essays have defined the relationship
of what, how, and why to design and implement curriculum for gifted learners.
James C. Kaufman is Professor of Educational Psychology at the University
of Connecticut. He has written/edited 45 books and 300 papers. He has
tested Dr. Sanjay Gupta’s creativity on CNN, written the book and lyrics to
the musical Discovering Magenta, and co-authored a book on bad baseball
pitchers with his father.
 Notes on Contributors xxi

Barbara Kerr is the Williamson Distinguished Professor of Counseling

Psychology and co-director of the Center for Creativity and Entrepreneurship
in Education at The University of Kansas. She is a fellow of APA, an associate
editor of Gifted and Talented International, and author of Smart Girls in the
Twenty-First Century (2014), Smart Boys (2001), and over 100 articles and
papers on creativity, talent development, gender, and privilege.
Leonie A. Kronborg is Senior Lecturer and coordinator of Gifted Education,
Faculty of Education, Monash University, Australia. Kronborg is vice presi-
dent of the World Council for Gifted and Talented Children and editor-in-­
chief of Gifted and Talented International journal, and serves on editorial
boards of Gifted Child Quarterly, Journal for Education of the Gifted, Journal of
Advanced Academics, and Australasian Journal of Gifted Education. She is a past
president of the Australian Association for the Education of Gifted Children,
and is a president of the Association for Education of Gifted and Talented
Children, Victoria (AGATEVic). Kronborg gained the Monash University
Vice-Chancellor’s Award for Teaching Excellence in 2013. She has more than
50 research articles and publications (https://research.monash.edu/en/per-
sons/leonie-kronborg/publications/).
Sonja Laine is a lecturer at the Viikki Teacher Training School of the
University of Helsinki and a postdoctoral researcher at the Faculty of
Educational Sciences at the University of Helsinki. Her main research inter-
ests are conceptions of giftedness, gifted education, teachers’ and students’
mindsets in learning, and teacher education. She has published her research in
international educational journals such as High Ability Studies and Journal for
the Education of the Gifted. She also has years of experience working as an
elementary school teacher.
Todd Lubart is Professor of Psychology at the University of Paris (France).
He has directed a research lab, several large-scale projects on creativity, and is
currently leading ISSCI, a non-profit organization to foster international
research initiatives on creativity. Since 30 years, he has authored/coauthored
200+ articles, books, and book chapters on creativity, as well as internation-
ally used psychometric tools to assess creative potential. His work focuses, in
part, on high creative potential and its detection.
Robyn N. Malmsten is a doctoral candidate in counseling psychology, social
justice fellow, and peer supervisor and research team member of the Counseling
Laboratory for the Exploration of Optimal States at The University of Kansas.
Her work primarily focuses on trauma treatment, integrating the arts into
psychotherapy, and LGBTQ+ mental health and career development.
xxii Notes on Contributors

Jacob McWilliams is the director of the Women and Gender Center at the
University of Colorado Denver. A graduate of the Learning Sciences program
at Indiana University, his work involves examinations of sociocultural per-
spectives applied to development, LGTBQ issues in education, and transgen-
der studies.
James L. Moore III is the vice provost for Diversity and Inclusion and chief
diversity officer at The Ohio State University, while serving as the first execu-
tive director of the Todd Anthony Bell National Resource Center on the
African American Male. He is also the inaugural EHE Distinguished Professor
of Urban Education in the College of Education and Human Ecology. Moore
is internationally recognized for his work on African American males, and his
research agenda focuses on school counseling, gifted education, urban educa-
tion, higher education, multicultural education/counseling, and STEM edu-
cation. In both 2018 and 2019, he was cited by Education Week as one of the
200 most influential scholars and researchers in the United States, who inform
educational policy, practice, and reform. Further, Moore has also published
over 130 publications; obtained over $25 million in grants, contracts, and
gifts; and given over 200 scholarly presentations and lectures throughout the
United States and other parts of the world.
Eugenia Mora-Flores is a professor in the Rossier School of Education at the
University of Southern California (USC). She teaches courses on first and
second language acquisition, Latino culture, and in literacy development for
elementary and secondary students. Her research interests include studies on
effective practices in developing the language and literacy skills of English
learners in grades Pre-K-12. She has written nine books in the area of literacy
and academic language development (ALD) for English learners. Mora-Flores
further works as a consultant for a variety of elementary, middle, and high
schools across the country in the areas of English language development
(ELD), ALD, and writing instruction.
Paula Olszewski-Kubilius is the director of the Center for Talent
Development at Northwestern University and a professor in the School of
Education and Social Policy. Over the past 36 years, she has created programs
for all kinds of gifted learners and written extensively about talent develop-
ment. She has served as the editor of Gifted Child Quarterly, co-editor of the
Journal of Secondary Gifted Education, and on the editorial boards of Gifted
and Talented International, Roeper Review, and Gifted Child Today. She is the
past president of the National Association for Gifted Children and received
the NAGC Distinguished Scholar Award in 2009.
 Notes on Contributors xxiii

Caitriona Pennycook is a researcher-psychologist in the CNAHP (National

Center for Children and Adolescents with High Potential in Difficulty),
France. She obtained an undergraduate double degree in Education and
Psychology from Mary Immaculate College, University of Limerick, Ireland
(2010–2014). She then taught for several years in a variety of educational set-
tings in Ireland and France, with both typically developing children and ado-
lescents and children with special educational needs. Following this, she
obtained a Master’s Degree in Educational Psychology from the University of
Rennes 2 (2017–2019), France, during which she completed a research proj-
ect on the inclusion of children with autism in mainstream settings in Ireland
and France. Caitriona’s interests include understanding specific special educa-
tional needs in order to improve the identification, psychological care, and
inclusion of these children in education and society. Among her current proj-
ects at the CNAHP, she is working on several research questions which explore
dyslexia and body image of children with high potential.
Roland S. Persson is Professor of Educational Psychology, Jönköping
University, School of Education and Communication, Sweden, is an active
member of the International Centre for Innovation in Education (ICIE), and
has research interests spanning a wide variety of fields. Scientific curiosity and
scholarly exploration have progressed from music behavior, over intercultural
differences, talent and giftedness, to collective behavior, human evolution,
and back to giftedness and talent as an evolutionary phenomenon in an effort
to tie many a loose theoretical ends and disciplines together in search for a
sustainable understanding of extreme human behavior.
Jonathan A. Plucker is the Julian C. Stanley Professor of Talent Development
at Johns Hopkins University, where he works in the Center for Talented Youth
and School of Education. His work focuses on creativity and talent develop-
ment in education, with an emphasis on equity issues and excellence gaps.
Miriam Reder is a fourth year doctoral candidate at The University of
Kansas. She is pursuing a career in child, adolescent, and family therapy with
specialties in pediatric health psychology and assessment. She is also ­interested
in program development that focuses on the well-being of medical and psy-
chology trainees in hospital and graduate school settings.
Sally Reis recently completed a term as vice provost for Academic Affairs
and is a Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor, and the Letitia Neag
Morgan Chair in Educational Psychology Department in the Neag School of
Education at the University of Connecticut. Her research interests relate to
talent development, special populations of talented students, including stu-
xxiv Notes on Contributors

dents with disabilities, talented women, and culturally diverse talented stu-
dents. She has authored and co-authored over 300 articles, books, book
chapters, monographs, and technical reports, as a part of a research team that
has generated over 50 million dollars in grants during the last four decades.
Joseph S. Renzulli is Distinguished Professor of Educational Psychology at
the University of Connecticut and an international leader in gifted education
and talent development opportunities for all students. His Schoolwide
Enrichment Model, which focuses on total school improvement, is widely
used throughout the world. He has obtained more than 50 million dollars in
research grants and the American Psychological Association named him
among the 25 most influential psychologists in the world. In 2009 he received
the Harold W. McGraw, Jr. Award for Innovation in Education and he was
recently listed as one of the world’s top 30 international education profession-
als by the Global Guru Annual Survey.
Robert Root-Bernstein is Professor of Physiology at Michigan State
University. He holds degrees from Princeton University and he was a postdoc-
toral fellow with Jonas Salk. A MacArthur Fellowship encouraged his multi-
disciplinarity, including studies of creativity, art-science interactions, and
polymathy (e.g., Discovering, 1989, and, with Michele Root-Bernstein, Sparks
of Genius, 1999). He is an editor of LEONARDO, an art-science journal,
exhibits his own artwork, and collaborates with the trans-media artist Adam
W. Brown (http://adamwbrown.net). He is at work on a new book called
Modern Leonardos: Artists, Musicians and Performers as Scientists And Inventors.
Michele Root-Bernstein is an independent scholar, writer, and poet, with
an adjunct position in the Department of Theatre at Michigan State University.
Her PhD in History from Princeton University sets the stage for a broad,
multidisciplinary approach to the study of creative imagination across the arts
and sciences, often in collaboration with Bob Root-Bernstein. Her most
recent scholarly book, Inventing Imaginary Worlds: From Childhood Play to
Adult Creativity (2014), argues for the importance of imaginative play
throughout the lifespan. As a poet and scholar, she is working on the indi-
vidual networks of vocation and avocation that inspire personal and profes-
sional creativity.
Ugur Sak is a professor and founding director of the Center for Research and
Practice for High Ability Education at Anadolu University and the founding
editor of the Turkish Journal of Giftedness and Education. His research has
focused on the identification and education of gifted students and creativity.
 Notes on Contributors xxv

He is the author of Selective Problem Solving Model, CREACT, and Anadolu-

Sak Intelligence Scale, and co-author of Creative Scientific Ability Test.
Elena V. Shmeleva holds a PhD in Sociology from St. Petersburg State
University. Since 2012, she has been focusing on issues related to education
and support of gifted and talented youth in the Russian Federation: from
2012 to 2015 she led the nonprofit organization supporting the development
of intellectual and creative potential of Russian youth at Moscow State
University, and since 2015 she has been the Director of the Talent and Success
Foundation (which created and continues to develop Sirius). Shmeleva is a
member of the Presidential Advisory Council for Science and Education. Her
research and practice are focused on giftedness, competitive models of educa-
tion focused on the challenges faced by, and the needs of, the Russian
Federation, socially valuable applications of scientific discoveries and innova-
tion, and the development of a value-driven model of gifted education.
Dean Keith Simonton is Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Psychology at
The University of California, Davis. His 500-plus single-authored publica-
tions focus on genius, creativity, and leadership. Honors include the William
James Book Award, the George A. Miller Outstanding Article Award, the
Theoretical Innovation Prize in Personality and Social Psychology, the Sir
Francis Galton Award for Outstanding Contributions to the Study of
Creativity, the Rudolf Arnheim Award for Outstanding Contributions to
Psychology and the Arts, the E. Paul Torrance Award for Creativity, three
Mensa Awards for Excellence in Research, and the Mensa Lifetime Achievement
Award. His Genius Checklist was published in 2018.
Robert J. Sternberg is Professor of Human Development in the College of
Human Ecology at Cornell University and Honorary Professor of Psychology
at Heidelberg University, Germany. Previously, Sternberg served for eight and
a half years in academic administration. Before that, he was IBM Professor of
Psychology and Education and Professor of Management at Yale.
Sternberg is a past president of the American Psychological Association, the
Federation of Associations in Behavioral and Brain Sciences, the Eastern
Psychological Association, and the International Association for Cognitive
Education and Psychology. Sternberg also has been president of four divisions
of the American Psychological Association and treasurer of the Association of
American Colleges and Universities.
Sternberg’s BA is from Yale University summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa,
his PhD is from Stanford University, and he holds 13 honorary doctorates.
Sternberg has won more than two dozen awards for his work, including the
xxvi Notes on Contributors

James McKeen Cattell Award (1999) and the William James Fellow Award
(2017) from APS. He also is the winner of the Grawemeyer Award in
Psychology. He is the author of roughly 1800 publications.
He was cited in an APA Monitor on Psychology report as one of the top 100
psychologists of the twentieth century (#60) and in a report in Archives of
Scientific Psychology by Diener and colleagues as one of the top 200 psycholo-
gists of the modern era (#60). He was cited by Griggs and Christopher in
Teaching of Psychology as one of the top-cited scholars in introductory-­
psychology textbooks (#5). According to Google Scholar, he has been cited
over 156,000 times; he has an h index of 190 and an i10 index of 989. He has
authored textbooks in introductory psychology, cognitive psychology, and
communication in psychology. Sternberg is a member of the National
Academy of Education and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He
is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Olivia A. Stull is a doctoral candidate in counseling psychology at The
University of Kansas and a psychology intern at Sutter Center for Psychiatry
in Sacramento, California. Prior to internship, she worked as a day program
coordinator, supervisor, and research team member for the Counseling
Laboratory for the Exploration of Optimal States. Her research focuses on
creativity, alternative therapies, and residential treatment facilities.
Rena F. Subotnik is director of the Center for Psychology in Schools and
Education at the American Psychological Association. The Center promotes
high-quality application of psychology to programs and policies for schools
and education. One of the Center’s missions is to generate public awareness,
advocacy, clinical applications, and cutting-edge research ideas that enhance
the achievement and performance of children and adolescents with gifts and
talents in all domains. She has been supported in this work by the National
Science Foundation, the American Psychological Foundation, the Association
for Psychological Science, the Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation, and
the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation.
Kirsi Tirri is Full Professor of Education in the Faculty of Educational
Sciences at the University of Helsinki and a visiting professor at St. John’s
University, New York, United States. Tirri has been the president of the
European Council for High Ability (ECHA) for the years 2008–2012. She
served as a president of the Finnish Academy of Science and Letters for the
years 2016–2017. Her research interests include school pedagogy, moral and
religious education, gifted education, teacher education, and cross-­cultural
studies. She has published 13 monographs and numerous journal articles
related to these fields.
 Notes on Contributors xxvii

Sylvie Tordjman is Professor of Child Psychiatry, head of the university hos-

pital Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (University of Rennes 1
and Guillaume Regnier Hospital Center), and head of the CNAHP (National
Center for Assistance to Children and Adolescents with High Potential). She
is a researcher at the LPP laboratory (Psychology of Perception Lab, University
of Paris and CNRS UMR 8242). Sylvie Tordjman is the author of 103 articles
in international journals, 71 articles in French journals, and 32 chapters
(h-index: 42). She has directed four edited books on individuals with high
intellectual or creative potential and organized five scientific congresses
between 2005 and 2019, including an international congress in 2018 at the
Sorbonne with the National Ministry of Education. Finally, she has created an
international Scientific Interest Group (GIS) on Intellectual and Creative
Potentials (PIC).
Dmitry V. Ushakov received his BA/MA in 1986 from Moscow State
University, Russia, and his PhD from the Academy of Sciences of the USSR
in 1989, both in the field of general psychology. Ushakov completed his post-
doctoral training at the Paris-5 University in 1991–1992. Since 2003 Ushakov
has been the director of the Laboratory of Psychology and Psychophysiology
of Creativity in the Institute of Psychology at the Russian Academy of Sciences.
Since 2017, he has also served as the Head of the Section of General Psychology
of the Department of Psychology at Moscow State University. In 2018
Ushakov was appointed the director of the Institute of Psychology at the
Russian Academy of Sciences. He was elected into the Academy in 2019.
Ushakov studies intelligence, creativity, giftedness, economic behavior and
decision making, and the philosophy of psychology.
Joyce VanTassel-Baska is the Jody and Layton Smith Professor Emerita of
Education and founding director of the Center for Gifted Education at the
College of William & Mary in Virginia where she developed a graduate pro-
gram and a research and development center in gifted education. She also
initiated and directed the Center for Talent Development at Northwestern
University. VanTassel-Baska has published widely, including 35 books and
over 600 refereed journal articles, book chapters, and scholarly reports. She
has received numerous awards for her work, including from the National
Association for Gifted Children, Mensa, and the World Council on Gifted
and Talented Education. She was selected as a Fulbright Scholar to New
Zealand in 2000 and a visiting scholar at Cambridge University in England
in 1993.
xxviii Notes on Contributors

Hava Vidergor is Senior Lecturer of Curriculum and Instruction in the

Graduate School at Gordon Academic College of Education, Haifa, Israel.
She holds a PhD in Gifted Education from Haifa University, Israel. Her
research interests center on gifted education, curriculum planning and design,
innovative teaching strategies, and learning spaces. She has published numer-
ous papers and presented widely in international conferences. She is the
author and editor of several books. Her Multidimensional Curriculum Model
(MdCM) focusing on developing future thinking literacy in K-12 students
was published in a book titled Multidimensional Curriculum Enhancing Future
Thinking Literacy (2018).
Ellen Winner is Professor of Psychology at Boston College and senior
research associate at Project Zero, Harvard Graduate School of Education.
She directs the Arts and Mind Lab, which focuses on cognition in the arts in
typical and gifted children as well as adults. She has written over 200 articles
and is author of 4 books—Invented Worlds: The Psychology of the Arts (1982);
The Point of Words: Children’s Understanding of Metaphor and Irony (1988);
Gifted Children: Myths and Realities (1996); and How Art Works: A Psychological
Exploration (2018)—and co-author of Studio Thinking: The Real Benefits of
Visual Arts Education (2007); Studio Thinking 2: The Real Benefits of Visual
Arts Education (2013); and Studio Thinking from the Start: The K-8 Art
Educator’s Handbook. She has served as President of APA’s Division 10,
Psychology and the Arts in 1995–1996, and received the Rudolf Arnheim
Award for Outstanding Research by a senior scholar in Psychology and the
Arts from Division 10 in 2000. She is a fellow of APA Division 10 and of the
International Association of Empirical Aesthetics.
Frank C. Worrell is a professor at the University of California, Berkeley,
where he serves as faculty director of the School Psychology Program, the
Academic Talent Development Program, and the California College
Preparatory Academy. His areas of expertise include at-risk youth, cultural
identities, scale development, talent development/gifted education, time per-
spective, and the translation of psychological research into practice. Worrell is
a fellow of the American Educational Research Association, the Association
for Psychological Science, and the American Psychological Association, and a
recipient of the National Association for Gifted Children’s Distinguished
Scholar Award. He is also a member of the National Academy of Education.
J. D. Wright is a doctoral candidate in counseling psychology at The
University of Kansas and psychology intern at the University of Florida. He
has served as a coordinator, supervisor, and team member of the Counseling
 Notes on Contributors xxix

Laboratory for the Exploration of Optimal States. He has authored numerous

publications and presentations in the fields of creativity and giftedness. His
research has focused on the role of family in gifted development and on the
use of mindfulness and visualization in counseling practice.
Li-fang Zhang is Professor of Psychology and Education at the University of
Hong Kong. She has published dozens of academic book chapters and books
and is the (co-)author of more than 100 peer-reviewed journal articles and
encyclopedic entries. Two of her award-winning monographs are entitled The
Malleability of Intellectual Styles (2013) and The Nature of Intellectual Styles
(with Sternberg, 2006). Her most recent monograph is entitled The Value of
Intellectual Styles (2017). Zhang serves as the editor-in-chief of The Oxford
Encyclopedia of Educational Psychology and associate editor of Journal of
Educational Psychology and Educational Psychology. She is also an editorial
board member of several other psychology and education journals.
 List of Figures

Fig. 2.1 Display of the areas considered in the psychometric measure, by

battery and subtests (Blumen, 2020) 29
Fig. 7.1 A schematic representation of a dynamic, relational developmen-
tal system with three main dimensions: functional (the vertical
dimension: person-environment transactions), temporal (the
horizontal dimension: a person’s life trajectory toward maturity
and aging), and developmental (the diagonal dimension: a joint
function of the functional and temporal emergence of new
properties)100
Fig. 7.2 A representation of structural and functional changes in human
effectivity in five foundational domains, further differentiated
(refined) and integrated with learning experiences in various
cultural domains 104
Fig. 7.3 A schematic representation of a nested multi-layered
developmental system with two main regulatory forces 107
Fig. 7.4 An illustration of how endogenous momentum of talent
development is “pushed” and “sustained” by exogenous forces 108
Fig. 8.1 Apples drawn by typical 2-year-old (a) and by a precocious
2-year-old (b). (From the collection of Ellen Winner, 1996) 125
Fig. 8.2 (a) Typical tadpole human by 3-year-old (b) Drawing by a
precocious realist at age 3. (Reprinted with permsision by
Jennifer Pekrul) 126
Fig. 8.3 Examples of perspective: All drawings by Eitan from Golomb
(1992). (a) Cement truck by Eitan, age 2;7, showing the side
view of the truck, the top view of the hood, and a frontal view of
grill and bumper. (b) Truck by Eitan, age 3;7, showing isometric
perspective, in which the third dimension is represented by
parallel oblique lines. (c) Drawing entitled “Near Accident,” by

xxxi
xxxii List of Figures

Eitan, age 6;6, showing the systematic use of isometric

perspective. (Reprinted with permission by Claire Golomb) 127
Fig. 8.4 Drawings of dinosaurs by Arkin Rai at age 3. (Reprinted with
permission by Dinesh Rai) 128
Fig. 8.5 Drawings of dinosaurs by Arkin Rai at age 4;7 showing
foreshortening, occlusion, and motion. (Reprinted with
permission by Dinesh Rai) 128
Fig. 8.6 Non-representational painting by Arrian, age 2;3. (Reprinted by
permission of Rebecca Smith) 129
Fig. 13.1 Talent Development Model of Eminent Women with three
stages: foundations, filters and catalysts, and spheres of influence 219
Fig. 15.1 Role of environmental factors in the development and expression
of children’s potential (based on Tordjman, 2020)
The main environmental factors described in this model are:
fostering and sustaining motivation, providing opportunities of
enrichment, valuing effort, and offering support to the child.
MEES means Motivation, Enrichment, Effort, Support256
Fig. 16.1 Evolutionary human nature and a few of its dynamics affecting
everyday behavior, also for the gifted and talented population 290
Fig. 19.1 Three Ring Conception of Giftedness 340
Fig. 21.1 The Fuzzy Conception of Giftedness 376
Fig. 24.1 The talent development megamodel 428
Fig. 24.2 Trajectories for different talent domains 430
Fig. 25.1 Dimensions of the integrated curriculum model.
(VanTassel-Baska, 1986; VanTassel-Baska et al., 1998) 455
Fig. 25.2 A tapestry of talent development 460
Fig. 26.1 The Multidimensional Curriculum Model (MdCM) 472
Fig. 26.2 Mechanical cognitive and pedagogical components of future
thinking literacy 473
Fig. 26.3 Cognitive processes developed by future thinking literacy 474
 List of Tables

Table 1.1 Levels of analysis relevant to conceptions of giftedness and talent

development3
Table 4.1 Demographic information for identified gifted 58
Table 6.1 Required contributions from school and student for advanced
development88
Table 6.2 Tenets of the school-based conception of giftedness 90
Table 7.1 Four phases of talent development (TD) and the nature of
tasks, affect-­conative development, and social conditions and
processes at each phase 110
Table 9.1 Equity goals using 20% allowance to address
underrepresentation in GATE 147
Table 9.2 Theories, frameworks, and sample scholars regarding Black
underrepresentation148
Table 9.3 Gordon Allport’s degrees of prejudice model adapted to
GATE: Definitions and GATE examples 150
Table 11.1 Defining and explaining academic prejudice 184
Table 11.2 Relationships between differentiation and the urban bilingual
student191
Table 15.1 Main assessments performed at the CNAHP for the
identification of high intellectual/creative potential children
with psychological and/or school difficulties 263
Table 18.1 Eminent women 322
Table 22.1 Contrasts among the three concepts on five criteria 400
Table 24.1 Key implications of the talent development framework for
gifted identification, services, and programs 435

xxxiii
xxxiv List of Tables

Table 25.1 A comparison of theories of intelligence and related definitions

of giftedness 446
Table 25.2 Curriculum studies documenting desired outcomes for
higher-level learning 459
 1
Interdisciplinary Exploration Guiding
Conceptions of Giftedness
Don Ambrose

Interdisciplinary Exploration Guiding Conceptions

of Giftedness
Our highly complex twenty-first-century environment is plagued by gigantic
problems and ethical dilemmas (Ambrose & Sternberg, 2016a, b), so it
demands more expansive thinking about the nature of giftedness and talent
development. Combining this need for expansion of our vision with the com-
plexities of giftedness, talent development, and creativity makes our field
enigmatic. Exploring the conceptual terrain of diverse academic disciplines
and professional fields, and borrowing promising constructs emerging in that
terrain, can help us achieve some of this expansive thinking while clarifying
the nature of some complex phenomena.
Upon reflection, I’ve been mulling over enigmas about giftedness for quite
a while, since well before I began to study them in academia. For example,
while working on a pipeline construction crew in the western plains to finance
my college education, I encountered an exceptionally gifted individual who
never would have qualified for a typical gifted program. The members of the
crew were roughnecks who dropped out of school well before grade 12 and
spent their time working long, grueling, somewhat dangerous shifts and then
drinking, swearing, and fighting in the small number of off hours they

D. Ambrose (*)
Rider University, Lawrenceville, NJ, USA
e-mail: ambrose@rider.edu

© The Author(s) 2021 1

R. J. Sternberg, D. Ambrose (eds.), Conceptions of Giftedness and Talent,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56869-6_1
2 D. Ambrose

enjoyed. But one crew member stood out. He was quiet, unassuming, and
operated his massive earth mover like Rembrandt operated a paintbrush.
When asked, he would quietly and artfully mentor new workers so they could
get up to speed with the intricacies of the construction equipment and pro-
cesses. He commanded the respect of all who met him because they could
observe his immense talent and the way he guided his construction work with
an exquisite sense of aesthetics.
I’ve also met the exact opposite—individuals with sterling credentials, from
the best backgrounds, in lofty positions, who came across as superficially
articulate and arrogantly superior, and couldn’t think their way out of a paper
bag if they found themselves trapped inside one. Some of them went through
gifted programs in their elite schools. This puzzling contrast between non-
gifted brilliance and gifted mediocrity is one of the primary motivators in my
interdisciplinary explorations, which have spanned three decades.

 e Need Interdisciplinary Work to Navigate

W
Through Various Levels of Analysis
The complexities of the mind cannot be sufficiently understood from within
the borders of a single disciplinary silo. A prominent evolutionary biologist,
Joseph Henrich (2016), described a compelling reason for establishing more
interdisciplinary work in all fields contributing to knowledge about human
thought and behavior:

To move forward in our quest to better understand human life, we need to

embrace a new kind of evolutionary science, one that focuses on the rich inter-
action and co-evolution of psychology, culture, biology, history, and genes. This
scientific road is largely untraveled. (p. 331)

Along these lines, interdisciplinary investigation is needed in gifted educa-

tion because the phenomena of interest in the field stretch throughout various
levels of analysis, each of which is addressed by different academic disciplines
(Ambrose, 2005b, 2009, 2015, 2017, 2019a). For example, Table 1.1 illus-
trates levels of analysis from micro to macro along with examples of phenom-
ena that fit into each level and questions relevant to gifted education that
derive from these phenomena and levels.
The vast majority of empirical research projects in the field fit into the indi-
vidual and immediate contextual levels, which are dominated by psychologi-
cal and educational investigative paradigms and methods addressing cognitive
 1 Interdisciplinary Exploration Guiding Conceptions of Giftedness 3

Table 1.1 Levels of analysis relevant to conceptions of giftedness and talent

development
Levels of analysis, relevant phenomena, and representative investigative questions
for expansion of conceptual foundations
Questions that emerge
Examples of phenomena within the from each level with
scope of each level (relevant potential relevance to
Level of analysis disciplines in parentheses) gifted education
Broad contextual Patterns of power, subordination, What aspects of a child’s
domination, and enterprise in a intelligence and talents
society (sociology, political science, are obscured or
economics) suppressed by
Beliefs and traditions of cultural and deprivation,
ethnic groups within societies stigmatization, and
(cultural anthropology) segregation?
Worthiness and harmfulness of What differences exist
individual and group actions within between nations as
societal contexts (ethical philosophy) contexts for talent
Transitory nature of socioeconomic, development?
political, and cultural patterns over How does culture shape
long time periods in specific identity formation and
geographic locations (history, how does cultural
archaeology) identity influence talent
development?
What ethical problems
ensue from educational
emphases on creativity
and individual
self-actualization?
Certain abilities were
valued over others in
various historical eras
and locations. What can
we learn from changing
historical patterns of
talent development?
Have we reified and
overvalued twentieth-­
century conceptions of
ability and talent (e.g.,
rapid symbolic
information processing
and binary logic)?
Immediate The nature of curriculum, instruction, Much inquiry within and
contextual human interaction, and beyond the field of
organizational constraints in school gifted education occurs
systems, schools, and classrooms at this level
(educational research)
(continued)
4 D. Ambrose
Table 1.1 (continued)
Levels of analysis, relevant phenomena, and representative investigative questions
for expansion of conceptual foundations
Examples of phenomena within the
scope of each level (relevant
Level of analysis disciplines in parentheses)
Individual Cognitive, motivational, affective,
dispositional, and achievement
dynamics of the individual
(educational research, psychology)
Organic systems Structure and function of larger brain How much influence
components and subsystems
(neuroscience, cognitive science)
Cellular Structure and function of neurons
and neural networks in the brain
(neuroscience, cognitive science)
Molecular-atomic Genetic influences on behavior
(molecular biology)
Subatomic Strange paradoxes of quantum
mechanics, which run counter to
common-sense human experience
(quantum mechanics)
Reprinted with permission from Ambrose (2005b)
Questions that emerge
from each level with
potential relevance to
gifted education
Much inquiry within and
beyond the field of
gifted education occurs
at this level
does/should brain-­
based learning exert on
gifted education?
How much influence
does/should brain-­
based learning exert on
gifted education?
What are the
implications of the
paradigm wars
between connectionists
and symbolists in
cognitive science?
Are there new
developments in the
nature-nurture debate?
Genetic engineering
promises to accelerate
creative
entrepreneurship while
posing enormous
ethical problems. What
are the implications for
education of the
gifted?
Many theorists assume
that quantum events
are inapplicable at
macroscopic levels. But
can these events
influence the operation
of the brain? With what
implications?
 1 Interdisciplinary Exploration Guiding Conceptions of Giftedness 5

processes and the workings of educational environments. Note that when we

push our inquiries down into the micro levels inside the individual person to
organic systems, cellular and molecular-atomic phenomena, and possibly
even down into the subatomic, we need to borrow from fields such as neuro-
science and cognitive science, molecular biology, and possibly theoretical
physics. Conversely, when we stretch upward and outward beyond the indi-
vidual and her/his immediate context in the education system we begin to
borrow from disciplines such as political science, economics, sociology, cul-
tural anthropology, ethical philosophy, history, and archaeology.
Both the micro and macro levels of analysis can produce rich insights that
will help us understand the nature and nuances of giftedness and talent devel-
opment. For example, a special issue of the Roeper Review addressed the
organic systems and cellular levels through a project exploring the neurosci-
ence of giftedness (Kalbfleisch, 2008). Another special issue went up into the
broad contextual level, exploring socioeconomic contextual influences on
gifted minds through a project on the impact of growing inequality on the
gifted and talented (Cross & Borland, 2013).
Benefits also can arise when researchers synthesize insights from micro and
macro levels. In one example, neuroscientist Robert Sapolsky (2018) synthe-
sized research findings about neuroscientific phenomena and socioeconomic
inequality to reveal the ways in which the operations of the human brain-­
mind system are stunted and warped by severe inequality. The discoveries
included portrayals of the biological grind that arises from the chronic, long-­
term stress generated by severe inequality, and how this grind distorts brain
function by causing chromosomal damage and inflammation. The effects on
the workings of the mind include the heightening of fear and anxiety; weak-
ening of learning, memory, planning, decision-making, and impulse control;
and the worsening of depression and addiction. Fortunately, researchers in
gifted education have been focusing more on some of these levels of analysis
beyond the individual and immediate context. For example, along with the
special issue on socioeconomic inequality (Cross & Borland, 2013) attention
to the effects of inequality and related ideological issues has been expanding
in the field (see Cross & Cross, 2005; Cross, Cross, & Finch, 2010; Plucker,
Giancola, Healey, Arndt, & Wang, 2015; Reis & Renzulli, 2010; Siegle et al.,
2016; VanTassel-Baska & Stambaugh, 2018). In order to make research ini-
tiatives like this more attractive and successful, scholars need to understand
more of the benefits of interdisciplinary work.
6 D. Ambrose

 trengthening Cognitive Diversity by Making

S
Domain-Specific and Interdisciplinary
Work Noncontradictory
Given the ways in which cultures and economies have been integrating
through the processes of globalization in the last several decades, interdisci-
plinary work is becoming more important (Ambrose, 2016). International,
interdisciplinary collaboration and networking initiatives have been growing
in power and productivity, especially in STEM (science, technology, engi-
neering, and mathematics) fields, but not exclusively in those areas (Bozeman
& Youtie, 2017; Frodeman, Klein, Mitcham, & Holbrook, 2010; Nielsen,
2011; Rice, 2013; Suresh, 2013; Wagner et al., 2011).
Meanwhile, domain specificity has become an important intellectual trend
in gifted education (Olszewski-Kubilius, Subotnik, & Worrell, 2017;
Subotnik, Olszewski-Kubilius, & Worrell, 2011) and in the neighboring field
of creativity studies (Baer, 1998, 2012, 2015). Producing domain-specific
expertise is a very important purpose in gifted education because knowledge
within fields has been growing exponentially (see Ambrose, 2016; Arbesman,
2012; Glenn, Abdulhai, & Ponsky, 2017; Motta, 2013; Zander & Mosterman,
2014), and that knowledge must be mastered to the extent possible by leading
thinkers for progress to be made. But we also need gifted young people to
learn how to expand their minds beyond the borders of single domains. Both
domain specificity and interdisciplinary expertise are needed in today’s com-
plex world so we shouldn’t consider this an either-or situation. Burke (2020),
a cultural historian, puts this in perspective to some extent by showing how
the importance of polymaths grew when the invention of printing and the
scientific revolution spurred on the accumulation of vast amounts of new
knowledge; however, the continued growth of that knowledge produced a
strong emphasis on specialization, which discouraged polymaths from extend-
ing their intellectual reach beyond one or a few fields.
In addition, cognitively diverse teams consistently outperform homoge-
nous teams when grappling with complex problems in organizational envi-
ronments, even when the homogenous teams are superior in intelligence
(Page, 2007, 2010, 2017). A cognitively diverse team encompasses diverse
theories, knowledge bases, problem-solving heuristics, and belief systems. If
all of the experts collaboratively trying to solve a complex problem in an orga-
nization come from the same academic discipline or professional field, the
team can benefit from extremely rich domain-specific expertise but will suffer
 1 Interdisciplinary Exploration Guiding Conceptions of Giftedness 7

from a lack of cognitive diversity. If that team can include some experts from
diverse academic disciplines and professional fields its cognitive diversity will
increase substantially, and the chances of a successful problem solution will
rise considerably.
Combining Burke’s (2020) insight about the forced narrowing of poly-
mathic minds with the increasing importance of collaborative interdisciplin-
ary work in the twenty-first century, gifted education must make room for the
development of both strong, domain-specific expertise and interdisciplinary
exploration. Fortunately, our awareness of domain-specific expertise has been
strengthening due to the work of insightful scholars in our field (Olszewski-­
Kubilius et al., 2017; Subotnik et al., 2011), and our awareness of developing
interdisciplinary thought has been strengthened through important work on
curriculum integration (e.g., VanTassel-Baska & Stambaugh, 2006; VanTassel-­
Baska & Wood, 2010).
An example of an initiative designed to bring together domain-specific and
interdisciplinary perspectives on giftedness and talent development is the “ask
the expert” series of interviews in the Roeper Review. The interviews have been
carried out with diverse high achievers including a nuclear engineer, federal
judge, entrepreneurial lighting designer, neurologist, mathematician, orches-
tra conductor, ecotoxicologist, pediatric cardiologist, Hollywood videogra-
pher, and Pulitzer Prize winning New York Times journalist, among others.
The interviews are designed to reveal the nature and nuances of expertise in a
wide variety of professions and academic disciplines. Interviewees describe
their professional aspirations, education and training, problems and opportu-
nities that come forth in their work, and more. These interviews can help us
understand the specialized nature of work in specific domains while also
pushing our minds outside domain-specificity, expanding our thoughts about
the many, diverse ways that giftedness can manifest in the world of adult work.

 argets for Interdisciplinary Inquiry:

T
A Few Examples
Having explored some reasons for including more interdisciplinary work in
the field of gifted education it will be helpful to see some possible outcomes
of that work. The next subsections show some examples of concepts in a vari-
ety of disciplines and how their exploration could add to the knowledge base
in gifted education.
8 D. Ambrose

Our Cancerous Economic System

Imagine the global economy as a human body. Since the ascendance of capi-
talism long ago in the days of Adam Smith (1776/1937), a famous philosopher-­
economist generally considered to be capitalism’s early champion, this
gigantic, metaphorical body has been growing. Of course, there have been
severe illnesses here and there, such as the Great Depression of the 1930s and
the more recent great recession that hit in 2008. But overall, the body has
become stronger, more energetic, and vibrant. Nevertheless, leading scholars
in economics and political science have been detecting life-threatening can-
cerous lesions. Here are just a few of the symptoms.

Selfish Gain for a Few at the Long-Term Expense of All Others A few very
powerful billionaires seem to be succeeding in their efforts to destroy the
planet for their own short-term, personal gain. Some of them inherited for-
tunes deriving from the environmentally toxic petroleum industry (see Mayer,
2016). Among their unethical actions is the founding and operation of devi-
ous, ideological think tanks designed to create anti-science deception with the
purpose of convincing the general public that climate change is not harmful
and, if it is damaging, it’s not due to human actions (see Roper, Ganesh, &
Zorn, 2016). Extremely powerful, affluent individuals like these generally are
considered to be gifted even though many of them simply inherited their
privilege. They often are cases of unearned merit, which means they can be
rather ordinary or even below average in terms of intelligence and talent, but
their lofty status makes them appear to be meritorious (for elaboration on
unearned merit see Sen, 2000).

In another example of the selfish few, political scientist Clifford Bob (2019)
showed how human rights often are paradoxically used as weapons to damage
the lives of perceived enemies. For instance, John Locke, one of the world’s
most famous philosophers, strongly emphasized the right to “property” in
“lives, liberties and estates” (cited in Bob, p. 3). A primary reason for this was
his desire to maintain and increase the power of the extremely affluent landed
gentry over the severely deprived people of the time who were demanding a
small measure of human rights. Locke obviously was a highly gifted individ-
ual but, in this instance, he was using his talents to justify the imposition of
serious harm on the vast majority while favoring a small, extremely privileged
minority, most of whom were cases of unearned merit.
 1 Interdisciplinary Exploration Guiding Conceptions of Giftedness 9

Luck and Success Frank (2016, also see Frank & Cook, 1995), an econo-
mist, pulled together research into the nature of economic markets and the
extent to which luck plays a role in determining who can become successful
in those markets. The conclusions are that most of us tend to underestimate
the role of chance in the success that arises from work and innovation. Small
initial advantages and unpredictable circumstances often turn into enormous
advantages with even larger outcomes. Frank described the modern capitalist
economy as a winner-take-all system that gives virtually all of the rewards to a
very few who benefited from good fortune while leaving the scraps for many
others who either had just a smidgen less talent, or a little worse luck. The
implications for conceptions of giftedness could be the need to ensure that
fortunate circumstances in terms of education and resources are available to
all, and recognizing that those at the top of the economic pile might not be
much more, or even any more, gifted than those who are not. This connects
back to the prior mention of unearned merit.

Wildly Privatizing Everything In most developed nations, it is generally

accepted that the private sector controls much of the economy and the gov-
ernment controls some essential aspects of the economy that are necessary for
maintaining opportunities and human rights. That’s much less the case in the
USA, especially over the last several decades. There have been persistent, suc-
cessful attempts by neoliberal ideologues, guided by neoclassical economic
theory, to privatize many things in the name of freedom (see Michaels, 2017;
Rooks, 2017; Quiggin, 2010, Stiglitz, 2003). Taking one sector of the econ-
omy as an example, the largely privatized American health care system is far
more costly and less effective than government-run medical systems in other
developed nations (Case & Deaton, 2020; Hacker, 2013; Reinhardt, 2019;
Schneider, Sarnak, Squires, Shah, & Doty, 2017). The privatized system
makes room for economic predators to gouge citizens who need healthcare by
establishing high costs and driving them ever upward through exploitative
practices. The politically powerful medical insurance and pharmaceutical
companies that drive costs through the roof provide specific examples of these
practices.

Sikkink (2019) adds an intriguing piece to this puzzle by highlighting a

common overemphasis on rights over responsibilities. The latter tend to be
ignored in debates over issues having to do with law and politics. Sikkink
argued that human responsibilities must be a part of those debates, along with
human rights.
10 D. Ambrose

When we apply these examples from a cancerous economic system to con-

ceptions of giftedness, they magnify the importance of ethical awareness.
Those with insufficient ethical awareness can be prone to demanding that
their own rights are protected and sustained while ignoring their own respon-
sibilities. A classic example of otherwise “gifted” people showcasing their own
lack of ethical awareness comes from neoliberal ideologues who echo John
Locke to some extent by demanding that the economic system be privatized
to the hilt in order to protect their rights to engage in unrestrained, entrepre-
neurial actions in all areas of human experience.
Many of these ideologues would fit into Sternberg’s (2003, 2004, 2005a,
2005b, 2012, 2015, 2017) WICS (wisdom, intelligence, and creativity syn-
thesized) analyses. They are creative and intelligent because they creatively
design their privatization plans and intelligently refine them in practical ways
to make them work in the public arena. But they lack wisdom, the W in
WICS, because they don’t consider or care about the well-­being of the vast
majority of citizens who are at considerable risk in the midst of a predatory
health care system. Consequently, these insights from political science and
economics magnify the importance of emphasizing ethical wisdom in gifted
education programs.

Other Gifted Innovators Doing Severe Damage

Years ago, I had a conversation with a scientist who claimed that those coming
up with scientific innovations have no responsibility for how those innova-
tions are put to use. I agreed that they shouldn’t have to shoulder all responsi-
bility for unanticipated consequences, but they should be at least somewhat
responsible because they are in the best position to know what the possible
implications might be. If gifted STEM innovators just create powerful inven-
tions and then unleash them on the world, humanity could be in for a
rough ride.
This could be especially true in the case of a particular dimension of STEM
innovation: the operations of artificial intelligence and the Internet. For
example, a small number of gifted, creative individuals produced social-media
enterprises that have grown exceptionally powerful, to the point where they
exert considerable control over hundreds of millions of minds and are under-
mining democracy (see Howard, 2020). The technological systems they cre-
ated have enabled unethical leaders and conspiracy theorists, some of whom
also are gifted and creative, to produce powerful “lie machines” that seriously
weaken one of the primary bulwarks of democracy—an informed citizenry.
 1 Interdisciplinary Exploration Guiding Conceptions of Giftedness 11

So far, the owners and initiators of these enterprises either cannot or will not
take sufficient responsibility for the harmful actions their innovations are
enabling. This, again, magnifies the importance of ethical wisdom in gifted
education.

Trapping Minds Within Sterile Certainty

Another phenomenon that interdisciplinary inquiry tends to illuminate is the

common problem of excessive infatuation with the precision of metrics within
and beyond academia. Interdisciplinary exploration occasionally enables dis-
covery of an intriguing situation—many eminent scholars from diverse fields
discussing the same thing and calling it different names. So far in my explora-
tions, I have come across more than 20 prominent scholars in different disci-
plines who are criticizing dogmatic assumptions about precision in their
fields. Here are brief descriptions of just a few terms used by some of these
scholars:

• The leading mathematician William Byers (2007, 2011) used the term ster-
ile certainty to signify a common problem—many mathematicians and
natural scientists assuming that discoveries in their fields are more precise,
certain, and bound to logic than they really are. By confining their minds
within sterile certainty, they miss opportunities to make important discov-
eries by embracing the imprecision and ambiguity at the core of complex
mathematical phenomena.
• The prominent historian Jerry Muller (2018) showed how practical work
in various areas of human endeavor (e.g., the education, healthcare, and
financial sectors) becomes distorted and constrained by increasingly fren-
zied attempts to establish precise, accountability-measurement systems. He
termed this tendency the tyranny of metrics.
• The renowned political scientist Ian Shapiro (2005) claimed that excessive
reductionism in his field has been oversimplifying human behavior because
the analysts are excessively focusing on the intricacies of their methodologi-
cal tools, and on thought-constraining theories. He described these ten-
dencies as the flight from reality in the human sciences.
• The eminent psychologist Robert J. Sternberg (2017) used the term pseudo-­
quantitative precision to show how excessive adherence to the supposed pre-
cision of standardized achievement and IQ testing in gifted education has
drawn attention away from important abilities that aren’t visible through
12 D. Ambrose

those measures. Insufficient attention to ethical awareness and wisdom is

an especially problematic side effect of measurement mania.

Here are just a few of the other depictions of sterile certainty from prominent
scholars in various fields: weapons of math destruction (mathematician, Cathy
O’Neil, 2016); the scientific illusion (economist, Thomas Piketty, 2014); silly
reductionism (neuroscientist, Gerald Edelman, 1995); and reductive megalo-
mania (moral philosopher, Mary Midgley, 1995).
In view of these insights, the field of gifted education should be wary of
falling prey to sterile certainty in theory development, interpretations of phe-
nomena, application of research methodologies, and assessment of student
progress. For example, while precision in mechanistic, quantitative research
methodology is a worthy goal, it should not override the nuanced judgment
that is needed for careful interpretation of complex, ambiguous phenomena.
Fortunately, many of the authors in this volume suggest ways to make the
curriculum and assessment in gifted programs more rooted in the complexi-
ties of the real world.

Learning from Indigenous Leaders

Indigenous leadership tends to differ from leadership carried out by those

who gain their credentials in mainstream, Western cultures (Alfred, 1999).
When an organization earns recognition for good work, indigenous leaders
tend to push their colleagues forward to accept an accolade instead of jump-
ing forward to accept it themselves. And when the organization faces criticism
the leaders move forward to accept the blame. They tend to develop skin seven
spans thick so they can take the blows of criticism and punishment. If gifted
education borrows this insight from indigenous studies, it could make us rec-
ognize the need for more attention to ethical awareness and empathy in the
development of leadership capacities.

Modern-Materialist or
Postmodern-Postmaterialist Values?

Based on a large body of evidence from the World Values Surveys, Inglehart
(1997, 2000, 2016, 2018), a leading political scientist, developed an intrigu-
ing theory about societal change over the long term. The values and behaviors
of populations in nations are strongly influenced by the extent to which they
 1 Interdisciplinary Exploration Guiding Conceptions of Giftedness 13

feel secure. When the people of a nation feel secure and their survival doesn’t
seem to be in question, they become more open to change, new ideas, and
diversity. For example, the peace and widespread prosperity of the postwar era
in the mid-twentieth century led to the strengthening of environmental
movements, progressive cultural changes, and the growth of democracy. But
in the decades after that, rising inequality and disappearing employment pros-
pects for the middle and lower classes threatened security to the extent that
large numbers came to reject outsiders and became more inclined to mind-
lessly obey authoritarian leaders. These insights align with analyses of gover-
nance in developed nations, which indicate that democracy has been
weakening in the early 21st century (Ambrose, 2005a, 2019b; Hacker &
Pierson, 2010; Levitsky & Ziblatt, 2018; MacLean, 2018; Wolin, 2008).
These large-scale shifts in values pose significant challenges for gifted young
people and gifted education. First, the development of ethical awareness is far
more difficult when those young people come from communities and families
that favor authoritarian populism and the rejection of those who don’t fit their
identity groups. Second, all gifted young people should be made aware of
Inglehart’s insights about societal change, and the erosion of democracy. This
will give them a chance to do what they can in the future to preserve demo-
cratic governance while resisting the ascendance of totalitarianism.

 dditional Implications for Theory, Research,

A
and Practice in Gifted Education
From a macro-perspective, the field of gifted education fits an interesting pat-
tern revealed during large-scale, interdisciplinary analyses of the structure and
dynamics of academic disciplines, which included economics, analytic phi-
losophy, political science, and English studies (Bender & Schorske, 1997).
The investigators distinguished between unified, insular, firmly policed aca-
demic disciplines and fragmented, porous, contested disciplines. The tightly
unified disciplines of analytic philosophy and neoclassical economics tended
to unify around a single theoretical framework, strongly resisted the importa-
tion of concepts from outside fields, and very seldom published work that
didn’t conform to the intellectual orthodoxy. In contrast, the pluralized disci-
plines included battles over contested theories and could not or would not
resist invasion by theories from outside fields.
Based on analyses of four different levels of operation (practice, research,
theory, philosophy) Ambrose, VanTassel-Baska, Coleman, and Cross (2010)
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
occasions. The Westminster Synod deprived them of this privilege in
1102.
It has been said that English knights wearing foreign orders, without
permission of their own sovereign, are no more knights in reality than
those stage knights of whom I have been treating. This, however, is
questionable, if so great an authority as Coke be not in error. That
great lawyer declares that a knight, by whomsoever created, can sue
and be sued by his knightly title, and that such is not the case with
persons holding other foreign titles, similar to those of the English
peerage. Let me add that, among other old customs, it was once
common in our armies for knighthood to be conferred previous to a
battle, to arouse courage, rather than afterward, as is the case now
—after the action, in order to reward valor. Even this fashion is more
reasonable than that of the Czar, who claps stars and crosses of
chivalry on the bosoms of beaten generals, to make them pass in
Muscovy for conquerors.
In connection with the stage, knights have figured sometimes before,
as well as behind the curtain. Of all the contests ever maintained,
there was never, in its way a fiercer than that which took place
between Sir William Rawlings, and young Tom Dibdin. The son of
“tuneful Charlie,” born in 1771, and held at the font, as the “Lady’s
Magazine” used to say, by Garrick, was not above four years of age
when he played Cupid to Mrs. Siddons’ Venus, in Shakespeare’s
Jubilee. It was hardly to be expected that after this and a course of
attendance as choir-boy at St. Paul’s, he would settle down quietly to
learn upholstery. This was expected of him by his very unreasonable
relatives, who bound him apprentice to the city knight, Sir William
Rawlings, a then fashionable upholsterer in Moorfields. The boy was
dull as the mahogany he had to polish, and the knight could never
make him half so bright in business matters. “Tom Dibdin,” thus used
to remark the city cavalier—“Tom Dibdin is the stupidest hound on
earth!” The knight, however, changed his mind when his apprentice,
grown up to man’s estate, produced “The Cabinet.” Sir William
probably thought that the opera was the upholstery business set to
music. But before this point was reached, dire was the struggle
between the knight and the page, who would not “turn over a new
leaf.” When work was over, the boy was accustomed to follow it up
with a turn at the play—generally in the gallery of the Royalty
Theatre. On one of these occasions the knight followed him thither,
dragged him out, gave him a sound thrashing, and, next morning,
brought him before that awfully squinting official, John Wilkes. The
struggle ended in a drawn battle, and Tom abandoned trade: and
instead of turning out patent bedsteads, turned out the “English
Fleet,” and became the father of “Mother Goose.” He would have
shown less of his relationship to the family of that name, had he
stuck to his tools; in the latter case he might have taken his seat as
Lord Mayor, in a chair made by himself, and in those stirring times he
might have become as good a knight as his master.
As it was, the refuse of knighthood had a hard time of it. He was
actor of all work, wrote thousands of songs, which he sold as cheap
as chips, and composed four pieces for Astley’s Theatre, for which
he received fourteen pounds—hardly the price of a couple of arm-
chairs. How he flourished and fell after this, may be seen in his
biography. He had fortune within his grasp at one time, but he lost
his hold when he became proprietor of a theatre. The ex-apprentice
of the old knight-upholder could not furnish his own house with
audiences, and the angry knight himself might have been appeased
could his spirit have seen the condition into which “poor Tom” had
fallen just previous to his death, some twenty years ago.
But I fear I have said more than enough about stage knights; may I
add some short gossip touching real knights with stage ladies?
Before doing so, I may just notice that the wedded wife of a bona
fide knight once acted on the English boards under the chivalric
name—and a time-honored one it is in Yorkshire—of her husband,
Slingsby. Dame, or Lady Slingsby, who had been formerly a Mrs.
Lee, was a favorite actress in the days of James II. She belonged to
the Theatre Royal, resided in St. James’s parish, and was buried in
Pancras church-yard in March 1693-4. In the list of the Slingsbys,
baronets, of Scriven, given in Harborough’s “History of
Knaresborough,” Sir Henry Slingsby, who died in 1692, is the only
one of whose marriage no notice is taken. But to our stage ladies
and gallant lovers.
 STAGE LADIES AND THE ROMANCE OF
HISTORY.
“Our happy love may have a secret church,
Under the church, as Faith’s was under Paul’s,
Where we may carry on our sweet devotion,
And the cathedral marriage keep its state,
And all its decencies and ceremonies.”
Crowne, The Married Beau.

After the loose fashion of Master Crowne’s Married Beau, it was no

uncommon thing for gallants once to woo the mimic ladies of the scene.
From the time that ladies first appeared upon the stage, they seem to
have exercised a powerful attraction upon the cavaliers. Under date of the
18th October, 1666, Evelyn says in his Diary: “This night was acted my
Lord Broghill’s tragedy, ‘Mustapha,’ before their majesties at court, at
which I was present, very seldom going to the public theatres, for many
reasons, now, as they are abused to an atheistical liberty, foul and
undecent women now (and never till now) permitted to appear and act,
who, inflaming several young noblemen and gallants, became their
misses, and to some their wives; witness the Earl of Oxford, Sir R.
Howard, Prince Rupert, the Earl of Dorset, and another greater person
than any of them, who fell into their snares, to the reproach of their noble
families, and ruin of both body and soul. I was invited by my Lord
Chamberlain to see this tragedy, exceedingly well written, though in my
mind I did not approve of any such pastime in a time of such judgments
and calamities.”
A year and a half earlier than the date of the above entry, namely, April 3,
1665, Pepys notices the same play, with some allusions to the ladies: “To
a play at the Duke’s of my Lord Orrery’s, called ‘Mustapha,’ which being
not good, made Betterton’s part and Ianthe’s but ordinary too. All the
pleasure of the play was, the king and my Lady Castlemaine were there;
and pretty witty Nell of the King’s House, and the younger Marshall sat
next us, which pleased me mightily.” The play, however, is not so poor a
one as Pepys describes it, and the cast was excellent. Betterton played
Solyman the Magnificent. Mustapha and Zanga, the sons of Solyman,
were played by Harris and Smith; and Young made a capital Cardinal.
Mrs. Betterton was the Roxalana; and Mrs. Davies, one of those ladies
who, like her sisters, the two Marshalls, Hughes and Nelly, exercised the
fatal attraction over young noblemen and gallants, deplored by Evelyn,
was the magnificent Queen of Hungary. Mustapha continued to be the
favorite play until the theatre closed, when the plague began to spread.
Pepys’s “Ianthe” was Mrs. Betterton, of whom he says, on the 22d
October, 1662, “the players do tell me that Betterton is not married to
Ianthe, as they say; but also that he is a very sober, serious man,
studious and humble, following of his studies, and is rich already with
what he gets and saves.” Betterton, however, married the lady, Miss
Saunderson, in 1663. She had been famous for her Ianthe in Davenant’s
“Siege of Rhodes;” and she played Shakespeare’s heroines with great
effect. Pepys rightly designates the author of the play, Lord Orrery. Lord
Broghill was made Earl of Orrery, five years before Evelyn saw his play. I
may add that Mustapha has appeared in half-a-dozen different versions
on the stage. Probably the worst of these was Mallet’s; the latter author
created great amusement by one of his passages, in which he said:—

“Future sultans
Have shunned the marriage tie;”—

a confusion of tenses which has been compared with a similar error in the
sermons of so correct a writer as Blair (vol. v., third edition, page 224), “in
future periods the light dawned more and more.”
Although Evelyn, in 1666, says that “never till now” were women admitted
to assume characters on the stage, he is not quite correct in his assertion.
There were actresses full thirty years previous to that period. Thus, in
1632, the “Court Beggar” was acted at the Cockpit. In the last act, Lady
Strangelove says:—“If you have a short speech or two, the boy’s a pretty
actor, and his mother can play her part: women-actors now grow in
request.” Our ancestors wisely followed a foreign fashion when they
ceased to employ boys in female characters. Prynne says, in 1633, “They
have now their female players in Italy and other foreign parts;” and in
Michaelmas 1629, they had French women-actors in a play personated at
Blackfriars, to which there was a great resort. Geneste quotes Freshwater
as writing thus of French actresses in Paris, in 1629: “Yet the women are
the best actors; they play their own parts, a thing much desired in
England.”
In Davenant’s patent for opening Lincoln’s-inn Fields, in 1661, permission
was given for the engaging of women as actresses, on the ground that
the employment of men in such parts had given great offence. I more
particularly notice this matter, because it was a knight who first opened a
theatre with a regular female troupe added to the usual number of male
actors. Sir William’s ladies were Mrs. Davenport, Mrs. Saunderson, Mrs.
Davies, Mrs. Long, Mrs. Gibbs, Mrs. Norris, Mrs. Holden, and Mrs.
Jennings. The first four were Sir William’s principal actresses, and these
were boarded in the knight’s own dwelling-house. Their title of “Mistress”
does not necessarily imply that they were married ladies, but rather that
they were old enough to be so.
This knight, too, was the first who introduced scenery on the stage. I will
add (par parenthèse) that it was a priest who first suggested the levelling
of the pit with the stage, for the purpose of masquerades and balls.
Prynne was not among those who fancied that morality would profit by the
introduction of actresses. He had his misgivings as to the effects likely to
be produced on the susceptible young gallants of his day. Touching the
appearance of the French actresses at the Blackfriars Theatre, noticed
above, he calls it “an impudent, shameful, un-womanish, graceless, if not
more than w——ish attempt.” The fashion was, undoubtedly, first set by
the court, and by no less a person than a queen. Anne of Denmark, wife
of James I., acted a part in a pastoral. They who remember some of the
incidents of the training she gave her son, the princely knight young
Henry, will hardly think that Anne gave dignity to the occupation she
temporarily assumed.
Mrs. Saunderson is said to have been the first regularly-engaged actress
who opened her lips on the English stage. Had she and her compeers
only half the charms which report ascribed to them, they must have
afforded far more pleasure to audience and spectators than the “beautiful
woman-actor,” Stephen Hamerton Hart, with his womanly dignity; Burt,
with his odious female sprightliness; or Goffe, who was as hearty and
bustling as old Mrs. Davenport. King Charles himself and his cavaliers,
too, must have been especially delighted when they were no longer kept
waiting for the commencement of a play, on the ground that the Queen
was not yet shaved.
It is curious that there were some people not near so strait-laced as
Prynne, who considered that public virtue would suffer shipwreck if
actresses were permitted to establish themselves in the general favor.
The opposite party, of course, went to an opposite extreme; and in 1672,
not only were “Philaster,” and Killigrew’s “Parson’s Wedding,” played
entirely by women, but one of the “Miss” Marshalls, gay daughter of a
Presbyterian minister, on both occasions spoke the prologue and epilogue
in male attire. “Philaster” is simply an absurd piece, which was rendered
popular by Hart and Nell Gwyn; but with respect to Killigrew’s piece, it is
so disgusting, from the commencement to the finale, that I can hardly
fancy how any individuals, barely alive to their humanity, could be brought
to utter and enact the turpitudes which Killigrew set down for them, or that
an audience could be kept from fleeing from the house before the first act
was over.
But the gallants could endure anything rather than a return to such effects
as are alluded to by a contemporary writer, who, by way of introducing a
female Desdemona, said in his prologue—

“Our women are defective and so sized

You’d think they were some of the guard disguised;
For, to speak truth, men act that are between
Forty and fifty, wenches of fifteen;
With brow so large, and nerve so uncompliant,
When you call Desdemona—enter Giant.”

Half a century elapsed before knight or gentleman took an actress from

the stage, for the purpose of making her his wife. The squires, in this
case, had precedence of the knights; and the antiquary, Martin Folkyes,
led the way by espousing Lucretia Bradshaw, the uncorrupted amid
corruption, and the original Corinna in the “Confederacy,” Dorinda in the
“Beaux Stratagem,” and Arabella Zeal in the “Fair Quaker of Deal.” This
marriage took place in 1713, and there was not a happier hearth in
England than that of the antiquary and the actress. A knight of the Garter
followed, with an earl’s coronet, and in 1735 the great Lord Peterborough
acknowledged his marriage with that daughter of sweet sounds,
Anastasia Robinson. This example at once flattered, provoked, and
stimulated the ladies, one of whom, the daughter of Earl de Waldegrave,
Lady Henrietta Herbert, married young Beard the actor. This was thought
“low,” and another knight’s daughter was less censured for marrying her
father’s footman. The “Beggars’ Opera” gave two coronets to two Pollys.
Lavinia Fenton (Betswick), the original Polly at Lincoln’s Inn, in 1728,
became Duchess of Bolton a few years later; and in 1813, no less a man
than Lord Thurlow married Mary Catherine Bolton, who was scarcely an
inferior Polly to the original lady, who gave up Polly to become a Bolton.
The squires once more took their turn when Sheridan married Miss
Lindley; but before the last century closed, Miss Farren gave her hand to
“the proudest earl in England,” the Earl of Derby, Knight of the Bath. In
1807, knight and squire took two ladies from the stage. In that year Mr.
Heathcote married the beautiful Miss Searle; and Earl Craven married
Louisa Brunton. We have still among us five ex-actresses who married
men of the degree of noble, knight, or squire. These are Miss Stephens,
the widowed Countess of Essex; Miss Foote, the widowed Countess of
Harrington; Miss O’Neill the widow of Sir William Beecher, Bart.; Mrs.
Nisbett, the relict of the bold Sir Felix Boothby; and Miss M. Tree, whose
late husband, Mr. Bradshaw, was at one time M. P. for Canterbury.
There is something romantic in the lives of all these ladies, but most in
that of “Lizzy Farren,” and as the life of that lady of a Knight of the Bath
has something in common with the career of a celebrated legal knight and
judge, I will take some of its incidents as the chief points in the following
sketch, which is a supplementary chapter to the Romance of History, and
perhaps not the least interesting one in such a series.
If gayety consists in noise, then was the market-place of Salisbury, toward
the close of Christmas Eve, 1769, extremely joyous and glad. In the
centre, on a raised stage, his Worship the Mayor was inaugurating the
holyday-time, by having a bout at single-stick with an itinerant exhibitor of
the art of self-defence from London. The “professor” had been soliciting
the magisterial permission to set up his stage in the market-place, and he
had not only received full license, but the chief magistrate himself
condescended to take a stick and try his strength with the professor.
It was an edifying sight, and bumpkins and burgesses enjoyed it
consumedly. The professional fencer allowed his adversary to count many
“hits” out of pure gratitude. But he had some self-respect, and in order
that his reputation might not suffer in the estimation of the spectators, he
wound up the “set-to” by dealing a stroke on the right-worshipful skull,
which made the mayor imagine that chaos was come again, and that all
about him was dancing confusedly into annihilation.
“I am afraid I have accidentally hurt your worship’s head,” said the
wickedly sympathizing single-stick player.
“H’m!” murmured the fallen great man, with a ghastly smile, and Iris’s
seven hues upon his cheek, “don’t mention it: there’s nothing in it!”
“I am truly rejoiced,” replied the professor to his assistant, with a wink of
the eye, “that his worship has not lost his senses.”
“Oh, ay!” exclaimed the rough aide, “he’s about as wise as ever he was.”
The single-stick player looked like Pizarro, who, when he did kill a friend
occasionally—“his custom i’ th’ afternoon”—always went to the funeral in
a mourning suit and a droop of the eye—intended for sympathy. In the
meantime the mayor, who had been fancying himself in a balloon, and
that he was being whirled away from his native town, began to think that
the balloon was settling to earth again, and that the representation of
chaos had been indefinitely deferred. He continued, however, holding on
by the rail, as if the balloon was yet unsteady, and he only complained of
a drumming in the ears.
At that moment the not-to-be-mistaken sound of a real drum fell in harsh
accompaniment upon his singing-ears, and it had one good effect, that of
bringing back the magistrate and the man. Both looked through the rather
shaken windows of the one body, and indignation speedily lighted up from
within.
The sound came from the suburb of Fisherton, but it swelled insultingly
nearer and nearer, as though announcing that it was about to be beaten
in the borough, despite the lack of magisterial sanction. The great
depository of authority began to gaze in speechless horror, as the bearer
of the noisy instrument made his appearance in the market-place at the
head of a small procession, which was at once seen to consist of a party
of strolling actors.
The drummer was a thick-set man, with nothing healthy looking about him
but his nose, and that looked too healthy. He was the low comedian, and
was naturally endowed to assume that distinctive line.
He was followed by three or four couple of “the ladies and gentlemen of
the company,” of some of whom it might be said, that shoes were things
they did not much stand upon. They had a shabby genteel air about them,
looked hungry and happy; and one or two wore one hand in the pocket,
upon an economizing principle in reference to gloves. The light comedian
cut jokes with the spectators, and was soon invited to the consequence
he aimed at—an invitation to “take a glass of wine.” The women were
more tawdry-looking than the men, but they wore a light-hearted, romping
aspect—all, except the young lady who played Ophelia and Columbine,
who carried a baby, and looked as if she had not been asleep since it was
born, which was probably the case.
The cortège was closed by a fine, gentleman-like man, who led by the
hand a little girl some ten years old. No one could look for a moment at
them, without at once feeling assured that there was something in them
which placed them above the fellows with whom they consorted. They
were father and daughter. He manager; she a species of infant
phenomenon. In his face were to be traced the furrows of disappointment,
and in his eye the gleam of hope. Her face was as faces of the young
should ever be, full of enjoyment, love, and feeling. The last two were
especially there for the father, whose hand she held, and into whose face
she looked, ever and anon, with a smile which never failed to be repaid in
similar currency.
The refined air of the father, and the graceful bearing of the modest
daughter, won commendations from all beholders. He was an ex-surgeon
of Cork, who had given up his profession in order to follow the stage.
People set him down as insane, and so he was, but it was an insanity
which made a countess of his daughter. His name was Farren, and his
child, pet daughter of a pretty mother, was the inimitable Lizzy.
If the mayor could have read into history, he would have knelt down and
kissed Lizzy Farren’s shoe-buckles. As he could not so read, he only saw
in the sire a vagabond, and in the child a mountebank. On the former he
hurled down the whole weight of his magisterial wrath. It was in vain that
the manager declared he was on his way to solicit the mayor’s license to
act in Salisbury. That official gentleman declared that it was an infraction
of the law to pass from the suburb of Fisherton into the borough of
Salisbury before the mayor’s permission had been previously signified.
“And that permission I will never give,” said his worship. “We are a godly
people here, and have no taste for rascal-players. As his majesty’s
representative, I am bound to encourage no amusements that are not
respectable.”
“But our young king,” interrupted Mr. Farren, “is himself a great patron of
the theatre.”
This was worse than a heavy blow at single-stick; and the mayor was the
more wrath as he had no argument ready to meet it. After looking angry
for a moment, a bright thought struck him.
“Ay, ay, sir! You will not, I hope, teach a mayor either fact or duty. We
know, sir, what the king (God bless him!) patronizes. His majesty does not
patronize strollers. He goes regularly to an established church, sir, and to
an established theatre; and so, sir, I, as mayor, support only
establishments. Good heavens! what would become of the throne and the
altar, if a Mayor of Sarum were to do otherwise?”
As Mr. Farren did not well know, he could not readily tell; and as he stood
mute, the mayor continued to pour down upon the player and his
vocation, a shower of obloquy. At every allusion which he made to his
predilection for amusements that were respectable and instructive, the
single-stick player and his man drew themselves up, cried “Hear! hear!”
and looked down upon the actors with an air of burlesque contempt. The
actors, men and women, returned the look with a burst of uncontrollable
laughter. The mayor took this for deliberate insult, aimed at himself and at
what he chose to patronize. His protégés looked the more proud, and
became louder than ever in their self-applauding “Hear! hear!” The
players, the while, shrieked with laughter. Even Mr. Farren and Lizzy
could not refrain from risibility, for the stick-player and his man were really
members of the company. The former was Mr. Frederick Fitzmontague,
who was great in Hamlet. His man was the ruffian in melodramas, and the
clown in pantomimes, and as he did a little private business of his own by
accepting an engagement from a religious society, during the dull season
of the year, to preach on the highways against theatricals, Mr. Osmond
Brontere was usually known by the cognomen of Missionary Jack.
The magisterial refusal to license this wandering company to play in
Salisbury, was followed by altercation; and altercation by riot. The
multitude took part with the actors, and they hooted the mayor; and the
latter, viewing poor Farren as the cause and guilty mover of all that had
occurred, summarily ordered his arrest; and, in spite of all remonstrance,
resistance, or loudly-expressed disgust, the manager was ultimately
lodged in the cage. The mob, then, satisfied at having had a little
excitement, and caring nothing more about the matter, at length
separated, and repaired to their respective homes. They went all the
quicker that the rain had begun to descend in torrents; and they took little
notice of poor Lizzy, who went home in the dusk, weeping bitterly, and led
by the hands of the matronly Ophelia and Missionary Jack.
Ere morning dawned, a change had come over the scene. The rain had
ceased. A hard frost had set in. All Salisbury looked as if it were built
upon a frozen lake. The market-place itself was a mer de glace.
Christmas-day was scarcely visible when a boy of early habits, standing
at the door of an upholsterer’s shop, which bore above it the name of
Burroughs, fancied he saw something moving with stealthy pace across
the market-place; and he amused himself by watching it through the
gloom. It was developed, after a while, into the figure of a thinly-clad girl,
bearing in her arms a bowl of hot milk. She trod cautiously, and looked,
now down at her feet, now across the wide square, to measure the
distance she had yet to go. Each little foot was put forward with hesitation,
and so slowly was progress made, that there was good chance of the
boiling milk being frozen, before it had been carried half-way to its
destination.
The girl was Lizzy Farren, and in the bowl, which between her arms
looked as graceful as urn clasped by Arcadian nymph, lay the chief
portion of a breakfast destined, on this sad Christmas morning, for her
captive sire in the cage.
“She’ll be down!” said young Burroughs, as he saw her partially slip. Lizzy,
however, recovered herself; but so alarmed was she at her situation, so
terrified when she measured the distance she had to accomplish by that
which she had already traversed, that she fairly stood still near the centre
of the market-place, and wept aloud over the hot bowl and her cold
position. It was then that the young knight recognised the crisis when he
was authorized to interfere. He made a run from the door, shot one leg in
advance, drew the other quickly after him, and went sliding, with express-
train speed, close up to Lizzy’s feet. She no sooner saw the direful
prospect of collision than she shrieked with an energy which roused all
the rooks in the close.
“Hold hard!” exclaimed the merry-faced boy; “hold hard! that’s myself, you
Lizzy, and the milk. Hold hard!” he continued, as he half held her up, half
held on to her. “Hold hard! or we shall all be down together.”
“Oh, where do you come from? and how do you know my name is Lizzy?”
“Well! Mr. Fitzmontague lodges in our house, and he told us all about you,
last night. And he said, as sure as could be, you would be awake before
anybody in Salisbury. And sure enough, here you are, almost before
daylight.”
By the help of the young cavalier, the distressed damsel was relieved
from her perplexity. Young Burroughs offered to carry the bowl, which she
stoutly refused. “No one,” she said, “shall carry my father’s breakfast to
him, but myself, on such a morning.” And so, her deliverer walked
tenderly by her side, holding her cautiously up, nor ceased from his care,
until Lizzy and her burden had safely reached the cage. Through the bars
of the small window, Farren had watched her coming; and he hailed her
arrival with a “God bless you, my own child!”
“Oh, papa!” said Lizzy, weeping again, and embracing the bowl as warmly
as if it had been her father himself; “oh, papa! what would mamma and
my little sisters, and all our friends in Liverpool say, if they knew how we
are beginning our Christmas day?”
“Things unknown are unfelt, my darling. We will tell them nothing about it,
till Fortune gilds over the memory of it. But what do you bring, Lizzy?—or
rather, why do I ask? It is my breakfast; and Lizzy herself has had none.”
A pretty altercation ensued; but Lizzy gained her point; and not one drop
would she taste till her sire had commenced the repast. Aided by young
Burroughs, she held the lip of the bowl through the bars of the cage; and
the little English maiden smiled, for the first time since yesterday, at
beholding her sire imbibe the quickening draught. It was not till three
years after that Barry and his wife played Evander and Euphrasia in the
Grecian Daughter, or Farren would have drawn a parallel suitable to the
occasion. He was not so well up in history as in theatricals; and on the
stage, history has a terrible time of it. Witness this very tragedy in which
Murphy has made Evander, King of Sicily, and confounded Dionysius the
elder, with his younger namesake. To be sure, pleasant Palmer, who
played the character, was about as wise as Murphy.
When the primitive breakfast was concluded, Lizzy stood sad and silent;
and the father sadly and silently looked down at her; while young
Burroughs leaned against the wall, as sad and silent as either of them.
And so a weary two hours passed; at the end of which, a town-constable
appeared, accompanied by a clerical gentleman, and empowered to give
liberty to the captive. When the constable told the manager that his
liberation was owing to the intercession made in his behalf, by the
Reverend Mr. Snodgrass, who had just arrived in Salisbury, Lizzy clapped
her hands with agitation, for she saw that the clerical interceder was no
other than Missionary Jack. “Oh, Mr. Brontere,” said the curious girl, when
they had all reached home together, “how did you ever manage it?”
“Well!” said the enterprising actor, with a laugh; “I called on his worship, to
inquire what Christmas charities might be acceptable; and if there were
any prisoners whom my humble means might liberate. He named your
papa, and the company have paid what was necessary. His worship was
not inexorable, particularly as I incidentally told him his Majesty
patronized, the other day, an itinerant company at Datchet. As for how I
did it. I rather think I am irresistible in the dress in which poor Will Havard,
only two years ago, played ‘Old Adam.’ A little ingenuity, as you see, has
made it look very like a rector’s costume; and, besides,” said Missionary
Jack, “I sometimes think that nature intended me for the church.”

* * * * * *
Three years had elapsed. On the Christmas eve of 1772, all the play-
going people of Wakefield were in a state of pleasant excitement, at the
promise made in bills posted over the town announcing the immediate
appearance of the “Young Queen of Columbines.” All the young bachelors
of the town were besieging the box-office. In those days there were not
only theatres in provincial towns, but people really went to them. Amid the
applicants, was a sprightly-looking articled clerk, who, having achieved
his object, had stopped for a moment at the stage-door to read the
programme of the forthcoming pantomime. While thus engaged the
Columbine Queen, the most fairy-looking of youthful figures, brilliant as
spring, and light as gossamer, sweet fifteen, with a look of being a year or
two more, tripped into the street, on her way home from rehearsal. Eighty
years ago the gallantry of country towns, with respect to pretty actresses,
was much like that which characterizes German localities now. It was of a
rudely enthusiastic quality. Accordingly, the fairy-looking Columbine had
hardly proceeded a dozen yards, when she had twice as many offers
made her of arms, whereon to find support over the slippery pavement. It
was an old-fashioned winter in Wakefield, and Columbine’s suitors had as
many falls in the course of their assiduities, as though they had been so
many “Lovers” in the pantomime, and the wand of Harlequin was tripping
them up as they skipped along. Columbine got skilfully rid of them all in
time, except one; and he became at last so unwelcomely intrusive, that
the articled clerk, who was the very champion of distressed damsels, and
had been a watcher of what was going on, went up to the young lady, took
her arm in his, without any ceremony, and bade her persecutor proceed
any further, at his peril. The gentleman took the hint, and left knight and
lady to continue their way unmolested. They no sooner saw themselves
alone, when, looking into each other’s faces, they laughed a merry laugh
of recognition, and it would be difficult to say which was the merrier—Miss
Farren or Mr. Burroughs, the young actress and the incipient lawyer.
When boxing-night came, there was a crowded house, and Lizzy created
a furore. Like Carlotta Grisi, she could sing as well as dance, and there
was a bright intellect, to boot, pervading all she did. On the night in
question, she sang between the acts; and young Burroughs, ever
watchful, especially marked the effect of her singing upon a very ecstatic
amateur who was seated next to him. “What a treasure,” said the
amateur, “would this girl be in Liverpool!” “Well,” remarked Burroughs, “I
am ready to accept an engagement for her. State your terms. Thirty
shillings a-week, I presume, will not quite exhaust your treasury.” “I will
certainly,” said the stranger, “tell our manager, Younger, of the prize which
is to be acquired so cheaply; and the affair need not be delayed; for
Younger is at the Swan, and will be down here to-night, to see the
pantomime.”
In five minutes, Burroughs was sitting face-to-face with Younger at the
inn, urging him to go at once, not to see Columbine dance, but to hear her
sing. “I wonder,” said the manager, “if your young friend is the child of the
Cork surgeon who married the daughter of Wright, the Liverpool brewer. If
so, she’s clever; besides, why——”
“Why she’ll make your fortune,” said the lawyer’s clerk. “She is the grand-
daughter of your Liverpool brewer, sings like a nightingale, and is worth
five pounds a week to you at least. Come and hear her.”
Younger walked leisurely down, as if he was in no particular want of
talent; but he was so pleased with what he did hear that when the
songstress came off the stage, Burroughs went round and exultingly
announced that he had procured an engagement for her at Liverpool, at
two pounds ten per week; and to find her own satin shoes and silk
stockings. In prospect of such a Potosi, the Columbine danced that night
as boundingly as if Dan Mercury had lent her the very pinions from his
heels.
“Mr. Burroughs,” said Lizzy, as he was escorting her and her mother
home, “this is the second Christmas you have made happy for us. I hope
you may live to be Lord Chief Justice.”
“Thank you, Lizzy, that is about as likely as that Liverpool will make of the
Wakefield Columbine a countess.”
 * * * * * *
A few years had again passed away since the Christmas week which
succeeded that spent at Wakefield, and which saw Lizzy Farren the only
Rosetta which Liverpool cared to listen to, and it was now the same
joyous season, but the locality was Chester.
There was a custom then prevailing among actors, which exists nowhere
now, except in some of the small towns in Germany. Thus, not very long
ago, at Ischl, in Austria, I was surprised to see a very pretty actress enter
my own room at the inn, and putting a play-bill into my hand, solicit my
presence at her benefit. This was a common practice in the north of
England till Tate Wilkinson put an end to it, as derogatory to the
profession. The custom, however, had not been checked at the time and
in the locality to which I have alluded. On the Christmas eve of the period
in question, Lizzy Farren was herself engaged in distributing her bills, and
asking patronage for her benefit, which was to take place on the following
Twelfth Night. As appropriate to the occasion she had chosen
Shakespeare’s comedy of that name, and was to play Viola, a part for
which Younger, who loved her heartily, had given her especial instruction.
Miss Farren had not been very successful in her “touting.” She had been
unlucky in the two families at whose houses she had ventured to knock.
The first was that of an ex-proprietor of a religious periodical, who had a
horror of the stage, but who had a so much greater horror of Romanism,
that, like the Scottish clergy of the time, he would have gone every night
to the play during Passion week, only to show his abhorrence of popery.
This pious scoundrel had grown rich by swindling his editors and
supporting any question which paid best. His household he kept for years,
by inserting advertisements in his journal for which he was paid in kind.
He was a slimy, sneaking, mendacious knave, who would have advocated
atheism if he could have procured a dozen additional subscribers by it.
His lady was the quintessence of vulgarity and malignity. She wore
diamonds on her wig, venom in her heart, and very-much-abused English
at the end of her tongue.
Poor Lizzy, rebuffed here, rang at the garden-gate of Mrs. Penury
Beaugawg. She was a lady of sentiment who drank, a lady of simplicity
who rouged, a lady of affected honesty who lived beyond her income, and
toadied or bullied her relations into paying her debts. Mrs. Penury
Beaugawg would have graciously accepted orders for a private box; but a
patronage which cost her anything, was a vulgarity which her gentle and
generous spirit could not comprehend.
Lizzy was standing dispirited in the road at the front of the house, when a
horseman rode slowly up; and Lizzy, not at all abashed at practising an
old but not agreeable custom, raised a bill to his hand as he came close
to her, and solicited half-a-crown, the regular admission-price to the
boxes.
“Lizzy!” cried the horseman, “you shall have such a house at Chester, as
the old town has not seen since the night Garrick was here, and played
Richard and Lord Chalkstone.”
The equestrian was Mr. Burroughs, then in training for the bar, and as
willing to help Miss Farren now as he was to aid her and her bowl of milk
across the market-place at Salisbury. The incipient barrister kept his word.
The Chester theatre was crammed to the ceiling; and, as Lizzy said, Mr.
Burroughs was her Christmas angel, the thought of whom was always
associated in her mind with plumbs, currants, holly——
“And mistletoe,” said the budding counsellor, with a look at which both
laughed merrily and honestly.
On the Christmas eve of 1776, Miss Farren was seated in Colman’s parlor
in London, looking at him while he read two letters of introduction; one
from Burroughs, the other from Younger; and both in high praise of the
young bearer, for whom they were especially written. My limits will only
allow me to say that Lizzy was engaged for the next summer-season at
the Haymarket, where she appeared on June 9, 1777, in “She Stoops to
Conquer.” She was Miss Hardcastle, and Edwin made his first
appearance in London with her, in the same piece. Colman would have
brought out Henderson too, if he could have managed it. That dignified
gentleman, however, insisted on reserving his début for Shylock, on the
11th of the same month. And what a joyous season did Lizzy make of it
for our then youthful grandfathers. How they admired her double talent in
Miss Hardcastle! How ecstatic were they with her Maria, in the “Citizen!”
How ravishedly did they listen to her Rosetta! How they laughed at her
Miss Tittup, in “Bon Ton!” and how they extolled her playfulness and
dignity as Rosina, of which she was the original representative, in the
“Barber of Seville!” It may be remarked that Colman omitted the most
comic scene in the piece, that wherein the Count is disguised as a
drunken trooper—as injurious to morality!
When, in the following year, she played Lady Townley, she was declared
the first, and she was then almost the youngest of living actresses. And
when she joined the Drury Lane company in the succeeding season, the
principal parts were divided between herself, Miss Walpole, Miss P.
Hopkins, and Perdita Robinson. Not one of this body was then quite
twenty years of age! Is not this a case wherein to exclaim—

“O mihi præteritos referat si Jupiter annos?”

Just twenty years did she adorn our stage; ultimately taking leave of it at
Drury Lane, in April, 1797, in the character of Lady Teazle. Before that
time, however, she had been prominent in the Christmas private plays at
the Duke of Richmond’s, in which the Earl of Derby, Lord Henry
Fitzgerald, and the Honorable Mrs. Dormer acted with her; and that rising
barrister, Mr. Burroughs, looking constantly at the judicial bench as his
own proper stage, was among the most admiring of the audience. It was
there that was formed that attachment which ultimately made of her, a
month after she had retired from the stage, Countess of Derby, and
subsequently mother of a future countess, who still wears her coronet.
Not long after this period, and following on her presentation at Court,
where she was received with marked kindly condescension by Queen
Charlotte, the countess was walking in the marriage procession of the
Princess Royal and the Duke of Wurtemberg; her foot caught in the
carpeting, and she would have fallen to the ground, but for the ready
arms, once more extended to support her, of Mr. Burroughs, now an
eminent man indeed.
Many years had been added to the roll of time, when a carriage,
containing a lady was on its way to Windsor. It suddenly came to a stop,
by the breaking of an axle-tree. In the midst of the distress which ensued
to the occupier, a second carriage approached, bearing a goodnatured-
looking gentleman, who at once offered his services. The lady,
recognising an old friend, accepted the offer with alacrity. As the two
drove off together in the gentleman’s carriage toward Windsor, the owner
of it remarked that he had almost expected to find her in distress on the
road; for it was Christmas Eve, and he had been thinking of old times.
“How many years is it, my lady countess,” said he, “since I stood at my
father’s shop-door in Salisbury, watching your perilous passage over the
market-place, with a bowl of milk?”
“Not so long at all events,” she answered with a smile, “but that I recollect
my poor father would have lost his breakfast, but for your assistance.”
“The time is not long for memory,” replied the Judge, “nor is Salisbury as
far from Windsor as Dan from Beersheba; yet how wide the distance
between the breakfast at the cage-door at Salisbury, and the Christmas
dinner to which we are both proceeding, in the palace of the king!”
“The earl is already there,” added the countess, “and he will be happier
than the king himself to welcome the legal knight who has done such
willing service to the Lady of the Knight of the Bath.”
To those whose power and privilege it is to create such knights, we will
now direct our attention, and see how kings themselves behaved in their
character as knights.
 THE KINGS OF ENGLAND AS KNIGHTS.
FROM THE NORMANS TO THE STUARTS.
“Un roi abstrait n’est ni père, ni fils, ni frère, ni parent, ni chevalier,
ami. Qu’est il donc? Roi, même quand il dort.”— Diderot.

If we judge some of our kings by the strict laws of chivalry, we shall

find that they were but sorry knights after all. They may have been
terrible in battle; but they were ill-mannerly in ladies’ bower.
William the Conqueror, for instance, had none of the tender
sentiment of chivalry; in other words he showed little gentleness in
his bearing toward women. It is said by Ingerius, that after Matilda of
Flanders had refused his hand, on the ground that she would not
have a bastard for a husband, he waylaid her as she was returning
from mass in one of the streets of Bruges, dragged her out from
among her ladies, pommelled her brutally, and finally rolled her in the
mud. A little family difference arose in consequence; but as it was
less bitter than family quarrels usually are, a reconciliation took
place, and Matilda gave her hand to the knight who had so terribly
bruised her with his arm. She loved him, she said, because he had
shown more than the courage of common knights, by daring to beat
her within sight of her father’s own palace. But all’s well that ends
well; they were not only a handsome but a happy couple, and
Matilda was head of the household at the Conqueror’s hearth. The
general’s wife was there the general.
How William bore himself in fight is too well known to need
recapitulating here. He probably never knew fear but once, and that
was at the sounds of a tumult in the street, which reached his ears
as he was being crowned. Then, indeed, “’tis true this god did
shake,” for the first and only time. His successor, who was knighted
by Archbishop Lanfranc, was in the field as good a knight as he, and
generous to an adversary, although he was never so to any mortal
besides. But Rufus was nothing of a knight in his bearing toward
ladies. His taste with regard to the fair sex was of the worst sort; and
the court of this royal and reprobate bachelor was a reproach at
once to kingship and knighthood, to Christianity and civilization. He
had been accused, or rather the knights of his time and country, with
having introduced into England the practice of a crime of which the
real introducer, according to others, was that Prince William who was
drowned so fortunately for England, on the sea between Calais and
Dover. The chivalrous magnanimity of Rufus is exemplified in the
circumstance of his having, in disguise, attacked a cavalier, from
whom he received so sound a beating, that he was at length
compelled to avow himself in order to induce his conqueror to spare
his life. The terrified victor made an apology, in the very spirit of the
French knight of the Holy Ghost to a dying cavalier of the Golden
Spur, whom he had mortally wounded in mistake: “I beg a thousand
pardons,” said the polite Frenchman, “but I really took you for
somebody else.” So William’s vanquisher began to excuse himself
for having nearly battered the king’s skull to a jelly, with his battle-
axe, on the ground of his having been unacquainted with his rank.
“Never heed the matter,” said the king, “you are a good fellow, and
shall, henceforth, be a follower of mine.” Many similar instances
might be cited. Further, Rufus was highly popular with all men-at-
arms; the knights reverenced him as the very flower of chivalry, and I
am glad that the opprobrium of having slain him in the New Forest
no longer attaches itself to a knight, although I am sorry an attempt
has been made to fix it upon the church. No one now believes that
Sir Walter Tyrrel was the author of the crime, and chivalry is
acquitted of the charge against one of its members of having slain
the flaxen-haired but rubicund-nosed king.
Henry Beauclerc was more of a scholar than a knight, without,
however, being so very much of the first. The English-born prince
was far less chivalrous of spirit than his former brother Robert; that
is, if not less brave, he was less generous, especially to a foe. When
he was besieged on St. Michael’s Mount by Robert, and reduced to
such straits that he was near dying of thirst, Robert supplied him with
water; an act for which Rufus called the doer of it a fool; but as poor
Robert nobly remarked, the quarrel between him and their brother
was not of such importance that he should be made to perish of
thirst. “We may have occasion,” said he, “for a brother hereafter; but
where shall we find one, if we now destroy this?” Henry would hardly