"As any new parent soon finds out, there exists a robust market for products, services, and media that promise to boost a child's intelligence. Some of these offerings come as close as legally possible to holding out the promise of putting any tot on the path to genius, brazenly begging the question of whether it's possible to raise a genius in the first place."
"Having studied the nature of intelligence at university, their father László got it in his head that, since most geniuses started learning their subjects intensively and early, parents could cultivate genius-level performance in their children by directing that learning process themselves. He sought out a wife both intellectually promising and willing to devote herself to testing this hypothesis. Together they went on to father three daughters, putting them through a rigorous, custom-made education oriented toward chess mastery. Chess became the project's central subject in large part because of its sheer objectivity, all the better for László Polgár to measure the results of this domestic exper"
A robust market exists for products, services, and media that promise to boost children's intelligence. Some offerings claim near-guaranteed pathways to genius, while parental efforts have sometimes produced notable results, including figures like Mozart, John Stuart Mill, William Sidis, and the Polgár sisters. László Polgár, after studying intelligence at university, concluded that intensive early learning directed by parents could cultivate genius-level performance. He and an intellectually committed wife raised three daughters with a rigorous, custom education focused on chess. Chess served as an objective, measurable subject to evaluate the results of that domestic experiment.
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