A young child is a human being who, unlike his elders, is still engaged in the fundamental process of developing the major portion of his mental capacity.  At least eighty percent of his intellectual aptitude (not his rote knowledge) is acquired during the first six years of his life.  During this critical period, his brain grows and develops in accordance with his exercise of his mind and the intellectual stimulation provided by his environment.  Denying a child’s developing mind the proper stimulation, by postponing his education until the age of six, is analogous to denying his growing body the proper diet, by postponing his consumption of nutritional food until the age of eighteen!

   A child of average genetic endowment, in an average environment, tends to achieve what are commonly called “a normal academic aptitude” and “a normal psychological profile” (assuming that culturally unbiased statistical parameters are employed).  However, this same child, in an environment carefully prepared to satisfy fundamental intellectual and psychological requirements of his developing mind, tends to achieve what are commonly called “an abnormally superior academic aptitude” and “a psychological profile abnormally high in independence, empathy, and creativity”.

   A child, who has volitional consciousness, develops his intellectual capacity through a process of self-programming (not training) and acquires his factual knowledge through a process of discovery (not indoctrination).  Through perception, identification, and integration of the data provided by his senses, he can exercise his own free will to come to know facts of reality.  In an environment systematically ordered and enriched in varied sensory stimuli, if adults refrain from trammeling (“for his own good”) his natural, childlike curiosity and self-confidence, he probably will.