Wooden's Wisdom - Volume 12 | Issue 600 |
Craig Impelman Speaking | Championship Coaches | Champion's Leadership Library Login | |
"THERE ARE EDUCATED FOOLS AND UNEDUCATED PEOPLE WHO ARE WISE." (THOMAS FULLER) Thomas Fuller was born in Africa in 1700. At the age of 14 he was enslaved and shipped to Virginia. Before being enslaved, Fuller was a mathematical prodigy who had been trained in the memorization and calculation of sums. Although he was never taught to read or write, the stories of his mathematical achievements spread through the Eastern Seaboard and reached as far as France and Germany, becoming fuel for the abolitionist movement.
When Fuller was about 70 years old, William Hartshorne and Samuel Coates, members of the Pennsylvania Abolition Society, visited Fuller to test his abilities. They documented his test results in the Columbian Magazine:
"First: Upon being asked how many seconds there are in a year and a half, he answered in about two minutes, 47,304,000.
Second: On being asked how many seconds a man has lived, who is seventy years, seven- teen days and twelve hours old, he answered, in a minute and a half, 2,210,500,800.
The gentleman in charge of checking the answers told Fuller he was wrong because his answer was too large. Fuller quickly replied that the other man had forgotten the leap years. On adding the seconds of the leap years to the others, the amount in both their sums agreed exactly.
Third: The following question was then proposed to him: suppose a farmer has six sows, and each sow has six female pigs, the first year, and they all increase in the same proportion, to the end of eight years, how many sows will the farmer then have? In ten minutes, he answered, 34,588,806. The extra time needed was only due to an initial misunderstanding of the question. His answers were all perfect."
Samuel Coates, one of the interviewers, remarked that it was a pity Fuller had not had an education equal to his genius. Fuller replied: "No it is best I had no learning, for many learned men are great fools."
Making a judgment about another person’s intelligence based on their race, gender, job title, economic level, or age is not wise.
As Coach Wooden liked to remind us: "Others have brains too."
How open-minded are you?
Yours in Coaching, Craig Impelman
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Another Mouth To Feed We've got another mouth to feed, Edgar Albert Guest (1881-1959)
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