In the horrendous Sunday Times article about further oppression for gifted children [see posts of 19 Dec], the fact that some students who went to university at a relatively early age left without completing their degrees is taken to indicate that it is a bad idea to allow this to happen. The fact is, they may just have realised there could be no future for them in the academic world, and the earlier the age at which one realises this the better.
If I had been a bit more experienced in psychology I might well have realised, when I was prevented from taking the School Certificate exam at thirteen, that there was too much motivation against somebody like me, and that I had better leave school forthwith, or as soon as legally possible, and devote my attention to making money, since becoming rich enough to set up my own institutional environment was the only way in which I would ever be able to have the sort of intellectually productive life which I needed to have. The prospect of having to make enough money for oneself to set up an institutional environment is a daunting one, and the sooner gets started on it the better.
Students who left university in disgust at fourteen or fifteen may have come to a realistic perception that the modern academic world provided no opportunities for real ability and drive, and that they would do better going it alone.
