Test to Enable Young Minds, Not to Disable Them

I have often pondered at a statement emanating from the 19th century French mathematical genius Evariste Galois.

- BY INVITATION Dinesh Singh Former Vice-Chancellor, Delhi University; Adjunct Professor of Mathematics, University of Houston, US

I recall with distaste that the best French mathematicians of his time failed to recognise his abilities.Having been failed more than once in an entrance examination, Galois had remarked somewhat to the effect that a person of higher intelligence is always lost with a person of lesser abilities. Something similar had happened to the Indian mathematical genius Srinivasa Ramanujan when Madras University failed to recognise his extraordinary gifts as a mathematician and struck his name off its rolls. This action was prompted by the fact that Ramanujan had failed to obtain the required minimum marks in the English literature course. Einstein too went through a similar ordeal. To begin with, none of Einstein’s university professors recognised his potential as a genius. After having secured a doctorate, he repeatedly failed to obtain a teaching position. In desperation, he took up a job as Patent Clerk Third Class at the patent office in Berne. During this phase he solved three of the greatest mysteries of nature including one that later fetched him the Nobel Prize. Yet, when he applied for promotion to Patent Clerk Second Class, he was reje