--- Title: Talent Description: Newcastle Morning Herald and Miners' Advocate (Newcastle, New South Wales), Tuesday, September 6, 1927, p. 5. Unsigned item quoting Adler at length on the "superstition of talent"; the original source of the quotation is not given. Author: Alfred Adler URL: https://adler.school/archivo/adler/entrevistas/original/1927-09-06%20Talent --- # TALENT. Talent is not inherited to any great extent, and the ability to do great things is not a divine gift conferred on a few people only. Men suffering from severe mental and physical handicaps have often made history, and to be born with defective organs is really a blessing, because the affliction creates a keener brain. These are the conclusions reached by Dr. Alfred Adler, professor at the Pedagogic Institute at Vienna, and one of the world's leading authorities on psychology. "I prophesy," says Dr. Adler, "that before long the delusion of talent will vanish into the limbo of witchcraft and the 'evil eye.' The average individual believes that he carries with him in life a given quantity of creative talent which decides whether he shall be a dolt or a genius. That is purely a superstition. What counts is not the ability we are born with but the ability we can develop by our own effort. The really great achievements stand to the credit of people whose equipment was poor, and many backward children have been turned into brilliant scholars by proper training. "The courage which is the basis of all talent must be combined with a proper training. Many seemingly untalented people are simply improperly trained. It is simply a question of finding the proper technique. If we develop the technique of teaching musical composition better we could make a 'half-way' adequate composer out of everyone. This will be heresy to the musical genius or composer, but I need only cite the case of Beethoven, who was born with a hereditary defect which results in deafness in about the twentieth year. By the tenets of the 'talent superstition' Beethoven would have been advised to become a shoe salesman or something similar instead of a musician. In fact, the poorly-equipped individual is often the one that develops the greatest 'talent' in the end, for what normal persons can do with ease he must do by keener concentration and superior technique. We must come to the conclusion that it is one of the greatest advantages to an individual to be born with defective organs, and, further, that growing insight into technique and training will open up many new fields for the formerly untalented." --- *Fuente:* *Newcastle Morning Herald and Miners' Advocate* (Newcastle, Nueva Gales del Sur), martes 6 de septiembre de 1927, pág. 5; suelto sin firma en una columna de miscelánea (Trove, Biblioteca Nacional de Australia, nla.news-article134505410). Transcripción hecha sobre la imagen de la página; el OCR de Trove es muy deficiente y todas las lecturas dudosas (*creates*, *courage*, *composer*, *shoe salesman*) se han resuelto en la imagen. Se omite el resto de la columna (noticias ajenas). Probablemente material de agencia; no se ha localizado la fuente original de la cita.