ABSTRACT
This chapter prompts by a spate of alarmist articles in the media over the past several years concerning what journalists have called "the creativity crisis", articles claiming, in other words, that American creativity is in decline. It describes the risk of juxtaposing a budding scientist, musician, and painter, for, in fact, no one knows in advance the precise direction in which a child's curiosity and gifts will lead. All children are creative in the sense Richard Feynman articulates. What might come to mind while reflecting on Clara Schumann's childhood is a widely circulated book by Alice Miller titled The Drama of the Gifted Child, also published under the title, Prisoners of Childhood. Rene Magritte invents image after image, trying to come to terms with what cannot be banished from his childhood. Motherhood was what Magritte first called an unforgettable picture, now in London's Tate Gallery; later, he changed its title to The Spirit of Geometry.
