Students: Youngest Students to Attend GW
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Erik K. Reed is the youngest student to ever matriculate at George Washington University. At the age of thirteen he entered the freshman class at GW in 1927. He viewed being a child prodigy as an advantage. Unlike his fellow freshmen, Reed, according to a Hatchet article written about him, was "not troubled with such matters as rushing by frats, all kinds of dances and parties, flirtatious co-eds, and other pitfalls which beset the campus life of a newcomer to the University. He has plenty of time to study and consequently he finds the seventeen hours which he carries not hard." Reed took his first university course, seven hours of botany, during the summer at the age of twelve. Reed was fluent in several languages including: French, Spanish, Latin and Esperanto.
Reed was tutored at home by his parents and only attended school at intervals. He began reading at age two. "Several years later Erik was sent to the kindergarten, and had what he describes as a 'great' time playing on the sand table. Because of his advanced training, he was promoted to the first grade within a few days, but he cried to return to the kindergarten, for the first grade class had no sand tables."
Reed graduated in 1932 and earned his M.A. from Harvard a year later.
Until 1927, Henning Cunningham Nelms was considered the youngest student to have matriculated at George Washington University. As the Hatchet described him in 1916:
“Henning Cunningham Nelms, the 15-year old son of the Reverend J. Henning Nelms and Mrs. Nelms is the youngest student who has ever matriculated at George Washington University. He graduated last year from St. Albans, being three years below the average age at that institution. He will take the scientific course for a master’s degree, after which he will study law. The ‘boy’ is six feet tall and weighs 170 pounds and is a member of the football squad.”
Nelms earned an A.B. from GW in 1920, an LL.B. from the University of Virginia in 1922 and an M.F.A. from Yale in 1931.
NOTE: In the early years of the university, up until the late 19th century, a number of students in their teens entered studies in the regular college.
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Author or Source: Hatchet, Oct. 5, 1927, Nov. 17, 1916; GW Alumni Directory, 1938
Document Location: University Archives
Date Added to Encyclopedia: December 21, 2006
Prepared by: Lyle Slovick, Assistant University Archivist; Sabrina Meijome
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