Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 37.djvu/405

 of Plato. His only other lessons were in arithmetic, but he also read books by himself. From 1810 till 1813 the Mills lived at Newington Green, and the father used to walk before breakfast in the then green lanes round Hornsey. During these walks the child gave accounts of his reading in Gibbon, Robertson, Hume, and (his especial favourite) Watson's ‘Philip II’ and ‘Philip III.’ He read Langhorne's ‘Plutarch,’ Millar's ‘English Government,’ Mosheim's ‘Ecclesiastical History,’ Sewel's ‘Quakers,’ and many voyages, besides a few children's books. In his eighth year he began Latin, and was also employed by his father to teach the younger children, a plan probably suggested by the Lancasterian system then in great favour with the utilitarians. By his twelfth year he had read in Latin much of Virgil, Horace, Livy, Ovid, Terence, and Cicero, and had added to his Greek Homer, Thucydides (read in his eighth, and again in his eleventh year), and parts of the dramatists, orators, and historians, besides Aristotle's ‘Rhetoric.’ He continued to read English histories, and during his eleventh and twelfth years began to write a history of the Roman government in imitation of Hooke. He had already written some fragmentary ‘histories,’ and Professor Bain (p. 3) gives a scrap composed when he was six and a half. Between the ages of eight and thirteen he had acquired elementary geometry and algebra ‘thoroughly,’ and had begun the differential calculus. His father was unable to guide him in the higher mathematics, or in the niceties of classical scholarship. He never practised composition in Greek, and little in Latin (see a Latin letter to his sisters of 1820, given in, p. 21 n.) He was pleased with Pope's ‘Homer,’ Scott's ‘Lays,’ and Campbell's ‘Lyrics,’ but did not take to Shakespeare or Spenser. His father made him write English verses as a practice in composition, but he was not destined to be a poet. He was much interested by popular books upon science, though he had no opportunity of experimental inquiry. About twelve he began a serious study of logic, including some of Aristotle, some scholastic treatises, and especially Hobbes's ‘Computatio sive Logica,’ a book of great authority with his father. He began also to study classical literature for the thoughts as well as for the language. Demosthenes and Plato received especial attention. During 1817 he read the proofs of his father's ‘History of India,’ and was greatly impressed by the doctrines with which it is ‘saturated.’ In 1819 he went through a ‘complete course of political economy.’ His father made him write out a summary of the instructions given during their walks. The notes so made served for the father's treatise. The two afterwards carefully went through Adam Smith and Ricardo (see letter of 30 July 1819 in, pp. 6–9). Before his fourteenth birthday Mill had thus read much classical literature, had seriously studied logic and political economy, had read much history and general literature, and made a good start in mathematics. He records his own achievements as a proof that the years of childhood may be employed to better purpose than usual, and while admitting that his father was a stern and impatient teacher, declares also that the education was never mere ‘cram,’ but invariably directed to stimulate his powers of thought. [q. v.], when staying at Ford Abbey in 1814, reports that John, with his two sisters, were kept at lessons from six to nine, and again from ten to one, and that on one occasion their dinner hour had been put off from one till six because the sisters had made a mistake in a single word, and John had passed their exercise. He says that John is a ‘prodigy,’ but expects that he will grow up ‘morose and selfish’ (PLACE, Letters, communicated by Mr. Graham Wallas). Mill was brought up as a thorough agnostic, and says (ungrammatically) that he was one of the very few examples in this country of one who has ‘not thrown off religious belief, but never had it’ (Autobiography, p. 43). It appears, however, that the boy went to church in his infancy, and called Homer and the Bible the ‘two greatest books’ (, James Mill, p. 90).

In May 1820 Mill left London for France, and stayed there until July 1821. He lived with Sir [q. v.], partly at the Château Pompignon, between Toulouse and Montauban, and partly in Toulouse, besides making an excursion to the Pyrenees, and ascending the Pic du Midi, Bigorre. From a diary published by Professor Bain, it appears that he studied nine hours a day. He became a thorough French scholar, and acquired an interest in French society and politics which never failed. He continued his studies in mathematics, chemistry, and political economy, learnt some music, and took lessons with less success in dancing, fencing, and riding. He was devoted to walking, and an enthusiastic lover of scenery, but he was never athletic. He took up botany as an amusement while in France, under the influence doubtless of [q. v.], Sir Samuel's son, and was always an enthusiastic collector, though not a scientific botanist.