THE 



POPULAR SCIENCE 

 MONTHLY. 



APRIL, 1879. 



joh:n' stuakt mill 



Br ALEXANDER BAIX, LL. D., 



PROFESSOR IN THE PNIVEESITY OF ABERDEEN. 



I PROPOSE to review the life and character of John Stuart Mill. 

 In addition to what all the world may know, I am aided by per- 

 sonal recollections extending over the second half of his life, and by 

 documents in the possession of his family for some of the earlier por- 

 tions. 



My plan requires me to recall the account given in the " Autobi- 

 ography " of the successive stages of his early education. There is a 

 sort of pause or break at his eighth year, when he began Latin, His 

 years from three to eight are occupied with Greek, English and arith- 

 metic ; the Greek, strange to say, taking precedence. His earliest 

 recollection of all, we are led to suppose, although not explicitly af- 

 firmed, is his committing to memory lists of Greek words written by 

 his father on cards. He had been told that he was then three years 

 old. Of course reading English, both printed and written, was sup- 

 posed : and we have to infer that he had no recollection of that first 

 start of all, which must have been taken before he completed his third 

 year. And, judging from the work gone through by his eighth year, 

 he can not be far wrong in putting down the date of the Greek com- 

 mencement. 



A letter from his father to Bentham, dated July 25, 1809, affords 

 us a momentary glimpse of him at the age of three years and two 

 months. It was the occasion of the first visit to Bentham at Barrow 

 Green. The letter is an apology for not being able to come on the day 

 previously arranged, and is full of rather heavy joking about the do- 

 mestic obstructions. The passage to our present purpose is this : 



TOL. XIT.- 



