HIS ED UCA TION. 



[why so ?] to pronounce whether I was 

 more a loser or gainer by his severity. 

 It was not such as to prevent me from 

 having a happy childhood " (p. 5 2 )- 



" I went through the whole process of 

 preparing my Greek lessons in the same 

 room and at the same table at which he 

 was writing " (p. 6). " In my eighth 

 year I commenced learning Latin, in 

 conjunction with a younger sister, to 

 whom I taught it as I went on, and who 

 afterwards repeated the lessons to my 

 father ; and from this time, other sisters 

 and brothers being successively added 

 as pupils, a considerable part of my 

 day's work consisted of this preparatory 

 teaching. It was a part which I greatly 

 disliked ; the more so as I was held re- 

 sponsible for the lessons of my pupils in 

 almost as full a sense as for my own. 



. . . . In other respects, the ex- 

 perience of my boyhood is not favour- 

 able to the plan of teaching children by 

 means of one another. The teaching, I 

 am sure, is very inefficient as teaching, 

 and I well know that the relation be- 

 tween teacher and taught is not a good 

 moral discipline to either " (p. 10). 



" It is evident that this, among many 

 other of the purposes of my father's 

 scheme of education, could not have 

 been accomplished, if he had not care- 

 fully kept me from having any great 

 amount of intercourse with other boys. 

 He was earnestly bent upon my escap- 

 ing, not only the corrupting influence 

 which boys exercise over boys, but the 

 contagion of vulgar modes of thought 

 and feeling [!] ; and for this he was 

 willing that I should pay the price [a 

 heavy one] of inferiority in the accom- 

 plishments which school-boys in all 

 countries chiefly cultivate. The defi- 

 ciencies in my education were princi- 

 pally in the things which boys learn 

 from being turned out to shift for them- 

 selves, and from being brought to- 

 gether in large numbers. ... I 

 could do no feats of skill or physical 

 strength, and knew none of the ordinary 

 bodily exercises.* ... No holidays 



* Such exercises were, doubtless, for- 

 bidden him by his father, who seems to 

 have laid down a style of life for him to 

 follow, from which there was no appeal, 

 although that is not expressly stated. 

 During his absence on the Continent, 

 when about fifteen, he seems to have at- 

 tempted to make up for his early want of 

 bodily exercises, and when he could 

 indulge in them away from the control of 



were allowed I had no boy 



companions I consequently 



remained long, and in a less degree 

 have always remained, inexpert in any- 

 thing requiring manual dexterity ; my 

 mind, as well as my hands, did its work 

 very lamely when it was applied, or ought 

 to have been applied, to the practical de- 

 tails which, as they are the chief interest 

 of life to the majority of men, are also the 

 things in which whatever mental capa- 

 city [or common sense] they have, 

 chiefly shows itself: I was constantly 

 meriting reproof by inattention, inobser- 

 vance, and general slackness of mind 

 in matters of daily life. My father was 

 the extreme opposite in these particulars 

 [for he was brought up at a totally dif- 

 ferent school] : his senses and mental 

 faculties were always on the alert ; he 

 carried decision and energy of charac- 

 ter in his whole manner and into every 

 action of life : and this, as much as his 

 talents, contributed to the strong im- 

 pression which he always made upon 

 those with whom he came into personal 

 contact. But the children of energetic 

 parents frequently grow up unenergetic, 

 because they lean on their parents, and 

 the parents are energetic for them [and 

 consequently spoil them]. The educa- 

 tion which my father gave me was in 

 itself much more fitted for training me 

 to knoiu [like a ' parroter '] than to do. 

 Not that he was unaware of my de- 

 ficiencies ; both as a boy and as a youth 

 I was incessantly smarting under his 

 severe admonitions on the subject [as 

 did the Israelites when compelled by 

 Pharaoh to make bricks without straw]. 

 There was anything but insensibility or 

 tolerance on his part towards such 

 shortcomings [ ! ] : * but, while he saved 

 me from the demoralizing effects [and 

 manly influences] of school life, he made 

 no effort to provide me with any suffi- 

 cient substitute [what was it?] for its 

 practicalizing influences. Whatever 

 qualities he himself, probably, had ac- 

 quired, without difficulty or special 



his father, for he says : " During this resi- 

 dence in France ... I took lessons 

 in various bodily exercises, in none of 

 which, however, I made any proficiency " 

 (P- 57)- 



* Mill seems to have intended to say, 

 "anything but insensibility or zVztoler- 

 ance." There was anything but sensibility 

 or tolerance in his father's actions, as de- 

 scribed. 



