John Stuart Mill: A Criticism with Personal Recollections

CHAPTER I.
EARLY EDUCATION.
18061821.
IT was said of the famous Swedish Chemist, Bergman, that
he had made many discoveries, but his greatest was the
discovery of Scheele. In like manner, it will be said of James
Mill that his greatest contribution to human progress was his
son, whom he educated to be his fellow-worker and successor.
John Stuart Mill was born on the 2oth May, 1806, in the
house, now No. 13 Rodney Street, Pentonville.
We need to refer to the Autobiography, for the commence
ment of his education. It is stated to have begun at three
years of age; and there is a sort of pause
or break at his
eighth year, when he began Latin. The five years from three
to eight are occupied with Greek, English, and Arithmetic ;
Greek, strange to say, taking precedence. The earliest recol
lection he had, we are led to believe, although it is not explicitly
affirmed, 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 presupposed ; and we have to infer that he
had no recollection of that first start of all, which must have
been made before he completed his third year. Judging from
the work gone through by his eighth year, he cannot be far
wrong in putting down the date of the Greek commencement.
In his father s biography, I have given a letter to Bentham,
dated 25th July, 1809, on the occasion of the first visit to
Bentham at Barrow Green. I repeat a short passage from that
the