MILL, JOHN STUART (1806-1873), English philosopher and economist, son of James Mill (q.v.), was born on May 20, 1806 in his father's house in Pentonville, London. He was edu cated exclusively by his father, who was a strict disciplinarian, and at the age of three was taught the Greek alphabet and long lists of Greek words with their English equivalents. By his eighth year he had read Aesop's Fables, Xenophon's Anabasis, and the whole of Herodotus, and was acquainted with Lucian, Diogenes Laertius, Isocrates and six dialogues of Plato. (See his Auto biography.) He had also read a great deal of history in English— Robertson's histories, Hume, Gibbon, Robert Watson's Philip II. and Philip III., Hooke's Roman History, part of a translation of Rollin's Ancient History, Langhorne's Plutarch, Burnet's History of My Own Times, 3o volumes of the Annual Register, Millar's Historical View of the English Government, Mosheim's Ecclesias tical History, M'Crie's Knox, and two histories of the Quakers. A contemporary record of Mill's studies from eight to thirteen is published in Bain's sketch of his life. It shows that the Auto biography rather understates the amount of work done. At the age of eight he began Latin, Euclid, and algebra, and began to teach the younger children of the family. His main reading was still history, but he went through all the Latin and Greek authors commonly read in the schools and universities. He was never an exact scholar; it was for the subject matter that he was required to read, and by the age of ten he could read Plato and Demos thenes with ease. His father's History of India was published in 1818 ; immediately thereafter, about the age of twelve, John began a thorough study of the scholastic logic, at the same time reading Aristotle's logical treatises in the original. In the following year he was introduced to political economy and studied Adam Smith and Ricardo with his father.
Not unnaturally the training which the younger Mill received has aroused amazement and criticism. The really important part of the training was the close association with the strenuous char acter and vigorous intellect of his father ; from his earliest days he spent much time in his father's study and habitually accom panied him on his walks in North London. It was an inevitable
result of such an education that Mill acquired many of his father's speculative opinions, and his father's way of defending them. But he did not receive the impress passively and mechanically. "One of the grand objects of education," according to the elder Mill, "should be to generate a constant and anxious concern about evi dence." The duty of collecting and weighing evidence for himself was at every turn impressed upon the boy; he was taught to accept no opinion on authority. He was deliberately educated to think for himself, and never to accept any proposition on authority, but to reason for himself. His childhood was not unhappy, but there is no doubt that it was a strain on his constitution, and that he suffered from the lack of natural unforced development. He was over-educated.
From May 182o till July 1821 Mill was in France in the family of Sir Samuel Bentham, brother of Jeremy Bentham. Copious extracts from a diary kept by him at this time are given by Bain; they show how methodically he read and wrote, studied chemistry and botany, tackled advanced mathematical problems, made notes on the scenery and the people and customs of the country. He also gained a thorough acquaintance with the French language. On his return in 1821 he added to his work the study of psychology, and that of Roman law, which he read with John Austin, his father having half decided on the bar as the best profession open to him. In 1822, however, when he had just completed his seventeenth year, this intention was abandoned, and he entered the examiner's office of the India House, nominally as a clerk, but from the first he was more than that, and after a short apprenticeship he was promoted, in 1828, to assistant-examiner. For twenty years, from 1836 (when his father died) to 1856, Mill had charge of the Corn pany's relations with the native states, and in 1856 he became chief of the office. Few statesmen of his generation had a wider experience of the responsible application of the principles of gov ernment.