An Infant Prodigy

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29324, 1 October 1960, Page 3

An Infant Prodigy

A Manufactured Man: The Education of John Stuart Mill. By lan Cumming. University of Auckland Bulletin No. 55.

Many readers of Mill’s "Autobiography” have been impressed with young J6hn Stuart’s precocity. His father’s ambitious programme of tuition may be thought of as an educational experiment not often repeated and it is a commendable project to see what can be learned from it. It was, Dr. Cumming does well to remind us, not unsuccessful; it produced John Stuart Mill. Mill might have lacked some imaginative qualities, but it is difficult to say these were a result of his education rather than of his age and wider environment; he went through a period of unhappiness in youth blit this may be a normal enough phase more vividly described than is usual. It is a little difficult to find a coherent theme in this study of Mill’s education. The facts are well presented and it is useful to have an account drawing on several sources, including letters, together with comments based on modern educational theory. There is an ironical undertone which depends on a reader-who accepts the writer’s view of what is normal in education, and this is perhaps too much based on what is usual in the present phase of education in New Zealand. Here and now languages are thought difficult; but a good, deal o'f Sophistication in social and political study is expected. Dr; Cumming seems .more surprised that the young Mill should read Homer. in Greek than that he should have read history at all. Herodotus is described as "academic ostentation.” It is not impossible to agree with Mill’s own view that the battles of the “Iliad” make more appeal to an eight-year-old mind than to an adult, and a child is more likely to share the credulity of Herodotus, too. The mastery of a language is not itself remarkable; Greeks learn Greek at three, and bilingual children are not unknown.

A more imaginative leap from the limitations of the present and local might have made a' more valuable study, even if the conclusion that Mill’s achievement was gained at too high a price were maintained.