About Mill

b. 1806 CE - d. 1873 CE

English philosopher and economist, son of James Mill, was born in his father’s house in Pentonville, London. He was educated, 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. Not unnaturally the training which the younger Mill received has aroused amazement and criticism, and it is reasonable to doubt whether the mate- rial knowledge which he retained the result was as valuable to him as his father imagined. It is important, however, to note that the really important part of the training was the close association which it involved with the strenuous character and vigorous intellect of his father. “One of the grand objects of education,” according to the elder Mill, “should be to generate a constant and anxious concern about evidence.” 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 as an apostle, but it was as an apostle of reasoned truth in human affairs, not as an apostle of any system of dogmatic tenets.