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"J.S. Mill started to learn to read when he was two, just like me, but he started Greek when he was three.
I only started when I was four. By the time he was seven he had read the whole of Herodotus, Xenophon's Cyropaedia and
Memorials of Socrates, some of the lives of the philosophers by Diogenes Laertius, portions of Lucius and Isocrates' ad
Demonicum and ad Nococlem, as well as the first six dialogues of Plato, from the Euthyphto to the Theaetetus!!!!
He also read a lot of historians I never even heard of. He didn't start the Iliad and Odyssey until later whereas I have read both
but they are the only thing I have read. I don't think he did any Arabic or Hebrew but the things I have read in them are rather easy and anyway I have not read a lot.
The thing that is worrying me is that Mr. Mill was rather stupid and had a bad memory and he grew up 180 years ago. I thought
it was quite unusual for a boy my age to read Greek because a lot of people on the Circle Line were surprised that I was reading it but now I think that this
is probably fallacious. ... And now I am supposed to start school in three months. ..."
"Today was my first day at school. ... I was very nervous because if people did not study any languages until they were 12, they must study some other thing and
I was ... behind. I thought maybe other people studied more mathematics and science and I had not even finished Algebra Made Easy. ...
Today was my second day at school. ... Miss Lewis said we should put away our drawing because it was time to do some
arithmetic. We were supposed to go to the addition positions and work at our own speed. At addition position 1 you do
a worksheet adding 1 to a number and at addition position 2 you add 2 to a number.
When I finished all the worksheets I was the only one at position 9 so I decided to do some multiplication. Addition
takes quite a long time to get anywhere unless you are adding big numbers and all the numbers at the positions were quite small. ...
Today was my fifth day of school. It was boring. ...
I worked out that I have spent 12 days in school which is 84 hours so I could have read 8400 lines of the Odyssey. I could have read
Herodotus or ad Nicoclem or Cyropaedia and Memorials of Socrates. I could have finished Algebra Made Easy. I could have started
Calculus Made Easy. ... The thing that is worrying me is that J.S. Mill did not go to school. He was taught by his father and
that was why he was 25 years ahead of everybody else.
I decided to take the Argonautica to school.
... Miss Lewis took it away and made me take it home again at the end of the day. ... Miss Lewis gave me a note to take
to Sibylla. She said this could not go on. ... Sibylla said now that I was 6 I was old enough to act like a rational
human being.
I said Miss Lewis told me to be a cooperative member of the class but when I tried to help people she said they should do
their own work but when I tried to do my own work and take the Algebra Made Easy to class she said I should try to be
more involved and be a cooperative member of the class. I said 'We are supposed to be working at our own speed but whenever I try she
tells me to stop and whenever I ask a question she does not know the answer. She does not know anything I do not know already
so I don't think there is any point in going to school.'
... Sibylla said, 'I think you are legally required to go until you are 16.'
Sibylla said, 'Please don't cry,' but at first I couldn't stop."
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