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The Scottish Education of James Mill

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 February 2017

Ian Cumming
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Extract

There was once a lad from the neighborhood of Auchinblae, in Kincardineshire, named James Milne. With Mill, Mills, Miln, and Milner, the surname Milne belongs to the ancient family of Miller, a trade name which is derived probably from the Gaelic Muileann, a meal (mill), thus signifying one who dwells at or near a mill, a miller. “The miller ground the corn and the bakester (Baxter) baked the bread.” James was brought up like “our rural ancestors, with little blest” to be “patient of labour”; he was accustomed to hard work; yet he was placid of temper; his natural reserve caused those whom he met to respect him for his canniness; although unendowed with great wisdom he had his measure of country shrewdness. A good, honest, humble workman, he was, moreover, punctilious in his Episcopalian devotions.

Type
Research Article
Information
History of Education Quarterly , Volume 2 , Issue 3 , September 1962 , pp. 152 - 167
Copyright
Copyright © 1962, University of Pittsburgh Press 

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References

Notes

1. A revised edition was entitled The Origin of the Distinction of Ranks: or An Inquiry into the Circumstances Which Give Rise to Influence and Authority in the Different Members of Society. Google Scholar

2. Bain, A., James Mill (London, 1882).Google Scholar

3. Epistle to J. Lapraik. Google Scholar

4. Melville, James, Diary 1556–1601 (Edinburgh, 1829).Google Scholar

5. See his article in the Edinburgh Review (February, 1813).Google Scholar

6. Ramsay, J., Scotland and Scotsmen in the Eighteenth Century (from the MSS of J. R. Esq. of Ochtertyre; edited by A. Allardyce) (Edinburgh, 1888).Google Scholar

7. From a letter written by Mill to Francis Place from Ford Abbey, October 26, 1817.Google Scholar

8. Ibid. Google Scholar

9. Humphrey Clinker, published in 1771.Google Scholar

10. Mackenzie, H., The Works of Henry Mackenzie, Vol. I (Edinburgh, 1808).Google Scholar

11. Cockburn, H. T., Memorials of His Time (Edinburgh, 1856).Google Scholar

12. Ibid. Google Scholar

13. James Mill in a letter to Macvey Napier, quoted by Bain in his James Mill. Google Scholar

14. In the chapter entitled “The Association of Ideas” in his Analysis of the Phenomena of the Human Mind Mill gives as an example of an idea being excited by another idea “the idea of Professor Dugald Stewart delivering a lecture, recalls the idea of the delight with which I heard him.”Google Scholar

15. Cockburn. In A Statistical Account of the University of Glasgow, published in 1799 and attributed to Thomas Reid, the author notes that “as Greek is now seldom regularly taught in public schools, the Professor is under the necessity of instructing a great number in the very elements of that language.”Google Scholar

16. See the chapter entitled “On the Conditions of Classical Learning” in Hamilton's Discussions on Philosophy and Literature, Education and University Reform (London, 1853) or the Edinburgh Review, Vol. LXIV, No. CXXIX (October, 1836).Google Scholar

17. Cockburn went to the “College of Edinburgh” first in October 1793.Google Scholar

18. Burness, Robert to his cousin Burness, James in Montrose in a letter dated at Lochlea, February 17, 1784 and quoted by Lockhart in his Life of Robert Burns. Google Scholar