Inaugural Address: Delivered to the University of St. Andrews

by John Stuart Mill

Reprint of the original, first published in 1867.

104 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 2000

About the author

John Stuart Mill, English philosopher, political economist, civil servant and Member of Parliament, was an influential liberal thinker of the 19th century. He was an exponent of utilitarianism, an ethical theory developed by Jeremy Bentham, although his conception of it was very different from Bentham's.

Reviews

[Nicole Cage · Rating 2 out of 5]

I change my mind!! This is not liberal education! Education for Mill is all in the service of what we can labor in and control!! There is nothing intrinsically good in this conception of education and all beholding and wondering is made the prey of experiment and use :(

It seems Mill and I still have soft/blind spots for utilitarian ways of seeing the world 🤷🏼‍♀️ but alas there is more to life than conducting experiments and just being cultured… here’s to intrinsic goods and life for life’s sake🥂

I did agree with the language part tho! Yay Greek 🥹

[Ray LaManna · Rating 5 out of 5]

Along with John Henry Newman's Idea of a University, this talk by Mill is the foundational text outlining the definition and goals of a liberal arts education...it is just as relevant today as it was 152 years ago.