John Stuart Mill was initiated into what one of his biographers, Alice Rossi, described as ‘perhaps the most intensive study regimen any child has ever been subjected to.’ By three he was learning Greek. By six he had written a history of Rome. By seven he was reading Plato. By eight he was learning Latin. By nine he had already read the Iliad dozens of times. By 11 he was on Aristotle. By 12 he had consumed whole libraries of Ancient Greek and Roman texts, studied logic and oratory, and developed a comprehensive understanding of Athenian institutions, legislation and governance. By 13 he had
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