SCHOOL 9

years old | he was a keen collector of insects, watch-
ing their metamorphoses, and often drawing and
describing hie captures 5 and he waa also encouraged
to make models. In short, he had in a simple way
not a few of the disciplines which modern paeda-
gogka—helped greatly by Spencer himself—has
recognised to be taluttry,

In his boyhood Spencer was extremely prone to
castle-building or day-dreaming—««a habit which
continued throughout youth and into mature life;
finally passing* I auppose, into the dwelling on
schemes more or less practicable.*' For his tendency
to absorption, without which there has seldom been
greatness of achievement, he was often reproached by
his father in the words: ** As usual, Herbert, thinking
only of one thing at t time,*1

He did not read tolerably until he was over seven
yean old, and Smjjfur& andMtrton was the first book
that prompted Mm to read of his own accord* He
ripidly advanced to T&t Gastk of 0fronts and similar
romeacaa, all the more delectable that they wtre
forbidden fruits. While John Stuart Mill was work-
ing «t the Greek classics, Herbert Spencer was reading
novels la bed. But the appetite for reading was toon
cloyed, and he became Incapable of enjoying anything
but novels tad travels for more than an hour or two
it a time*

&£w/.~—As to more definite Intellectual culture,
the first school period (before ten years) seema to
have counted for little, and is Interesting only because
it revealed tht boy's general aversion to rote-learning
and dogmatic statements. Shielded from direct
punishment, he lived in an atmosphere of reproof,being drowned when itbotit tenif I urn greatly given to it, She wai