SCHOOL 11

tinual boyish question, " What is the go of this ?"
That the question of cause was acute in both cases
implies that both had hereditarily fine brains, but it
also suggests that the question is normal in those
who are naturally educated. The sensitive, irritable,
invalid father was no ideal parent, but he did not
snub his son's inquisitiveness, nor coerce his indepen-
dence, nor appeal to authority as such as a reason for
accepting any belief.

Spencer has given in his Autobiography a picture of
himself as a boy of thirteen. His constitution was
distinguished " rather by good balance than by great
vital activity "; there was " a large margin of latent
power '* ; he was more fleet than any of his school-
fellows. He was decidedly peaceful, but when en-
raged no considerations of pain or danger or anything
else restrained him. He was affectionate and tender-
hearted, but his most marked moral trait was dis-
regard of authority. His memory was rather below
par than above; he was "averse to lesson-learning
and the acquisition of knowledge after the ordinary
routine methods," but he picked up general informa-
tion with facility j he could not bear prolonged
reading or the receptive attitude. From about ten
years of age to thirteen he habitually went on Sunday
morning with his father to the Friends' Meeting
House, and in the evening with his mother to the
Methodist Chapel. "I do not know that any marked
effect on me followed; further, perhaps, than that
the alternation tended to enlarge my views by pre-
senting me with, differences of opinion and usage."
While John Mill kept his son away from conventional
religious influences, Spencer's father excluded none j