r been
equaled by the performance of any infant prodigy, save possibly John
Stuart Mill.

When twelve years of age he had read Vergil, Sallust, Tacitus, Ovid,
Juvenal and Catullus. He had also mastered trigonometry, surveying,
navigation, geometry and differential calculus.

Before his grandmother had him discard knee-breeches, he kept his diary
in Spanish, spoke German at the table, and read German philosophy in the
original. The year he was sixteen he wrote poems after Dante in Italian
and translated Cervantes into English.

At seventeen he read the Hebrew scriptures like a Rabbi, and was
familiar with Sanskrit.

Now, let no carpist imagine I have dealt in hyperbole, or hand-illumined
the facts: I have merely stated some simple truths about the early
career of John Fiske.

One might imagine that with all his wonderful achievements this youth
would be top-heavy and a most insufferable prig. The fact was, he was a
fine, rollicking, healthy young man much given to pranks, and withal
generous and lovable.

He was admitted to Harvard without examination, for his fame had
preceded him. Students and professors alike looked at him in wonder.

At Cambridge, as if to keep good his record, he studied thirteen hours a
day, for twelve months in the year. He ranged through every subject in
the catalog, and all recorded knowledge was to him familiar.

Prophecies were freely made that he would eclipse Sir Isaac Newton and
Humboldt. But there were others who had a clearer vision.

John Fiske made a decided success in life and left his personality
distinctly impressed upon his time, but it is no disparagement to say of
him that Autumn did not fulfil the promise of Spring. And Fiske himself
in his single original contribution to the evolution crusade explains
the reason why.

Professor Santayanna of Harvard once said that John Fiske made three
great scientific discoveries, as follows:

1. As you lengthen a pigeon's bill, you increase the size of its feet.

2. White tomcats with blue eyes are always deaf.

3. The extent of mental development in any animal is in proportion to
its infancy or the length of time involved in its reaching physical
maturity.

Waiving Numbers One and Two as of doubtful value, Number Three is
Fiske's sole original discovery, according to his confession. Further,
Huxley quotes Fiske on this theme, and adds, "The delay of adolescence
and the prolonging of the period of infancy form a subject, as e