When he was eight, he was familiar with Plato, had read all of Shakespeare's plays, and propounded a few hypotheses concerning the authorship of the "Sonnets." At nine he spoke Greek with an Attic accent. When ten he had read Prescott, Gibbon and Macaulay; and about this time, as a memory test he wrote a history of the world from the time of Moses down to the date of his own birth, giving a list of the greatest men who had ever lived, with a brief mention of what they had done, with the date of their birth and death. This book is still in existence and so far as I know has never 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.