The boy was a mental prodigy, for he taught himself to read when four years old, and at five he had devoured hundreds of books and was already writing poems and plays. At ten, when he had his first tutor, his knowledge was wide and he had become a passionate lover of natural scenery, as well as no mean artist with pen and pencil. Scott's novels and Byron's _Childe Harold_ formed much of his reading at a time when most boys are content with the stories of Ballantyne or Mayne Reid. The range of his mental activity until he entered Oxford at eighteen was very wide. He was interested in mineralogy, meteorology, mathematics, drawing and painting. What probably expanded his mind more than all else was the education of travel. His father spent about half his time journeying through England and the Continent in an old-fashioned chaise and John always shared in these expeditions. At Oxford he competed for the Newdigate prize in poetry, and after being twice defeated won the coveted honor. He never gained any high scholarship, but he received valuable training in writing. There is no space here to chronicle more than a few of his many activities after leaving college. He first came into prominence by his passionate defense of the painter Turner against the art critics, and his study of Turner led him to adopt art criticism as his life work. At twenty-three years of age, when most youths are puzzled about their vocation, Ruskin had completed the first volume of _Modern Painters_, the publication of which gave him fame and made him a social lion in London. Other volumes of this great work followed swiftly and caused a great commotion in the world of art and letters because of the radical views of the author and the remarkable qualities of his style. This was followed by _The Seven Lamps of Architecture_, in which Ruskin expounded his radical views on this kindred art; _The Stones of Venice_, an eloquent book enforcing the argument that Gothic architecture sprang from a pure national faith and the domestic virtues; _King's Treasuries_, a noble plea for good books; _Fors Clavigera_, a series of ninety-six parts published in eight volumes, the record of his social experiments; _Preterita_, one of the most charming books of youthful reminiscences in any language, and many others. Ruskin's mental activity was enormous. He had to his credit in his fifty-five active years no less than seventy-two volumes and one hundred magazine articles, as well as thousands of lectures.