arly funds or tithes given for church and schools out of the
spoils of the Ancient Church by the Lords of the Congregation.
Education was not free, but it was cheap, and it was general. Scotchmen
made their way all over the world better than Englishmen mainly because
they were better educated. The Sunday school was not so much needed,
and was much later in establishing itself in Scotland. Good Hannah More
taught girls to read the Bible under a spreading tree in her garden
because no church would give her a place to teach in. "If girls were
taught to read where would we get servants?" It was an early cry.

CHAPTER IX.

MEETING WITH J. S. MILL AND GEORGE ELIOT.

I leave to the last of my experiences in the old world in 1865-6 my
interviews with John Stuart Mill and George Eliot. Stuart Mill's wife
was the sister of Arthur and of Alfred Hardy, of Adelaide, and the
former had given to me a copy of the first edition of Mill's "Political
Economy," with the original dedication to Mrs. John Taylor, who
afterwards became Mill's wife, which did not appear in subsequent
editions; but, as he had two gift copies of the same edition, Mr. Hardy
sent it on to me with his almost illegible handwriting:--"To Miss
Spence from the author, not, indeed, directly, but in the confidence
felt by the presenter that in so doing he is fulfilling the wish of the
author--viz., circulating his opinions, more especially in such
quarters as the present, where they will be accurately considered and
tested." I had also seen the dedication to Harriet Mill's beloved
memory of the noble book on "Liberty." Of her own individual work there
was only one specimen extant--an article on the "Enfranchisement of
women," included in Mill's collected essays--very good, certainly, but
not so overpoweringly excellent as I expected. Of course, it was an
early advocacy of the rights of women, or rather a revival of Mary
Wollstoneeraft's grand vindication of the rights of the sex; and this
was a reform which Mill himself took up more warmly than proportional
representation, and advocated for years before Mr. Hare's revelation.
For myself, I considered electoral reform on the Hare system of more
value than the enfranchisement of women, and was not eager for the
doubling of the electors in number, especially as the new voters would
probably be more ignorant and more apathetic than the old. I was
accounted a weak-kneed sister by those who worked primarily for woman