What was the 'common arrangement'? An inquiry into John Stuart Mill's boyhood reading of Plato

John Stuart Mill's Autobiography records that in 1813, when he was seven ye ars old, he read, in Greek, 'the first six dialogues (in the common arrange ment) of Plato, from the Euthyphron to the Theaetetus inclusive'. Which wer e the other dialogues? On the arrangement common today, it would be Crito, Apology, Phaedo, Cratylus. On the arrangement common then, Theages and Eras tai replace Cratylus, which makes seven dialogues instead of six. I argue t hat it must have been those seven, on the evidence of James Mill's Common P lace Books, his writing son Plato, and a survey of the editions available i n 1813. This evidence makes it possible to discover which collected edition of Plato Mill's father owned and which edition he would prefer the boy to read. Conditions for studying Plato in the original were much harder than w e are used to. The inquiry highlights both the ideological purity of the ed ucation James Mill designed for his son, and the difficulties he faced in r ealizing his plan. Much can be learned on the way about the publishing hist ory of Plato.