Editing Harold Macmillan (section)

===Education and early political views===
Macmillan received an intensive early education, closely guided by his American mother. He learned French at home every morning from a succession of nursery maids, and exercised daily at Mr Macpherson's Gymnasium and Dancing Academy, around the corner from the family home.{{sfn|Horne|2008|p=13}} From the age of six or seven he received introductory lessons in classical Latin and Greek at [[The Eaton House Group of Schools#Eaton House Belgravia Pre-Prep and Prep|Mr Gladstone's day school]], close by in [[Sloane Square]].{{sfn|Williams|2010|p=15}}<ref>{{cite news |title=Mr T.S. Morton |date=23 January 1962 |work=The Times }}</ref>

Macmillan attended [[Summer Fields School]], [[Oxford]] (1903–06). He was Third Scholar at [[Eton College]],{{sfn|Horne|1988|p=15}} but his time there (1906–10) was blighted by recurrent illness, starting with a near-fatal attack of pneumonia in his first half (term); he missed his final year after being taken ill,{{sfn|Horne|2008|p=16}}<ref>Simon Ball, ''The Guardsmen, Harold Macmillan, Three Friends and the World They Made'', (London, Harper Collins), 2004, p. 19.</ref> and was taught at home by private tutors (1910–11), notably [[Ronald Knox]], who did much to instil his [[High Church]] [[Anglicanism]].{{sfn|Williams|2010|pp=19–26}} He won an [[exhibition (scholarship)]] to [[Balliol College, Oxford]].{{sfn|Horne|1988|p=15}}

In his youth, he was an admirer of the policies and leadership of a succession of [[Liberal Party (UK)|Liberal]] prime ministers, starting with [[Henry Campbell-Bannerman]], who came to power when Macmillan was 11 years old and [[H. H. Asquith]], whom he later described as having "intellectual sincerity and moral nobility", and particularly of Asquith's successor, [[David Lloyd George]], whom he regarded as a "man of action", likely to accomplish his goals.{{sfn|Thorpe|2010}}{{pn|date=October 2022}}

Macmillan went up to Balliol College in 1912, where he joined many political societies. His political opinions at this stage were an eclectic mix of moderate conservatism, moderate liberalism and [[Fabian Society|Fabian]] socialism. He read avidly about [[Benjamin Disraeli|Disraeli]], but was also particularly impressed by a speech by Lloyd George at the [[Oxford Union Society]] in 1913, where he had become a member. Macmillan was a protégé of the [[List of Presidents of the Oxford Union|president of the Union Society]] [[Walter Monckton]], later a Cabinet colleague; as such, he became secretary then junior treasurer (elected unopposed in March 1914, then an unusual occurrence) of the Union, and would in his biographers' view "almost certainly" have been president had the war not intervened.{{sfn|Horne|1988|p=22}}<ref>Thorpe 2010, p. 41</ref> He obtained a First in [[Honour Moderations]], informally known as 'Mods' (consisting of Latin and Greek, the first half of the four-year Oxford ''[[Literae Humaniores]]'' course, informally known as "Classics"), in 1914. With his final exams over two years away, he enjoyed an idyllic [[Trinity term]] at Oxford, just before the outbreak of the First World War.<ref>''Supermac''.</ref>