"A family based in North London wants to find an extraordinary and qualified instructor to assist their smallest child on his first steps to becoming an British gentleman."
Looking at this advertisement, you might readily skip the wording "beginning" as just a turn of phrase.
But, it could be the most significant part of this distinctive employment listing, as it aims to recruit a tutor for a one-year-old.
Hundreds of submissions have now been submitted since the anonymous family published their search for the £180,000 per year tutor, who must be "an exceptional individual".
Over the last few weeks, the advert has received interest in the news, with several questioning why?
Forward-Thinking Method
The CEO, CEO and founder of Tutors International, which is helping the family in their hunt, stated that notwithstanding early skepticism, he considered the idea "forward-looking", and "innovative".
When he consulted the family, he noted they understood the atypical aspect of their request, and how immature their son is.
However, they explained that they "didn't want to wait any longer" to engage a tutor, as they had held off until their elder sibling was five, and by that age "cultural conditioning had by then become established".
What precisely does the family mean by "cultural leaning"?
It's "everything", he replied. "The way you eat, the way you speak".
He said the older sibling had adopted "really subtle, unspoken signals" from the family, and had assumed their cultural ways. The family told the consultant they wished to avoid this pattern to happen again with their infant.
The strategy: To engage a English tutor, who should speak with Received Pronunciation, to guide the baby right from the beginning.
Osmotic Learning
"A great deal of the education at the start here is somewhat absorbed naturally," explained Adam.
It's by means of this osmosis that the family are expecting the child will adopt the British traits they want to impart.
The consultant said the tutor must be an individual who went to "the right kinds of schools – comparable categories of schools as the family plan to send their son to".
"The instructor must be the right kind of person, they'll be carrying out things they may not realize they're doing, just naturally," he said.
Money No Object
The family told him the successful candidate should ideally also have knowledge of or enthusiasm in riding, alpine skiing, creative fields and musical activities so as to influence the child in a diverse set of interests.
Furthermore though, he explained the family wanted the tutor to sign up the child on a range of courses so the child would be "equestrian training and learning an tool by the time they are around three years old".
In the family's minds, helping their son grow into a "British gentleman" will bring about accomplishment and create opportunities.
"Taking into account the rights and wrongs of that, because it's undoubtedly a social class indicator," he notes.
But, despite all this instruction in "UK identity", could the child pick up so-called cultural leaning from the globally influenced family he lives with in any case?
"Yes", answered he. "They realize this may not work, but they've merely embraced the attitude of, 'let's give it a go and let's go as early as we can', because the cost of it is not relevant," he stated.
Impractical
Several in the tutoring industry who share those reservations.
Peter Cui, head and founder of Blue Education, who provides individual instructors, stated that "the process of adopting dual cultures, or in fact, discovering oneself, is something that must be lived into, not designed."
The expert explained that he had moved from China to the United Kingdom at the time of childhood, and had been brought up experiencing and living two backgrounds. He continued to be educated at Cambridge University.
"The concept that an individual can serve as a embodiment of UK identity, someone who can somehow transfer the attributes of a UK sophisticate to a one-year-old child, strikes me as idealistic and unfeasible," he commented.
"From my perspective, employing a distinctly UK tutor from infancy will will not automatically achieve the result they desire.
"I did not have that kind of mentor, and yet I have been lucky enough to enjoy many of the experiences they desire for their son."
He stated: "The truth is, personal identity should not be forced from the outside; it must be selected, and it must be internally driven."
Purchasing UK Culture
Certainly, English culture is something the expert believes can be instructed – and commercialized.
"In my view the reality that the international society views us in this respect is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating
