"A household based in the northern part of London wants to find an exceptional and skilled instructor to support their most junior child on his early path to becoming an English gentleman."
When reading this post, you might readily miss the wording "initial stages" as mere an expression.
But, it may be the most significant element of this unusual job advert, as it seeks to recruit a tutor for a 12-month-old.
Hundreds of submissions have now been received since the unnamed family published their request for the £180,000 per year tutor, who needs to be "someone very special".
During the past few weeks, the post has gained attention across the press, with several questioning why?
Progressive Approach
A tutoring expert, chief executive of an education consultancy, which is supporting the family in their search, stated that despite first skepticism, he viewed the plan "visionary", and "innovative".
When he met the family, he said they appreciated the unconventional character of their request, and how early in age their son is.
However, they explained that they "preferred not to postpone any longer" to hire a tutor, as they had postponed until their elder sibling was five, and by that point "cultural conditioning had by then taken hold".
But what did the family indicate by "cultural leaning"?
It's "comprehensive", the expert answered. "The manner you eat, the manner you speak".
He stated the firstborn had adopted "very nuanced, unspoken signals" from the family, and had assumed their cultural ways. The family told the consultant they did not want the same situation to repeat itself with their younger child.
The strategy: To engage a English tutor, who needs to speak with Received Pronunciation, to influence the baby from the very start.
Osmotic Learning
"A great deal of the development at the start here is somewhat absorbed naturally," stated the CEO.
It's through this natural absorption that the family are expecting the child will acquire the English characteristics they aim to impart.
He noted the tutor had to be someone who attended "the appropriate educational institutions – comparable categories of schools as the family plan to send their son to".
"The instructor just has to be the suitable individual, they'll be doing things they don't even know they're doing, effortlessly," he said.
Expense Not a Factor
The family explained to him the selected educator should preferably also have knowledge of or enthusiasm in riding, winter sports, creative fields and musical activities so as to shape the child in a broad spectrum of passions.
Additionally though, he said the family desired the tutor to enrol the child on a variety of courses so the child would be "horseback riding and starting an tool by the time they are approximately three years old".
In the family's perspective, assisting their son grow into a "English gentleman" will bring about achievement and create opportunities.
"Considering the rights and wrongs of that, because it's certainly a class statement," he comments.
However, despite all this tutelage in "English culture", might the child pick up alleged cultural bias from the multicultural family he lives with anyway?
"Absolutely", said he. "They know this might not succeed, but they've simply adopted the perspective of, 'let's give it a go and we should start as soon as we can', because the cost of it is not a concern," he said.
Idealistic and Unrealistic
There are some in the tutoring industry who express these concerns.
Peter Cui, chief executive of Blue Education, who supplies individual instructors, stated that "the development of becoming bicultural, or in fact, discovering oneself, is something that must be grown into, not designed."
He noted that he had moved from the Far East to the UK at the period of 7 years old, and had been educated knowing and practicing both cultures. He continued to study at a prestigious UK institution.
"The concept that a single person can act as a living vessel of Britishness, an individual who can somehow impart the attributes of a British gentleman upon a infant child, seems to me naive and unfeasible," he commented.
"In my experience, employing a quintessentially British tutor from infancy will not instantly create the result they want.
"I did not have such a figure, and yet I have been lucky enough to experience many of the experiences they hope for their son."
He added: "The reality is, self-identity should not be forced from the external environment; it must be embraced, and it must come from within."
Buying Britishness
Of course, Britishness is something the CEO believes can be instructed – and marketed.
"In my view the situation that the international society views us in this light is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating
