"A family residing in the northern part of London seeks an exceptional and qualified educator to guide their youngest child on his first steps to becoming an English gentleman."
Upon seeing this advertisement, you might readily miss the wording "initial stages" as simple figurative language.
However, it might be the most significant part of this unusual employment listing, as it seeks to hire a tutor for a infant.
Many of submissions have since been sent in since the unidentified family advertised their search for the £180,000 per year tutor, who needs to be "someone very special".
During the past few weeks, the advert has received attention throughout the media, with several questioning why?
Progressive Approach
A tutoring expert, chief executive of Tutors International, which is assisting the family in their search, said that notwithstanding first skepticism, he considered the plan "far sighted", and "innovative".
When he consulted the family, he said they appreciated the atypical aspect of their request, and how immature their son is.
However, they stated that they "preferred not to postpone any longer" to get a tutor, as they had waited until their older child was five, and by that age "cultural conditioning had already taken hold".
But what did the family indicate by "cultural predisposition"?
It's "all-encompassing", Adam responded. "The way you eat, the way you speak".
He stated the firstborn had adopted "extremely delicate, body language" from the family, and had taken on their cultural ways. The family explained to Adam they wished to avoid this pattern to happen again with their new baby.
The intention: To bring in a English tutor, who needs to speak with Received Pronunciation, to influence the baby from the very start.
Osmotic Learning
"Much of the learning at the beginning here is somewhat acquired indirectly," explained the CEO.
It's via this osmosis that the family are expecting the child will pick up the English characteristics they wish to cultivate.
The consultant explained the tutor had to be somebody who attended "the appropriate educational institutions – similar types of schools as the family plan to send their son to".
"The educator just has to be the right kind of person, they'll be doing things they don't even know they're doing, simply by nature," he added.
Expense Not a Factor
The family told him the successful candidate should preferably also have familiarity of or enthusiasm in horse riding, alpine skiing, the arts and musical activities so as to influence the child in a wide range of interests.
Furthermore though, he said the family wanted the tutor to enrol the child on a variety of courses so the child would be "equestrian training and picking up an instrument by the time they are around three years old".
In the family's minds, assisting their son develop into a "British gentleman" will bring about achievement and open doors.
"Taking into account the advantages and disadvantages of that, because it's certainly a status symbol," he adds.
Yet, notwithstanding all this tutelage in "Britishness", could the child pick up so-called cultural bias from the globally influenced family he lives with regardless?
"Yes", answered the CEO. "They realize this might not succeed, but they've merely embraced the view of, 'we should try and let's go as soon as we can', because the cost of it is irrelevant," he said.
Overly Optimistic
A number of in the tutoring industry who share those reservations.
Peter Cui, chief executive of Blue Education, who supplies individual instructors, wrote that "the process of adopting dual cultures, or actually, forming one's identity, is something that must be lived into, not manufactured."
Peter noted that he had emigrated from China to the Britain at the time of childhood, and had been educated understanding and living both cultures. He went on to be educated at Cambridge University.
"The idea that one individual can function as a embodiment of English culture, an individual who can somehow impart the qualities of a British gentleman to a one-year-old child, seems to me optimistic and impractical," he wrote.
"Based on my background, employing a quintessentially English tutor from infancy will will not automatically achieve the outcome they hope for.
"I wasn't provided with that kind of mentor, and nevertheless I have been privileged enough to live numerous of the situations they desire for their son."
He continued: "The truth is, personal identity cannot be forced from the external environment; it must be embraced, and it must originate internally."
Purchasing UK Culture
Certainly, English culture is something the expert believes can be instructed – and marketed.
"I believe the situation that the world regards us in this respect is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating
