"A family based in the northern part of London is looking for an exceptional and skilled instructor to guide their most junior child on his early path to becoming an English gentleman."
Upon seeing this advertisement, you might naturally miss the wording "initial stages" as just figurative language.
However, it may be the crucial aspect of this distinctive position posting, as it seeks to recruit a tutor for a infant.
Many of applications have since been received since the anonymous family posted their search for the £180k-a-year tutor, who must be "someone very special".
In recent few weeks, the post has attracted interest throughout the press, with several questioning why?
Forward-Thinking Method
Adam Caller, chief executive of Tutors International, which is assisting the family in their search, said that notwithstanding first skepticism, he found the plan "forward-looking", and "advanced".
When he met the family, he said they understood the unusual aspect of their requirement, and how early in age their son is.
But, they explained that they "didn't want to wait any longer" to hire a tutor, as they had postponed until their firstborn was five, and by that age "cultural conditioning had already become established".
What precisely does the family refer to by "cultural predisposition"?
It's "everything", Adam replied. "The manner you eat, the manner you speak".
He stated the older sibling had absorbed "really subtle, unspoken signals" from the family, and had assumed their cultural habits. The family explained to Adam they hoped to prevent this pattern to repeat itself with their younger child.
The intention: To hire a British tutor, who must speak with standard English accent, to influence the baby from the very start.
Subtle Influence
"A great deal of the development at the start here is rather osmotic," said Adam.
It's through this subtle influence that the family are aiming the child will acquire the English characteristics they aim to instil.
The consultant said the tutor needed to be somebody who went to "the right kinds of schools – comparable categories of schools as the family aspire to send their son to".
"The instructor simply needs to be the appropriate candidate, they'll be doing things they aren't even aware they're doing, effortlessly," he added.
Cost Not Relevant
The family told the expert the selected educator should preferably also have familiarity of or enthusiasm in equestrian activities, winter sports, the arts and instrumental training so as to shape the child in a broad spectrum of interests.
More than that though, he said the family wanted the tutor to register the child on a variety of courses so the child would be "pony-riding and learning an musical instrument by the time they are about three years old".
In the family's minds, assisting their son grow into a "British gentleman" will result in achievement and open doors.
"Considering the pros and cons of that, because it's undoubtedly a status symbol," he notes.
Yet, notwithstanding all this guidance in "Britishness", could the child pick up alleged cultural bias from the international family he lives with in any case?
"Certainly", said he. "The parents know this could fail, but they've just taken the view of, 'we should try and we should start as quickly as we can', because the cost of it is not a concern," he said.
Impractical
A number of in the tutoring industry who have similar doubts.
Peter Cui, head and founder of an educational organization, who supplies personal educators, commented that "the development of becoming bicultural, or actually, discovering oneself, is something that must be lived into, not designed."
He noted that he had emigrated from the Far East to the Britain at the time of childhood, and had been brought up understanding and practicing dual heritages. He continued to be educated at a prestigious UK institution.
"The notion that an individual can act as a embodiment of English culture, an individual who can in some way transplant the characteristics of a English gentleman to a 12-month-old child, seems to me optimistic and unfeasible," he wrote.
"Based on my background, employing a quintessentially UK tutor from babyhood will does not automatically create the result they want.
"I never had that kind of mentor, and yet I have been fortunate enough to experience many of the situations they aspire for their son."
He added: "The reality is, personal identity cannot be dictated from the external environment; it must be chosen, and it must be internally driven."
Acquiring Englishness
Certainly, Britishness is something the expert hopes can be instructed – and sold.
"In my view the fact that the global community holds us in this respect is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating
