"Parents residing in north London is looking for an remarkable and skilled educator to support their most junior child on his early path to becoming an English gentleman."
Looking at this listing, you might readily overlook the phrase "beginning" as mere an expression.
However, it may be the most significant aspect of this distinctive job advert, as it seeks to hire a teacher for a one-year-old.
Many of submissions have already been submitted since the unnamed family posted their call for the £180k-a-year tutor, who has to be "someone very special".
Over the last few weeks, the post has received interest throughout the press, with many wondering why?
Progressive Approach
A tutoring expert, chief executive of Tutors International, which is helping the family in their hunt, said that notwithstanding initial doubt, he considered the plan "forward-looking", and "advanced".
When he consulted the family, he said they recognized the atypical character of their requirement, and how young their son is.
Nevertheless, they clarified that they "were unwilling to delay any longer" to get a tutor, as they had held off until their firstborn was five, and by that point "cultural conditioning had already become established".
What exactly does the family mean by "cultural bias"?
It's "comprehensive", Adam replied. "The manner you eat, the manner you speak".
He explained the elder child had picked up "really subtle, body language" from the family, and had assumed their cultural ways. The family explained to him they did not want history to recur with their younger child.
The plan: To bring in a English tutor, who must speak with standard English accent, to shape the baby from the very start.
Natural Absorption
"A great deal of the development at the start here is somewhat absorbed naturally," stated Adam.
It's through this osmosis that the family are aiming the child will pick up the British traits they want to impart.
The consultant explained the tutor must be someone who attended "the appropriate educational institutions – the same kinds of schools as the family plan to send their son to".
"The educator must be the appropriate candidate, they'll be carrying out things they aren't even aware they're doing, just naturally," he added.
Money No Object
The family informed him the selected educator should ideally also have familiarity of or enthusiasm in horse riding, skiing, the arts and music so as to shape the child in a broad spectrum of passions.
More than that though, he stated the family desired the tutor to sign up the child on a variety of lessons so the child would be "pony-riding and learning an tool by the time they are about three years old".
In the family's perspective, helping their son develop into a "British gentleman" will result in success and open doors.
"Taking into account the rights and wrongs of that, because it's definitely a class statement," he notes.
However, notwithstanding all this tutelage in "English culture", could the child adopt alleged cultural leaning from the international family he lives with anyway?
"Absolutely", answered he. "The parents realize this may not work, but they've merely embraced the view of, 'we should try and we'll proceed as quickly 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 those doubts.
Another CEO, chief executive of Blue Education, who supplies private tutors, wrote that "the process of adopting dual cultures, or in fact, forming one's identity, is something that must be experienced personally, not engineered."
He noted that he had emigrated from China to the UK at the age of childhood, and had been raised understanding and embodying both cultures. He continued to study at the University of Cambridge.
"The concept that an individual can function as a embodiment of Britishness, a person who can possibly impart the characteristics of a English gentleman to a 12-month-old child, seems to me idealistic and impractical," he commented.
"In my experience, employing a distinctly English tutor from babyhood will does not instantly create the goal they hope for.
"I did not have such a tutor, and however I have been fortunate enough to live many of the situations they hope for their son."
He continued: "The reality is, personal identity cannot be forced from the external environment; it must be selected, and it must come from within."
Buying Britishness
Naturally, Britishness is something Adam thinks can be taught – and marketed.
"In my view the situation that the world regards us in this light is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating
