"A family based in North London seeks an exceptional and skilled educator to guide their youngest child on his early path to turning into an English gentleman."
Looking at this listing, you might easily overlook the phrase "beginning" as just a turn of phrase.
However, it might be the most important element of this distinctive employment listing, as it seeks to recruit a teacher for a infant.
Numerous of responses have since been sent in since the anonymous family posted their search for the £180,000 per year tutor, who has to be "someone very special".
Over the last few weeks, the post has attracted attention throughout the media, with many wondering why?
Forward-Thinking Method
Adam Caller, CEO and founder of Tutors International, which is assisting the family in their search, stated that in spite of early skepticism, he viewed the idea "far sighted", and "innovative".
When he consulted the family, he mentioned they appreciated the atypical nature of their request, and how early in age their son is.
However, they stated that they "preferred not to postpone any longer" to hire a tutor, as they had waited until their firstborn was five, and by that point "cultural conditioning had already set in".
But what does the family refer to by "cultural bias"?
It's "comprehensive", Adam replied. "How you eat, how you speak".
He stated the older sibling had absorbed "really subtle, non-verbal cues" from the family, and had taken on their cultural ways. The family informed the consultant they hoped to prevent the same situation to happen again with their infant.
The strategy: To bring in a English tutor, who needs to speak with standard English accent, to guide the baby right from the beginning.
Natural Absorption
"A great deal of the education at the outset here is rather acquired indirectly," stated the CEO.
It's via this natural absorption that the family are hoping the child will pick up the British traits they aim to impart.
He noted the tutor had to be someone who studied at "the appropriate educational institutions – the same kinds of schools as the family hope to send their son to".
"The instructor simply needs to be the suitable individual, they'll be performing things they aren't even aware they're doing, effortlessly," he added.
Money No Object
The family told him the selected educator should ideally also have familiarity of or passion in equestrian activities, alpine skiing, artistic pursuits and instrumental training so as to inspire the child in a wide range of hobbies.
Furthermore though, he explained the family wanted the tutor to sign up the child on a range of classes so the child would be "horseback riding and starting an instrument by the time they are around three years old".
In the family's perspective, guiding their son develop into a "British gentleman" will lead to achievement and create opportunities.
"For all the rights and wrongs of that, because it's undoubtedly a social class indicator," he adds.
But, despite all this instruction in "English culture", would the child adopt alleged cultural leaning from the multicultural family he lives with in any case?
"Certainly", said the CEO. "They realize this may not work, but they've merely embraced the attitude of, 'why not attempt it and let's go as early as we can', because the price of it is irrelevant," he explained.
Impractical
There are some in the tutoring industry who have these doubts.
Peter Cui, head and founder of a tutoring service, who provides individual instructors, stated that "the journey of adopting dual cultures, or indeed, forming one's identity, is something that must be grown into, not manufactured."
He noted that he had emigrated from the Far East to the Britain at the age of childhood, and had been educated understanding and living two backgrounds. He went on to study at Cambridge University.
"The notion that one individual can act as a living vessel of UK identity, an individual who can in some way transplant the attributes of a British gentleman upon a 12-month-old child, appears optimistic and unrealistic," he wrote.
"From my perspective, employing a quintessentially British tutor from infancy will will not necessarily achieve the goal they hope for.
"I wasn't provided with that kind of mentor, and yet I have been privileged enough to enjoy numerous of the experiences they aspire for their son."
He stated: "The fact is, cultural identity should not be dictated from the outside influences; it must be selected, and it must originate internally."
Buying Britishness
Of course, English culture is something the expert thinks can be taught – and commercialized.
"I believe the fact that the global community views us in this respect is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating
