ABOUT THE BOYS.
The poor boys! When I begin to write about their home I could almost
weep when I think how small a space of their young lives they are
permitted to spend under the home roof.
I have said so much in my former book about home education that I
suppose I must not say very much more now, but I long to repeat my
protest against the present manner in which boys are sent away from
home, almost before they are able to stand alone, quite before they are
able to withstand all the thousand and one temptations that assail them
the moment they are turned into the herd of boys which represents a
school, and where the poor things have to spend most of what ought to
be the very happiest part of anyone’s life. However, as public opinion
is against me, I am going to set down here the best way of mitigating
the evils, and I also intend to give the relative expenses at some of
the best of our public schools and colleges, so that those who read this
book may see at a glance whether they can afford to send their boys to
Harrow, Eton, Rugby, or Clifton--Harrow being put first by me, as I am
devoted to the bright, healthy, happy place, as I suppose all are
devoted to the public school of which they know most; for, much as I
deprecate the life at school which is so far away from home influence,
and much as I should prefer to live at Harrow and have my boys home at
night, there is something about a public school education which nothing
else gives, and which can be entered fearlessly at fourteen if the boy
have been well trained and if he have a certain amount of moral courage
and good principles of his own. It is madness to send a weak-minded lad
who inherits evil propensities to a public school; he is sure sooner or
later to disgrace himself and his wretched parents at the same time.
But before going into the question of schools and expenses there, let us
dwell for a few minutes on the arrangement of the boys’ rooms in the
house, which should ever be the happiest place in the world to them, and
from which should flow that never-failing stream of sympathy in their
progress, their pursuits, and their general welfare which has borne many
a lad on to success and to a brilliant place in the world in after life.
An authority told me once that the boys who did best were undoubtedly
those who had most letters from home; who knew everything that was
happening at home just as well as if they were there; to whom the
movements of the family and of the animals were as familiar as if they
still were among them, and who were not afraid to tell their parents
anything. Sympathy is a priceless gift; sympathy between home and the
boys at school is an anchor indeed, and will keep them safely in the
harbour when every other means might otherwise have failed. And this
sympathy can but be expressed in constant communication between home and
school, and by a loving care, while the boys are absent, of their rooms,
their belongings, and the especial niche which should be kept sacredly
for them, and not cleared out hastily for them to inhabit, as it were,
on sufferance during the all too brief holiday time they spend at home.
I do not mean to say that during their absence the rooms should never be
used, that would be simply too ridiculous; but they should not be taken
into household wear; if they are they cease to be the boys’ rooms, and
in consequence the boys feel they are a nuisance and putting some one
else out; they do not naturally take their places in the circle, feeling
they are filling a gap which has never been filled since the day they
returned to school.
I should certainly try to have a place set apart for the boys for wet
days and for their own special occupations; if this cannot be managed,
their bedrooms should be so arranged that at one end they can carry on
their several hobbies without doing any damage to the finer portions of
the house; but, if in any way possible, secure a sitting-room for them
where they can do as they like; and if you want really perfect holidays
find some enthusiastic skater, cricketer, or walker as holiday tutor,
and make him responsible for the welfare of the boys. As they do not
live at home, naturally there is no one told off to keep special care of
them or to go about with them; if this is done, the holidays pass
without a hitch, and without unduly threatening the mother’s life, who,
try as she will, cannot be sure that, if the boys are out alone for half
an hour longer than usual, they are not drowned, or lost, or lying in
ditches with broken legs, and who can never school herself to be their
companion, even should she be strong enough to be so, because she is
always expecting something dreadful to happen to them. At least I know
what I feel on the subject, and I suppose I only feel what everyone else
does in the matter. In the boys’ rooms, whether bed or sitting rooms, I
advise always the invaluable dado; this ensures the lower parts of the
wall being kept tidy, and minimises the expense of doing the rooms up
when they become shabby. A rail along the floor, or rather a piece of
wood about three inches wide laid along the floor close to the
wainscoting, will keep the chairs, &c., off the paint, and then, if we
have a pretty paper above the serviceable matting, or cretonne, or arras
cloth which forms the dado, we shall be quite safe to preserve the room
for some time, looking fresh and nice and bright.
If baths have to be taken in the boys’ rooms, or if they clean their
rifles, skates, or other matters there, or if they have pet animals
which share their abode, I strongly advise that the floor should be
covered with a plain good linoleum without any pattern on, and then on
the top of that a strong square of carpet should be laid. Wallace’s
‘Victor’ is a capital carpet, and so is Pearke’s Anglo-Indian square
carpet. This should not be fastened down in any way, and should be most
rigorously folded back by the housemaid during those hours when bathing
or dirty work is being carried on. The linoleum can always be cleaned
with soft warm water, and kept in order with boiled oil and turpentine,
and the carpet can be put back in a moment, thus making the room tidy at
once.
Rubbishy cheap furniture should never be bought for a boy’s room.
Naturally by this I do not mean we should be unduly reckless over what
we buy for the boys, but that we should go to some good man like
Wallace, and tell him that we want good seasoned wood and handles which
will not pull off, and drawers and doors which will not stick, and which
will not tempt the lads by such conduct to undue violence in the matter.
Boys are always in a hurry, always impatient. They can’t help it; it is
a failing of the sex, and half the damage boys do is caused by the fact
that we do not realise this and often give them rickety or common
furniture, because ‘anything is good enough for the boys to knock
about.’ There cannot be a greater mistake. Give strong ash furniture,
made properly, a good plain brass and iron bedstead, and a good chain
mattress, and we shall find it pay; yes, even if the boys play ship on
the mattress, the necessary waves being well represented by the manner
in which the mattress goes up and down when jumped upon by the intrepid
sailors. Our mattresses have served as ships and as oceans too, but they
are as good now as the day they were bought, simply because they were
very expensive; but if they had not been dear I don’t think there would,
have been anything left of them by now; therefore cheapness is no
economy, as regards mattresses at any rate; of that I am quite
convinced. A good suite of ash furniture containing wardrobe, washing
stand, and toilet table can be had for about 10_l._, and I do not advise
less being given. This should be supplemented by a chest of drawers to
hold shirts, socks, &c., and the boots should be kept either downstairs
in the cloak-room or else in a proper boot cupboard; and I strongly
advise the toilet covers to be in art serge, simply trimmed by a species
of edging in crewels composed of about nine stitches, one long, one
shorter each side of the long stitch, and one each side shorter still,
like this:
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This should be carried round the edges of the cover in a lighter shade
than the serge itself, and would cost about 2_s._ a cover, or indeed
less, as serge is double width. There would be no ball fringe to pull
off by shutting it heedlessly in a drawer, and there would be nothing we
could not easily replace, should blacking, paint, oil, or any of the
thousand and one messes in which boys seem to revel be spilled upon it.
White toilet covers are absolutely useless, and of course it would be
really ridiculous to give them more elaborate covers, which could only
be spoiled.
It would not be of much use here to give any special schemes of
decoration for boys’ rooms, but I may say that the cheaper the wall
paper is above the dado the better. Boys are continually adding to their
stores of pictures and ornaments, and are as continually shooting at a
mark on the wall with anything that comes handy, and are not above
giving the flowers on the paper a nose, or a mouth from which a pipe
proceeds, or ears which resemble those of a donkey; and though these
decorations may be left a certain time it is best to have such a paper
which, while being pretty, is one that we can replace without an undue
struggle on our part; and I may mention Haines’s capital 7½_d._ blue and
terra-cotta papers. The blue could have blue paint, and a blue matting
dado, and a yellow and white ceiling paper; the terra-cotta might have
ivory paint, a terra-cotta and green cretonne dado, and curtains of the
same cretonne. Helbronner has a beauty, 604, at 1_s._ 8_d._ a yard, and
the ceiling paper could be Land’s pale green and white ‘Watteau’ at
3_s._ the piece. Wallace’s dull green ‘lily carpet’ would make a capital
square there, as would his red lily in the blue room, where the cretonne
could be Oetzmann’s red and blue Westminster cretonne, which should be
lined, as should all cretonnes which do duty for blinds as well as
curtains; this all curtains should do, had I my way entirely in the
matter. The walls and books and pictures should be the boys’ own choice,
and so should be the ornaments on the mantel-piece, though a clock
should be invariably provided, and this should be one the veracity of
which should be unimpeachable--punctuality must be enforced and hours
kept, and no excuses should be allowed on this score. If the youth
declares he wishes to make up for his perforce straitened hours of
repose at school, let him go to bed as early as he likes--never
interfere with that, but do not weakly allow him to be late in the
morning; it puts out the whole household, and for no reason at all, and
should never be countenanced for a moment. Late hours in the morning
mean more than I have space to dilate on here; but you may be quite sure
that a household which is late in the morning is never a well-managed or
prosperous one. Late hours then denote lazy, self-indulgent habits, and
therefore should never be allowed.
If the boys begin them in the holidays be sure they will be continued
after school is left, and therefore be firm on this point, although I
know all too well how difficult it is to be stern and inflexible towards
the boys who are only at home for the holidays, and naturally are in
consequence just a wee bit spoiled by their indulgent parents. Now if a
sitting-room can be given to the boys and the tutor, I advise it being
furnished as prettily as may be as regards the walls, but the floor must
not have a carpet, and room must be found there for the lathe,
carpenter’s tools, and odds and ends so dear to the heart of the boy;
and here let me beg and implore parents to aid and abet their children
in any hobby they have, if they can do so reasonably and comfortably,
and without undue expense; and let me also beg of them to keep and treat
with scrupulous reverence any drawings, efforts of literary genius, or
of mechanical genius, which their children produce and present to them;
at the same time I do not advise their being exhibited to the world at
large, while I should carefully explain to children, that the thing was
kept, not because of its present intrinsic merits, nor because it was a
distinct effort of genius, but because it was their doing, and because
we should like to compare it with future efforts, in order that we may
see how they have improved.
Without going the lengths that ‘Misunderstood’ does (a book, by the way,
which has made more prigs than any other under the sun, in my belief), I
think parents often make their children miserable without in the least
meaning to do so, by reason of the manner in which they refuse to
interest themselves in their pursuits. It is not pleasant to partake of
sticky black cakes baked in the dolls’-house pans, to sit on the cold
stairs in the dark looking on at a spirited representation of a
magic-lantern, the slides of which we know by heart, and we may endure
agonies over the hundredth representation of the usual charade, neither
may we feel profound interest in the School Magazine; but at the same
time we are bound to think we do, and we ought to be more than thankful
that our children care for these things and go in for them, rather than
for the usual hanging about, reading those dreadful Rider Haggard books,
which have done more harm than anything else, I verily believe, to the
youth of the present day, and have vitiated their tastes, until nothing
pleases them which is not written in gore and bound up in a mixture of
pistols and swords, which is as odious as it is unnecessary.
The boys’ books ought to form a very distinct feature in their
sitting-room, and, if possible, we should endeavour to keep out all
Haggardish stories. But this is almost impossible in these days of
independence and fourpence-halfpenny literature. I know I can’t, and
glorious detective stories and other works of art are to be found all
over the house; but we must do our best to improve the standard, by
placing other better books in the authorised bookcases, and by
ridiculing and, if necessary, confiscating whenever we can all we so
highly disapprove of. At the same time I honestly confess this is mere
advice: I cannot stem the torrent myself, but hope there are other more
strong-minded parents than I am, who may be able to do so, though I have
done my best in the matter, and have tried everything I can think of to
eliminate these books, for which I have the most hearty contempt and
dislike.
It would be no use, I think, to say more about the arrangement of the
room which should be set apart for the boys; but I cannot say too much
about the necessity of the dear things having a place where they can do
absolutely what they like, for half the friction which seems to me
inevitable in other people’s households, when the boys are at home, is
undoubtedly caused by the fact that the boys are in the way, and have no
place that they can call their own. Under these circumstances they worry
their sisters, spoil the furniture, and upset the servants; and more
especially does this happen in London, where there is nowhere for them
to disport themselves, and nothing that they can do except promenade the
streets and go to theatres and such-like places of amusement.
Of course, little boys can be managed well. They have their nurseries
first, and then their governess and schoolrooms. It is when they begin
to go to school that the trouble begins. The governess does not care
about them preparing their lessons in her room; and if they are day
boarders, which they certainly ought to be until they are twelve or
thirteen, and, indeed, until they go into the big school, where they
should be when they are fourteen and not a day before, the lessons must
be prepared at home, and this work should doubtless go on under the
superintendence of someone in authority. Parents often can and do help
immensely, but there are very few men who do not find their classics
decidedly rusty by the time they are required to superintend their
children’s preparation; besides which they are, as a rule, tired with
their own day’s work, and are not in the least inclined for extra
labour, and often do not possess the necessary stock of patience
required for this kind of employment.
My ideal education would consist of sending the boys to a good school in
the daytime, and in taking care that they prepare their work in the
evening, under a good tutor, who would be trusted to simply superintend
them, and to give the necessary help, but who would not do the work for
them; he would not live in the house, but would simply come for the
couple of hours during which the boys would work. This would do away
with the great objection to home education, which is undoubtedly the
work which has to be done at home, and which cannot be properly
superintended unless someone is told off for the purpose, unless the
parents are well up in the work of the day, and are furthermore prepared
to give up almost all society for the sake of looking after the boys--a
thing which should never be done, for it is most important that we
should make and keep friends; if we don’t care for them for ourselves,
we must care for them for the sake of the children, who would find
themselves shut out of everything when they grew up did their parents
withdraw themselves entirely from society when they were yet small.
Of course a great many people cannot manage to live where there are
really good schools, but equally of course a great many can, and when
this can be managed it undoubtedly ought to be; and places like Bedford,
where the schools are excellent, and Wimborne, where the Grammar School
has improved mightily of late years, and where house rent is moderately
cheap and living very inexpensive, offer especial advantages to a widow
left with two or three sons to educate, and to military men and others
who can live where they like, and have only their boys’ education to
think about, Bedford being especially good for this purpose.
I believe there is a book published which gives all necessary
particulars about all these schools, and indeed about all the schools
all over England, but I shall only mention those of which I have
personal knowledge, as I am no believer in second-hand information: this
can always be procured for special cases, and would be out of place in a
book like mine, but I do strongly advise all who can--all who have no
settled occupation that binds them down to a special locality--to live
where they can have their children educated from the home roof. I am
quite certain that this is the ideal and proper education, and results
in a better class of man all round. They may not be as polished, their
manners may not be as perfect, and they may be shy and gruff, but their
morals will be ever so much better, and they will be better men in the
highest sense of the word. For though they may ‘marry the lady’s maid,’
like the youth in ‘Punch,’ at all events they will marry her; they will
not degrade and then desert her, as alas! so many men do nowadays. But I
myself don’t believe they would do anything of the kind; by far and away
the best men I know are those who have been least away from home, and
they are not among the unsuccessful ones of this life either.
However, it is sometimes impossible for parents to manage home
education, though in London there are so many opportunities, that it
must be more a case of must than can’t, for there are Westminster, St.
Paul’s, and the University College Schools, all of which can be managed
after the boys are old enough to be trusted in the streets alone, and at
the latter of which for the absurdly low fee of 8_l._ 8_s._ a quarter
can be had the best education in the world, but where the boys need
learn very little if they can scrape through the day’s routine without
finding themselves in either the ‘black’ or the ‘appearing’ books; but
even then they do not learn as little as they can if they try at either
Eton or Harrow, where it seems to me the education given is especially
useless for practical service, and can never by any chance fit the
recipient for any real work that he may have to undertake.
The perfect education should be that which most fits a man for his work,
and no one can watch the manner in which we are being ousted by Germans
from every place without allowing that their education has something
which ours lacks, and that unless our boys can be taught to emulate
their patience, perseverance, and eager quest after knowledge, to say
nothing of their capabilities of existing on a pittance, we shall wake
up some day to find our lads quite out of the running, because they do
not understand life properly, and because they are unable to fight for
themselves against the present overwhelming German invasion. There is a
limpness, a passiveness about the boys of the present day that is
something dreadful, and that I think springs in some measure from these
fatal examinations, and the fearsome higher education. They see the
prizes can only fall to the exceptionally gifted and hard-working
members of the fraternity, and therefore they are dispirited before they
start, knowing that, try as they may, they can never succeed. Far from
stimulating most youths to work, the sense that unless they are geniuses
they cannot pass the exams cripples them, and they cease to care to try
for what they know they cannot possibly obtain, read how they may; and
therefore I cannot but think the excessively high standard that must be
reached nowadays in everything is a mistake, and that serious
consideration should be given both to this and to the fact that our boys
are not able to compete with the Germans because something in our
scheme of education and learning does not permit them to do so
successfully.
Let us then give home education a chance and see what can come of that,
and let our nurses be French and German, so that the children may learn
these languages with their earliest breath; and, moreover, let us in
some measure educate our children for what they are going to be. It is
no manner of use to give those who are to be in trade the same teaching
as that required for the learned professions; and I venture to state
that if a man has to take to trade the sooner he does it the better.
Eighteen ought to see him in harness of a light kind, but harness all
the same; and I furthermore state boldly that it is absolutely waste of
time and money and everything else to send boys abroad to school. They
never do any good there, and they may get into most frightful mischief.
If boys must be sent to France or Germany, take them yourselves,
otherwise you may be quite sure that both time and money are wasted. I
am not speaking without book, and I have never heard of one school,
either in France or Germany, where the education was of the least use,
neither will it be until more schools follow the example of Clifton, and
form settlements abroad on the lines of our public schools; though even
then I am inclined to adhere to my own opinion and urge on parents,
whose sons require to know French and German thoroughly, to go to both
places themselves, and stay a couple of years in each in some good town.
If they do they will achieve their object, and their boys will command
far higher prices in the labour market than those can who do not know
any languages except their own, and a certain amount of Latin and Greek,
which, it seems to me, they learn only to forget as soon as ever they
can manage to do so.
But if parents will not hear of home education they must most carefully
select the preparatory school, and they must manage to afford in
addition a first-rate public school, for nothing can possibly be worse
than a cheap or inferior place of education; and it is an astonishing
fact to me that in such an important matter as is education one requires
as a rule so little guarantee that we actually receive what we are
paying for.
No one can be a lawyer or doctor without credentials; anyone who likes
can open a school, and command scholars too. Why should not the State
interfere here?--it is very fond of interfering dreadfully on far less
important matters--and say boldly that no one shall have a school at all
until he has qualified himself in the eye of the State, and is diplomaed
or hall-marked in such a manner that one can tell at once whether he is
fitted for the work or not? Until this is done I much fear that
preparatory schools will not improve to any great extent, and that the
middle classes will continue to send their children to people who are
utterly unfit for the work they have undertaken. A personal reference
from some parent, often enough from one who knows little indeed about
his children, and possibly a few letters after the name, are considered
quite sufficient guarantee by most people that they are obtaining all
that they are paying for.
A good preparatory school costs from 85_l._ to about 125_l._ a year; of
course less can be paid, and I dare say more can be paid also, but I
consider an excellent school can be had for 100_l._ a year. Of course
there are always extras beside, and these depend entirely on the means
of the parents, and in some measure on the schoolmaster himself, who
should undoubtedly be a man in whom we can trust, and to whom we can
give our confidence, telling him exactly what we can afford to spend,
and also what manner of child our special boy is, and also, most
important of all, what he is to be, and what particular talents,
weaknesses, or goodnesses he may be likely to inherit. We should also
give our child our confidence. We should tell him emphatically what we
can afford for him, what we wish him to do, and finally encourage him in
every way to get on by writing to or seeing him constantly, and by never
letting him imagine for one moment that ‘out of sight means out of
mind;’ he is more in our minds, just because he is absent from us, than
he would be were he constantly in our presence.
As regards public schools, Harrow costs roughly about 200_l._ a year,
and the first term’s bills are as follows:
£ _s._ _d._
Board and washing 30 0 0
Public tuition and school charges 11 11 0
Entrance to school and house 16 0 0
Private tuition 5 0 0
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62 11 0
Of course the 16_l._ entrance fees do not come in again, but this is
more than spent on extras. There are subscriptions to endless things and
payments for extra tuition, for which a long list of printed names on
the first account in some measure prepares the unhappy parent, who
somehow never is prepared, for the extraordinary amount of new clothes,
mending, hair-cutting, and other trifles, which go to sum up the
accounts in the ensuing terms.
Eton seems to me to cost about 20_l._ a year more, and the bills of one
term are as follows:
£ _s._ _d._
Board and tuition 44 0 0
Washing 2 0 7
Head master, school instruction, &c. 8 8 0
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54 8 7
This is without entrance fee, and the extras seem to me to be rather
more frequent, while Rugby is considerably less than either, the bills
there being as under:
£ _s._ _d._
Tuition 13 6 8
Boarding 24 0 0
School stationery (this varies) 1 10 0
Medical officer 0 10 6
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39 7 2
Both at Eton and Rugby the allowance given by the house master is 1_s._
a week, at Harrow 2_s._, but besides this of course the boys take money
to school. The smaller boys at Harrow should not have more than 3_l._
during the term, and out of this they must pay sundry subscriptions. At
Eton I think the pocket-money can be almost anything, while at Rugby
3_l._ does until the boy gets into the Sixth, when he should have more
money, and when the books, a heavy item in most school bills, are far
more expensive than they were in the lower forms.
Individually I know most of Harrow, as I said before; but, as these
bills have been copied from actual accounts rendered to friends of my
own, I think I am justified in printing them, and they will also serve
as a guide to those parents who are hesitating where to put down their
boys’ names, a ceremony which should take place when the boys are about
six or seven; and if the parents have no ‘traditions,’ and are not
wedded to any special school by reason of the father having been there
before, or relations on either side having been in the special school,
the school should be chosen in some measure to suit the boy’s health,
and also in some measure his future occupation. I should not send a lad
who was going to work in any shape or form to Eton. That school should
be reserved for those useless individuals, who toil not neither do they
spin, nor should I send a boy to Harrow who intended to go in for trade
or anything save one of the learned professions. Those who have a big
business to go into might be sent to Rugby or Clifton, but I should
prefer to let them attend St. Paul’s or the London University School, or
else send them to Bedford or a similar establishment.
When the boys are at school, the holidays should be in some measure
legislated for and all arrangements made for the boys’ welfare; and of
course no parent who cared for his or her children would possibly be
away from home or out of reach of the boys during that time: the
parents’ holidays, which are as important in some measure as the
children’s, should come off when school has begun again, but on no
account should they occur when the boys are at home; and if possible the
summer holidays should be spent by the sea, the beloved sea, which, as
fashion changes, is, I am sorry to say, becoming unpopular, and is left
alone by those who are fashion led, and in consequence impelled towards
the country or ‘foreign parts.’
But of the holidays more anon; I have not yet quite done with the boys,
and the holidays can have a chapter to themselves later on.
I think the most important hint of all which I have to give is that on
no account should a boy leave school or college until we have something
to put him into, and which shall occupy his time. There is nothing more
fatal than idleness, and it should never be countenanced in any shape or
form, and I do hope some day to find that all boys who have to earn
their living may be given some sort of a trade--something they can do
with their fingers, outside and above any profession they may be going
in for. Given a trade they can never starve, and would be far more fit
for the colonies, where so many lads flit, looking forward to more
freedom and more outdoor life than they can possibly have here in
England, though I cannot imagine a more foolish thing than to allow a
youth to go out ‘on spec;’ unless he has something to go out to, he had
far better remain where he is; if not he will soon degenerate into
something far less like a gentleman than he would have been had he
remained at home and taken to some good and honest trade. I cannot help
thinking that these ‘decorative’ days of ours will open up the furniture
business to gentlemen, and that soon our houses will be provided for
entirely by men who are artists, and that those who cannot originate,
yet have artistic tastes and an eye for colour, will not despise work
which is far more interesting than desk-work for example, and far more
remunerative than the position of clerk, with which so many lads of the
present day have to satisfy themselves. The gentlemen of England can
bring back trade to England if they choose, they can replace the
slovenly workman and the shoddy work, and it remains to be proved if
they will do so; at present people’s eyes are open, and trade is no
longer a badge of disgrace, so I hope some day to see industrial
villages turning out good work, where at present are empty labourers’
cottages and impecunious landlords with untilled farms; and in the
meantime I beg our boys not to remain idle but to work somehow, it does
not matter much at what, but at some work that will be good and must and
will find a market.
If a lad is going into one of the learned professions it is necessary
that he go to college, where the expenses all told cannot be less than
300_l._ a year, but before he does so his father should seriously tell
him that whatever allowance he has is the extent of what he can give
him, and that under no circumstances whatever will he be responsible for
any debts of any sort or kind, and that doing what he is for him he is
doing his utmost, and that he would rather see him go through the
Bankruptcy Court than impoverish his sisters or his other brothers to
pay his extravagant liabilities. Let this be well talked over at home in
private, and I do not think the lad will place himself in the miserable
and anxious position of many a young man who ladens himself with debt
during his college life, which cripples all the best of his existence
and embitters his days in more ways than one; but the boy must have
parents on whom he can rely, and he must know that they mean absolutely
what they say. There can be nothing more unfair than for the girls to be
starved mentally and morally, and the younger lads badly educated,
because a parent has to pay debts which ought never to have been
contracted.
Gambling debts should be utterly ignored by the parents, and gambling in
every shape and form should be absolutely forbidden, the reasons thereof
being plainly stated; and I think all parents should be more open about
their circumstances than they are to their children, who often get a
most erroneous impression about their people’s income, because of the
manner in which they live. Why! because they have a carriage and a big
house is the very reason why they can do no more, and why should the
parents give up all they have justly earned because their children are
extravagant? I see no reason myself, and I myself would certainly never
do so to pay extravagant liabilities, or liabilities incurred on the
gaming-table or on the racecourse.
Give the boys a good education and a start in life, and provide the
girls with 150_l._ a year, either when they marry or at your own death,
and you have done your duty by your children. The girls cannot starve on
that income, and neither would they be the prey of any fortune-hunter;
but no one has a right to bring children into the world in the ranks of
the upper middle-class and do less; misery will come of it if he does,
be quite sure of that.
Of course misfortunes may happen, and the parents’ early death may
prevent an actually safe future being secured for the children; but, as
a rule, an early death should be provided for by insurance, and
misfortunes, if undeserved, generally bring sympathy in their train, and
there are many mitigations, even for these, if parents are judicious and
have not flooded the world with an enormous family that they can have no
prospect whatever of providing for. As soon as the boys have finished
their education let them begin to work; a lawyer can begin; a doctor can
commence at once to wait for patients even if he cannot buy a practice,
which would be the best thing to do; a curacy can be procured for a
cleric, and if trades are chosen the sooner those trades are entered
into the better; but whatever is selected never allow idleness of any
shape or form. Idleness is the parent of all mischief. A man well and
healthily employed has neither time nor inclination to go very far
wrong.
Let the boys be encouraged to have tastes, and above all let every lad
in England join some Volunteer Corps. I consider it a duty for every man
to be able, and to show himself willing, to protect his home, and if he
is encouraged at home he will volunteer, and will take an interest in
his work, which will be invaluable to him. The expeditions are pleasant;
all lads love a gun, and adore being able to shoot, and if the taste is
acquired in the school cadet corps it will continue afterwards; and
remember that all out-door sports and occupations are so many
safeguards--tennis, bicycling, volunteering, shooting, hunting, riding,
are all so many protections against temptations, to which all lads are
exposed, and on which of course it is impossible for me to speak here.
To sum up the advice I would give about our boys, I would say that love
of home, love of sport (not racing, not battue, nor pigeon-shooting, nor
similar inanities, but _bonâ fide_ sport), and love of an out-door life,
are the great protection for the lads. Do not encourage theatre-going
and endless balls and society affectations, but do encourage in every
way you can those things of which I have been writing. I am sure then we
shall have a healthier and a better race than the ‘masher’ Gaiety
bar-lounger, for whom I have such a profound contempt, or than the
race-frequenting, betting, ‘lemon-squash’ consuming, nerveless,
brainless idiot that is so extremely prevalent in the present day.
As soon as a lad is eighteen he ought to have some definite allowance
for all his small expenses and to enable him to clothe himself, and this
must depend entirely on his parents’ circumstances, and where he is and
what he is doing. Of course, if he should be placed in his father’s
business he must be paid for his services, and this pay must cover all
he spends; but as a rule 50_l._ is ample. A man can dress well and
decently on 30_l._, the other 20_l._ he can do what he likes with; and
he should be encouraged to save for a holiday in ‘foreign parts.’ He had
far better travel about than smoke his senses away, or waste his money
in going to theatres and in-door amusements of any kind.
Boys are an endless anxiety, there is no doubt about that, and it is
greatly, no doubt, owing to that fact that the system of sending the
boys away to school has arisen; but although they are at school we
cannot get rid of our responsibilities, neither should we try to do so.
We are responsible for their existence, and we are bound to do the best
we can for them. We shall, I am sure, be rewarded for all they have cost
us, if we never relax our care until they are really grown up and are
capable of managing their own lives; then, if we have trained them to
love their home and to habits of work and occupation, we can do no more
but trust in Providence; we shall have our reward sooner or later, of
that I have not the smallest doubt.
As soon as a man can keep a wife he should marry and begin to make a
home for himself. I am a great believer in early marriage, and I should
like all my boys to marry as soon as ever they can. There is nothing
teaches a man as the responsibility of marriage does, and nothing on
earth is happier than a happy marriage. It is the complement of life,
the perfect whole that all should strive to attain; about that subject I
am quite sure, and none of the stock arguments against marriage, nor the
stock jeers, will ever alter my opinion. Of course there are troubles,
if so they are borne better together; pleasures come, they are
brightened by having someone to share them; and above all, marriage
makes the home; the home gives an object in life and steadies at once,
therefore marriage should be encouraged in every way it can, and those
who are married should help on the marriage of others, and should show
by their own conduct and bearing that it is the best state on earth, if
undertaken out of pure love, not silly passion, and maintained in the
mutual respect, affection, and toleration for each other’s faults, which
are the very bonds of the home, and which last when every slighter bond
has given and fallen away. Once our boys are married we can breathe
again, at all events our active work for them is over; and the less we
interfere with them after that happy event the better chance will they
have of making a success of their lives. All we have to do is to win the
love and confidence of their wives, and that is not difficult if we
never offer advice on any subject, and give them as much affection as we
can. Above all must we resist the dear delight of talking over their
_ménage_ with other people. ‘A still tongue means a wise head,’ says
the proverb, and a tongue cannot possibly be too still, when once there
are sons and daughters-in-law in the family.