"A family based in North London wants to find an exceptional and experienced educator to guide their most junior child on his early path to becoming an British gentleman."
Looking at this post, you might naturally skip the term "first-steps" as simple a turn of phrase.
But, it could be the most significant aspect of this unusual position posting, as it aims to find a mentor for a 12-month-old.
Hundreds of applications have since been received since the unnamed family published their call for the £180,000 per year tutor, who has to be "an exceptional individual".
Over the last few weeks, the listing has attracted interest throughout the press, with many questioning why?
Progressive Approach
Adam Caller, chief executive of Tutors International, which is supporting the family in their hunt, said that despite early skepticism, he found the concept "visionary", and "advanced".
When he consulted the family, he mentioned they understood the unusual nature of their demand, and how early in age their son is.
Nevertheless, they explained that they "were unwilling to delay any longer" to engage a tutor, as they had held off until their older child was five, and by that age "cultural conditioning had by then set in".
But what did the family indicate by "cultural leaning"?
It's "everything", he answered. "The manner you eat, the manner you speak".
He stated the older sibling had adopted "very nuanced, non-verbal cues" from the family, and had assumed their cultural ways. The family informed Adam they did not want the same situation to recur with their new baby.
The intention: To hire a English tutor, who should speak with Received Pronunciation, to influence the baby right from the beginning.
Osmotic Learning
"A lot of the learning at the start here is rather absorbed naturally," said the expert.
It's by means of this subtle influence that the family are expecting the child will pick up the English characteristics they aim to instil.
Adam explained the tutor must be someone who went to "the right kinds of schools – similar types of schools as the family hope to send their son to".
"The educator must be the suitable individual, they'll be performing things they don't even know they're doing, effortlessly," he said.
Cost Not Relevant
The family explained to him the chosen tutor should ideally also have knowledge of or passion in equestrian activities, winter sports, the arts and music so as to shape the child in a wide range of passions.
Additionally though, he stated the family wanted the tutor to sign up the child on a variety of courses so the child would be "pony-riding and learning an musical instrument by the time they are approximately three years old".
In the family's perspective, helping their son become a "UK sophisticate" will result in success and open doors.
"For all the rights and wrongs of that, because it's undoubtedly a class statement," he adds.
But, despite all this tutelage in "Britishness", could the child absorb what is termed cultural leaning from the globally influenced family he lives with anyway?
"Certainly", replied he. "They know this could fail, but they've just taken the attitude of, 'we should try and let's go as early as we can', because the cost of it is not relevant," he explained.
Impractical
A number of in the education sector who have similar reservations.
Another CEO, chief executive of a tutoring service, who supplies individual instructors, commented that "the process of adopting dual cultures, or indeed, forming one's identity, is something that must be experienced personally, not designed."
Peter noted that he had emigrated from Asia to the United Kingdom at the time of childhood, and had been educated knowing and practicing both cultures. He went on to learn at the University of Cambridge.
"The concept that an individual can serve as a living vessel of English culture, a person who can in some way transfer the qualities of a British gentleman upon a infant child, strikes me as naive and unfeasible," he commented.
"In my experience, employing a typically British tutor from babyhood will does not necessarily produce the result they want.
"I did not have such a figure, and however I have been fortunate enough to live numerous of the situations they hope for their son."
He continued: "The fact is, self-identity can not be forced from the external environment; it must be chosen, and it must come from within."
Buying Britishness
Naturally, Britishness is something the expert believes can be educated – and commercialized.
"In my view the reality that the global community holds us in this regard is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating
