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.