The Education of a Fashionable Child at Home.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXVI, Issue II, 12 January 1901, Page 68

The Education of a Fashionable Child at Home.

What It Means and What It Costs.

While a great deal is said about the small families that are now fashionable in England it is not wonderful that large families are looked upon as anything but desirable, considering the amount of money it takes to educate a girl for fashionable society and a boy for a business career, according to the lines of the fashionable education of the present day.

There are two or three diametrically opposed systems of education—one that the child shall not be taught anything until it is seven years of age. or rather shall not be made to learn anything until it is that age; the other that the education begins shortly after birth, when the fad is carried out of instruction by means of observation. The expense begins from the moment the child opens its eyes, and when it is supposed necessary it should have a trained nurse all for itself. Time was. and not so many years ago. when one nurse was supposed to be sufficient to take charge of a mother and her new horn babe, but now there must be two nurses, in order, as one conscientious individual states, that the idea of “concentration” should begin at once. Although every well conducted babe is supposed to spend the greater part of twentyfour hours in sleep, that time need not be wasted, for the nurse can then concentrate her mind upon the chifil. and if she has no severe manual labour to perform for it her mind can be busy influencing its future, which it

never could do if she had to throw in the care of the mother as well.

This is expensive, because the good trained nurses are very well paid. It may as well be understood that everything that is done for the fashionable child costs money, and a great deal of money.

While lessons are not to be begun until seven years of age. a select class of kindergarten starts in as soon as the child can sit up and walk about and articulate. This is no cheap ordinary kindergarten, but a most exclusive class, the price for which is as much as tuition for a whole year used to be at a good private school. Tf the child does not care for it. she or he is not supposed to stay more than fifteen or twenty minutes, but naturally the price is the same as though it remained more than the hour allotted to it. Tt must not be frfr a moment supposed that the child can attend a kindergarten of this sort in charge of any servant of the household. Its special servant should be a foreigner. on the line of a nursery governess. to whom is paid a salary such as was paid formerly to a trained governess. Then there is the child’s maid as well, who looks after the rooms and does the. so to speak, rough work. The dancing class is also begun at i> very early age. Children of three, three and a-half and four are enrolled in classes, for which never less than £5 to £7 a quarter is paid. They are not required to become

finished dancers, but are supposed to learn grace and ease of manner unconsciously to themselves. Their dress for such a class is by no means the least of the expense, for it surely would not do to have one child better dressed than another, and the shoes and gloves to be just correct have to be made to order, of course, and consequently are quite expensive. The baby carriages are of the most expensive description, supposed to be made by carriage makers, have rubber tires and all the various minutiae of carriages. With their various trappings. blankets, trimmings, etc., they cost an absurd sum. It would be of course absurd for a child to always go out in a baby Carriage when it is old enough to attend classes, but then there must be the governess cart or pony carriage to take the child to school, or at all events a brougham that can be used by older members of the family also, if expense has to be considered.

To ride in a public conveyance would be the height of impropriety, and, of course, imprudent, for so dei'cately nurtured a child must not be exposed to the danger of any disease that might be contracted through any carelessness. Speaking of disease, there is one little pet extravagance that must not be overlooked, and that is keeping a trained nurse always in the house if the child is at all delicate, oi making an arrangement with the family physician that he shall jail every day during the year to look after the health of the family. The telephone, though, does take off a little of this, but the communication must needs be made with the physician every day as to the health of the inmates of the nursery. First a nursery governess, then as the child grows older a resident governess or tutor is absolutely requisite in the education of any child. It is very rarely now that governess Or tutor undertakes the charge of the education. Even when a child is educated alone and at home there are numberless masters whose pay by the hour is sufficient to keep many a bachelor from the holy estate of matrimony. Music masters, of course, there must be, but no fashionable child

would be allowed to undertake the study of music without someone to practise with him or her every day in order to be perfect inf the lessons which the master will give three or four times a week.

The prices asked by the day schools are just a little staggering, that is of a successful day school. Strangely enough the most successful schools have always been the most expensive ones. There are two boys’ schools now, and the cost of tuition is £250 at one and £3OO at the other, exclusive of extras. The great advantage iof these schools is that the boys stay all day, that until dive o’clock, and, are amused and cared for and fed. so that when they return they only are obliged to have their dinner or supper, as the case may be, and do not need the services of an extra master more than an hour or two in order to prepare the lessons for the next day. It would l>e absurd to say that there are not less expensive schools, and good ones, too, in the city, but these two schools have a long waiting list, and the parents of the pupils do not consider they pay too high for the benefits their sons derive.

Boarding schools can be any price. The sum of £l2O, £l6O, or £2OO is asked, but this is (only a beginning of what the total may be in the bills for extras. “Breakage.” which is shared in by the whole school without regard to who breaks; “extra laundry” —the money- from which at one or two of the large schools wtould be considered sufficient to run a fine steam laundry—and “stationery,” which brings in enough to keep any publishing house on its feet through the worst kind of a financial panic, are 'a. few of the small trifles.

Fencing lessons, boxing lessons, physical culture lessons, dancing lessons. dancing classes, riding lessons, driving lessons, lessons on the violin, lessons on the mandolin, lessons on the piano, lessons on the banjo, all are extras. They count up a nice little total.

Saturday might be thought to be an off day as regards expense, but not at all. The morning must be devoted to some outdoor exercise in the charge

of a master, and the afternoon to theatre or opera, both of which are considered quite indispensable to the turning out of a fashionable titan or woman. At very few of the fashionable schools—that is, the schools for boys —is any attention paid to the handwriting’. Therefore as the boys grow older, writing lessons have also to be added to the list of extras. It is supposed, so say the masters of the schools, that boys are taught handwriting before they leave home, therefore why should they bother about it? And they don't; simply leaving an opportunity for somebody else to make a little more money. Even golf cannot be learned offhand. There must be an instructor, and the best instructor. With athletic sports at the schools there are also extra expenses, which. while . they may be made a trifle less if a lot of boys go in together, always add materially to the expense account. There are also extras, in conseque: ce for suitable clothes and implements. In this long account noth’ng- has been said about clothes. Yet for every sport, it might l>e said for every lesson, a different costume is demanded, the expense of which is by no means trifling. Even if the children do not realise it. if their clothes are not of quite as good material as those of their companions, the master or mistress in charge of th e class will notice and will speak of it, ai d it will he found necessary to have the garments made by some special tailor, to whom is paid some special price, lint these are the mere details incident upon occupying a prominent place in the fashionable world and educating one’s children therein. I he most expensive method of educating girls in this city is said to be a series of classes at private houses. They are very select. These classes •are in charge of a man who has several women as sub-teachers. Whose duty it is to instruct the girls in the different lessons, which, on one day of the week, are submitted to him for approval. The classes are in duration only an hour to two hours, and ar e solely for the study of English. This leaves the rest of the day to be filled with lessons from other masters

at so much per hour. It is said to be -absolutely satisfactory, both from a social and educational point of view, and has been in fashion for the last ten years. It is just a. little on the wane, so it is said. There are one or two very expensive and, it may be hinted, more practical schools that are taking pupils that formerly were intended only for this style of education. But of course the expense is no less. Indeed it may be questioned if any rich man or woman would feel t'hat his children were properly educated if the cost of one year’s education were not far more than was considered necessary to support that very man’s father and mother when they first started in their married life.