MILLIONAIRES' SONS.
" THE very rich find troubles as great as their advantages in their sons." That was the well-weighed remark of
a great ecclesiastic now deceased, who, as he was also a great gentleman and knew the world thoroughly, was probably in the right. At all events, it is true that to many a millionaire the bringing up of his sons is a great anxiety, which be meets rather by a series of accidental or " opportune " decisions than by any fixed plan of action. It is so difficult to know whether they had better be brought up like everybody else, or on some special plan. Ought they, for example, to be specially educated as most Princes are, or allowed to take their chance in the ordinary mill? Kings usually decide for the former plan because the latter is not quite open to them, with results which depend entirely upon a wise or mistaken choice of tutors ; but the millionaires have more freedom, and usually choose the second alternative, with the result that their sons grow up with characters in which the inborn charac-
teristics that in the end govern all men's careers are just a little exaggerated. Intermediately, however, there are many questions to be settled which do not perplex ordinary men very much. In the first place, should the physical training be Spartan or comparatively luxurious ? There is seldom much hesitation about that question, the dread of anything like physical degeneracy being peculiarly strong in men who are fighting their way to the very front. The boys therefore are, as a rule, brought up " hard," taught to be content with plain food, accustomed to fend for themselves and not ask too much service, ordered to take exercise, especially on horseback, and encouraged to excel in athletic pursuits, so that at twenty they are healthy, self-dependent, and perhaps a little barbaric. That system works well on the whole, and though it a little stunts the minds of the naturally thoughtful, it is doubtless safer than any kind of stove , culture ; but there are one or two points still to be considered. Is the lad who will have millions to know rather more than his impecunious rivals ? The decision is usually " Yes," with the result that Crmsus Junior knows a language or two more than his comrades—excessive riches tending to cosmo- s politanism—but, with that exception, rather less than they do. It is useless to try to conceal from him that he will be rich, and, knowing that, his impulse towards work is, unless work is part of his inborn nature, rather a feeble one. The power possessed by all the young of protecting their immature brains by refusing to learn too much is more steadily exerted than usual, and the young Crcesus seldom becomes a scholar, more rarely a thinker, most rarely of all a man in whom the dominant habit is reflection. And then comes, more pressing than all, the question whether it is better to keep the lad of such vast expectations short of money, so that he may value it more even than other men do, or to accustom him from the first to its possession, so that it may never be to him an unexpected luxury. Is the boy's allowance at school or college to be that of other boys of the same age, or is it to be more, much more, so that he shall always feel that it is part of his destiny to be richer than his neighbours ? We are told by those who know more of the subject than we can pretend to do that this question is very earnestly discussed between very rich parents and the tutors they employ, that there are violent differences of opinion on the subject, and that in practice it is settled, not by any appeal to principle or rule, but according to a sort of tradition prevailing in each house. Riches and Co. "starve" their sons, with, as they think, good results, the boys growing up with convictions as to the value of money ; while Wealth and Co. "pamper " their sons, also with, as they think, good results, the boys having from early years " just ideas " upon the subject of expenditure. That method of relying on tradition is probably much wiser than it looks, as it is based in the long run on accurate knowledge of family idiosyncrasies—you can trust a Hohenzollern not to waste where a Bourbon would spend with both hands—but one would like to decide, purely for one's in. tellectual satisfaction, which is the wiser way. Should a lad who will have, and knows he will have, £100,000 a year, be sent to college with £500 a year—that is, rather more than the average —or with 02,000 a year—that is, five times as much ?
The majority, including most tutors, will decide at once, we believe, in favour of the smaller sum. The undergraduate, they say, with exceptional means is always being tempted; he gets surrounded by toadies, he feels no impulses of University ambition, and he either devotes himself to pleasure as the young understand it, or he takes to some line of his own which, even if it is in itself unobjectionable, his life in the University was not intended to promote. He comes away with no learning, with less knowledge of the world as it is than a poorer man, and with a fixed idea that wealth is in some way the barometer of importance. He is, too, apt to be wasteful, his superior means having enabled him to indulge, and therefore to strengthen, a habit of wilfulness, which more perhaps than any other tendency is destructive to great fortunes. Lads of our day do not, unless mentally feeble, shy half-crowns at sparrows, but they do very often feel that the use of money is to gratify will, and so, losing all sense of proportion, spend in a way which to impecunious outsiders suggests incipient lunacy. The general opinion of tutors, therefore, seems sound; but then there is something to be said on the other side. Crcesus Junior knows very well, though in a vague way, "how his family stand," and if pinched in his allowances is apt to grow bitter against his people, to rebel upon details, and to accept readily the offers of "assistance" certain to be pressed upon him. He learns to think of money as the instrument of pleasure, and making no attempt to live within his income, he becomes wasteful, or even reckless, in expenditure,—a danger increased by the perpetual wounds inflicted on his vanity. " What, cannot you, of all men, afford that ? " is the taunt he perpetually hears, or fancies, and which, unless he is a self-controlled man—in which rare case his income does not matter—is sure to drive him into expenses he would otherwise avoid. The best of habits, too, that a man can learn is to live within his income, and if that bears no proportion in early life to the future truth he is not learning it. We suspect that, if the families of whom we are -writing are to be considered and not only the community, these arguments ought to outweigh those of the tutors, who, though perfectly sincere and with many individual cases to support them, are unconsciously influenced by care for their community, by a wish to promote equality during the College life, and by a serious fear lest envy or a false ideal of life should develop itself among their pupils. A truthful system must in the end be better than a histrionic system, and young Midas, with an allowance of £300 a year, is being taught social histrionics by a father who himself is only acting. It is impossible to feel quite certain, for, after all, each lad is an individual with an impenetrable though crystal wall around him, but even as regards the detestable pride of money it may be doubted if it is felt so strongly by the lad who has never to feel painfully about his means as by the lad who, knowing that he must be rich, is forced at every turn to consider the means which for the present he does not possess.
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