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.