When a boy has reached the age of eleven or twelve, another consideration presents itself which is a source of serious perplexity to parents. Shall he be educated at home--that is, attend school in his own city or town--or be sent to one of the boarding-schools or academies which are ready to open their doors to him and fit him for college? Here again we are met by the suggestion that the boarding-school of this type is not a native growth, but an exotic. England has supplied us with a precedent. The great boarding-schools, Rugby, Eton, and Harrow, are the resort of the gentlemen of England. Though termed public schools, they are class schools, reserved and intended for the education of only the highly respectable. The sons of the butcher, the baker, and candlestick-maker are not formally barred, but they are tacitly excluded. The pupils are the sons of the upper and well-to-do middle classes. A few boarding-schools for boys have been in existence here for many years, but in the last twenty there has been a notable increase in their number and importance. These, too, are essentially class schools, for though ostensibly open to everybody, the charges for tuition and living are beyond the means of parents with a small income. Most of them are schools of a religious denomination, though commonly a belief in the creed for which the institution stands is not made a formal requisite for admission. The most successful profess the Episcopalian faith, and in other essential respects are modelled deliberately on the English public schools.
The strongest argument for sending a boy to one of these schools is the fresh-air plea. Undeniably, the growing boy in a large city is at a disadvantage. He can rarely, if ever, obtain opportunities for healthful exercise and recreation equal to those afforded by a well-conducted boarding-school. He is likely to become a little man too early, or else to sit in the house because there is nowhere to play. At a boarding-school he will, under firm but gentle discipline, keep regular hours, eat simple food, and between study times be stimulated to cultivate athletic or other outdoor pursuits. It is not strange that parents should be attracted by the comparison, and decide that, on the whole, their boys will fare better away from home. Obviously the aristocratic mother will point out to her husband that his predilection for the public school system is answered by the fact that the State does not supply schools away from the city, where abundant fresh air and a famous foot-ball field are appurtenant to the institution. Tom Brown at Rugby recurs to them both, and they conclude that what has been good enough for generations of English boys will be best for their own son and heir.