I replied, “Quite.  There is no nobler, and incidentally there are few more lucrative occupations outside Bradford, unless it be that of a builder, in which the scope is absolutely unlimited.  I am enclosing a copy of last week’s Builder and Architect, in which you will find some great thoughts expressed.  Pray let Algernon read it.  It may be the means of inducing him to perform great deeds for England’s sake.”

Another fond parent wrote:—­

“Can you advise an anxious mother as to a career for her only son, John William?  He is at present eight and a-half years old, has blue eyes and fair hair and is a perfect darling, so good and obedient, but he is firmly resolved to be a lift-man when he grows up.”

I answered her soothingly thus:—­

“John Willie is rather young to have made a final decision, I think.  Let his youthful aspirations run through the usual stages, liftman, engine-driver, bus-conductor, sailor, etc.  At fifteen or so he will have left these behind, and for the next few years will probably settle down to the idea of being nothing in particular, or else a professional cricketer.  Then he will suddenly, for good or evil, make his choice.  Neither his blue eyes nor his fair hair give any clue as to what that choice will be, but I should let him keep both, as they may be useful to him.

“If he should determine upon a career involving manual work, I should take steps to have him initiated into the Art and Mystery of Bricklaying.  At the rate we are moving the working-hours would probably be about eight per week, with approximately eight pounds per day salary, by the time he arrives at bricklaying maturity.

“It is difficult to say yet whether he would have to graduate in Commerce before being eligible, but probably it would be necessary, as the best bricklayers, I’m told, always carry a mortar-board, and there is a sort of caucus in these plummy professions nowadays that is anxious to keep outsiders from joining their ranks.  But the country needs bricklayers, and will go on needing them for years.  Let John Willie step forward when he is old enough.”

To the mother who asked if I considered that her youngest boy would be well advised to adopt the Housebreaking profession I wrote:—­

“To which part of this profession do you refer?  If to the Burgling branch I would ask, ’Has he the iron nerve, the indomitable will, above all has he the brain power for this exacting craft?  Can he stand the exposure to the night air, the exposure before an Assize jury, and the rigours of the Portland stone quarries?’ If so, let him take a course of illustrated lectures at the cinema.

“If you refer to the other branch, the mere pulling down of houses, I say, ‘No!  A thousand times, no!’ He should be taught that there is a crying need for a constructive, not a destructive policy.  Let him adopt one; buy him drawing-paper and a tee-square at once, and teach him that the noblest work of creation is (unless it be a bricklayer or builder) an architect.  Though the War is over we must still keep the home fires burning.  This implies chimneys, and chimneys imply houses, and few there be that can plan houses that will both please the eye and pass the local authorities.”