[Sir Henry Taylor, poet, dramatist and civil servant.] Autograph Letter Signed ('Henry Taylor') to 'Mr Scott' [E. A. Scott] of Rugby School, regarding 'the predicament' of the lack of educational progress of his son [Henry Ashworth Taylor].

4pp, 4to. Bifolium. In good condition, lightly aged. Folded four times. Encouraged by Scott's response to his wife's letter, Taylor is 'encouraged to ask for yr. advice in the predicament in which we stand at present. My boy has made hardly any progress in the last term & stands only four fm. the bottom of the upper Fifth.' He explains that on a former occasion he was in favour of 'a change of house & of companions', but that 'the boy was exceedingly averse & I was induced by assurances of doing better to let him go back to Mr Arnold's'. He encloses a letter from Arnold [not present!], and asks whether Scott thinks that 'a beneficial change is practicable': 'Any change might be more or less beneficial, simply because it is a change, & new courses are more easily adopted under new circ[umstanc]es.' He discusses the possibility of 'some strengthening companionship'. He continues: 'Doing as ill as he does, I do not contemplate keeping him at Rugby beyond another term. He is now 17 1/2 yrs. of age. If he had done well I shd have sent him to one of the Universities; but as you observed in one of yr Letters to my wife, no good cd. come of that with no more disposition to get the good he can than has been shown at Rugby.' He considering 'making him a Civil Engineer. Industry of course is essential for success in that - but so of everything else; & something must be tried.' His assessment of his son's abilities is stark: 'He seems to have no particular aptitude for geometry & mathematics but I do not know anything useful & profitable for which he has any special aptitude. He has a love for music - he has a taste for literature - & some powers of expression in it - but so do I, & I do not think that my efforts in that way for 50 years have produced me one year's subsistence'. Taylor's son Henry Ashworth Taylor was for two decades a King's Messenger.