Thank you for David's reports which I agree are good enough, at least for any normal parents.  I am fully prepared for him to find the Navy a stiff fence to tackle particularly as I hear that the competition is severe.  He is still terribly untidy in his letters home (he always has been) and I do feel that that will handicap him a lot in his future work unless he makes a change.  He seems pretty much all there in most things and on the whole a very able person.  He has, of his own bat, suggested that he should be an engineer if he fails for the Navy.  If he really wants that, and can get the distance, I am only too glad to know what he does want, and to start in early with any work likely to help him.  He will in any case want Maths!  We shall come over next half for his confirmation and that will give me a chance of talking over the engineering idea with you.  By the way if there is any form to fill in regarding Confirmation will you let me have it in due course.

I was particularly interested in your remarks regarding his being somewhat swollen headed and confess that I watched for signs of this very carefully whenever I had the chance to do so.  We notice to a very marked change in him this half particularly the latter part of it.  He had always to us been a child but suddenly seem to make a rapid step towards manhood.  I knew that his somewhat rapid promotion would bring him into contact with boys senior and older than himself and wondered how that would affect him and so kept my eyes open.  I saw nothing whatsoever to suggest a swollen head, in fact quite the opposite, and we watched him when he was not aware of our presence.  He never has in his life been a bit that way, but of course he has never had any reason to be until recently.  Two incidents gave me very real cause for suspicion but the rest of his behavior was so much the other way that I came to the conclusion that it was just youth asserting itself.  However he knows what I think about this particular weakness in anyone and will not I think develop it unless I have got him all wrong.  I see that Butterwick found no conceit in him - perhaps a second opinion worth having?  The boy never boasts of what he has done or what he may do and it is indeed hard to get much out of him.  He will always talk about other boys and is invariably generous in his remarks about them.  He has gone off harvesting with Robin Squires today - and what a day!!

David gets reports which are in no way damnatory, but they're not very enthusiastic from the purely intellectual point of view, and I'm seriously concerned about his Mathematics, which have crashed in two Trials: he has been intentionally put in a highish division, in order to get him ahead, but he seems a bit out of his depth, and I think he must do more out of school, as it is vitally important for him, and is not far off being his worst subject, at any rate as expressed on paper.  I do not think his mind is hopeless, but he can only be judged by what he shows up.

The rest of his work is decent enough, and I know that he has not wasted his time; and his mark in Trials within sight of a first class is a creditable performance, which an  adequate mark in Math, would have consummated.

It has been a dull half for him in the matter of games: he is too small to be much use at football among those of his age, and he has been unable to share in the rather spectacular successes of the house.

But otherwise he has had a busy time with recruiting, confirmation and two extra books; and I did not think that he would stand any extra work this half.

I think he took his confirmation seriously and in the right spirit, indeed with more thought than many boys: he has some difficulties which I did my best to resolve, though I was not convinced that I succeeded.

In the house he gets along all right, and is quite a persona grata with others.

I think your idea of engineering is quite sensible, and his preparation for the Navy will stand in in good stead, and indeed he could do nothing better so long as he is here: I do not quite follow with that you refer to civil engineering or to the engine room in the Navy; if it is the latter, the same examination will serve for either and there is less competition for engineering than for upper deck.  But for all these and the like of them, he must be competent at Mathematics.

I was sorry not to see more due at the time of confirmation, but one is very much pressed during the half.

Yours sincerely

Marsden