the education of his children
Victor is implicitly drawing a contrast between the educational program he
was provided by his father and the lack of such a discipline in Walton's
formative years lamented by the mariner in his conversation with Victor
some ten days earlier (Letter 4.6 and
note). The recurrence of this theme
is manifestly deliberate on Mary Shelley's part. What the reader is to
derive from it, however, is not so certain, since there are clearly ways
in which, whatever his deficiencies in languages or in systematic
application, Walton's moral education will serve him better in the course
of this novel than does Victor's.
