Generally, there is no absolute truth. And Boris, appropriately, puts commercial truth in its place. Both, mother and daughter, love society, show and gossip . The father works in some business or at some trade and loves sports and games. Not a spark of refinement and culture, not a redeeming ray of love of knowledge and of art, lighting up the commonplace and frivolous life of the family .
Commercial mediocrity is raised at home and cultivated in the school .
J Boris' indictment holds, still, today. USA is, still, a land of wasted intellectual opportunity. Our American schools, with their ideals of money-earning capacities, our colleges glorying in their athletics, football teams and courses for professional and business specializations would have been regarded by Mill as below contempt. However, all that money-mongering has raised USA's living standards to a point where any number of those who wish to pursue intellectual endeavors is hugely increased from Boris' time. Methinks that be closer to actual than Boris' classical one-shot admonitions.