This is my hope. Before everything my mentor will love me, and to him, nothing in the world will be more important than I am. He will tend me and care for me and help me grow and unfold. He will claim the lead. Kindly and firmly he will guide and control me, and take me forwards step by step. He will stand beside me against everything that threatens me, and in return I will help him with all my strength; for I will be his comrade as well as his pupil, and our partnership will astonish the world.

My mentor will set me hard tasks and insist that I work on them with all my skill and all my heart. He will praise my successes, and comfort me when I fail. If need be he will be strict, but even then he will continue to show me his love. Although each year I will be older, he will remember that still I am a child, and not as strong as he is.

My mentor will be a humane man, a man with strong beliefs. His love for the world and its people will be the meaning of his life; on the world he will build his understanding and from its people he will draw his hope. He will justly respect all living creatures and everything that exists, and he will set his heart to treat them as he would wish others to do.

My mentor will choose calmly when he must between good and good, and between bad and bad. He will break a lesser rule when a greater good compels him. He will be gentle with the weak and the oppressed, and fierce with the cruel and violent.

My mentor will be sane but not conventional. He will take chances. He will be courageous and will never give up hope. He will examine things with care and understand them radically. He will delight in beautiful things and places and will be a lover of music and words and images, of history and science. He will work to understand different kinds of people and different ways of life. Even though his heart is serious, he will celebrate each day with laughter.

My mentor will show his love for me in physical ways. He will remember both his own needs and mine, and as I grow he will not be afraid to guide me through our love.

My mentor will understand people. He will mark the feelings of everyone he meets. He will judge people not by what they are, nor by what they say, but by what they do. He will be gentle enough to forgive, but wise enough to remember. He will allow anyone to earn his trust. He will be loyal and straightforward to his friends and those with whom he works. He will ask of people more than they have given, but no more than they have to give.

My mentor will not deceive me, nor betray me, nor shut me in, nor force me with guilt, nor blackmail me, nor insult me, nor offend my heart, nor treat me cruelly. He will respect me. He will be polite. He will speak the truth. He will keep his promises.

All these things he will share with me. And yet he will not try to make me a copy of himself. Instead he will teach me to sing my own song in harmony with his for the rest of my life.