THE TUTORIAL SYSTEM.

The system of general examinations and tutorial assistance, established at the University in 1916, and greatly broadened last spring, seems not to have been entirely successful in bringing about the advantages at which it aims. One of its main purposes--to give the student more freedom in his studies and a chance to carry on a certain amount of individual investigation--has been entirely missed, because the faculty has failed to provide any time in which the extra work may be done.

Since the establishment of the system, practically no effort has been made to decrease the amount of required class work, the number of weekly tests, or routine labor. The work of individual investigation and reading with the tutor, which is the very aim of the system, has suffered, and has necessarily shrunk to an almost negligible amount.

There are but two ways to satisfactorily meet this situation: the faculty must either give up the idea entirely and return to the high school theory of nothing but assigned lessons, or it must put the tutorial system on a sounder basis. To make it successful would mean a diminution in the required classroom routine and a decrease in the number of tests to compensate for the added individual work. Such a change would increase both the opportunity and responsibility of the student. Certain men would no doubt waste extra time given them; they are the same men who absorb as little as possible under the present system. But the ever-increasing number of students who aim to get the most out of their four years at a university would leave Harvard fitted to face the problems of the world from a broader and more scholarly point of view.