WORKSHOP GROWTH WOULD HURT COLLEGE SAYS LOWELL

Washington, D. C., February 18--In his first public pronouncement concerning the resignation of Professor G. P. Baker '87, President Lowell, speaking before the Harvard Club of Washington this evening, stated that the Corporation felt that the 47 Workshop, although doing valuable work, must yield in its demands for expansion to more important departments of the University, in particular to the College where the development of the tutorial system is vital. He said that both he and the Corporation realized Professor Baker's personal value as an instructor but that "a theatre and a permanent school for playwrights would not be wise". The limitation of the funds of the University made it impossible to develop departments whose appeal is less broad, he declared.

President Lowell's speech follows in part:

Expenses All Come From One Fund

"The possibilities of a university at any period are limited. An attempt to train students for a new career detracts to some extent from the resources in hand, or obtainable, which could otherwise be used to maintain or improve existing instruction or research. In deciding, therefore, to undertake any work it is necessary to inquire whether the service to be rendered is greater or less than attempting to improve existing departments of the University. and this will depend upon the needs of those departments, and upon the question whether it is better to have a limited number of departments of the highest excellence or a larger number less perfect. We must remember also that at Harvard any deficits practically come out of the central cultural part of the University under the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, because the other parts have as a rule their own funds which cannot be used for general purposes.

"An example of the problems that arise was presented in the case of dramatic art. The Corporation was exceedingly sorry to lose Professor Baker because it esteemed his work very highly; but has felt that his work was a personal one, and that when it should end a theatre and a permanent school for playwrights would not be wise. In view of other pressing and growing needs it was of the opinion that bringing the various parts of the University into excellent condition, or keeping them so, was of greater importance. Its aim has been to place every part in the first rank;--an aim that requires strenuous efforts and some limitation of objects. In short, its goal has been to do whatever is undertaken as well as it can be done, rather than undertake a larger number of things although valuable in themselves. This is a very expensive aim, but is several directions it has certainly been successful.

Cites General Examinations

"One of the things attempted has been to improve the condition of Harvard College, approving, and supporting financially, the policy of the Faculty. Here a new departure has been made by a gradual and experimental change matured through a period of fourteen years. It consists of requiring every student, in addition to acquiring some familiarity with the principal lines of human thought, to concentrate on some subject; and in all departments, save mathematics and the physical sciences, to prove his mastery of its by a comprehensive or general examination before graduation. As the subject is broader than any combination of separate courses the examination is not a review of course work but something larger and better.

The object is twofold, to turn the student's interest to the mastery of the subject instead of the accumulation of credits in courses, and to teach him to analyze and correlate his knowledge of its various parts. To guide him and help him in doing this he is assigned to a tutor whom he meets at intervals more and more frequent each year of his college life. His tutor is designated as soon as he selects his field of concentration near the end of his Freshman year, and through the three succeeding years of college he has a teacher to care for his individual needs, thus carrying out the conception that the unit, the only true unit, in education is not the course, but the student himself. It may be observed that tutors, or their equivalent, are now provided in every department that has a general examination--that is, in all except mathematics and the physical sciences.

1624 Men Work With Tutors

"Among the colleges that confine such a system to students of high rank I know of one that has about 100 who are getting the benefit of its, while the others have only some 60 or 30 in all. According to the figures compiled this year Harvard College has 1624 members of the three upper classes working with tutors. Compared with other colleges that are doing something of a similar nature this number seems colossal, and the expense is large, but it is well worth all it costs. For the group of men who have built up the system it has been a long and arduous task, but it is now firmly established, and with sundry variations will be widely followed else where"