GREATER TUTORIAL SCOPE

Contacis between the teacher and student should be made more secure, and the tutors are the most effective means of attaining this end. Tutors should be assigned to students in their Freshman rather than their Sophomore year, and these two elements of the educational system should have frequent conferences and map out a tentative program of thought and study.

Credit should be given for tutorial work. Tutors should keep a list of the reading the tutee has done. Conversation and writing are as essential to education as reading is, and today the members of one "field of concentration" are not often congenial enough to be eager to discuss intellectual topics when they meet.

Papers written for the tutor should be filed and saved by him. Books read by the tutee should be discussed with the tutor, who should keep a brief record of the tutee's grasp of the subject. A good way to keep his interest in his work would be an assignment to read a book every two weeks and to write a short paper on anything therein which stirred his enthusiasm. At this rate about sixty books would be read by each student in connection with his college work. The student would know moreover that his tutor had a record of his reactions to them.

At the present time, the divisional examinations and general organization of the History and Literature Department come closest to ideal education. But I am in favor of letting each particular field of study become sufficient unto itself. We are coming to see more clearly every day that all branches of knowledge and speculation are indissolubly linked with each other, and it ought to be the student's privilege to decide which ones he wants to begin by linking for his own peculiar needs.

The tutors and instructors and professors of each simple department--such as History, or Psychology or Economics, should have a central office to coordinate their ideas and their actions. There should be a central committee to coordinate the activities of the various departments, with a possible representation of two men from each department.

I would suggest that each student write one thesis every half year on any subject he chooses, and that these theses be read and graded by the central committee.

All of these proposed changes sound revolutionary; and so they are because they transfer the emphasis from memory to creating thought and imagination. They give us a more definite standard for judging the intelligence and growth of the student, and they give written examinations a decreasingly important place in education. That is as it should be, for memory is only the ash that is left after enthusiasm and analysis have burned a path into uncharted realms; and written examinations depend too much on the moods of the student and the corrector to be left in college education much longer.