The Tutorial Course

The point has been raised from time to time that the position of tutorial work at Harvard is somewhat equivocal. Two styles of education, the lecture system and the tutorial, are in operation concurrently, one entrenched and thoroughly developed by time, custom, and knowledge, the other, so far as Harvard is concerned, still young and experimental. Interest therefore attaches to the recent vote of the President and Fellows, duly sanctioned by the Overseers, "to approve and adopt the recommendation of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences that . . . the number of courses required for the degree of A.B. or S.B. be reduced to fifteen in addition to prescribed English for all candidates who graduate in not less than four years in fields having general examinations."

The reduction of course requirements, even by one, in "fields having general examinations," obviously strengthens the tutor's hands. It places added responsibility upon him, and increases the importance of tutorial work from the student's point of view. It enables the tutor to expect a larger share of the student's time and effort, and it is a step toward leading the student to consider his tutorial work as not merely "one more course" but as an essential correlation, enlargement, and intensification of his knowledge in his chosen range of study.

The change will probably apply under present conditions chiefly to the senior year, but it seems a significant step toward the development of the educational process at Harvard from the complete sovereignty of the lecture system toward considerably greater tutorial responsibility, a development which the general examinations and the House Plan seem alike calculated to promote. --Alumni Bulletin.