RALPH MONROE EATON

Those who have enjoyed the quickening effect of tutorial instruction as administered by Ralph Monroe Eaton are able to comprehend the intentions of the founders of the House Plan. The large company of students who are indebted to him bear testimony to the excellence of a system which fosters such instruction as he gave.

His contributions to the literature of his chosen field were important, and growing, his force as a classroom teacher was great, and beyond these merits there was the weight of his position as a pioneer in the experiment of tutoring. A host of undergraduates had derived from him a sympathetic understanding of philosophical problems during his service of more than a decade as a tutor.

The mobility which has come in our time has given us new opportunities for human contacts, but the continuity of human relations which was enjoyed by our elders, a net of relations which contributed to deep knowledge of one's neighbors, has disappeared. Here, within academic walls, we are engaged in an effort to reverse this tide.

It is one of the strengths of the human spirit that it is able to impart its disciplined enthusiasm to fellow spirits. It is our misfortune that frequently, in a world so lonely as ours can be, it is not possible for the questing mind of the teacher to draw peaceful satisfaction from the art of teaching. Our intellectual systems have released a world of potentialities. But each individual is faced with the Herculean task of making a personal adjustment to this formidable problem, and to the war generation even more than to ourselves this presents an undertaking which is sometimes too much to ask of a man.