TOO MUCH TEACHING

President Conant, in his first report, called attention sharply to the problem of the teaching load carried by members of the faculty. The tutorial system, superimposed on the course system, has placed a burden on Harvard professors and instructors which may interfere seriously with the President's aim of studding Harvard's faculty with the most illustrious of American scholars.

There can be no doubt that the President intends to lighten the teaching burden of the members of the faculty in order to give them more time for research. And since it is the tutorial system which has been responsible for the existing situation, the prevailing suspicion is that tutorial work is slated for curtailment. The tutorial system has labored under the handicap of being a new-fangled appendage to an old machine, and its recognition by many of the older professors has been grudging. Yet in the space of a decade or so, it has achieved a remarkable degree of success in raising the intellectual standards of the College.

Before scrapping any part of this system in the interests of the faculty, the College officials should note carefully whether some of the necessary adjustments of the teaching load cannot be made with less harm in the course system. There is offered in the College at present an altogether excessive amount of course instruction. While some departments, such as economics, have reduced their curriculum to the minimum number of courses required to cover the major sectors of the field, other departments remain glutted with a multitude of courses which are often as poor as they are superfluous.

If the unnecessary courses were weeded out, there would still be an opportunity for saving time and effort by reducing the number of lectures in the remaining courses. In too many courses the lectures consist in large measure of an unenlightening presentation of material available in books with less trouble to both student and teacher. The amount of lecturing could be reduced either by having only one lecture a week or by extending the reading periods. Either of these measures would reduce the teaching load of the faculty and at the same time relieve the student of some of the academic engagements which interfere so effectually with concentrated study.

The amount of time which can be salvaged for research and tutorial work by an intelligent pruning of the dead wood of the course system will not be sufficient to give the balance Mr. Conant desires. But it might serve to avert a serious crippling of the tutorial system.