Overseers' Report Advocates Individual Tutors For "Better Than Average" Men as Economy

Following is the sixth installment of the Overseers' Report on the Tutorial System.

The alert, responsive students, among whom would be numbered all candidates for honors, and probably others whose work was better than average and who might conceivably become candidates for honors, would be given preferred rating as "tutorial men." Throughout the remainder of their college careers they would receive the fullest measure of tutorial instruction provided they continued to justify their preferment. To them the tutor would henceforth dedicate most of his time and energy, in an effort to bring their aptitude for scholarship to its finest flowering. As these students developed their capacity for independent, self-directed study, they should, upon the tutor's recommendation, be allowed increasing exemption from the formal requirements of course work. Little by little the center of their interest would shift from courses to tutorial work, so that by Senior year the top men in this group might conceivably be allowed complete exemption from course requirements. The system should be as flexible as possible, since its purpose would be to fit the needs not of types, but of highly developed individuals.

All other students would be "course men," and for tutorial purposes would be assigned to tutors in groups of, say, from five to seven. Thus it would be possible for these less gifted or less ambitious students to continue contact with, their tutors, and through them with their Houses, and to receive as much attention as they might require--without taking up too much of the tutor's time. If, as sometimes happens, one of them should wake up and decide that he wanted something more than the bare minimum of what Harvard has to offer him, it ought to be possible for such a student to change his rating to that of a "tutorial man." Again it would be advisable to preserve as much flexibility as possible. Barring such accidents, however, "course men" would, as the designation implies, do most of their work in courses; and for them the formal requirements would not be relaxed.

These changes in the tutorial system would also call for changes in the present plan of general examinations. The men who were tutored in groups could not be expected to meet the same tests as those who received concentrated and highly individualized tutoring. Each Department would have to work out its own arrangements for setting adequate and fair examinations for the two classifications of students.