TUTORING TUTORS

No one would disagree with the principle behind Dean Murdock's Report. The purpose of the Tutorial System is to furnish students with the intellectual stimulus of an advanced mind and with guidance through the welter of unnecessary material belaboring any field of study. Obviously, the system was not designed to compete with Cambridge Tutoring Schools whose only object is to cram unprepared men with the material necessary to pass an examination. If, as Dean Murdock seems to feel, increasing numbers of students are demanding of their tutors information available through research, the evils need to be brought out into the open. They should be met by a frank restatement of the ideals that brought the System to fruition, together with a warning to indolent souls that exorbitant demands on tutors will not only not be countenanced, but will lead to a withdrawal of tutorial privileges.

Surely such a method would achieve just as effective results as Dean Murdock's proposed rigid limitation of the hours a tutor may give each tutee. Moreover, it would be in accord with University Hall's professed recognition of the fact that the average student is approaching maturity. For there is evident throughout the Dean's Report an attitude that both students and tutors are more parts of a whole than individuals. It is difficult to believe that a large number of tutors are unable to resist their tutees' pleas for private coaching for examinations, whether general or otherwise, and are seriously disturbed by methods employed by others.

That the Tutorial System is expensive is common knowledge. Economy must be effected somewhere. If it be true that some students are perverting the System to their own ends, they should be warned that no jeopardizing of the interests of others will be tolerated, and that considerable money can be saved by restricting the System to those who will profit by it. The System must not be allowed to degenerate into a large-scale cramming outfit. But there is far more danger that an order from above imposing strict regulations as to hours and material to be covered will make of the Tutorial Conference a routine appointment. A careful reading of Dean Murdock's Report gives a distinct impression that the fundamental issue is being confused. Granted the reality of the pitfalls he is seeking to prevent--the point is not so much that the evils are inherent in the System as that they are developing through the weakness of a few individuals. Time and again systems far loss significant than the tutorial have been harmed in their development because the long range goal has been lost sight of in the face of immediate dangers. There is no reason why Tutorial Aims cannot be achieved if each Department is empowered to weed out the unfit among both students and instructors.