ORGANIZATION OR INDIGESTION

Reviewing, coordinating, synthesizing always present perplexing problems. None the less, it should be recognized that reviewing is within any teacher's purview, or to put it more pointedly, that it is part of his job. Reviewing, in this sense, does not mean cramming shallow pates with doctored facts. It means, above all, the organization of material previously presented--material that necessarily could not be schematized and organized at the beginning of a course.

That such organization is a crying need, particularly in elementary courses, which can best be described in terms of bulk and indigestion, needs little proof. Many professors and instructors advocate going to tutoring schools for just such a purpose. Words heard at the end of the term in one large elementary course, "Now, gentlemen, we turn you over to our unofficial confreres on the Square", express and attitude all too prevalent and reveal internal weakness.

Reviewing of elementary courses, in the manner specified by the Union Committee, is an interesting experiment in solving the problem. Its aim is to provide a worthwhile substitute for a tutoring school. Not only is a fat wallet less liable to buy an education and a diploma under these circumstances, but also the lean one may get, free, much of what a tutorial school can give.

A tutoring school's real and legitimate usefulness is found in their supplying a "handle" to an examination and, for that matter, a course. And "handle" is merely another way of saying organization. The Union Committee's plan, at best supplies only a partial solution. Lecturers and instructors, at least in elementary courses, should also keep in mind at all times the necessity of giving some unity to their work, and should be prepared to give a lecture or so at the end of the course sketching, as far as possible, that unity.