DEFINITIONS

If an Overseer of the University attends a Wolff review, he is giving his benediction to the tutoring racket. It is bad enough that Harvard is indifferent to the evils; but it is infinitely worse when an official representative condones them. Mr. Bacon's ignorance is hardly a valid excuse. But perhaps his peccadillo did grow out of the belief that establishments like Wolff's are legitimate tutoring enterprises. There is a common attitude hereabouts that tutoring accords with accepted educational theory and practice. This attitude assumes that, while there are some vicious practices in the Square, most of the work is entirely justified.

It remains for the Crimson to define its stand more specifically. Obviously there is a defensible type of tutoring. But beyond this there are a variety of mal-practices that are either peculiar to Harvard's tutoring schools or at least grossly exaggerated in them. It is these which the Crimson attacks.

Outright dishonesty must categorically be condemned. This includes theft of examination questions, of which there are some cases, and ghostwriting, of which there are many cases. No amplification is necessary here.

Almost equally bad are the mass reviews upon which the businesses of Wolff and Parker-Cramer are based. As a means to real education, these are a farce. They consist, for the most part, in skillful spotting of examinations and cramming of answers. Students emerge merely with high-lights of information--which is necessarily superficial, which they do not understand, which they have not assimilated. The most important part of study, organization of the material, is completely absent. Thus the essence of education-mastery in the methodology of thought--is taken out. Students do not think; their thinking is done for them.

Much the same can be said for notes and outlines. Pre-digested material is practically useless for educational purposes. It can be carried in the head long enough to pass an examination; it can never be made part of a permanent store of knowledge.

Just as malodorous is the practice of planning a course of study for a student so as to include every snap course and every big-time tutoring course in the curriculum. It is almost literally true that men can get through Harvard without cracking a book or attending a lecture. It is ridiculous to credit them with an education when they have finally floated to the end of the mill-run.

Some of the most flagrant violations of ethical tutoring here at Harvard arise from commercialization. Granted that these practices amount to cheating, the worst kind of cut-throat competition among the tutors results in making these ever more dubious. Each tutor must go his rival one better.

Finally, the attempts to make this kind of cheating morally acceptable must be violently deplored. Much of the advertising has been directed toward this. Advertising in preparatory school papers, advertising aimed at parents, advertising about cures for maladjustment--all these try to make the business respectable. Freshmen are hard hit by a barrage of high-pressure propaganda from their day of entrance. Tutors, who now give cocktail parties, are even trying to make themselves social institutions. Their goal is to place a premium on indolence.