Education Under Fire

I

While undergraduates fix their attention on the war, the Faculty has before it a proposal that would undermine Harvard education. Already it has adopted a ruling to limit tutorial instruction this summer to Senior honors candidates, and is considering the proposal that tutorial in the future be given only to men in Group IV and above. Although some Faculty members hope that the latter proposal will not be adopted, action is necessary to ensure its defeat. The main hope of intelligent self-education must not be killed by the war-time trend toward spoon-feeding students with science and a side order of liberal arts.

The proposed plan would limit tutorial to less than 37 per cent of the College. By it undergraduates would be divided into those who get a maximum of expert instruction and the rest who slide through Harvard with a maximum of snap courses. That Harvard gives more honors degrees than any other university of its rank in the country is due directly to the uniformly high standard which the tutorial system has done much to maintain. Such a division of the students not only destroys the value of a degree; it is unwise and artificial. In the Class of 1935 for example, 24 of the 159 men who carried home honors degrees were in Group V and below their first two years. With many men staying in College only two and one-half years and nearly all graduating after three, about one-sixth of the potential cums would be neatly eliminated, and the accelerated schedules of war-time will certainly not help to develop last year's high school seniors into Group II men over night.

II

The suggestions of the Faculty Committee are entirely unnecessary. The difficulties of obtaining and financing a personnel, problems which alone make such a move imperative, can be solved without adopting this proposal. To staff the tutorial system seems to be the main puzzle. The teaching staff is being rapidly divided between Washington's polished desks and Camp Edwards' polished brogans. But the latest news from the various departments indicates that from the 200,000 annual crop of teachers an ample supply of qualified, deferred men will be available. The Dean's Office admits that "several" departments which had expected to be drastically cut are picking up. The economics department is swamped with applicants for instructorships.

An even better source of supply is the majority of the present Faculty which at present does no tutoring at all. There are few good reasons why they should do no tutoring while the major burden rests on 168 young men who have no permanent appointments. When Plan B was put into operation in 1935 it was already urged that permanent members be used instead of these harassed young doctorial thesis writers. Surely in a total Faculty of nearly 1800 not all are doing vital defense or special research jobs, and with the number of graduate students greatly depleted, many older professors have more free time than usual. Certainly no temperamental reasons, no fondness for lecture desks should come before the tutorial system in this emergency. Perhaps the most glaring flaw in the tutorial teaching program is that it does not count for advancement, and is regarded chiefly as a chore that young instructors have to endure. Tutoring, in fact, has been the very essence of university teaching from the days of Abelard.

If all available men were used in a system of group tutorial that would save both time and money, this principale instrument of a liberal education need not be contracted. The average load of tutees is now 28 per tutor; the average yearly tutorial budget $300,000. By enlisting the full cooperation of the Houses, tutees could be grouped into effective teachable units. The House staffs which will be increased to meet the demands of entering Freshmen know their men as individuals and can shoose compatible groups. The success of the interdepartmental conferences in Eliot House this year shows that group instruction in the Houses is feasible. A tutor whose 28 men were arranged into groups of four, would have his time cut by three-quarters and the University would save an equal amount of money. If carried out immediately this program would allow the repeal of the unfortunate ruling on summer tutorial and the continuance of full tutorial in the future.