Bitter Commercial Tutoring School Battle Culminated In Establishment of Original Bureau of Supervisors

Established in 1939 on the impetus of a fight against local commercial tutoring schools, the recently renamed Bureau of Study Counsel is now actively helping many undergraduate veterans return to academic life with a program based on up-to-date research and clinical assistance.

William G. Perry '35, Study Counsel director, heads an organization located in Holyoke House that last term gave general guidance in study methods, reading, and expression to more than 1300 students. Now including the one-time remedial English courses in its scope, the Bureau of Study Counsel is in the process of converting from its initial status as a Bureau of Supervisors.

In the haleyon days of the 1930s, when the Bureau was first conceived, tutoring schools of the square served some 60 percent of the student body, enabling many of their clients to graduate after having attended only a small fraction of their classes and having completed only a rigidly digested portion of their work.

The "tute school" system began in 1886 after William Whiting "The Widow" Nolen '80 opened the first Manter Hall school and began to relieve students of their curricular worries. Starting slowly, the system mushroomed after the turn of the century, and highly organized cram courses flourished. By 1936 Wolff's, Parker-Cramer, and the establishment of E. Gordon Parker '96 had achieved leadership in their field and were busily stuffing College mailboxes with their literature. "Tute school" advertising stressed respectability and the scientific approach. A high-water mark of a sort was reached by Wolff's in a display ad that pictured a cap and gowned senior under the headline, "Diploma by Harvard--Tutoring by Wolff."

Schools Bad for Morale

In 1933 Dean Hanford had said that the tutoring school system "affects unfavorably the standards and morale of the undergraduates." Nonetheless in 1936 a Student Council poll disclosed that from two-thirds to three-fourths of the student body was enrolled in cram courses. But some unwary tutors were already beginning to fill out their own death warrants as they prepared unabashed digests of textbooks with sources clearly marked on the pamphlets. Publishing firms initiated copyright suits against many schools.

By 1939, when pressure was first applied against the system, a few tutoring firms had started to branch out. They were offering to "type" English A themes, and prepare honors candidates for generals and divisionals in the "method" of favored professors. Alleged cases of the bribing of monitors for class lists came to light.

Crimson Fights Tute Schools

The Crimson inaugurated its campaign against tutoring schools on April 18, 1939, with a front page editorial and a refusal to take their advertising. Soon after other undergraduate publications joined in. On June 19 the Bureau of Supervisors was established by a faculty vote to combat the system with an official program. A year later, on May 21, 1940, another faculty vote made undergraduates liable to disciplinary action if they employed "the services of a commercial tutoring school." Although the battle had been largely won, the system did not die easily. Two days after the ban had been enacted, the Crimson was able to obtain a picture of a Parker-Cramer cram session going full blast. Parker-Cramer promptly filed suit for $55,000 and lost.

In its first year of operation, the Bureau of Supervisors, under Stanley Salmen '36, helped 406 men with the assistance of 79 supervisors. Since it was organized chiefly to replace the commercial method, the Bureau initially had to take over some of the function of the "tute" schools. In 1939 the Bureau ran reviews for finals for every course with more than 50 freshmen enrolled.

But the Bureau aim was to help students get along under their own power and not provide the academic crutch that had characterized the tutoring establishments. This philosophy was the basis to the recent change from Bureau of Supervisors to Bureau of Study Counsel. Actual help in specific courses was to be reserved for men whose faulty method of work or poor back ground had retarded them or for students who had missed classes because of illness.

Director Perry Fathers "Counsels"

Out of a welter of systems that proclaim the true road to scholastic success, Perry has developed his own method of teaching study skills that result in durable learning and defining just what they are. In his "counsel" sessions Perry emphasizes to students that the principal objective is to think and not to rely on books or notes to do their thinking for them.

"Bureau services are offered to all undergraduates who wish to improve their work, whether they are on the Dean's list or on probation," he adds. Perry feels that the bureau should be available to the whole range of College scholars in its program. "A student with three Bs is often more concerned about one C than a student with three Cs is troubled by a D--and it is always easier to help him." Perry says.

The compilation of a large pile of notes, he says, indicates a lot of work but is no sign that anything has been learned. To absorb knowledge a student must master his economics or history himself and not rely on pages of printed words to do the job, Perry points out whenever he is advising a pupil.

Special course instruction is handled by over 200 supervisors drawn from the graduate schools and the ranks of retired teachers. Briefing sessions enable these supervisors to carry out to some extent the general Bureau of Study Counsel technique in their specialized instruction. Fee for this service is $2.50 an hour with scaled rates for men who can't afford the regular sum. General counsel, however, is offered at no cost.

Except for students who are directed to the bureau for aid in English expression, the program is carried out on a purely voluntary basis and is divorced from disciplinary action.

Probably the most spectacular results obtained by the study counsel bureau occur in its reading classes. Last term they included more than 200 men, most of whom achieved a 70 per cent increase in speed. Before the class began students read an average of 250 words per minute and were able to answer correctly 6 1-2 out of 10 comprehension questions. At the conclusion of the 18 hour course they averaged 400 to 450 words per minute with a comprehension score of 7 1-2 to 8 questions out of 10.

A carefully developed sequence of material, including the Harvard Reading Films and speed practice material, is calculated to develop "active, purposeful reading," Perry says. The last of the hourly meetings are devoted to note-taking exercises and examination writing technique.

Another bureau service is the special classes, offered chietly for veterans, that review mathematics and the languages at the start of each term. These refresher courses are given in conjunction with the various departments. Last term 500 men enrolled in them.

On the basis of an old survey, bureau assistance helps eight out of ten of the students if serves to raise their grades. Many times the fundamental issue stems from the fact that students who merely had to parrot their instructor in preparatory school find difficulty in writing an exam that asks them to do something with the knowledge they have assimilated. Such men, once oriented, usually experience a great improvement in their marks.