TUTORIAL DEFENDED

To the Editors of the CRIMSON:

In your editorial of April 18, you discuss sophomore tutorial in English. We hope you will let us make a few observations on the points raised there. Alone among the five large departments, the Department of English--which has offered tutorial in various forms over many years--has decided to make the rather novel experiment of centralizing sophomore tutorial in the form of a course, English 10. The essential differences are that there is a common body of minimum reading for all sophomores; that the groups meet once a week instead of once every two weeks; that, instead of adding tutorial to a program of four courses, the students is able to count it as a course and is thus encouraged to put out a little more effort; and finally that the tutorial reading and discussion are supplemented by lectures that try to focus attention on the study and criticism of major authors, and on some of the central aims of literary history and criticism.

In the CRIMSON editorial, the misgivings about this experiment seem to be three:

(1) With the disappearance--at least for the time being--of English 1, there is not now a survey course in English literature for freshmen. This introduces some complex problems; and since your principal concern is with sophomore tutorial, we hope you will let us pass over them. It should be remembered, however, that survey courses of the older type have been virtually replaced, as distribution, by the courses in General Education. Their value at the moment is largely for concentrators. A careful study of the enrollment in English 1 during the last few years showed that future concentrators in English increasingly tended to defer taking English 1 until their sophomore or junior year; for the freshman year was largely devoted to courses in General Education. The Department of History may possibly have had a similar problem in mind when it did away with History 1, and offered an analogous course in General Education. Perhaps English should consider doing the same thing, although most of the present courses in the Humanities are already strongly slanted towards English.

(2) The "pace" in sophomore tutorial was felt to be too rapid, and the sweep of the subject too large. But far from offering a large, detailed survey, we are at present concentrating on a relatively few major writers in the hope of offering an opportunity for a more selective analysis of them.

Uniformity Desired

(3) Greater diversity of subject matter among the tutorial groups was desired. This seemed to be the primary objection. Flexibility is, of course, advisable. We hope to improve the opportunities for it. Meanwhile, junior and senior tutorial reading is left very free. There is a strong argument, however, for maintaining uniformity in sophomore tutorial. Its presence may not be felt as a blessing by all students. But its absence would soon become the subject of justified complaint--about inequality of assignments, about the relative interest or importance of the subjects discussed, and, when the student face General Examinations in his senior year, complaints about the value of sophomore tutorial in preparing him to deal with his field as a whole. Moreever, there is an extraordinary difficulty of getting six students to agree on a common subject--not to mention even a common hour. Whatever subject the tutor settles on--a major author or a topic like seventeenth century prose, or the modern novel, half his group will be already taking a more specialized course in it or prefer to do so the following year. If this sort of duplication is pleasing to some students, it is a cause of chronic complaint to others. It might be that the tutorial groups could concentrate on different methods of approaching literature.

But this, if it were to succeed, could be worked out only gradually. For the disparity in approach among tutors might be enormous. There would be complaints about the relative value or at least relative interest, and there would be the desire to shift from one tutor to another. Meanwhile, it should be remembered that, according to the Faculty directive, sophomore tutorial must be centered in the House. And though it might be possible, in the department.

to got six students able to meet at the same hour and able to agree on a meaningful and interesting subject in which none is at the moment taking a course, it is difficult to find them all in the same House.

Lack of Time

Finally, as distinct, from the smaller fields of concentration, where undergraduates tend to have a more specifically professional interest in the subject matter, the five large fields have had to face the brutal fact that large numbers of their students simply do not seem to find time to read for the tutor; and the students' explanations usually have to do with the pressure of course work. This delicate problems appears less pressing to the student than to the instructor who has tutored for some years. But, from the beginning, it has always been the most chronic of all the difficulties in conducting tutorial successfully in the larger fields. By permitting the student to count sophomore tutorial as a course, instead of asking him to add it to a four course program, it is hoped to avoid embarrassments of this sort.

Liabilities Realized

Of two situations, as Johnson said, that will always have the disadvantage which we have already tried. For we have actually felt its liabilities at first hand, while, in imagining prospects we have not yet been forced to live through, the disadvantages are less vividly felt, and we fix our attention on the more pleasing side. This may possibly apply to any undergraduate feeling that agrees with your editorial. If the other pasture, from a distance, looks greener, could there not be some trust that many members of the Faculty have seen that other pasture closely, and remember very well what it contains besides grass? Far from being cavalier toward the needs of the student the present experiment is an honest and conscientious attempt to satisfy those needs more fully and at the same time avoid some very real difficulties? Some of us perhaps recall too vividly the almost insoluble problems that arose in the past insoluble problems that arose in the past in trying to make group tutorial effective; and we shall need a little time to feel the disadvantages of the present experiment and weigh them against others. Meanwhile, we wish only to give it a fair trial. We hope to study it imaginatively and with an open mind. Whatever method of tutorial we ultimately evolve, we are likely to be more understanding because of this experiment. If the present system is scrapped, we may still have discovered something valuable which can be assimilated. And in the limitations that disclose themselves--and there are limitations in every system or method--we shall also have learned effectively what not to do.  Sincerely yours,  W. J. Bate,  Associate Professor of English  Herschel Baker,

Chairman of the Department of English

Ed. Note--The CRIMSON appreciates that there will be disadvantages to any system and that the English department is still examining and experimenting to improve its tutorial. The basic question, however, is whether English 10 is sophomore tutorial with added lectures and a common reading list or whether it is a survey courses which has engulfed tutorial work and has replaced it with standard--if smaller--section meetings. Sophomores in English 10 who answered the CRIMSON poll inclined toward the latter view. Tying tutorial to one course limits its scope. If a standardized plan of study is necessary for the sophomore, this also can be served in the sections of a survey course. But to insist that tutorial be this rigid and uniform is to destroy much of its benefit.

We also feel that the difficulties in presenting varied, flexible tutorial are surmountable. The other four large departments are conducting tutorial sessions which center in the Houses, which allow members a broad range of study, and which supplement, rather than supplant regular course work. Furthermore, a turn to flexibility and additional freedom of study would not require overloading the student with reams of reading material. Careful examination of severe poems can be of more benefit than quickly skimming a hundred pages.

The suggestions in Saturday's editorial were not criticisms of the concepts of tutorial. We sought instead to inspect the method of presentation. In this instage the English department, In seeking a uniform approach for all groups, seems to be sacrificing the broad scope so essential tutorial for the narrow limitations of particular course