University Students Will Tutor Children In Roxbury Program

About 60 Harvard and Radcliffe students have volunteered to tutor Roxbury school children this year in programs sponsored by the Eliot Congregational Church and the Northern Student Movement.

Benjamin Riggs, program administrator for the church, said the tutorials are aimed at correcting educational deficiencies of Negro students from "over-crowded and understaffed" schools. He said conditions in a few schools are so bad that some pupils reach the sixth grade without learning to read.

The project hopes to provide instruction for more than 100 children by November, Riggs said, with most of the tutors coming from Harvard and Radcliffe. He explained that the bulk of the program's instruction is in remedial reading, where additioned tutors are urgently needed. Present plans call for each teacher to take five pupils.

In addition to regular classes, the church will also provide a study hall for children who do not have a quiet place to work at home. Although most pupils in the program need special help to catch up, a few are advanced students who want to supplement their regular school studies.

The Northern Student Movement began its tutorial program last summer and is now recruiting students to tutor in Boston settlement houses and churches this fall. It also hopes to start a career and college-guidance program, which would he staffed by Brandeis professors, said Helen S. Garvy '64, who is NSM's Harvard Coordinator.