TUTORING AIDS

Perhaps no phase of college life is so incomprehensible to the layman as the part played by the various tutoring schools. In reviewing a course, the material of the lectures is condensed and sweetened, the essence of the outside reading carefully extracted and flavored, and the whole fed to the faltering student in- a form most readily assimilated by his starved intellect. Repudiated by some, instructors, ignored by the faculty at large, these establishments conduct a thriving business,-and will continue to prosper just as long as they satisfy the need of the undergraduate.

The best of the reviews undoubtedly give the essential facts, and present them more concisely than either reference book or lecture. Some books, said Bacon, "may be read by deputy, and extracts made of them by others; but that would be only in the less important arguments, and the meaner sort of books." Most college assignments are of the sort worth reading; many of them are intended to be "chewed and digested."

Young men come to college not so much to learn facts as to learn how to get at fact and how to treat it. The man who patronizes the cramming school loses that sense of the technique of investigation which only experience can give. In reviewing the course itself, however, the tutorial schools perform a commendable service. All too few of the instructors at Harvard attempt formally to convey to the student a view of their subject as a whole. The course without its seminar is as incomplete as the book without an index.

It is the duty of the faculty to make certain that students pass only through actual ability. To this end more stress should be put on work done during the term. Regular work can be insured by frequent quizzes. Examinations, too, should be such as to demand familiarity with the course and a working knowledge of its subject matter rather than painful retention of precise details. And it would be helpful if each instructor concluded with a complete resume of the ground covered. These ideas are not new, for they have already been incorporated into several courses with considerable success. The college's most effective means of displacing the cramming school is to make it superfluous.