CHANGE--AND PROGRESS

The education methods of the University are constantly undergoing change; the recent extension of the fields in which general final examinations are given, and the change in the number of courses a Senior is required to take, are ample witness that progress is being made. Under such circumstances it is not wholly amiss to consider what advances may reasonably be expected during the next few years.

At present the tutorial system is in effect only in one division, and is barely out of the embryonic state. Nevertheless, it has already justified its establishment, an is now in the position where one begins to question: "How did we ever get along without it?" With this good start, a modest forecaster anticipates the extension of the tutorial system to practically all departments. The problems are not everywhere similar but tutors, when possessed of proper qualifications, both of mind and character can effect in the student a fuller appreciation of intellectual riches than any other single factor. And this is over and above the practical opportunity for guiding the tutee's work in the most profitable and interesting channels.

With better guidance, less attention would be necessary for assimilation of the minutiae of a subject; to be sure, a grasp of the details is necessary to any conception of a whole, but the latter make easier the mastering and proper emphasizing of detail. And so it would be practical to place more emphasis upon the division examination, which is designed to test the student's command of a whole subject. The warding of distinction or honors might well be made, throughout the division, on the demonstration of knowledge and intelligence made in the general examination and in the thesis. Obviously the man who has done poor work would not win honors, but if the "average" man were to show more than average ability in the general examination, it is only fair to assume that he has earned distinction.

The principle which justifies such changes, is that there is now spread, at Harvard a table of intellectual food of which all may partake. But this is not enough; the student must be shown the value of the subjects, and their interest. The tutor's work is here. And the success with which a subject is absorbed should certainly be the measure of an undergraduate's achievement, on the degree of his intelligent command of his field should honors or distinction be awarded or withheld.