HONORABLE MENTION ESSAYIST FAVORS EXTENSION OF TUTORIAL SYSTEM-WOULD ADOPT LESS ARTIFICIAL METHOD OF GRADING

"Without the tutorial system general examinations are but a test of knowledge acquired during a frenzied year . . . of haphazard cramming of a multitude of facts and general conceptions".

"Yet although divisionals are a means to an end, they are . . . an end for which a means is provided."

"For most undergraduates divisionals are but a remote contingency."

"Course grades have always been regarded as an artificial necessity and an unavoidable evil by leaders of educational thought and progress."

"The course system as a method of college instruction masses men into an educational factory."

The above quotations are taken from the essay printed below, which was submitted in the Crimson essay contest by Edward Brooks Ballard '27, under the title "Harvard's Dual Educational System." This essay, which is one of the two contributions winning honorable mention in the contest, will be followed in the near future by the other, submitted by James Harry Smith '25.

In May, 1919, the Faculty of Arts and Sciences of Harvard University adopted general examinations as a requirement for a degree in all undergraduate departments except the divisions of Mathematics, the Natural Sciences, and Education.

What prompted the experiment? What effect has it produced on the educational system at Harvard? What ideal does it endeavor to approach, and is that a worthy ideal? When we have answered these questions, we shall have discussed, in essence, the vital problems of the divisional examination and the tutorial system coexistent with it.

Divisionals Give Definite Goal

What prompted the experiment? Even as modified by the requirements for concentration and distribution, the elective system showed certain defects which the system of general examinations sought to remedy. Up to this time, little attention had been paid to the choice of courses requirements for distribution. Too early specialization at the expense of essential general training, conventional choices or unguided following of the way of least resistance were undesirable tendencies not wholly obliterated by the advent of concentration and distribution.

By means of divisional examinations the administration sought to insure a better correlation of the student's work, to urge him to appraise the general field of his concentration as a connected whole, rather than as a group of courses having merely a formal relation with one another. These examinations gave an opportunity of testing a student's real knowledge of his subject and his real abilities at the end of his college course. Moreover, such a plan gave the student a more definite goal toward which to work. Under its influence the college graduate seemed better fitted to play the game of life.

Divisionals Useless Without Tutors

Yet, although divisionals are a means to an end, they are ... what is infinitely more important to a college career and to their own value an end for which a means is provided. In January, 1925, the tutorial system was extended to the Division of Modern Languages. Today, every department making use of the general examination is provided with some form of tutorial guidance.

This is the means which enables a student to prepare systematically for his comprehensive examinations. It is the tutor, coming into personal contact with the student, at stated intervals during the last three years of his college life, who endeavors to guide and help him in his work. It is this corps of experienced teachers that President Lowell describes as "carrying out the conception that the unit, the only true unit, in education is not the course, but the student himself." Without the tutorial system general examinations are but a test of knowledge acquired during a frenzied year or even half year of haphazard cramming of a multitude of facts and general conceptions.

What effect has the plan of general examinations, with its concomitant tutorial system, had on the educational life of Harvard? Has its procured the desired results? We can judge only from external appearances.

What are the facts? Tutors have conscientiously given more attention to Seniors preparing for imminent divisionals than to indifferent Sophomores and Juniors. Why, thinks the Sophomore, should I take time from present course study, which has to be done, in order to complete tutorial reading in preparation for examinations two years hence? That reading counts me nothing.

What are reason for this prevalent attitude? Primarily, an inadequate supply of tutors cannot give lower classmen a sufficient amount of their time to rouse interest in the work. Personal contact between student and teacher in its true form is not a reality. Secondly, it is doubtful whether tutorial work which receives no credit, at the college office stimulates enough interest in that work to warrant its maintenance on a large scale. At the present time, a student's scholastic standing depends, throughout his college course, solely on his course grades. The average student is not inclined to do work for which he receives no apparent recognition. For most undergraduates, divisionals are but a remote contingency.

Is Obvious Answer Best Remedy?

Will the obvious answer to each these problems prove the best remedy or the situation? It seems logical that increasing the number of tutors would settle the first difficulty. Yet, if enough were added to warrant the endeavor, a substantial outlay would be necessary. Furthermore, competent teachers are not always available. It is therefore plain that an extension of the tutorial system must take place over a prolonged period of time. However, that it is the aim of the Faculty at Harvard to make the extension of the system one of its primary objects is to be inferred from President Lowell's recent address before the Harvard Club of Washington.

Therefore, it remains for us to determine whether that extension should introduce any new features. Should scholastic standing be based not only upon course grades, but also upon work completed under tutorial guidance? If tutorial work were definitely taken into account at the college office in the reckoning of a student's rank, we should expect, for psychological reasons, a stimulation of interest in that work. Does this mean that course study would be unduly neglected? That would naturally depend upon the relative importance of the two phases of study.

Count Tutorial Work One Third

If tutorial work counted one-third, and course work, two-thirds of the whole rank, the emphasis would be put on course work. Yet this plan would help to do away with the present over emphasis on the value of course grades as indication of attainment. Course grades have always been regarded as an artificial necessity and an unavoidable evil by leaders of educational thought and progress. The proposed separation of emphasis would not seem to provide a method of ranking on the whole less arbitrary than the present method. Nevertheless if tutorial reports used the terms, "satisfactory," "barely satisfactory," and "unsatisfactory," in place of "A's," "B's," "C's," etc., we should expect a more natural system of grading. With this arrangement it seems logical that tutorial work should count as part of the basis for scholastic standing.

Furthermore, the tutorial system may be used to supplement the distributional requirements for a degree. The present mode of 'satisfying these requirements is arbitrary, and does not constitute a well, rounded phase of collegiate endeavor. It introduces into the student's curriculum four totally unrelated courses, in which he has but a passing interest. They represent only a superficial glance into fields of study a part from his real interests.

Tutors May Help in Outside Fields

The average individual accepts them as a matter of course. Some men take them as a bore and give them as little time as possible. There are others or whom this glimpse of different fields is an impulse to further investigation. Yet divisionals themselves require that the earnest student select courses not in other fields but courses which will be of benefit to him in his chosen field. To fill in the gaps and round out the college training, an able corps of tutors may not only guide the students in their fields of concentration, but may also encourage them to delve more deeply into foreign fields of knowledge.

Looking at Harvard's educational system as a whole, what do we find? a dual system. We realize that this has been the ultimate goal. President Lowell declares that "there is no intention of gradually substituting tutorial work for courses of instruction. Both are necessary. Each of them has its own merits, and both are means to a common end, the highest development of the individual student." It was therefore not to supplant the course method that the tutorial system was inaugurated at Harvard.

Is the present dual system of education a consistent scheme of training, or does it defeat its own ends?

Must Not Standarize Humanity

The one extreme is a thing of the pas. "The course system as a method of college instruction masses men into an educational factory. Its only result can be an approach to a standardized product. Humanity cannot and ought no to be standardized. Every student in college presents a different combination of characteristics which distinguish him from his fellow-students. The individual student should be modeled on his own personality rather than on a common ideal.

What of the opposite extreme. The tutorial system looks at education in an entirely different light. The individual, student is here the educational unit. The method is the contact between two minds, are with a fund of information ready to be shared, the other desirous

of acquiring that knowledge. The general examination is a test not of the student's memory of more facts but of his ability to explain and correlate facts.

May Adjust Two Systems Effectively

How can he best learn those facts which he must know in order to generalize? certainly not through a survey of his entire field under the guidance of a tutor. Only through the medium of courses, dealing with single phases of study, will the student best acquire that fundamental knowledge of details which is essential to the best development and cultivation of the mind. Only through them can he discipline his mind so that he may best grapple with the problems of life. The two systems, though totally different in principle, may be so adjusted that they will form a consistent whole, embodying the merits of each.

In conclusion, therefore, we advocate the extension of the tutorial system along certain definite lines. First, gradually increase the number of tutors where this is essential to the most efficient administration of the system. Second give to the distribution of courses a real significance by providing that part of the tutor's work shall be guidance and suggestion in foreign fields. Third, provide a more natural system of grading by the use of less artificial standards. And last, stimulate interest in tutorial work by making it part of the basis for scholastic standing