THESE TUTORS

The greatest fault in the Harvard tutorial system is the tutors. Educated in American colleges and universities before the advent of the English idea of tutorial instruction was translated into the American conception of what such a system must be, these men have for the most part, no sense of that subtle relation between tutor and student which must exist, if the system is to be at all effective Furthermore, they are Americans. And to an American, even in college teaching, there must be progress toward position, prestige, or life becomes futile Unlike the Englishman who sees his lifework in being a tutor, these young hopefuls see in a tutorship merely apprentice work, the first step in the social ladder whose top rung is a full professorship. The third difficulty with these tutors is that they are, and again for the most part, men who have not finished their own university training and who, therefore, cannot attack the problem of becoming fit tutors because of the pressure of their own work. "Finishing their own university training" does not necessarily imply that the tutor has obtained his doctorate. Merely, must he be mentally and physically free for what must be considered a very serious business.

The last named difficulty hinges on the question of university economics. It there were money enough in becoming a tutor to promise a man a decent existence, many more would be content to consider this a life work. The second handicap to success could be overcome, to some extent, by the development of the remedy suggested for the third, provided, of course, the cost system of departmentalized education be viewed with the necessary grain of salt. The first can only be eradicated by closer contact between English and American tutors. Unless these men here learn the subtle refinements of what must be considered a worthy calling they are so many drudges driving bored students through what is, at best, a gray corridor hung with factual etchings, at worst, an Elizabethan maze, made of barbed wire. The tutorial system is as good as its tutors. And when the tutors become sufficiently interested, in and faithful to tutoring as a creditable and worthy life work instead of a temporary means of paying term bills while a graduate student, then the Harvard tutorial system will be in fact what it now is in theory.