TUTORS AND PROCTORS

Where the duties of the tutors are to end and those of the proctors or disciplinary officers begin in the future new housing units will have to be decided before the House plan goes into effect. For, as Mr. Peterkin points out in his interview, the responsibility of the tutor in effecting the success of the experiment will be great, and it is essential that any proctorial policing should not handicap him in his advisory and social capacity. In the first place, his proposed role not only as academic supervisor but also as friend and confidant would not find duties of an administrative character congenial. Again his work will be of sufficient magnitude without having him assume the functions of the contemporary proctor.

At present the office of proctor in an upperclass dormitory is in many ways a gesture. It is to the credit of upper-classmen that the proctor does not have an especially active disciplinary program to carry out in the hall. On the other hand, the proctor among the Sophomores, Juniors, and Seniors is usually as alien to the social life of his constituency as though he resided in a different college. Whether the nature of his position enters into the situation or not, it is true that he receives little attention from those about him, if indeed it is generally known that he is present. Entirely shorn of that halo of authority which the Freshman Halls proctor wears for his flock, the proctor in upperclass dormitories also loses prestige as a social factor and consequently has little in the nature of a beneficial heritage to bequeath to a tutor. To combine the duties of the two very dissimilar offices would do nothing to establish the desired intimate relation between the tutor and the tutee in the new houses.

The simplest solution of the problem would probably be to have a few proctors residing in the houses much as they do at present in the Yard dormitories. They could fulfill their current. College obligations under the supervision of the master of the house and could also cooperate with the tutors in meeting emergencies which were outside the province of the latter. It is improbable that they would play any more important part in the new houses than in the Senior dormitories, and yet it is important that someone be on hand to inforce discipline when necessary. Whereas the tutor could do this, he should not be starred in a dual role.