Harvard and Utopia

In the new college the instructor would correspond to the director of a research foundation or the leader of a scientific expedition. He would coordinate the collected material, point out overlapping interests, raise questions, and direct further systematic attacks on both individual and collective problems. Such an instructor would necessarily be a vital factor in ensuring the success of this plan.

I am fully aware of the tremendous obstacles in the way of such a program of reconstruction. Yet it is not economically impossible. More efficient use of even the present facilities would help much. Few realize the amount of time, money, energy and eyesight now wasted by professors in preparing and dictating lectures, by section leaders in conducting large and cumbersome discussion groups, by readers--those most pitiable and degenerate academic parasites--in grading blue books. But even though this dead loss were turned to good account, more instructors and tutors would be necessary. Intimate personal contact between students and faculty is one of the first requisites of any educational institution.

The Swarthmore honors plan, the Harvard tutorial system and the Wisconsin Experimental College all impress us as admirable reforms tending to informalize and intensify college training. They show a growing tendency to consider each student as an individual, to adapt the course of study to his needs and interests, to stimulate his curiosity, and to develop his initiative. However, the two former plans are narrowly limited in their application. The real young barbarians are seldom honor students or sons of Harvard. They are "C" students in the state universities and newer colleges. Not until these institutions follow the example of Wisconsin and begin to break up their huge classes will we have an opportunity to realize the intellectual possibilities of the first-generation collegian. H. G. Graham in the New Republic