General Comments of Tutors in Reply to Questionnaire on Tutorial System Given---English Department Starts Series

One hundred and twenty-six tutors, or approximately 50 per cent of the total number, have to date answered the questionnaires on the tutorial system sent out before Christmas by the Crimson,

Starting with the English department in today's issue, the Crimson will print such appropriate general comments on the tutorial system as were made by members of the various departments.

No complete tabulation of answers to the separate questions will be run until after the general comments have been completed.

In accordance with the statement in the questionnaire and circular letter, which are reprinted in today's issue, no mention is or will be made of the names of the tutors who have sent in their answers or general comments.

In the next issue of the Crimson on Tuesday morning, the general comments of members of the departments of Government and Physics will be printed. Extracts from the 1931 Student Council report on the Tutorial System will also be given, space permitting.

The difficulty with the tutorial system is twofold; first as regards the tutees and, second, as regards the tutors. The average Sophomore thinks the tutorial work is unimportant because no grades are given in it. If he has to neglect something. It will be tutorial work. It is easier to bluff in that than in anything else, and he is inclined to view it as a lot of extra work that does not help much. As divisionals get closer the interest in the tutorial work increases, but a lot of time has been thrown away. On the other hand, the tutors do not give as much time to preparing for conferences as they do for composing lectures, and are pat to spend much time in discussing irrelevant topics.

I believe that the tutorial work should be put on the same footing as course work. The tutee and the tutor should select the field they want to cover. There should be a reading list, quizzes and examinations, and a grade should be turned in. Then both tutors and tutees would take the work more seriously. It should be more valuable to the student than a class, as the instruction can be adjusted to the progress the student makes and individual difficulties can be dealt with as they arise.

Some of your questions are misleading. I heartily endorse the suggestion of establishing two degrees. I doubt whether we should follow Oxford and Cambridge in placing virtually the whole responsibility for a student's instruction upon his tutor, but I think we might well place at least a third to a half of the responsibility there, in the case of honors men, and not much less than a third in the case of any student who, for any reason, is thought worthy of tutorial instruction. Instruction which involves drill, as in elementary work generally, can be done best in courses. I favor the abolition of the distribution requirement; in any case a reduction of it; and the reduction of the number of courses required for the degree to ten, including English A. The student night then be expected to do work amounting to an honest equivalent of two courses per year for his tutor in his sophomore, junior, and senior years.

I see no reason for the romantic theory governing tutorial discipline at present, according to which no measures can be taken against a student for slackness, except in extreme cases. The tutor should report periodically satisfactory or unsatisfactory the work of each student, with comments, and his report should be given the same consideration by the dean as course grades. Tutors at present have too many students, and students have not time to do sufficiently through work to benefit to any extent by tutorial instruction.

Your question No. 9 raises an important issue. Tutorial instruction ought to be directed toward preparation for the general examinations--provided these examinations are, as they ought to be, and can be, a fair test of a man's mastery of his subject. In my department they are improving from year to year, and I look for continued improvement in the future. It is nonsense to ask a student to read for a tutor only with the indeterminate end in view of gaining a liberal education--nonsense to ask a student to read for a tutor only with the indeterminate end in view of gaining a liberal education--nonsense to warn his tutor against cramming. Nobody can cram for an intelligent examination--such as the Cambridge Tripos in English--and until we provide examinations which demand and measure intelligent work, tutors will continue either to cram their students or, as the case may be, to struggle against catering to the student's practical needs in an effort to conform to a highly unsatisfactory system.

I feel that more emphasis might well be laid on tutorial work and less on course work, with, of course, the obvious necessity of appointing highly qualified tutors. I also feel strongly that if tutorial work is to be really effective, it should be put on a level with the highest quality of faculty instruction. To my mind the position of tutor should be an end in itself, rather than a means to an end, i.e., a more advanced faculty appointment, which it now patently is. Moreover, I should like to see a Tutorial Board which had its generous representation of non-scholars: the office of tutor now implies either a Ph.D. "in cursa," a full fledge Ph.D., or some other "negotiable" scholastic achievement. One need not point out the limitations of many tutors, due to required or voluntary restriction within some special field of their own. A balance of Ph.D.s, Faculty Instructors and variously ranked Professors, together with critics, teachers of composition, etc., seems to me eminently desirable.

I do not favor drastic changes, but the system is not yet so successful as it might be. Tutorial work is most successful with the serious student (he need not be brilliant), and this suggest that the student is more often to blame for the failure of the system than the tutor.

Very often the student who is not out for honors benefits from tutorial work as much if not more than the student who is out for honors. It would not be fair to deny a student tutorial work, simply because, as often happens, his grades keep him from being a candidate for honors. If the privilege is denied him, it should be because his is indifferent to the work.

The tutorial system, taken all in all, is moving ahead at just about as fast a rate as is healthy for it, but I believe that it will never work at its best until all undergraduates are relieved of most of their regular course requirements and all honors men made entirely free, that is, until course lectures, exams, grades, etc., are made optional as they are today for honors students in many progressive American colleges; until, in a word the undergraduate is made an independent self-educator.

Your tutor is neither a lecturer, researcher nor a don; he is all three daily by the necessity of his calling, and you cannot divide him. Moreover, as he is at work on the main business of his career you cannot separate him, his work, and his tastes from the obligations of this career. Can you say to any man: Discounting the problem of your getting ahead and expect an honest and at the same time an informative reply? I think not.

Conferences are devoted to discussion of work assigned, which never intentionally duplicates course work, and which, before the senior year, has no particular regard to general examinations. In the first two years. I make some attempt to ascertain the student's interests and abilities, and to help him start work in those fields he is best adapted to: we fill in b background, and pursue literary hobbies, establishing a method of study. In the senior year the impending examinations demand that we fill obvious gaps in the field as a whole, so that the student has nodding acquaintance with all the major writers.

I am not convinced that the dividing line suggested in question 11 is a good one, for often the poorer men show the most striking improvement in tutorial work. I approve of honors and pass degrees, but I feel none the less that the pass men should have tutoring, adapted to their courses.

In short, I have great faith in the tutorial system, although its hands are now in many ways tied.

The tutorial system could be of more value to students, in my opinion, if they were given more time by a slight reduction of course requirements. I have observed great benefits from the reduction to three courses in the senior year.

In regard to question nine, hardly any of my conference time is devoted to a discussion of course work. About a fifth of it is taken up with outside things. The rest is used in talking over the reading which the student has done. This reading should, of course, help the student to pass his general examinations, but I do not emphasize that aspect of it either in making assignments or in discussing them. This helps, I believe, to prevent a certain grimness from penetrating our discussion.

Over half of my students are in the House, and I see them much oftener than any other students. The convenience of proximity is important, and I think I do better work with these students that I know well. It is easier for them to borrow books from me, we can discuss literary matters at meal times, and I should not be surprised if it were generally true that students in Houses are better tutored than those outside--not that there are better tutors in Houses, but from the point of view of frequency, informality, and intimacy. The diffidence of the tutee who sees his tutor only once a fortnight is overcome by the daily meetings in common rooms and dining halls, and I get much better discussions and much freer and franker criticism from House tutees. As far as my own part of the bargain goes, I know that I did better instructing before I got fed up with room assignments, should problems, and whatever has to be done to keep a House going.

But my primary interest is still teaching. In general, one must direct his instructing towards Divisionals, but I never hesitate to encourage an enterprising student to investigate the by-paths and to follow out personal preferences, I should like to add a bromide to the effect that the most important thing about the tutorial system is the tutor and not the system. The less organization the better, so long as the tutors are absolutely first-class in scholarship, intelligence, and personality. The tutor in a great university like Harvard should be regarded as a friend as well as a pedagogue. I hold that the social aspects of tutoring are extremely important.

N. H. This is the only occupation of the tutors at Oxford and Cambridge.

Please understand that I doubt the value of such inquiries as this anyone except these who conduct them. Probably they are amused but just what else is expected?

My opinion about the tutorial system is in print, in the Harvard Graduate Magazine Current History, Harper's and various books. It is an excellent means of instructing superior students if superior tutors are secured for them. Superior students, however, are not so common as undergraduates and CRIMSON editors--tend to believe. They constitute less than ten per cent of the student body. The percentage of superior tutors is about the same. In my experience the good student who has a good tutor is satisfied with the system, and rightly so. The mediocre student no matter who his tutor is, is dissatisfied. In my opinion, it doesn't make much difference what kind of instruction the mediocre student is given. The results will tend to be the same in any institution.

A system of instruction is a human institution--a simple fact which seems to escape the attention of student surveys. You have asked, and received, my answers to a number of questions. I suggest, now, that you make an estimate of the probable value of any changes made in the present system in ignorance of the problem of administration and finance, and in ignorance of the necessarily unpredictable results of the implied alteration in the relation of parts of large whole.

Question 10 is an exceedingly difficult one to answer and should perhaps be left to the judgment of the students themselves. Of all my students only one has conscientiously neglected his tutorial work. He failed in his divisional examination.

The statement is not meant to suggest that the sole function of the tutor is to prepare people for examinations or that examinations cannot be passed without tutorial aid. It indicates rather that one who avoids effort in his tutorial work is not likely to be sufficiently interested in his subject to work independently (this particular student had already failed once before). I believe that the tutor's first duty is to aid the student to obtain a grasp of his subject as a whole, which, sordidly speaking, means passing his divisionals... There is no reason why a tutor cannot help a student in working out methods of study, suggesting relationships between different fields, and discussing such matters as "attitudes toward life" brought forward by the tutee's reading.

If some students are not satisfied with the present arrangement, I see no point in obliging them to take tutorial work. But to make general examinations entirely optional is a step backward toward slovenly dilettantism.

TUTORIAL SYSTEM QUESTIONNAIRE

1. Are you in general satisfied with the way in which the Tutorial System is organized or do you favor drastic changes?

2. Discounting the question of academic promotion, is your main interest in tutorial work, in course work, or in research?

3. How many years have you done tutorial work?

4. How many tutees have you?

5. How many tutees would you like to have?

6. Approximately how much time do you spend each week with candidates for honors--Seniors? Juniors? Sophomores?

7. Approximately how much time do you spend each week with men not candidates for honors--Seniors? Juniors? Sophomores?

8. Do you, as a rule, have tutees make up written reports for you?

9. Is your time in tutorial conferences devoted mostly to a discussion of course work(), preparation for general examinations (), or topics outside the field()?

10. What percentage of your men respond to tutorial instruction and are genuinely benefited by it? (Apart from the practical consideration of preparation for generals.)

11. Assuming that some are not benefited, do you think that it would be wise to recognize this condition and establish two degrees an Honors Degree, with tutorial instruction and general examinations are optional?

12. Please make any special comment you wish to on the back of this sheet either in amplification of answers in some of the above questions or in the Tutorial System in general.

Signature.

Department

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