Twenty Per Cent of Tutees Obtain Little Benefit From Tutorial System, States Overseers' Report

Following is the fifth installment of the Report of the Overseers Committee on the Tutorial System.

Before attempting to tinker with any piece of machinery, one should make sure that he understands what it is, how it works, and what it is supposed to do.

The distinctive characteristic of the tutorial system is that it affords a large measure of direct contact between the teacher and the taught. Its distinctive method is the tutorial conference, in which, according to the usual practice, the tutor meets his students individually at regular intervals. The tutorial conference serves several purposes:

First, the tutor tries, if he can, to communicate to the student some of his own enthusiasm; to awaken in him a zest for intellectual adventure; to help him develop a serious scholarly interest, in the pursuit of which he will want to drive forward under his own power.

Second, the student, under the direction of his tutor, supplements his course work with further studies in his field of concentration, the object being both to extend and to correlate the student's knowledge of his subject.

Third, the tutor does what he can to assist the student in acquiring an effective technique of study, and often of research as well.

Fourth, the tutor acts in the broad capacity of guide, philosopher, and friend, aiding the student in the choice of his courses and giving him counsel about his personal problems and difficulties.

Each of these functions of the tutorial system is important, but the one which deserves the greatest emphasis is the first. All education that is worthy of the name is self-education, and the youth who has been brought to the point where he is able and willing to take his studies into his own hands and push them forward with the joy of an intellectual explorer, without needing to be prodded by the inexorable requirement of courses and examinations, has received the greatest benefit which Harvard can bestow on him. One learns, however, in talking with tutors, that many students can never be brought to this point. The fact need occasion no surprise. A tutor is not a performer of miracles; try as he may, he cannot stimulate a student to do self-directed scholarly work of a high order if native aptitude for it does not exist. Every tutor who was consulted in the preparation of this report stated that students of mediocre ability usually profit by tutorial work in only a very limited degree, and some of them not at all. To these, nature has denied the peculiar gifts necessary for indepenedent scholarship. Consequently the time which a tutor spends in trying to develop qualities that do not exist is time wasted.

50% of Tutees Benefit Only

The figures cited by different tutors were interesting. Some said that 20 per cent, of their students showed no appreciable response or benefit. One tutor put the figure as high as 50 per cent. The majority gave estimates that fell between these extremes, at around 25 or 30 per cent.

On the other hand, the tutors were emphatic and unanimous in reporting the excellent results achieved with the better students. This truth, indeed, is established beyond any possibility of doubt. The increase in the number of students who have taken their degrees with honors since the tutorial system was introduced is evidence enough.

These two sets of facts drawn from experience would seem to indicate both what the tutorial system can do and what it cannot do. It appears to be a device especially adapted to the needs of the better students; to the rest its finest fruits are denied by nature. With students of small ability the tutorial method may still be useful in a limited way through the operation of functions two, three, and four as listed above, but the first and chief function is here defeated by circumstances beyond control.

Quality of Student Important

After all, the effectiveness of tutoring depends quite as much on the quality of the student as on the quality of the tutor. In this connection it is highly significant to compare the Department of History and Literature with, let us say, the Department of English. Not every student who may wish to do so is allowed to concentrate in History and Literature. The Department limits the number of its concentrators, selecting only the best candidates, and the effectiveness of tutoring in History and Literature is common knowledge. English, on the other hand, is a subject which many students select for concentration merely because they have no special interest in any other field. Hence this Department is burdened with large numbers of lukewarm students whose highest scholarly aim is to get a "gentleman's C" in their courses. It is not to be wondered at, therefore, that on the whole the tutorial system functions much less well in English than in History and Literature. With able students it is an afficient educational device; with those who have no aptitude for scholarship it is inefficient and often suffers a perversion of purpose, tutoring degenerating into mere coaching.

The Practical argument

At present it costs just as much by the hour to tutor the unresponsive student as the responsive, and the drain on the tutor's energy is greater in the one case than in the other. Since these are times when every item of expense must justify itself, common sense would suggest that tutoring be reserved in large measure for those students who can realy profit by it. The tutorial system would be more efficient and would become all the more strongly established if its work were concentrated in the field of its major usefulness, and the resultant economies in operating costs would be considerable. Thus the practical and the theoretical arguments reinforce each other.

Let us assume that the College adopted the principle that tutoring is not a right to which every upper-classman is automatically entitled, but is rather a privilege to be earned; and that the degree of tutorial instruction which a student gets will depend upon his capacity and willingness to take advantage of the educational opportunity Harvard offers him. What changes would this involve in the tutorial plan of operation? The details would have to be worked out by trial and error, and might vary from Department to Department; a board outline will serve for present purposes.

In the Sophomore year, when tutoring begins, there ought to be a trial period during which all students would be tutored very much as at present. By midyear the tutors would have had an opportunity to size up their men, to know which ones were obtaining benefit from the work and which were not. From that point on, the two types of students would be subjected to different disciplines