EDUCATIONAL UNITS

In a section of his annual report Dean Hanford stressed the fact that at the present time approximately eighty per cent of the students can be tutored in their respective Houses. "It is believed," he said, "that this will go a long way in increasing the importance of the Houses as educational units." How closely this opinion approximates the fact, however, is a question that must involve other considerations.

Though there has been evidence of some Houses containing a number of concentrators in one field it is doubtful whether this fact has made any one House an educational unit. On the other hand, as social units the Houses have developed certain tangible individual characteristics. In some Houses there have been attempts to form various discussion groups for concentrators in a particular field, but these have not in every case been successful. Whether the Houses will become "educational units" depends largely upon whether or not the students and tutors want them to develop in this way. The tutors relations with the Houses are, for the most part, relations with individual students and not with the House as an educational unit. In some Houses, apart from conferences, the tutors segregate themselves from the students and form an exclusive group among themselves.

It would definitely be a mistake to try to make one House a unit for one group of concentrators if this is what is meant by making the Houses educational units. But, if it is meant to make the Houses centers for intellectual activity as well as social, then the objective is one worth striving for. To achieve this, however, there must develop a greater feeling of community between tutors and students than exists now and there must be an effort made to obtain a greater number of resident tutors for each House.