Asks Students As Tutors

To the Editor of the Crimson:

One way to painlessly overcome the illegitimate aspects of tutoring at Harvard would be to encourage those who do require tutoring not to patronize the tutoring schools, but to go to the Student Employment Office, which can refer them to needy undergraduates and graduates who are capable of doing the work.

That there are students capable of tutoring well may be seen from two things. First is the Undergraduate Faculty, where the tutoring must have at least enough to it to keep the tutees coming back, although many of them are hard pressed for time. Second is the even more significant fact that many students, unable to find legitimate tutoring jobs, have gone to work for the tutoring schools. There they lost any personal interest and pride in their pupils. They were restricted principally to giving reviews just prior to exams to students who had by then lost any desire for real comprehension of the subject. Given a chance to consider themselves teachers rather than accomplices in the art of just getting by, the tutors will certainly do a better job than they are at present doing in the tutoring schools.

From the tutor's point of view, the disadvantage of the tutoring schools is that, while certain people may now earn large sums by tutoring the large majority of those who would and could tutor are unable to get any work at all. The appointments in the schools are often made on the basis of friendship rather than merit. By having more legitimate private tutoring, and less group reviews, many more students would be given needed employment.

Every person who applies for work at the Student Employment Office indicates on the application form the subjects in which he can tutor. The Office has the machinery for bringing students and tutors together, although this machinery is at present very rarely used. If those undergraduates who needed polishing up in any subject would go to University L, they could quickly be given the names of several students who are ready and anxious to help them learn the material they need.

In order to inspire confidence in the tutor's obtained through the Employment Office, that office should, at the beginning of each year, ask the heads of the different courses to interview or examine the would-be tutors to determine their fitness. Then all assignments of tutors during the year would be made by the Employment Office from the list of capable tutors made up at the beginning.

These two things, in my opinion, would help greatly to alleviate the situation. First is the realization on the part of the person needing tutoring that he will get more from the personal attention of a man who is really interested in having him learn the subject. Second is the adoption of a system of approving the tutors by the Employment Office. Robert Fleischer '40.