127 Brooks House Men Act As Tutors to School Boys

There are 127 men in the College working both ends of the teaching game. Every morning they take down notes as students. Then about two nights a week they reverse the process-tutoring settlement house youngsters as members of the Phillips Brooks House Undergraduate Faculty Committee.

The PBH tutorial program was instituted in 1938 then disintegrated during the war. Last year there were about 60 men tutoring, with this year's turnout being the highest since the war. All the work is done on a charitable basis.

This crow of student tutors, the majority of whom are freshmen, works through 31 social service agencies in the Greater Boston area. According to Committee chairman Anthony G. Oettinger '51 most of the 335 tutees currently enrolled in the program are teenagers who are having trouble with the usual high school fare of Algebra, English, and languages.

Miss Martha Blume, activities director at the North End Union, claims that the "turnover among this high school group is naturally large. Most of the youngsters drop out as soon as they pass their courses, but every time report cards come out a swarm of parents descend, on as with their flunking children."

College Preparation

There are a number of tutees who are not struggling with Algebra 1, but who are trying to prepare themselves for college. One of this group was tutored at the North End Union last spring by a PBH man, and entered Radcliffe this fall. This year one of the tutees is a prospective Yardling.

Not all the tutees are high school students. PBH this fall has quite a few Displaced Persons receiving instruction in English. Oettinger also said that he has an unfilled request on file from a group of mothers in East Boston who would like a Harvard tutor to conduct a speech improvement course for mothers.

About two thirds of the tutees are taught in groups of ten at the settlement houses. "The rest are receiving individual attention either at the agencies or in their own homes," said Oettinger, "though occasionally we have exceptions like the two youngsters in the polio convalescent ward of the Childrens' Hospital we are now teaching."

The tutoring program has been highly praised by the settlement houses as well as by the parents of the youngsters. George Skelly, Director of the Cambridge Community Center, said that "this is the first year we've had the tutors and the plan has far exceeded any expectations ... the tutors here have certainly done a lot to build good will between Harvard and this community."

Miss Elsie Rowland of the Roxbury Neighborhood center backed Skelly's opinions but added that "this is the first large scale tutoring being done by college students and in many places Boston school authorities have resented the Harvard arrangement as an insult to their schools."