PBH Committee Offers 'Seminars' For High School

The Tutors Committee of Phillips Brooks House will begin a new program of seminars for advanced high school students this February, William R. Whitney III '61, Committee co-chairman, announced yesterday.

The first seminars, which will be in the fields of literature and history, will be held at Boston Latin School. They will be supervised by a member of the School faculty, and will meet after school once or twice a week.

According to Whitney, the purpose of the new program is "to stimulate some of the very able students towards more creative thinking and broader knowledge."

The seminars are meant to counteract the tendency in education to devote increased attention to the less talented students.

The program was also developed because most tutors "are more sympathetically inclined towards the brighter students," Whitney said, although he stressed that "this is not to say that they lack the patience to work with slower students."

If students in the University show sufficient interest in the program, Whitney said, the Committee will extend it into other high schools. The idea of the seminars received a "good reception" when it was presented to a meeting of the headmasters of the Boston Public High Schools last Wednesday.

The seminars will cover material such as literature not assigned in any regular course or a period of history covered only lightly by a regular course, so as not to duplicate regular work. Whitney hinted that at some later time the seminar method might be used for scientific subjects.