Combined Tutorials

It is often difficult for partisans of particular educational programs to remember that experiments are not, per se, good things. But the Government-Economics joint tutorial program initiated in Adams and Quincy this fall is among the most promising ideas to come along in recent years.

The program is encouraging partly because it began without faculty legislation, working within the framework of the existing departments. A technique of drawing on a variety of fields to study individual problems rather than attempting to master formal academic disciplines seems even more appealing when it comes from within the departments. In itself, the combined tutorial testifies that the departments are both able and willing to broaden their academic programs.

But more significant, in some ways, is the similarity between the program and the much-debated Social Studies program which the Faculty half-heartedly half-approved last Spring. As many people are enrolled in the Adams tutorial as in the entire Social Studies program, and the limitations of size placed by the Faculty's legislation clearly do not apply to such an informal arrangement.

Yet the combined tutorial does not have the basic flexibility of the Social Studies program--it remains rooted in the individual departments, and the participants must fulfill the requirements of the departments. Although it offers praiseworthy breadth within the traditional departmental structure, it is not a substitute for Social Studies, and neither the foes nor the supporters of the program should so construe it.