A LIVING WAGE

With increased emphasis being placed on the function of the tutorial system, it is reasonable to expect that some steps will be taken to maintain a high standard of personnel which will be equal to the increased demands exacted from it. The weak link in the chain is the individual tutor.

In order to do his best work a tutor needs an opportunity for an adequate amount of research. On a maximum salary of $3,000, however, the average full-time instructor-tutor can not carry on his own study without some outside means of support. Despite the recent raise in faculty salaries this situation continues, because the tutor is paid according to the number of his tutees. A reduction in his schedule, therefore, from 25 to perhaps 15 or 20 men, means a corresponding decrease in salary, leaving him with an income barely sufficient to meet the demands essential to living and utterly inadequate to maintain consistent study throughout the year.

The graded salary has two outstanding results both of which are injurious to the tutorial system. In the first place, the full-time tutor loses efficiency because he is unable sufficiently to replenish himself through outside study. Then, too, as long as the University virtually demands a doctorate for promotion, the ambitious, and consequently the best, teachers are forced to slight their tutorial work in order to prepare for their doctor's examinations. This is particularly true in cases of the tutor who has junior and senior honor candidates among his tutees.

To enable the instructor to reduce the number of his tutees without diminishing his income requires a large sum of money. But the objection does not invalidate the suggestion. The University obtained $15,000,000 to establish a physical basis for the tutorial system. It remains now for the authorities to eliminate the inconsistencies.