CUTTING THE CLASSES

Mr. Leighton in his annual report, besides directing attention to the deficiencies of the present Freshman adviser system, has called for more individual instruction and special attention for the first year men, not only through more frequent conferences with the advisers, but also by means of decreasing the size of the sections in the elementary courses.

At present there is great danger that, through the unwieldy nature of many of the sections to which he is assigned in the first year courses, the Freshman may get so little practice in intelligent discussion that he is hampered in his future work. Mr. Leighton points out that in some sections there are as many as fifty and the average number is twenty-five or over. In a section of over twenty-five, adequate discussion and frequent recitation are virtually impossible. At a time when the student is making the transition from the highly individual classroom instruction of prep school to the personal contact afforded by the tutorial conferences, he is apt to be lost in the shuffle and consequently to have difficulty in apprehending the aims of tutorial work and the best methods for obtaining from it the maximum of value.

There is then special significance in classroom work in the Freshman year, and in order that the first year men may receive more individual instruction, economic factors, at least in the introductory courses, should be overlooked to the extent of cutting down the larger sections so that none have a roll of more than twenty-five. By more frequent conferences with the advisers and the diminishing of the size of the sections more adequate preparation for an intelligent use of the tutorial system is assured.