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No advocate of the existing Harvard tutorial system regards it in any sense as a finality. It is a stage in an educational experiment, and a very transitory stage: few years have passed since its adoption in 1914 in which there has not been an extension of the System, or a modification in the fields where it already existed; and plans for further changes are constantly under consideration. Bearing this in mind, it is with a constructive attitude that we approach the problem, intent on tearing away nothing that exists, but eager to determine whether, as has been said of democracy, the cure for the evils around the tutorial system be not more tutorial system.
Want More Contact With Instructors
The trend in education which our plan expresses receives its vitality from the growing realization of several principles. First, in a large college a more personal contact is desired between instructor and instructed than exists generally in the course system. Secondly, this latter system has the faults of laying too much emphasis on the accumulation of facts, when the correlation and application of those facts would form a more valuable training, and of breeding the idea that for entrance into the "society of educated men" the securing of stipulated grades in a certain number of courses is all that is necessary. And finally, the extent of these faults is diminished by the method of the tutor.
Student and Tutor Discuss Reading
A word as to what this method is: the field to be covered is outlined and a schedule made for this accomplishment. At regular conferences thereafter reading is assigned the student, and there follows a discussion of the reading done since the last conference. This discussion is the meat of the tutorial work. The student is expected not only to outline but to criticise, the tutor meets the criticism not with contradiction but with counter-criticism and with argument, and the "conference" ends a literary conversation, in which for the moment the distinction between instructor and instructed has dropped away.
In his development of conversation as an art the American is sadly deficient, and college men of other nationalities, and in particular the English, notice this. It is an element in our training which cannot be lightly overlooked.
Require Reports and Theses
Frequent critiques or essays are required by tutors in some fields, in the hope that work of the research type will be done for them. Too often this hope is disappointed, due rather to lack of time on the student's part than to disinclination. This is to be deplored, for with more time at his disposal the student could submit reports and small theses on various subjects, and comparison of these with ordinary examinations reveals in a minute their superiority of training. Put a student in the library with a keen interest in some subject on which he expects to prepare a little masterpiece; give him references on which to work, and encourage his eclectic faculty; expect him not only to produce a literary gem, but to glory in his work!
Tutor's Personality Important
If the student does not respond to the conference or to the tasks assigned him, it is either because he has no interest, active or latent, in the field in which he is concentrating, or because his tutor is not interesting and does not inspire. Avoidance of this latter possibility is essential. On the personalities of the tutors depends the efficiency of the system, and care in their selection is the administrative function, of primary importance. As to the other possibility, a capable tutor can judge of a man's interest in his work, and can recommend a change of concentration either to him or to the college office. This action might be taken more than it now is with much benefit to a great many students. How many go through their college course without finding a great interest, an ideal to which they can reverently devote their best energies, merely because they have gone afield in the choice of their concentration, and have no one to show them that they have!
That a spirit of accord generally exists between tutor and student is amply attested by the fact that no steps toward compulsory attendance have been necessary in our whole experience with conferences.
Increase Scope of Tutorial Work
The Harvard plan of tutor's work is superimposed upon a system of a different order, the course system. The two do not seem to us "antithetical and mutually repugnant," as they have been characterized elsewhere. It is our hope to see them work together, at least in a temporary state. But the scope of tutorial activity should be widened. Demand for the kind of personal contact described above and for greater independence for the student call loudly for a step forward, for another stage in the experiment.
The task of outlining a plan is one which requires more of selective than of imaginative skill. Oxford, with the tutor method the backbone, and lectures given purely for the benefit of those who desire to attend; Princeton, where the so-called preceptorial system has been set into the courses; Columbia, Swarthmore, and Smith, with the number of courses lowered and tutorial work increased, for those who are candidates for honors; these, together with certain experiments we find in several courses in Harvard exemplify most of the possible arrangements.
Combine Oxford and Princeton Plans
While those in closest touch with tutorial work believe in the superiority of the Oxford method to the course system, a sudden departure from our established position could hardly be advocated, even by them. And since the latter system has certain advantages of its own, which will be pointed to presently, our policy should rather be to strive to collect the strong features of both plans into an original production than simply to choose the better of two possibilities.
To these who contend that the methods are hostile to one another we reply that experimentation should better enable them to judge of that, and ask whether they would favor the complete elimination of one system without first trying a combination, or without at least passing through gradual stages toward the elimination. Perhaps the design we shall propose is far from the ultimate form which our educational system will take, but it is in line with the progressive tendency of the times, and it respects yet the place to which tradition is entitled.
Would Foster Critical Spirit
As a step toward greater independence of thought among students, and the fostering of the critical spirit of learning, the following plan seems plausible:
1. Reduce the number of courses required for graduation by four, and broaden the field of the tutorial system to include half the work now done in the Junior and Senior years. Tutoring prior to the Junior year would be arranged in accordance with the individual needs of the various departments, but in any case would differ little from its present form.
Tutorial System Should Follow Oxford
2. The tutorial work of the upper classmen would be conducted on the Oxford Plan, looking toward the general examinations as a goal.
3. Eliminate some of the smaller and less important courses now given, and allow the professors and instructors to give their time to tutoring. The work of these smaller courses, which is largely that of filling gaps and linking periods, will be taken over by the tutor.
4. Honor students would fulfill more exacting requirements in the work with their tutors, and would receive special instruction. We are not, however, among those who feel that this plan should be extended to them alone. Although a good argument could be made for this limited extension as a temporary and experimental step, democracy would demand a universal privilege as in politics it has demanded a universal suffrage, the more so because the case for expansion rests on general and not on special grounds.
5. Retain the big lecture courses.
Lecture Courses Should Stay
It may occasion some comment that this institution is left intact. No change is suggested because the greatest need is for a better and larger personnel of section men and readers. And this improvement could hardly be made simultaneously with the extension already outlined.
The chief danger from flying unreservedly into the arms of the tutorial system is that the opinions of scholars and authorities may be missed. That the large lecture courses provide for this is the salient credit in our present system. Furthermore, there are some professors whose courses are crowded with admiring students, and who seem to touch with the hand of inspiration these large masses. Men several years out of the courses frequently return for single lectures, to receive again the impetus and warmth of such personalities. It is folly to talk of meddling there. Let good lecturers lecture. Nor would anyone favor the destruction of survey or introductory courses.
Departments Must Work Out Details
It must be borne in mind through any discussion of academic policy that different departments require different organizations. Science may never use the tutorial system. Economics will never use it in the same form as Fine Arts. Departments must work out details within their own limits. The most that we can do here is to draw a wide boundary.
In drawing it we have tried to recognize merit where it has existed, whether in the present order or in one proposed. It has been our position that compromise is possible, compromise which will embrace the good qualities of more than one system. We are not convinced that the "old order must utterly go." Perhaps time and experience, which unmake, as they install and signalize tradition, will presently indicate that it must. But even then "Old age hath yet his honor and his toil," which in decline will be to bear up until the new order grow to take his place
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