Harvard University - Red Book Yearbook (Cambridge, MA)

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Howard Mumford jones gives literature a social slant, is a past President of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 21 SIU- dent of American and 18th century English literature- college training than he could possibly have if he had been limited to classroom work. The tutorial system was volun- tary, a student might, if he wished, make no use of it, but nearly everyone did. Although there were abuses of the meth- Od, occasional poor tutors, and some undergraduates wh0 persisted in trying to make tutorial conferences into cram- ming sessions to compensate for neglect of work, the bene- Hts of the system heavily outweighed its defects. With the introduction of the tutorial plan came an increase in the buy- ing and use of books by students, and an increase in the num- ber of honors candidates. Visiting teachers declared that Harvard students, however similar their course training and backgrounds, often seemed to think, talk, and write more ably than their fellow-undergraduates in institutions where no tutorial system existed. The Case for Tutorial Unhappily the system at Harvard, however great its educational advantages, presented grave practical difiiculties. It was expensive to employ tutors and the necessity of having a large staff sometimes led to the appointment of mediocrities and often to serious problems of tenure, since only a few of the younger men employed to tutor could hope for promotion. For the present at least these difficulties have been found in- surmountable and the tutorial system has been sadly cut down. In general the privilege of tutorial instruction on the complete individual basis has been limited to honors candidates or at 'l49l least to the men with distinguished grades in courses. Group conferences have often replaced individual meetings of student and tutor and for concentrators with the lowest records a plan of advising, often highly perfunctory, has been made the imperfect substitute for tutorial work. There is in theory a good case to be made for these changes. Why should weak students, with little ability or interest, be given costly indi- vidual instruction from which they are unwilling or unable to profit? Why not limit such instruction to the best men, those most worthy of such educational nurture and most able to make good use of it? Put thus, the questions allow for no serious argument, but neither touches the central issue. How can the ability and interest of students be justly measured, how can the really best men for tutorial privileges be fairly chosen? Course grades, especially in the first two years of college, often fail to tell the whole story, and some men rake so long to discover what they most want to do that they do not reveal their real talents until it is, as things are now, too late for them to earn the right to be tutored. Many teachers agree that the merit of the old system was that some men were awakened by sophomore tutorial work to do better throughout college than they would have otherwise, and that tutoring often transformed C men into successful honors candidates. Many agree that some honors candidates with the highest grades in courses actually need tutoring less and get less from it than their brethren whose ability is not so easily measured in marks and whose capacity for independent work is not yet trained. Ideally the choice between those who are to be tu- tored and those who are not, ifa choice is to be made, should be based on a complete evaluation of the individual's poten- tialities as well as his performance in the classroom. Such evaluations are rarely possible. The result is that at present there is reason to fear that many of the benefits of the old scheme have been lost. Students are being tutored who need Harry Levin is a keen critic of modern literature. His book on james joyce is considered the definitive work.

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of various periods in East and West have expressed this re- action. Courses in General Education are not panaceas for every educational ill, but those offered in the last two years at Harvard represent an approach to the study of the humanities which, to judge from the results, has already proved fruitful. Like all courses they depend for success less on their method than on the men who give them and their ability to arouse sympathetic and intelligent response in students. Much of the material has already been taught in other courses and will continue to beg the hope of the experiment in General Educa- tion is that its new emphasis may give to both instructors and pupils fresh interest and insight. Should General Education be Compulsory? The report which proposed the General Education program and was approved in principle by the Faculty, sug- gested that after an experimental period three of the elementary courses should be required of every undergraduate together with three others chosen either from the General Education list or from a group of other courses in various departments and approved as suitable by the General Education Com- mittee. On this the Student Council's report on student opinion dissented. A majority of the undergraduates who were polled opposed making General Education courses a compulsory part of the Harvard program. There is good reason for the opposition. Compulsory courses at Harvard have almost always been handicapped. Students have tended to resent any course which they have been forced to take or to elect from a very limited group of possibilities, and their re- sentment, as many English A instructors know, has too often shown itself in apathy or worse, so that the task of effective teaching and the conduct of vigorous discussion has been made hard or even impossible. Resentment or apathy on the part of undergraduates would surely block the ends for which the General Education courses have been planned. It may be Bartlett Whiting gives courses on Chaucer and on Old and Middle English. Dean of the Graduate School of Design, joseph Hudnut heads a distinguished group of modern architects including Walter Gropius of Bauhaus fame. that their obvious value will overcome the traditional dislike for compulsory or quasi-compulsory programs, but it is to be hoped that the initial student reaction will be carefully pon- dered and that the Faculty will not impose any requirement until it is certain that it will accomplish more good by doing so than by letting General Education stay on a take-it-or- leave-it basis. If it has the merit it should, it will prove itself and will reach all those capable of profiting by it, if it is even in part forced on the undergraduate, there is at least a chance that the taint of compulsion may jeopardize its success. Tutorial is Weakened Unfortunately the same half-decade which saw the beginnings of General Education as a promising step forward in educational method and a new way of arriving at an under- standing of the full value of the humanities for modern life, saw also the weakening of another educational system which had abundantly demonstrated its ability to serve the same ends for students specializing in humane studies. For years the tutorial plan was a feature of Harvard education, and dubious as its utility may have been in some fields, there is no doubt that it worked admirably in the humanities. The student who read and discussed his reading with a tutor, who found in tutorial a chance to follow lines of inquiry independently of courses, and who learned to understand and think better by testing his ideas against those of an instructor working individually with him, often got immensely more out of his 'l48l

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liz Author of several volumes of poetry, Theodore Morrison edited Five Kind! oflV1'iti11g, the English A Bible. it less than those who are not, and men of real promise, cap- able of distinguished achievement, are deprived of the chance to develop their full powers by being denied a useful educa- tional aid for that development. If it is true, as it surely is, that in the humanities the The late Frederick G. White UMD, formerly instructor in English, chortles with Professors james B. Munn, Howard M. jones, and educational advantages of the tutorial system were greater than those of any substitute plan thus far tried, it behooves everyone interested in humane education to seek for means either of restoring the tutorial plan as it used to be or of de- vising some other scheme that will work as well. Dean Chester N. Greenough once declared that Where there is an educa- tional necessity there is no such thing as an administrative impossibilityf' This is a statement of an ideal which Harvard has pretty well lived up to in the past, there is every reason to hope that when it is recognized that the full tutorial plan in the humanities is a necessity, or at the very least, a major desir- ability, administrative impossibilityu will not be allowed for long to stand in the way of its restoration or of the provision of some truly adequate educational substitute. It is Now Tomorrow In the last analysis, however, the present and future of the study of the humanities at Harvard do not depend on formal methods. General Education, the tutorial plan, skilful lecturing, valid testing of aptitudes, and a host of other devices can all be of service, but ultimately success or failure comes from the quality of the teacher and the taught and the quality of their relation. The central value of humane study is that it takes its devotees into the heart of life, not into a realm apart. It involves not merely the individual's appreciation of objects which please or interest him but far more importantly his power to construct standards by which to live, to make wise human judgments, to develop enduring equalities of character, and to fill a worthy place in a healthy society. Books, music, and objects of art have no lasting virtue when they are divorced from a living context. The problem for the teacher and the student is to study them first in and for themselves and to know them for what they are, without ever losing sight of the H. E. Rollins in Warren House. Munn gives courses on the Bible and Browning, Rollins is a scholar of the Romantic Period. .-t, ,,,,,n,.,,,,..,.,f-..,-, .M - - rv' ' pri k '5