(The Crimson invites all men in the University to submit signed communications of timely interest. It assumes no responsibility, however, for sentiments expressed under this head and reserves the right to exclude say whose publication would be palpably inappropriate.)

To the Editors of the CRIMSON:

Before the Faculty decides in favor of extending the general examination plan now used in the Division of History, Government, and Economics to other departments, the failure of the tutorial plan in the present system should be remedied. The average student derives almost no benefit from his fortnightly tutorial conferences, and until the middle of his Senior year looks upon them as an unpleasant and useless extra task to be hurried over and forgotten. Then, too late, he realizes his mistake and sees the connecting and comprehensive values his work has failed to gain.

It is an unfortunate but an accepted fact that marks have proved the most successful incentive to work. Under the existing system, tutors hand in at the end of the year to the heads of the division their opinions of the ability and work of the men under their supervision. But this annual marking is too intangible and far distant a threat to be of real value in urging the student to look upon his conferences as important.

Would not converting the fortnightly conferences into a compulsory course with a half-point credit for a year's work solve the problem? The plan should certainly be continued as it is most beneficial in linking up a student's single courses and in filling up the gaps in his chosen period. The realization of the fact that he was being closely marked on his work and that he was gaining credit for his efforts would make the average student apply himself to his tutorial conferences. Debates at conferences between students or written essays and reports upon the assigned work could well be used to supplement oral recitations as a basis for marking.

If the assistant and not the professor is to be the tutor in the future, let him be provided with the same powers and machinery of marking that he now employs in the section meeting. F. HIBBARD '20.