"Revelations of the unfair practices of some tutoring schools are all very well," went the word yesterday, "but what on earth can the college do about it?" The answer, whole and complete, lies in Dean Hanford's statement.
The College can merely define the borderlines between scholastic honesty and dishonesty; the Professor in the course concerned can make an announcement that he disapproves of using tutoring schools for help in a particular book report or thesis which is intended to be a test of original thinking; both can make the threat of instant dismissal to the student caught attending unscrupulous review sessions.
Further than that, the College can do nothing. To send spies to the reviews in question would be impractical and inexpensive; to pounce upon suspects on reading their reports would risk all kinds of injustice and embarassment. But only a bigoted self-cynic could maintain that such Ogpustic activity was necessary.
For individual students it would be difficult in the extreme to draw the line between using professional tutors to help along their self-education, and thus honorably, or merely hiring a third person to get them through college with as little education as possible, which means dishonesty and waste. But only an unimportant and inconsiderable proportion of undergraduates would or will continue to avail themselves of the offending facilities after a statement from the dean's office, threat or no threat.
Of course the College has no direct authority over the Tutoring Schools. But the repercussions from the students will soon show them that it is to their interest to live up to the scholastic ethics of their customers and of their customers' mentors.
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THE PRESIDENT SPEAKS