Inertia is as powerful a force in sociology as it is in physics. Whenever some considerable evil exists, the community must be jolted lustily before it awakens to the fact. There must be even more prodding until the proper agencies begin to roll into action. Inevitably there is name-calling, vituperation, and bitterness. But after the initial splurge of fireworks, a steady process of renovation sets in, and the evil is creatively attacked.

So the second stage has begun with respect to tutoring at Harvard. The University has been fully aroused and has now commenced a major offensive against the problem. No one can doubt its business-like intent after reading the details of the new University-sponsored tutoring bureau.

An important department has been added to Harvard's numberless agencies for this or that. The new bureau is not only large; it gives every promise of being tremendously efficient. The carefully selected corps of tutors will certainly be capable of offering a better brand of aid than any of its competitors along Massachusetts Avenue--which cannot possibly recruit so many experts. It will certainly answer every conceivable need for honest tutoring.

The cram parlors will not immediately close their doors. Let there be no mistake about that. But their mask of holiness has been finally and effectively torn away from them. They can no longer make any pretenses to educational merit, for any tutoring of a reputable and legitimate nature can be done better and more cheaply by the University. They must openly admit that they exist for another and less honorable reason.

That they are thus shown up in their own unkindly light is in itself an important achievement. Once out in the open they are farther along toward the grave. And having taken such a tremendous stride, the University is now completely and irrevocably committed against them.