As wartime storms hit Harvard education, the extras will be jettisoned first. Already the pressure is on for the tutorial system, and the temporary duration remedies which were quietly adopted last year by the Faculty to carry it through the war point to its basic weaknesses. Course credit for tutorial now enables men to take it who otherwise could not, and it encourages more thorough work. It was a necessary step, for the war. But after the war the problem will remain of how to tighten and crisp tutorial, and make it for all students the stimulating experience it has been for some.

The tutorial system, almost by definition, depends on intense interest both from faculty and students. The first is often watered by lack of good men as tutors, small interest by certain Departments, and even a remnant among some professors that the system is new-fangled and a time-waster. Young instructors feel often that they are wasting time on tutorial which might better be given to their own research and scholarly work toward promotion. On the other hand, student interest has not always been overwhelming; dull sessions have discouraged work, and the absence of any sanctions has permitted laxity. Many of these trouble points will be bolstered by the course credit provisions, but these fail as long-term correctives. They are in themselves antithetical to the tutorial concept of education, whose keynote is flexibility and the avoidance of exam pressure. After the war other remedies will be needed for sick tutorial.

Most of the Departments, surely, are strongly interested in tutorial and convinced of its success. Certain science fields have often been exceptions, since an hour of lab seems to many far more valuable than a personal talk. But an important area for science tutorial would be the liberal arts approach to those sciences, the history and application of the scientific method. A strong policy by the College of recognition of tutoring would help this problem as well as that of manpower; faculty-men would be more willing to tutor if they felt it was an important part of the curriculum, and if their other academic loads were lightened proportionately. Conference groups are an obvious way to lessen the drain on staff members, and, in Sophomore tutorial especially, have proven an excellent introduction to new and broad fields. The question of sanctions is more difficult; but the tutor's authority to exclude a man from tutorial, thus shoving his course requirement to 16 and forcing him to prepare alone for general exams, could be used with effect. Present inequalities in tutorial doses could be adjusted by more careful watch over the reports which even now must be handed in showing each tutee's assignments and results.

The beauty of tutorial lies in its breadth and diversity, and in the personal relationship between tutor and tutee which, as last year's Student Council report said, "forces the student to define his position to himself and to create his own perspective." It must be individual; no standardized reading list can do the job. It must be personal and spontaneous; course credit and exams are not the answer. Having proven itself invaluable, the tutorial system has been remodeled for the duration. In peace, strengthened and cleansed by the catharsis of war experience, it can attain, along with Harvard education as a whole, new levels of academic usefulness for a new society.