An educational system devised as a panacea for one philosophical group will almost certainly be challenged by others. Flaws can be found in any utopia, and educators would be among the quickest to look for them. Without urging the necessity and inevitability of every reform included in the plan, however, it may be possible to outline for non-scientific studies a utopian program which would answer some of the most damaging attacks made on the educational structure of the College as it stands.

Common complaints against the education offered at Harvard revolve around (1) superficiality of learning, (2) insufficient intellectual stimulation, (3) a lack of contact with members of the faculty, and (4) inadequate coordination of all of a student's academic endeavors into an intellectual whole. The first of these points is generally associated with examinations, the second with the lecture system in a vague sense, and the last two with the tutorial program or lack of it.

The chief defect of the examination system is its tendency to make a student's efforts rise to dominant peaks just before examinations. It might be said that an examination makes the student think about a course as a whole, but stimulates him to such thinking only once or twice a year.

Spread Student's Thinking

The utopia, then, should fulfill the requirement of spreading the student's thinking throughout the term. It must also provide an alternative which will permit grading at least as fair and sensitive as that which prevails under the examination system. This alternative can be derived from one of the most rewarding innovations of the General Education courses: short, frequent written assignments during the term. It is difficult to admit the possibility of education without examinations, but a careful analysis of papers as a substitute for tests shows them to meet all the requirements.

Five short papers--1000 to 1500 words--and one longer one might be the standard. The key to their success would be the assignment of definite topics, with perhaps several to choose from, for each essay. Instead of the small and specialized subjects that are found in most "term papers," these essays would deal with broad aspects of that part of the course which had already been covered. The topics could, in fact, be drawn from the reserve of final examination questions. The student could "agree or disagree with above statement, using examples from the material of the course"--but at his leisure instead of in the haste of the examination room. Short factual tests might remain a necessity for certain courses such as Music I.

Work for Papers, Exams

That the essays would be better than those composed under the exam stress is certainly true, but every student would have the same chance at improvement. And let no one fear that such essays would allow anyone to escape without doing the reading: a good paper would require as much work as does a good examination. The student's thinking processes would certainly be stimulated more often during a term than most men's are under the examination system. And the more frequent the thought, the less superficial his knowledge of the course.

One argument offered against the substitution of papers for tests is that a better writer will get an undeservedly high grade. This same complaint is applicable to examinations, however, and perhaps even more justly. The papers by themselves, moreover, help men learn how to organize their thoughts on paper. The General Education report made one of its less renowned but important points on this account, urging short essays on assigned topics as a means toward fulfilling the important points on this account, urging short essays on assigned topics as a means toward fulfilling the important educational function of teaching people how to write.

An essential adjunct to the proposal is that all papers be marked carefully, returned, and, if necessary, discussed. Here enters the second factor in the utopian program: the conference group. This idea is not new to the College, for it is used in History I and many other courses. But to make the conference group the central factor that it is, for example, in the Princeton "preceptorials," it would have to be given a definite status and function and standard.

No more than 10 or 12 students can operate successfully in a conference group. The first standard would be, therefore, to limit the size of the groups to that number. The purpose of the conference groups would be, like that of the papers, stimulation, with discussions revolving around the assigned topics or perhaps around some of the papers themselves. Conference groups, like every other educational device, would need good faculty men to make them successful, and in this case men of a particular stimulating kind. Were the conference group plan instituted, however, there is no reason to doubt that the departments could in time develop able young men for the jobs, as they did when the tutorial program began.

The relation of the conference groups to the lecture system is a shadowy one which cannot be fixed for the whole College at one blow. The value of a lecturer depends entirely on his presentation: the originality of his material, the effectiveness of his delivery, and the organization of his ideas. If a lecturer is not stimulating on the platform, his talks might just as well be mimeographed and handed out to the class. In any case, the department and the faculty member in charge of each course would have to decide how many lectures and how many conference groups there were to be, and what ground each would cover.

Tutorial Re-evaluated

Within the structure of conference groups and assigned papers the place of tutorial must be re-evaluated. The first step would be to end the twin luxuries of private tutoring and tutoring for honors candidates only, by setting up a new program of group tutorial--meetings of three or four men with their tutor. Group tutorial surely increases the stimulating effect of a tutorial meeting, as long as the number of men is kept severely down. The only real loss to the honors candidate would be thesis assistance, and that could certainly be given outside of the group sessions.

One difficulty of tutorial has always been lack of a specific function in each student's case. What would be emphasized in the utopian program as tutorial's own goal is coordination of all the student's scattered courses and reading into a pattern leading somewhere in his own academic field. To help the undergraduate think about where he is heading intellectually, to fit the courses he takes in his field of concentration into a larger idea of the field--these objects only tutorial can achieve.

Idealist, Not Revolutionary

Despite the idealist label attached to this program, none of the elements in it is revolutionary or unknown at Harvard. General Education courses have shown the way toward substitution of papers for examinations. Conference groups are in use here and in large numbers of other United States colleges. Group tutorial has been tried successfully in the Social Relations Department and others.

Financial considerations are always important in idealistic educational plans. To give group tutorial to all the men in a field, however, would probably cost no more than to tutor the honors candidates individually. To use conference groups half the size of the section metings of today would undoubtedly add temporary faculty members--and salaries --to the staff, but part of this expense might be equated by savings gained by dropping examinations.

What makes the plan utopian is in truth nothing more than that it is a plan. It would substitute for the haphazard standard of Harvard's instruction methods, allowed to exist by accident or whim or unfortified tradition, a policy. The policy would be a standard to which no course would have to conform but which would be there as a guide, a stimulus away from haphazardness and toward an ideal.