Meanwhile the Council was busy with alternate plans. A committee headed by Robert H. Cole '52 suggested that decanal functions be vested primarily in the Housemaster, who may delegate them "as he sees fit." The report included ideas for getting better tutors such as requiring them to sit one to a table. The Faculty rejected the suggestions.

The question of expanding tutorial was finally settled at the February 12 faculty meeting. For the first time the Faculty said that tutorial must be offered and taken and implied that lectures were not the best kind of instruction. A five man committee headed by Myron P. Gilmore. Associate Professor of History, presented a plan to the Committee on Educational Policy. It differed from the Bender Report in one major aspect by approving individual senior honors tutorial and not requiring any reductions of junior honors tutorial.

The Faculty approved the C.E.P.'s proposals that included the above two ideas and limited group tutorial to six men, giving tutorial grades of "honor" "pass or "fail", and not requiring tutorial for non-honors seniors. The student load on the five departments had fallen off 25 percent in the past three years, so the Bender Reports' five percent rule was discarded.

In March the corporation allotted $1,000,000 from the Allston Burr $2.05 million of unrestricted funds for the new program and named its administrators Allston Burr Senior Tutors.

The problem of getting the right personnel worried faculty and student alike until after the April Overseers meeting when the College announced the first four Burr Tutors. They were: Ayers Brinser '31. Lecurer on Economics (Kirkland); Daniel S. Cheever '39, assistant professor of Government. (Winthrop): John J. Conway, instructor in General Education, (Eliot): and Joseph C. Palamountain. Jr., assistant professor of Government, (Adams).

May saw the next two Burr tutors appointed: William H. McLain, assistant professor of German, (Dunster), and Charles P. Whitlock, Associate Director of the Bureau of Study Counsel (Dudley Center).

In the shuffle of reports the Brinton suggestion of abolishing the office of Dudley's Graduate Secretary and having commuters assigned to houses was scrapped. Also the proposed Committee on Advising was never appointed, although it may soon be set up. And despite all the careful discussion there are still four important problems that have been raised but only partially solved. The prevailing attitude seems to be "We'll just wait and see how it works next fall. . ."

Housemasters and tutors are unanimous in belittling student fears of "having a House Dean snooping on my cocktail parties. . . "Pointing out that much discipline has always been taken meted out in the Houses. Housemasters feel that this side of a tutor's function has been overemphasized, and that a student will gain by having at least one man on the Administrative Board who knows him.

Ferry believes that "by the first of November students will be entirely at case and appreciate 'dinner-table deanery.' Brinser summed up the tutor's view: "The office of Senior Tutor is not a job of control by an attempt to find a way of carrying out relatively new ideas." Really this is the House reaching up to the Dean's Office, not vice versa; essentially the faculty has broadened the definition of education to include disciplinary functions with a teacher's educational duties.

The second question is parliamentary. While retaining faculty members, the eight Senior Tutors and Registrar Sargent Kennedy will be added to the Administrative Board. Working on the theory that the Senior Tutor's responsibility is to the Houses and the Administrative Board's to the University some have suggested that the Burr Tutors should play advocate and plead his housemaster's case before the Board who would then act as judges.

Many professors feel that this is over-formalizing the system: "we aren't running a court of law, but an educational institution," countered Elliott Perkins. Master of Lowell House. Observing that the tutor is responsible to the House-master, Perkins added. "Maybe the House doesn't want the man. . ." Dean Leighton sees nothing new about this judge advocate relationship. "I have been a member of the Administrative Board and Dean of Freshmen for 21 years and the two jobs don't conflict."

The third problem, that of fluctuating House enrollments, seems more serious. Since sophomores, and juniors if feasable, are to be tutored in their own Houses, there are only four main solutions if the number of men from a particular field of concentration entering a House varies much from year to year. These alternatives are: 1) screen House applicants according to concentration 2) allow bigger than normal (4 to 6 men) tutorial groups, 3) alter the number of tutors or 4) "farm" tutees out to other Houses.

Diverging Plans

Housemasters, prospective Senior Tutors, and departmental representatives alike rejected the second solution. Most disliked screening applicants although Perkins warns that "it might become necessary." "Farming out" will be practiced by all departments to some extent in the case of juniors. The majority agree that the best way to control fluctuations--which records show are seldom as much as six percent--would be by adjusting the number of non-resident Tutors.

The fourth problem still lacks any solution. The departments and the Senior Tutors must decide what is the real purpose of sophomore tutorial. Is it to be uniform and supplementary to a specific course or should it merely seek to arouse intellectual curiosity? The five departments concerned have diverging plans.