But a weakened tutorial system has meant increased reliance on the focal method of educating large numbers of students. While it is perfectly true that Professor X can as well speak to 1,000 students as to 100, and while educational television may allow him to lecture to half the United States, these are not solutions to the central problem. Building larger lecture halls and more Houses will permit the College to expand, but at the expense of many inestimable values of student-teacher relationships.
Lecturers Must Stimulate
It is currently fashionable to attack the lecture system, and it is well to recount its usefulness other than as a convenience in dealing with large number of students. Certain courses are designed for the acquisition of basic material which is not conveniently found by reading. Others deal with technical material which is difficult to grasp in written form. And, perhaps most important, the lecture allows the great teacher, the seminal mind, to communicate with more people than he could meet individually or in small groups. The success of this theory, however, depends almost entirely on the lecturer's ability to transmit his enthusiasm for the subject--in other words, on his personality. And it is apparent that the number of teachers with these qualifications is small indeed compared to the total number of lecturers.
With regrettable frequency, however, lectures became a "relic of the times before the printing press was invented." Often the lecturer would do himself and his students a service if he mimeographed his remarks and let the student read them quietly in a library. In any case, the danger of the lecture as a means of pouring out quantities of information which the student tries to blot up by frantic notetaking is apparent. The listener becomes the passive object of one-way communication with a vocal text-book.
The tutorial system was designed to provide the two-way communication between student and teacher which the lecture system rarely permits. As the influential Student Council Report of 1948 put the problem: "The real keynotes of education--learning to think, learning to read, and learning to work efficiently in groups--are aims achieved less in lectures than anywhere else." In other words, the lecture system bears only occasional relevance to President Lowell's cherished principle of self-education. The tutorial plan was an essential part of that idea, and the House system its natural vehicle. For above all, the tutor is not intended to be another lecturer or quiz master, but the original contact from which informal intellectual relationships develop.
Informal Contact Important
Unless a strong tutorial system is firmly anchored in the House system, it cannot realize its potential. Ideally, the student's tutor should live in the House, where formal meetings would be regular, but also where informal contact would be frequent. Hopefully, with additional Houses and reduced crowding, the University will be able to approach the ideal, but sheer weight of numbers and dictates of the budget make a return to the system of the early '30's highly unlikely. Increased funds from foundations, and perhaps a reapportionment of some University funds, can undoubtedly strengthen the tutorial program, but it is apparent that the University will be forced to explore new methods of insuring an adequate measure of faculty-student contact.
Winthrop House has led experimentation in the field by planning House sections in courses large enough to permit the arrangement. (At present, the plan is in operation with Economics 1 students.) Master Ronald M. Ferry tentatively views the program as a success, and there is no reason why it cannot be extended to other Houses when reduced crowding permits. The principal value of the plan will be its tendency to bring an increased intellectual orientation to social contacts on the House level. In theory, a discussion of economic determinism at an afternoon section meeting among House members might be continued at dinner. Particularly if the tutor is a resident, the fusion of both student and teacher as members of an academic community can be of importance both to the concept of sections and to the vitality of the Houses.
Even more significant than House sections can be imaginative efforts to enlist more faculty interest in the House and to bring all levels of teachers into a closer relation to its function. At present, this is virtually impossible because of the pressure of numbers. The Houses are filled to overflowing, and only when new Houses are built can room be made for more teachers--either as residents or as close associates. The University should be wary of building more office buildings, and instead should concentrate on including more office space for faculty members in both existing and new Houses. When a professor works and holds office hours in a particular House, he is more likely to dine there than in the Faculty Club or a restaurant, and such informal contacts can easily develop into important channels for the exchange of ideas. Within the House the professor may eventually come to feel himself a member of a stimulating social and academic community, and until that time, an office in a House can be made more pleasant than a crowded niche in Widener or a grimy office along Massachusetts Avenue. As Eliot House Master John H. Finley Jr. '14 expressed the idea, "The first step for the creation of the Houses as real communities is the enlistment of an increased proportion of faculty time." This does not necessarily mean that the professor would have less time for his personal work, but only that he would do more of it in the Houses. As a result, he may find that he can reapportion his time in a manner more stimulating to him, and certainly more welcomed by the student.
Admittedly, a conflict exists between teaching and research, but only by involvement in the Houses can the professor enjoy the real satisfactions of communication with younger minds. When, and if,