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Whereas in all deliberative bodies, a dissenting minority claims the right
of a protest against the decision of the majority, and sometimes deem it
their duty publickly to express it; and whereas the Faculty of this
1. The study of the classics, by the decree of the
2. These two classes embrace, almost always, a considerable minority of the whole body of students; the classes uniformly growing thinner during the last two years.
3. Hence appears the importance of having efficient instruction for the two
lower classes, since most of those who resort to the
4. But it is a notorious fact, that the instruction of the Freshman &
Sophomore classes has been consigned entirely to Tutors, who are almost
always, fresh graduates, without experience, and of scholarship scarcely
superior to their pupils. This is not mentioned, to upbraid the Tutors, who
are often meritorious young men, but it is not to be expected that the small
salary given them will gain the services of any others than graduates at
their first setting out, nor that these will retain the station long enough
to acquire scholarship or skill in teaching. It is found, in fact, that they
very seldom stay more than a year, often only one session; & thus
are those devoted classes doomed to a continual transfer from apprentices to
still younger apprentices; a species of mental
5. The evils of this system are more numerous than can be conceived of by any who have not witnessed them.
In the first place, it is an imposition on the public, who of course expect,
that at the
Again the two lower classes, contract, by being in the hands of young tutors, for whom they have very little fear or respect, a looseness of scholarship & manners which has a disastrous effect on their whole college course, & materially interrupts the tranquility of the Institution. Rude conduct about the recitation room & sometimes in the presence of the Tutor is a bad preparation for regular habits in the more advanced part of the course. As to the effects on scholarship, let any experienced teacher say whether it is possible, for a professor to make good scholars out of youths they neglected or mistaught during their noviciate. No: he cannot, & it ought not to be expected or required of him. The Professor of Languages has long seen & deplored the evils of this system; every examination exhibits melancholy proofs of them & he sees no hope of an amendment as long as the present plan is pursued. He fearlessly appeals to every student who has undergone it, whether it is not very little that he has ever learned from the tuition of tutors.
6. If it be asked, why then are tutors so generally employed in our Colleges,
it may be replied that it is submitting to a necessary evil. As long as
students are collected together in buildings by themselves, there must be
some officers to control them, & by these economy requires some of
the instruction to be done. But the less
instruction that is done by them, & the
more that is done by permanent officers, is undoubtedly the best policy.
Nor is the success of those colleges which employ numerous tutors any
recommendation of the system. It is a fact confessed by hundreds of students
from the there employed, are older & more
experienced than any we can get.
7. These things being so, it is respectfully submitted to the ought to be assigned to the Department
of Languages, either as adjunct in the Latin & Greek or as Prof. of
one of those Languages, solely. This is not singular. The writer knows it to
be the case in several of the first colleges in the
If the portion of the classical tuition? If they think that their powers do
not reach to a provision against the evil herein complained of, will they
bear
The Professor of Languages has now done his duty in letting the