Bulletin Special Supplement Jun 1965

students to the learning process can be changed. Some of the time freed in this way, hut not a l l , should be used by bot h staff and students for the small-group teaching discussed above. L5.16 T he courses offered in the Chinese University are already very numerous, and range through many disciplines. T he general statements wh i ch follow in this paragraph will therefore apply w i t h varying degrees of relevance to a given course. Wh at applies to all courses, however, is our impression that in framing programmes and syllabuses, the University has demonstrated its high sense of academic standards, and the determination that its students shall not only acquire the unique education wh i ch its position in the wo r ld allows i t to provide but also in that process achieve standards in line with those of the best that the wo r ld family of Universities can display. We should wish to add, nevertheless, that in our view certain syllabuses , especially in the first two years, seem on paper to be extremely heavy. I t wou ld be improper for us to list examples of courses which, in varying measure, appea r to us in this light; we can at least say that the programmes in the natural sciences are not principally in our minds. By "heavy" we mean covering at first sight an unusually extensive amount of material (this of cours e is a different t h i ng f r om the rigour of scholarl y standards). If, for example, a survey course, whether in a highly abstract field such as philosophy or a relatively factual one such as history, extends over an unduly broad range of material, it is quite certain that no student w i ll do more than memorise his lecture-notes, and it is by no means certain that he w i ll appreciate at this stage the broad sweep of thought t o wh i ch the lecturer may personally attach importance. Certain subjects, i n a wo r ld of rapidly expanding knowledge, may in fact be difficult to teach — organic chemistr y is one — w i t hout mu ch learning of facts by the student: others are less awkward f r om this poin t of view. Now, one very important feature of small-group t e a c h i n g— whether by tutorial of some sort or b y seminar— is that it cannot in any way be used as an effective means of imparting encyclopaedic knowledge. T he weekly or fortnightly small-group class can only adequately examine one problem, or part of a problem, or topic, or text, in the space of an hour or t wo; that is to say, perhaps a dozen such topics can be covered in a term. T h e approach is therefore bound to be highly selective; and it is essential that central and suggestive topics should be chosen, and that it should be impossible to make up for indiscriminate or thoughtless selection by mu l t i p l y i ng the number o f topics. On the other hand it is quite certain that an hour's discussion in a tutorial can be used to strengthen a general understanding of principles in a way that nothing else can and that a student completing a series of such discussions is thereafter mu ch better placed to wo rk by himself at thos e other topics or parts of the subject wh i ch have not been covered w i th his teacher. There i s every reason why the same considerations should be held in m i n d when reducing the number of lectures delivered in a course. We have already stated our views on the merits of the formal lecture; these merits become the more important as the number of lectures is reduce d to what is essential. I t is certain tha t a lecturer, if he knows he w i ll be talking before a class for up to 90 hours in a year, w i ll wish to give his students a thorough and f u ll presentation of a subject and all its ramifications. T he text of his lectures may be long enough to fill two or three large books; and w i ll certainly serve to furnish notes for almost any contingency; its very thoroughness may discourage the student f r om seeking further views for himself in the library or by his own reasoning powers. I t is a sound principle that lecturers should have less time than they wou ld ideally wish f o r—f i f ty minutes instead of an hour, forty hours instead of ninety, and so on. Un d er this k i nd of pressure, they must t h i nk out their subject very carefully and forego the ambition to convey to students additional information which (however interesting) should be sough t in the L i b r a r y, made available in other ways, or sacrificed for the time being. L5.17 No undergraduate course, however taught, can be comprehensive. A l l courses should aim therefore to illuminate the core of a discipline and illustrate the style of approach demanded by that discipline. Wh en once it is seen that comprehensiveness is a mirage, then it is easier to determine the limits of a course b y reference to this inner core, avoid unduly heavy syllabuses, and reduce the likelihood that the student, in despair of eve r being able to "cover the course", w i ll tak e refuge in his notes alone. L5.18 I t goes w i t hout saying that no syllabus should appear in a Calendar unless i t is the intention of those concerned that the course , as taught, shall conform to it. Few things are so destructive of a student's seriousness of purpose a s the supposition, however unfounded, that one syllabus appears in the official handbook, but that a different and a more manageable one is followed in the classroom. L5.19 T h e point has been put to the Committee on Teaching Methods, and developed in our conversations, that the chief obstacles to the introduction of "tutorials" are the scarcity of teaching staff and the large size of classes, especially those for first year courses. We believ e that these obstacles can be largely surmounted if the proposals outlined above are implemented; namely: (i) that th e number of formal lectures given, especially in arts and social studies courses, should be substantially reduced; ( i i ) that the content of courses should be correspondingly pruned, so that students — including those in the first year — are dealing w i th fundamental s and never w i th encyclopaedic surveys; 35