Tutor

“ Happy is the country that has such mothers, fathers, schoolmasters! But the novelist creeps in closer than the schoolmaster, closer than the father, closer almost than the mother. He is the chosen guide, the tutor whom the young pupil chooses for herself. ”

“ I know that, let the tutor be ever so anxious to perform his duty, let the pupil be ever so ready to listen, times will come when good intentions and precepts may be forgotten; but such failings off should not damp the energies of either, but with sorrow for their derelictions, and earnest prayer for strength from above, they should rise to new exertions, and each year will afford to the tutor greater encouragement, as he sees in the lives of his pupils the fruit of his instruction. ”

“ Without doubt, if these less important points engross all their attention. But can there be a difficulty in carrying on the two designs together; especially, if a good and attentive tutor be at hand to direct his pupil’s pursuit and quicken his application?
MR. LOCKE.
Your Lordship, like the friends and parents of a young traveller, is for exacting wonders at the hands of this important personage, a tutor. But the truth is, so many, and so different things cannot be well learned, even with the advantage of the best parts under the very best direction. ”

“ I have followed the profession of a private tutor for five years, and during this time have felt so keenly its disagreeable nature,—to be compelled to look upon imperfections which must ultimately entail the worst consequences, and yet be hindered in the endeavour to establish good habits in their stead,—that I had given it up altogether for a year and a half, and, as I thought, for ever. ”

“ As a teacher, moreover, his position is strikingly similar to that of the venal tutors in our universities, who amiably keep lame ducks from halting, and temper the frost of the examination period to gilded grasshoppers. It is all this that makes the American scholar so apt to smile at the tutor, and the German, perhaps, to sniff. ”

“ I was too delicate to be sent to school at five years old, like other boys. My doctor uncle said it was not to be thought of. Since, however, I could not grow up altogether in ignorance, it was decided that I should have a tutor of my own.
So a tutor was engaged who quickly won my unreserved affection and made me very happy. The tutor came every morning and taught me all I had to learn. He was a tutor whom one could ask about anything under the sun and he would always know. First, there was the ABC. That was mastered in a few lessons. ”

“ A tutor, who carefully remarks the circumstances in which a child expresses uncommon grief or joy, hope or fear, may obtain complete knowledge of his associations, and may accurately distinguish the proximate and remote causes of all his pupil's desires and aversions. ”

“ Then there's another tutor, too, no scholar, but very painstaking, though; he can teach you more than he knows himself. He comes to the house on holidays and is always satisfied with whatever you pay him. ”

“ You consider somewhat before you send your boy to school, what kind of a man the master is;--whatsoever kind of a man he is, you at least give him full authority over your son, and show some respect to him yourself;--if he comes to dine with you, you do not put him at a side table: you know also that, at college, your child's immediate tutor will be under the direction of some still higher tutor,--for whom you have absolute reverence. ”

“ It is one thing to follow a young man about for four years, another to be his guide for five-and-twenty. You find a tutor for your son when he is already formed; I want one for him before he is born. Your man may change his pupil every five years; mine will never have but one pupil. ”

“ I fancy the father who realises the value of a good tutor will contrive to do without one, for it will be harder to find one than to become such a tutor himself; he need search no further, nature herself having done half the work. ”

“ II My profession has been that of a tutor, and it thus befell that I was under the necessity of learning as much as I was able, and even going out of my way to seek those lessons at which all the pages of life are open for us, and even, as it were, turning over wayside stones, and looking under wayside weeds in the search for them ”

“ In all cases, I would rather trust to the reason of a human tutor. Fate, for whose wisdom I entertain all imaginable reverence, often finds in Chance, by which it works, an instrument not over manageable. ”

“ When the tutor is about to give him the noose, he takes him apart, and solemnly enjoins it upon him to use it with skill, as it is to be the means of his earning his food, and as his safety will depend upon the skill with which it is used. After he receives it, he tries his skill in strangling a person the first opportunity that offers. ”

“ Where a tutor is called upon to conceal his opinions and suppress his feelings (on the most important and the most sublime subjects which affect the present interests of society and the everlasting happiness of man) , in his daily intercourse with his pupil, both parties are very seriously injured. ”

“ And in another place says, "Besides being well-bred, the tutor should know the world well; the ways, the humours, the follies, the cheats, the faults of the age he has fallen into, and particularly of the country he lives in: these he should be able to shew to his pupil, as he finds him capable; teach him skill in men and their manners ”

“ TUTOR, CLASS. At some of the colleges in the United States, each of the four classes is assigned to the care of a particular tutor, who acts as the ordinary medium of communication between the members of the class and the Faculty, and who may be consulted by the students concerning their studies, or on any other subject interesting to them in their relations to the college. ”

“ Through all this long period, the parent participates his authority and care with the tutor, to cultivate wisdom and virtue in the mind of the child. The tutor places the child on a bench, to which he is chained by the terrors of punishment. Books are presented to his mind, which observes only the words, and transfers them to memory; the ideas, fortunately for the cause of wisdom, are beyond its capacity. ”

“ If a man has any particular gift, athletic or otherwise, the tutor introduces him to the men he should know, or, when this is not feasible, gives a word to the upper classmen, who take the matter into their own hands. If a freshman has no especial gift, the tutor is quite as sure to say 15 the proper word to the fellows who have most talent for drawing out newcomers. ”

“ What could have been our worthy tutor's object I never could conjecture, unless it might have been to give himself lessons in physiognomy, while contemplating the various contortions into which he could throw the human countenance, by the application of so simple, so cheap an agent, and thus coming at a better knowledge of the dispositions and characters of his pupils. ”

“ One is apt, however, to misjudge the special difficulties of a situation; and the reception proved, after all, an easy and informal matter. In a trainful so uniformly bucolic, a tutor was readily recognisable ”

“ The qualifications of a good tutor are very freely discussed. The first qualification I should require in him, and this one presupposes many others, is, that he shall not be capable of selling himself. ”

“ But it is much easier for a tutor to command than to teach. ”

“ I hope, Charles, when you receive this and know that I have sent this gentleman to be your tutor, you will be very glad to see I take such care of you, and be very grateful, which is the best way of showing your obedience. You are now grown big enough to be a man, if you are wise enough, and the way to be truly wise, is to serve God, learn your books, observe the instructions of your parents first, and next your Tutor, to whom I have entirely resigned you for these seven years, and according as you employ that time you are to be happy or unhappy for ever. ”

“ The studies which he sets him upon, are but as it were the exercises of his faculties, and employment of his time, to keep him from sauntering and idleness, to teach him application, and accustom him to take pains, and to give him some little taste of what his own industry must perfect. For who expects, that under a tutor a young gentleman should be an accomplish'd critick, orator, or logician? ”

“ A tutor, who from seven in the morning till ten at night, with very brief intervals for food and exercise, was occupied in teaching and hearing lessons, in examining maps, in correcting themes and verses, and who could not in that space of time hear one-fifth of the lessons his pupils were supposed, by a wild stretch of tutorial imagination, to learn, was not in a position to bestow much attention on either the morals or the manners of the boys. ”

“ One of those two young ladies must certainly captivate and perhaps capture the Tutor. They are just the age to be falling in love and to be fallen in love with. The Tutor is good looking, intellectual, suspected of writing poetry, but a little shy, it appears to me. ”

“ SPEED O jest unseen, inscrutable, invisible,
As a nose on a man's face, or a weathercock on a steeple!
My master sues to her, and she hath
taught her suitor,
He being her pupil, to become her tutor.
O excellent device! was there ever heard a better,
That my master, being scribe, to himself should write
the letter?
VALENTINE How now, sir? what are you reasoning with yourself?
SPEED Nay, I was rhyming: 'tis you that have the reason. ”

“ Therefore it is surely the place of the tutor to put his foot down and issue orders instead of letting his pupil wander at will and do no work.
In all the many descriptions of a day in the life of a Smart, or an ordinary gentleman commoner, or the river man, no references are to be found as to their doing any work. ”

“ The whole system is based on individualism—on a free and easy relationship between Tutor and taught. It is conscientious individual effort under capable and sympathetic supervision that leads to success in the final examinations—‘the Schools’. The Tutor advises the student to attend certain lecture courses; he suggests certain books for private reading, the result of which is generally embodied in the form of an essay, or essays, to be read to the Tutor once or twice a week. ”

“ To every “inferior” was appointed one of the prefects as a “tutor.” It was the duty of this tutor to superintend and see to the learning of his lessons by the inferior, and the due performance of his written “prose” and “verse tasks,” to protect him against all ill-usage or “bullying,” and to be in all ways his providence and friend. These appointments were made by the “informator.” The three or four senior prefects had as many as seven pupils, the junior prefects one or two only; and the tutor received from the parents of each pupil, by the hands of the master, two guineas yearly. ”

“ They are apt pupils, whether their tutor be a philosopher or a fool. And if a faulty example be a child's most constant and influential teacher, what wonder that the lessons, well-learned, are put in practice? ”

“ In the American colleges, tutors are graduates selected by the trustees, for the instruction of undergraduates of the first three years. They are usually officers of the institution, who have a share, with the president and professors, in the government of the students.—Webster.
TUTORAGE. In the English universities, the guardianship exerted by a tutor; the care of a pupil.
The next item which I shall notice is that which in college bills is expressed by the word Tutorage.—De Quincey's Life and Manners, p. 251. ”

“ The young men whom I knew at the time they went in for their final examination, were certainly well grounded in classics, and what they knew they knew thoroughly.
The personal relations existing between undergraduates and their tutors were very intimate. A tutor took a pride in his pupils, and often became their friend for life. The teaching was almost private teaching, and the idea of reading a written lecture to a class in college did not exist as yet. It was real teaching with questions and answers ”

“ If a tutor can be got, that, thinking himself in the father's place, charg'd with his care, and relishing these things, will at the beginning apply himself to put them in practice, he will afterwards find his work very easy; and you will, I guess, have your son in a little time a greater proficient in both learning and breeding than perhaps you imagine. ”

“ The Teacups of whom the least has been heard at our table are the Tutor and the Musician. The Tutor is a modest young man, kept down a little, I think, by the presence of older persons, like the Professor and myself. ”

“ In regard to this early education, the chief difficulty is, that only far-seeing men can understand it, and that a child so carefully educated seems to an ordinary observer only a young scapegrace.
A tutor usually considers his own interests rather than those of his pupil. He devotes himself to proving that he loses no time and earns his salary. ”

“ But, evidently, much would depend upon the character of the tutor. A high-minded, well-balanced scholar might be of inestimable service to a youth eager to improve his opportunities. But the number of well-equipped tutors must have been relatively small. The low ebb to which education had sunk at Cambridge and Oxford had brought it about that only an occasional scholar was even moderately competent to direct the work of his pupil, to say nothing of serving as a guide on the Continent. ”