When I was a student at Oxford so many years ago, all
undergraduate teaching in the Arts was conducted by the magnificently inefficient
“tutorial method.” The student actually
wrote a weekly essay on an assigned topic and then read it aloud to the tutor.
The tutor responded on the spot with verbal criticisms, usually an
amalgam faint praise, withering criticism, and engaging if irrelevant
commentary on the latest news, the comparative claims of certain
eighteenth-century composers of the second or third rank, or the pleasures of “stalking”
(whatever that was) in Scotland. Of
course not having an essay, though a fairly frequent occurrence for idlers, was
simply not done. A wastrel friend of mine, finding himself in
that predicament, claimed that he said the following to his tutor: “Last week,
an essay; next week, an essay. This
week, copious notes.” Well this week I’m going to be at the beach
with my grandkids. Having left my own devices, I’ll probably stalk a
seashell or two, Allow me to wish some similar pleasure for you.
