TUTOR (

See also:

• LAT

Lat. tutor,

See also:

• GUARDIAN

guardian, tueri, to

See also:

• WATCH (in O. Eng. wcecce, a keeping guard or watching, from wacian, to guard, watch, wacan, to wake)

watch over, protect)  , properly a legal term, borrowed from Roman law, for a guardian of an infant (see ROMAN LAW and INFANT) . Apart from this usage, which survives particularly in Scots law, the word is chiefly current in an educational sense of a teacher or instructor . It is thus specifically applied to a fellow of a college at a university with particular functions, connected especially with the supervision of the undergraduate members of the college . These functions differ in various universities . Thus, at Oxford, a fellow, who is also a tutor, besides lecturing, or taking his share of the general teaching of the college, has the supervision and responsibility for a certain number of the undergraduates during their period of residence; at Cambridge the tutor has not necessarily any teaching functions to perform, but is more concerned with the economic and social welfare of the pupils assigned to his care . In American universities the term is applied to a teacher who is subordinate to a professor, his appointment being for a year or a term of years .