News

Progressive Labor Party Organizes Solidarity March With Harvard Yard Encampment

News

Encampment Protesters Briefly Raise 3 Palestinian Flags Over Harvard Yard

News

Mayor Wu Cancels Harvard Event After Affinity Groups Withdraw Over Emerson Encampment Police Response

News

Harvard Yard To Remain Indefinitely Closed Amid Encampment

News

HUPD Chief Says Harvard Yard Encampment is Peaceful, Defends Students’ Right to Protest

Ex-Cram School Head Is Law Student

By Herbert S. Meyers

Lester S. Cramer '30, one time king-pin of a vast tutoring school operation which involved thousands of University students, is back in Cambridge again--this time as Lester S. Cramer 1L.

Cramer is enrolled in sections two and three at the Law School, and the Admissions Board passed his application, he said last night, with "full knowledge of my background."

"I'm a Business Consultant," Cramer stated yesterday, 'and I intend to use whatever knowledge of the Law I gain for just that purpose. I haven't been involved with tutoring since before the war," Cramer stated.

Canvasses Clubs

The man who is described as "very clever," and "usually right" by his fellow Law School students had obviously forgotten the letters he sent out on October 17, 1947 to several final clubs at Harvard.

It began, "I am now prepared to provide tutoring for hour, mid-year and general examinations in the major liberal arts studies . . ."

In response to this letter a CRIMSON staff correspondent, along with hundreds of others, enrolled in Cramer's course and his cancelled check made out to Cramer for the instruction is on file in the CRIMSON building.

Students Banned from Courses

Cramer still maintains his "Business Consultants" office in downtown Boston.

Cramer began his "career in teaching" shortly after he graduated from the college, Phi Beta Kappa, in 1930. He established himself as a partner in the Parker-Cramer Tutoring School and continued to take part in an operation involving 60 percent of the College.

He once stated that he had a "full floor" going at one time. Cramer disappeared from the local scene in 1940 when Dean Hanford issued a directive forbidding students to use the services of a commercial tutoring school.

But it was just a temporary setback

for the middle-aged law student. In 1947, after he completed a term of service with the Labor Relations Board and the New England Wage Stabilization Board, which he claims lasted from 1943 to 1947, he opened up his offices again, this time on Devonshire Street in Boston's financial district.

Following a statement by Dean Bender in which tutoring schools were called "a menace to decent education." Cramer again ceased his duties as an "instructor.

Want to keep up with breaking news? Subscribe to our email newsletter.

Tags