128 SCIENTIST 



that he is taking an undue amount of time and decides that 

 the only way he can justify this excessive consumption is 

 to produce a really monumental piece of work. Since it is 

 given to very few graduate students to produce monu- 

 mental thoughts, a poHcy based on such a possibiUty is 

 usually bound for disaster. 



Fortunately, most graduate students do manage to dis- 

 entangle themselves from these downward spirals and in 

 a median span of some eight years ^ after graduating from 

 college finally get their Ph.D.'s. This figure has the ad- 

 vantage of being relatively precise, since official records 

 of the time of taking degrees are well kept. It is, however, 

 inaccurate in the sense that it includes a good deal of time 

 spent in other ways than in actual studying for the advanced 

 degree. Estimates of the time spent in actual study give 

 the much more encouraging figure of approximately 3.2 

 years. Nevertheless, there is a growing feeling, especially 

 perhaps among natural scientists, that the whole business 

 is somewhat of an anachronism. The general structure of 

 the thesis, as we have seen, comes down to us from me- 

 dieval times when scholarship served a set of purposes 

 rather different from those that obtain today. The stated 

 purpose of the thesis is the demonstration of the abiUty 

 to do original work. Under present conditions this abiUty 

 is more appropriately demonstrated by the pubhcation of 

 short, clear accounts of specific observations directed at 

 estabhshing some well defined item in the constantly grow- 

 ing body of knowledge. This sort of paper is in fact the 

 typical product of most working scientists most of the time. 

 After they have gained some experience and stature in a 

 particular field, they may be asked to prepare a more 

 comprehensive review article which is somewhat more Uke 

 the traditional thesis in form. Occasionally a man who has 

 long been identified with a particular body of knowledge 



