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by S. Krishnakumar

Attending the Annual Sessions of SLAAS this year, I could not help noticing the old decaying portraits in the equally neglected buildings of what once was the majestic University College Colombo. Only the staid furniture of the lecture halls reminded us of the greatness that once was.

The portrait in the chemistry lecture theatre was that of Kandiah, one of our greatest products, holder of the higher doctorate from London, the D.Sc. degree. It was his bright red gown with yellow border that told us of the man's accomplishments. I wish that the portrait identified the subject by name for those of us from another generation. As I enquired, it was clear the significance of the colours was lost on the august assembly of the new generation of scientists. When I asked a colleague if she knew what D.Sc. meant, she said that she also had that degree. In great amazement when I queried further, it turned out that she had the DIC, the diploma from Imperial College which is given, to mark the London College affiliation, and also as a consolation to those who fail in their master's or doctoral programmes.

Given this ignorance of academic norms, and this being the time of convocations, it is good to record what they mean. According to Professor S. Mahalingam, D.Sc. (Eng.) Lond., who retired recently from Peradeniya but still teaches part time, the higher doctorate was simply the doctorate till early last century.

Most academics worked with their bachelor's degree or master's till retirement, and a very few who had made major contributions to the field, were awarded the doctorate (D.Sc., D.Litt. etc.), usually late in life. The award was for seminal work. By the 1880s however, US and German universities began issuing doctorates after 2 or 3 years of supervised research. As a result British academics, most of whom did not have doctorates, had to deal with this new class of Ph.D. holders.

This put pressure on British universities and they too began issuing the 2-3 year Ph.D. degree which was called the Lower Doctorate to distinguish it from the real doctorate. In time as most British academics got to carry the Lower Doctorate and not the doctorate, the adjective Lower got dropped. The Ph.D. was now the doctorate and the D.Sc., D.Litt. etc., the original doctorates came to be known as the Higher Doctorates.

According to Professor S.Ratnajeevan H. Hoole, D.Sc. (Eng.) Lond., the only one with a foreign higher doctorate in service in Sri Lanka, out of 1000 Ph.D.s about 20-30 would go on to earn the higher doctorate based on statistics from London. Professor Hoole makes the interesting point about the gowns of the Church and universities back in history.

In the middle ages all educated persons being priests and universities being seminaries, such a connection was natural. In the Church, the colour of the cassock is black for priest, purple for archdeacon, dark red or scarlet for bishop and bright red for cardinal. Pointing to his bright red D.Sc. gown from London, with a smile he says that he is like a cardinal, while the black gown of first degrees corresponds to the ordinary priest. The distinctions however are increasingly lost since American Ph.D.s which were originally an imitation of the higher doctorate, carry a bright red gown.

Even the modern suit is from the cassock. It was originally the Roman gentleman's tunic and was adopted by the Church when the Roman Empire took on Christianity as its religion. The double-breasted black cassock, when opened up at the neck, makes the lapels of the business suit. When the lower gown is pulled up at the sides using the cincher or belt to hold it up while doing manual work, the back of the lower gown makes the tails of the tail coat which finally got cut off to yield the modern business suit. So every time you wear a suit, remember that you are dressed up as a Roman gentleman/priest and worthy of appropriate conduct; and when you go up for your convocation, remember that your gown symbolises the surplice that the priest wears on top of the cassock when officiating.

Besides Mahalingam and Hoole whom I meet regularly at Peradeniya and are an inspiration to students, the higher doctorates in science produced by Sri Lanka are believed to be Ananda Coomaraswamy, Kandiah, N.M. Perera, Eliezer, Devanathan, Dissanayake, Karunaratne, Sultanbawa, and Gunasekera from the University of London and Sotheeswaran from the University of Salford.

(Acknowledgements to the book D. Hoole and S.R.H. Hoole, The Professorate and Research: A Vade Mecum for Aspirants and Administrators, Peradeniya, 2002.)

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