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The noisy, protesting young appear more impatient than ever. They don't seem to want to wait for anything-going steady, or a better world. And yet the ever-lengthening educational process represents a major test of patience. Education is simply another form of what sociologists call "deferred gratification." When it comes to love, Americans of any age seem far less ready to defer gratification. Protracted courtship or drawn-out seduction never seems to have appealed to the American male, for whom Stendhal's celebrated ten-year wait to achieve success with the wife of a Milan shopkeeper ("On Sept. 21 at half-past eleven," the novelist noted in his journal, "I won the victory I had so long desired") might appear something of a waste of time. American lovers are usually accused not only of wanting to win but of not exploiting their victories patiently enough-perhaps in part misguided by Kinsey, who equated rapid-fire lovemaking with superior virility. But lately a whole library of sex manuals has been telling the American male that he must be patient-and he may be paying attention.
As in love, so in war. The American reputation for wanting quick victories is deserved, from John Paul Jones ("boldness, not caution, wins") to Sherman and Patton. Yet in every war they have fought, Americans have also shown great patience, which of course is a form of courage. For all their dash, U.S. generals appreciate slow, painstaking preparation and careful strategy in the tradition of Quintus Fabius Maximus Cunctator ("The Delayer"). After Pearl Harbor, when Admiral Chester Nimitz was rebuilding the US. Navy, he invariably fended off action-hungry critics with the Hawaiian phrase Hoomana wa nui (Be patient).
It is probably in the fields of science and business that American patience is most familiar. The folk hero of American tinkerers remains Thomas A. Edison, who prescribed "stick-to-itiveness" as one of the prime requisites for achievement. More sophisticated researchers have kept alive the tradition of the patient scientist. Luther Burbank spent 16 years developing an edible cactus for cattle, and during his experiments, by his own estimate, had a million spines painfully pierce his skin. Dr. Selman A. Waksman and his researchers spent four years analyzing 100,000 soil microorganisms before isolating streptomycin. Today, the legendary, lonely experimenter is increasingly giving way to teams working on a variety of crash projects under the "systems approach." Not only team work but the computer is drastically hurrying the pace. But this does not do away with patience; it simply frees it from drudgery and turns it to creative tasks.