Alice Elliott was an undergraduate at Cambridge. She studied sociologySociology was not only her subject but also her great passion. And yet the professors and tutors were not very pleased with Alice’s work. They were right to a certain extent when they said that Alice did not read a suffi-cient number of books. It was also true that she did not attend all hertutorials. It was a fact that she did not always write her essays. But Aliceworked very hard. Her only fault was originality. She had her own originalconception of sociological studies. She favoured practical research and shedid much field work. She often went to parties. She went to many dan-ces. She met and talked to many interesting people. Alice wax sometimesvery tired, but she never missed a single party. She drank much coffee tokeep awake. She knew the real value of careful observation, and carefulobservation required concentration. It meant hard work. Alice did notobject to hard work. She knew that her parents paid the university fees -she had no scholarship. She wanted to get an honour’s degree to please herparents. She knew that the traditionally-minded dons (преподаватели)were against her methods of sociological research but she was prepared todefend her point of view.