overdriven sophomores to compose forced essays and doggerel, by luring
them on with the glitter of cash prizes. One shudders to think of all
the fellowship money which is now being used to finance reluctant
young dry-as-dusts while they are preparing to pack still tighter the
already overcrowded ranks of "professors of English literature"--whose
profession, as Gerald Stanley Lee justly remarks, is founded on the
striking principle that a very great book can be taught by a very
little man. This is a department of human effort which, as now usually
conducted, succeeds in destroying much budding appreciation of poetry.
Why endow these would-be interpreters of poetry, to the neglect of the
class of artists whose work they profess to interpret? What should we
think of England if her Victorian poets had all happened to be
penniless, and she had packed them off to Grub Street and invested,
instead, in a few more professors of Victorian literature?

Why should not a few thousands out of the millions we spend on
education be used to found fellowships of creative poetry? These would
not be given at first to those who wish to learn to write poetry; for
the first thousands would be far too precious for use in any such
wild-cat speculations. They would be devoted, rather, to poets of
proved quality, who have already, somehow, learned their art, and who
ask no more wondrous boon from life than fresh air and time to regain
and keep that necessary margin of vitality which must go to the making
of genuine poetry.

I would not have the incumbent of such a fellowship, however, deprived
suddenly of all outer incentives for effort. The abrupt transition
from constant worry and war among his members to an absolutely
unclouded life of pure vocation-following might be almost too violent
a shock, and unsettle him and injure his productivity for a time.

The award of such a fellowship must not, of course, involve the least
hint of charity or coercion. It should be offered and accepted as an
honor, not as a donation. The yearly income should, in my opinion, be
small. It should be such a sum as would almost, but not quite, support
the incumbent very simply in the country, and still allow for books
and an occasional trip to town. In some cases an income of a thousand
dollars, supplemented by the little that poetry earns and possibly by
a random article or story in the magazines, would enable a poet to
lead a life of the largest effectiveness.