Finally, George Edward Woodberry, who was in the field of letters what MacDowell was in music, a master not merely of criticism but of creation; also a charming spirit and a friend to students. He gave a course in what he called comparative literature, and made us acquainted with Plato, Cervantes, Dante, Ariosto, Spenser, and Shelley. He was a truly liberalizing influence, and so popular among the men that the Columbia machine hated him heartily. I was taking Brander Matthews’ course at the same time as Woodberry’s, and would hear Matthews sneer at Woodberry’s “idealism,” and at his methods of teaching. A year later Woodberry was forced out, under circumstances which I shall presently narrate. CHAPTER IV THE GOOSE-STEPPERS In the year 1901 I was twenty-one years of age, and was ready to quit Columbia. The great university had become to me nothing but a library full of books, and some empty class-rooms in which to sit while reading them. No longer was I lured by elaborate prospectuses, setting forth lists of “courses”; I had tried forty of them, and knew that nine-tenths of them were dull. The great institution was a hollow shell, a body without a soul, a mass of brick and stone held together by red tape. But before I went out into the world, I made one final test of the place. I knew by this time exactly what I wanted to do in the world; I wanted to create literature. I had an overwhelming impulse, so intense that it had completely ruined me as a hack-writer; my “half-dime” novels had become impossible to me, and the question of how I was to earn my living was a serious one. And here was a great university, devoted to the furthering of all the liberal arts. This university had trained me to love and reverence the great writers of the past; what was its attitude to the great writers of the future? The university controlled and awarded a vast number of scholarships and fellowships in all branches of learning; that is to say, it offered support to young men while they equipped themselves to understand and teach the writings of the past. But what about the writings of the future? What aid would the university give to these? I was planning to spend the summer writing a novel, and the idea occurred to me: Would Columbia University accept a novel as a thesis or dissertation, or as evidence of merit and of work accomplished, in competition for any fellowship or endowment under its control? I made this proposition to the proper authorities at Columbia, the heads of the various departments of literature, and to the president’s office as well; and I received one unanimous decision: there was no fellowship or endowment under the control of the university which could be won by any kind of creative writing, but only by “scholarship”—that is to say, by writing about the work of other people!