1904.


_The World's Best Poetry
Vol. VIII
NATIONAL SPIRIT_




THE STUDY OF POETRY.

BY FRANCIS HOVEY STODDARD.


Clever men of action, according to Bacon, despise studies, ignorant
men too much admire them, wise men make use of them. "Yet," he says,
"they teach not their own use, but that there is a wisdom without them
and above them won by observation." These are the words of a man who
had been taught by years of studiousness the emptiness of mere study.
It does not teach its own usefulness, and gives its most important
lesson if through it we learn that beyond lies a region from which may
come a truer wisdom won by observation. This, when all is said, is the
one great defect of any system of study, in that it teaches not its
own use. No amount of study of the principles of barter will make a
man a great merchant. One can study painting and learn all the
characteristics and methods and schools of the art and yet not be able
to paint a picture. No amount of study of poetry will make a man a
poet. So the crafty men of action "contemn studies," and the wise men