$50,000 GIFT FOR WIDENER POETRY ROOM RECEIVED

A gift of $50,000 for the establishment of a Poetry Room in memory of George Edward Woodberry '77 has just been received by the Library from Harry Harkness Flagler of Milbrook, New York.

In this room will be placed the books of the Morris Gray Foundation, the volumes left to the Library by Mr. Woodberry himself, and the Amy Lowell collection. Thus the Poetry Room will become a memorial not only to George Woodberry but also to his classmate Morris Gray, to Amy Lowell, the sister of another classmate, President Lowell, and to all the Harvard poets, inasmuch as their works will also be preserved there.

The fund provides for a curator for these collections, who will arrange the Morris Gray poetry talks to be given in the new room; as well as exercise a general supervision over the development of an interest in poetry in the whole Library.

The Poetry Room will be constructed from two rooms situated near the Child Memorial Library of English Literature. It is expected to be ready for the use of undergraduates by next autumn. Plans for the furnishings and decorations, which will be in the general character of the Farnsworth Room, are being drawn up by one of the leading firms of interior decorators. A vault is to be provided for the safe keeping of the most precious volumes.

In the main part of the room, besides the above mentioned collections, there will also be available books from the libraries of James Russell Lowell '38, Charles Eliot Norton '46, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow '59, and Thomas Bailey Aldrich '96. Other works of similar interest will be placed in the same part.

G. P. Winship '93, assistant librarian, stated that the room is intended primarily as a center for the reading and appreciation of poetry rather than as an adjunct to regular course instruction. The Woodberry, Amy Lowell, and other collections of American poets will furnish the poetical background of the room, while by means of the Morris Gray foundation, a continual influx of new books will be kept up according to the desires of the undergraduates.

At present the current purchase of works by American and English authors takes up most of the Morris Gray fund, but Mr. Winship expressed a hope that an endowment will eventually be given to enable an equal representation of poetry in French, Italian, German, and other languages.

This gift has especial significance as a memorial to a member of the Harvard Class of 1877 who was not only a poet of distinction and an excellent critic, but also a leading exponent of Shelley among American men of letters. Curiously enough, George Woodberry as Class poet instilled so many modernistic ideas in his poem that its reading was finally prohibited. He held a very significant place in the annals of higher education through his influence during ten years of teaching at Columbia