PREPARATIONS 7 



This all came to pass. I attended the State University 

 of North Dakota to the junior year, then the State Uni- 

 versity of Iowa where I got my Bachelor of Arts degree, 

 and eventually Harvard for three years of post-graduate 

 study. 



During this college period I had changed my plans 

 many times. My poetic ambitions lasted long enough for 

 me to read nearly all the English poets and those of two 

 or three other languages. I even wrote some poems that 

 were printed in the college magazines. It may seem that 

 this was no suitable preparation for my eventual career 

 of hunting polar bears and exploring polar lands. I am 

 not sure of that. The explorer is the poet of action, 

 and a great poet in proportion as he is a great explorer. 

 He needs a mind to see visions no less than he needs the 

 strength to face a blizzard. 



Somewhere near the middle of my college career I 

 began to see that there is not only the poetry of words 

 but a poetry of deeds. Magellan's voyage rounded out 

 a magnificent conception as fully and finally as ever did 

 a play of Shakespeare's. A law of nature is an imperish- 

 able poem. 



Ideas of that sort decided me to try to win my spurs 

 in science rather than literature. 



The sciences I selected for study were those that deal 

 with life on our earth. Darwin and Spencer took the 

 places formerly occupied by Keats and Shelley. I dreamt 

 of discovering some law of life comparable in signifi- 

 cance to the doctrine of evolution. Finally I specialized 

 in anthropology — the science that deals with man and 

 his works in general, but pays special attention to what 

 the thoughtless call "primitive people" or "savages." 



I went to Harvard first to study comparative religions 



