  In May 1911, Santayana formally announced his long-planned retirement from Harvard. President Lowell asked him to reconsider. By now Santayana was a highly recognized philosopher, cultural critic, poet, and teacher, and his desire to be free from academic confinement was also well known. Lowell indicated he was open to any arrangement that provided Santayana the time he desired for writing and for travel in Europe. Initially Santayana agreed to alternate years in Europe and the U.S., but in 1912, his resolve to retire overtook his sense of obligation to Harvard. The year before his retirement, he had presented at least six lectures at a variety of universities including Berkeley, Wisconsin, Columbia, and Williams. His books were selling well and his publishers were asking for more. Two major universities were courting him. At forty-eight, he left Harvard to become a full-time writer and to escape the academic professionalism that nurtured a university overgrown with “thistles of trivial and narrow scholarship.”