The prestigious Boylston Professorship of Rhetoric and Oratory, vacated by the announced retirement of Archibald MacLeish, will probably not be filled within the next two years, according to W. J. Bate, Chairman of the Department of English.

Bate said that the Administration is normally not reluctant to leave important chairs vacant during an extended period in order to find the right occupant. MacLeish retires officially this June, but will devote the Spring term to his own writing, as he had done for several years.

Poet Richard Wilbur has reportedly been offered the Boylston Professorship and has declined. His case exemplifies, according to a source in the University, the problem the Administration has in filling the position. Although its prestige is high, the salary of the Boylston Professor is often not enough to attract a prominent writer, poet, or critic away from his work.

Many Illustrious Predecessors

For the last half century, the Boylston Professor has taught an advanced writing course in the English Department. Among MacLeish's predecessors have been John Quincy Adams, later sixth President of the United States; Edward Tyrell Channing, founder of the North American Review; Francis James Child, who introduced the study of English literature in America; LeBaron Russell Briggs, a great Dean of the College; and Charles Townsend Copeland, the renowned "Copey."

An ad hoc committee within the Administration has been designated to appoint the next holder of the chair, which was established in 1804.

MacLeish came to the Professorship in 1949, after a varied career in public affairs, which included service as Assistant Secretary of State. A native of Illinois, he graduated from Yale and from Harvard Law School and served in France in World War I. After free lance writing and a stint on the staff of Fortune Magazine, MacLeish became the first Curator of the Nieman Fellowship in Journalism at the University in 1933.

He later became chairman of the American delegation to the London conference which in 1945 established the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization, UNESCO. At Harvard, MacLeish also served for a year as Acting Master of Eliot House and associated with undergraduates in Leverett House, where he has kept an apartment.

Two years ago MacLeish offered eight public lectures as part of his Humanities course before a packed crowd in Sanders Theatre. His recent book, Poetry and Experience, repeated the lectures, which came just after the success on Broadway of his verse play J. B. The play won MacLeish his third Pulitzer Prize. Conquistador in 1932 gave him his first Pulitzer, and Collected Poems, 1917-1952 received a Pulitzer, the Bolligen Prize, and the National Book Award.

MacLeish's most remembered course at the College is English S, a small select seminar in creative writing.

The course, in which MacLeish annually tutored 12 selected student writers, has been called the most distinguished writing course in America. Competition among students for the 12 places each year was severe.ARCHIBALD MACLEISH