A librarian is likely to be constantly in a position to aid the uninformed reader how to use the books of reference which every public library contains. The young person who is new to the habit of investigation, or the adult who has never learned the method of finding things, needs to be shown how to use even so simple a thing as an index. Do not be impatient with his ignorance, although you may find him fumbling over the pages in the body of the book in vain, to find what you, with your acquired knowledge of indexes and their use, can find in half a minute or less. Practice alone can make one perfect in the art of search and speedy finding. The tyro who tries your patience this year, will very likely become an expert reader the next. Wide as is the domain of ignorance, there are few among those intelligent enough to resort to a library at all, who cannot learn. You will find some who come to the library so unskilled, that they will turn over the leaves even of an index, in a blind, hap-hazard way, evidently at a loss how to use it. These must be instructed first, that the index is arranged just like a dictionary, in the alphabetical order of the names or subjects treated, and secondly, that after finding the word they seek in it, they must turn to the page indicated by the figure attached to that word. This is the very primer of learning in the use of a library, but the library in any town, used as it is by many boys and girls of all ages, has to be a primary school for beginners, as well as a university for advanced students. Despise not the day of small things, however you may find it more agreeable to be occupied with great ones.

On the other hand, you will find at the other extreme of intelligence, among your clientage of readers, those who are completely familiar with books and their uses. There are some readers frequenting public libraries, who not only do not need assistance themselves, but who are fully competent to instruct the librarian. In meeting the calls of such skilled readers, who always know what they require, it is never good policy to obtrude advice or suggestion, but simply to supply what they call for. You will readily recognize and discriminate such experts from the mass of readers, if you have good discernment. Sometimes they are quite as sensitive as they are intelligent, and it may annoy them to have offered them books they do not want, in the absence of what they require. An officious, or super-serviceable librarian or assistant, may sometimes prejudice such a reader by proffering help which he does not want, instead of waiting for his own call or occasion.

Let us look at a few examples of the numerous calls at a popular library. For example, a reader asks to see a book, giving an account of the marriage of the Adriatic. You know that this concerns the history of Venice and its Doges, and you turn to various books on Venice, and its history, until you find a description of the strange festival. It may be, and probably is the case, that the books, like most descriptive works and narratives of travellers, are without index. This is a disability in the use of books which you must continually encounter, since multitudes of volumes, old and new, are sent out without a vestige of an index to their contents. Some writers have urged that a law should be made refusing copyright to the author of any book who failed to provide it with an index; a requirement highly desirable, but also highly impracticable. Yet you will find in most books, a division of the contents into chapters, and in the beginning of the volume a table of the contents of each chapter, giving its leading topics. This is a substitute for an index, although (not being arranged in alphabetical order) it is far less useful than that time-saving aid to research. But you have to learn to take advantage of even poor and inferior helps, when you cannot have the best, (as a poor guide is better than no guide at all, unless it misguides,) and so you run your eye quickly through the table of contents to find what you seek. In the case supposed, of the ceremony at Venice, you will be aided in the search by having in mind that the catch-words involved are "Adriatic," and "Doge," and as these begin with capital letters, which stand out, as it were, from the monotonous "lower case" type (as printers call all the letters that are not capitals) your search will be much abridged by omitting to read through all the sentences of your table of contents, and seizing only the passage or passages where "Doge," or "Adriatic," may occur.

This remark will apply as well to numerous other searches which you will have to make in books. The table of contents will commonly take note of all the more salient topics that are treated in the book, whether of persons, of places, of notable scenes, historic events, etc., and so will aid you in finding what you seek. In the last resort only, in the books whose table of contents fails you, will you have to turn the leaves page by page, which, while not equivalent to reading the book through, is a time-consuming business.

Of course no librarian can devote hours of his precious time to searches in such detail for readers. They are to be supplied with the books likely to contain what they are in search of, and left to seek it in their own way, with such hints and cautions as to saving time by taking the shortest road, as the experience of the librarian enables him to supply. The suggestions here given are not needed by scholarly readers, but are the fruits of long experience in searching books for what they contain.

Again, let us take the case of a call by a reader who happens to be a decorative painter, for patterns which may furnish him hints in finishing an interior of a house. Of course he wants color—that is, not theory only, but illustration, or practical examples. So you put before him Owen Jones's Grammar of Ornament, or Racinet's L'Ornement polychrome, both illustrated with many beautiful designs in color, which he is delighted to find.

Another reader is anxious to see a picture of "St. George and the Dragon." If you have the "Museum of Painting and Sculpture," in 17 volumes, or Champlin's "Cyclopaedia of Painters and Painting," a dictionary of art in four volumes, you find it in either work, in the alphabet, under "St. George," and his want is satisfied.

A youngster wants to know how to build a boat, and you find him Folkard on Boats, or Frazar's Sail-boats, which describe and figure various styles of water-craft.

Perhaps an inquisitive reader wants to find out all about the families of the various languages, and what is known of their origin, and you supply him with W. D. Whitney's "Life and Growth of Language," or Max Mueller's "Science of Language," either of which furnishes full information.

Another inquirer seeks for information about the aggregate debts of nations. You give him the great quarto volume of the last Census on Wealth and Indebtedness, or for still later information the Statesman's Year Book for 1899, or the Almanach de Gotha for the current year, both of which contain the comparative debts of nations at the latest dates.

The inquirer who seeks to know the rates of wages paid for all kinds of labor in a series of several years, can be supplied with the elaborate Report on Labor and Wages for fifty-two years, published by the U. S. Government in 1893, in four volumes.

Another reader wishes, we will suppose, to hunt up the drawings of all patents that have been issued on type-writers, and type-writing inventions. You put before him the many indexes to the Patent Specifications and Patent Office Gazette; he makes out from these his list of volumes wanted, which are at once supplied, and he falls to work on his long, but to him interesting job.

A reader who has seen in the library or elsewhere a book he would much like to own, but cannot find a copy in town, wants to know what it will cost: you turn to your American or foreign catalogue, covering the year of publication, and give him not only the price, but the publisher's name from whom he can order it, and he goes on his way rejoicing.

An artist engaged upon a painting in which he wishes to introduce a deer, or a group of rabbits, or an American eagle, or a peacock, asks for an accurate picture of the bird or animal wanted. You put before him J. S. Kingsley's Riverside Natural History, in six volumes, and his desire is satisfied.

In dealing with books of reference, there will often be found very important discrepancies of statement, different works giving different dates, for example, for the same event in history or biography.

Next to a bible and a dictionary of language, there is no book, perhaps, more common than a biographical dictionary. Our interest in our fellow-men is perennial; and we seek to know not only their characteristics, and the distinguishing events of their lives, but also the time of their birth into the world and their exit from it. This is a species of statistics upon which one naturally expects certainty, since no person eminent enough to be recorded at all is likely to have the epoch of his death, at least, unremarked. Yet the seeker after exact information in the biographical dictionaries will find, if he extends his quest among various authorities, that he is afloat on a sea of uncertainties. Not only can he not find out the date of decease of some famous navigators, like Sir John Franklin and La Perouse, who sailed into unexplored regions of the globe, and were never heard of more, but the men who died at home, in the midst of friends and families, are frequently recorded as deceased at dates so discrepant that no ingenuity can reconcile them.

In Haydn's Dictionary of Dates, Sir Henry Havelock was said to have died November 25th, 1857, while Maunder's Treasury of Biography gives November 21st, the London Almanac, November 27th, and the Life of Havelock, by his brother-in-law, November 24th. Here are four distinct dates of death given, by authorities apparently equally accredited, to a celebrated general, who died within forty years of our own time. Of the death of the notorious Robespierre, guillotined in 1794, we find in Chalmers' Biographical Dictionary that he died July 10th, in Rees's Cyclopaedia, July 28th, and in Alison's History of Europe, July 29th. Doubtless it is some comfort to reflect, in view of his many crimes, that the bloody tyrant of the Jacobins is really dead, irrespective of the date, about which biographers may dispute. Of the English mechanician Joseph Bramah, inventor of the Bramah lock, we learn from the English Cyclopaedia, that he died in 1814, and from Rose's Biographical Dictionary, that he died in 1815.

Now, although a large share of the errors and discrepancies that abound in biographical dictionaries and other books of reference may be accounted for by misprints, others by reckoning old style instead of new, and many more by carelessness of writers and transcribers, it is plain that all the variations cannot be thus accounted for. Nothing is more common in printing offices than to find a figure 6 inverted serving as a 9, a 5 for a 3, or a 3 for an 8, while 8, 9, and O, are frequently interchanged. In such cases, a keen-eyed proof-reader may not always be present to prevent the falsification of history; and it is a fact, not sufficiently recognized, that to the untiring vigilance, intelligence, and hard, conscientious labors of proof-readers, the world owes a deeper debt of gratitude than it does to many a famous maker of books. It is easy enough to make books, Heaven knows, but to make them correct, "Hic labor, hoc opus est."

A high authority in encyclopaedical lore tells us that the best accredited authorities are at odds with regard to the birth or death of individuals in the enormous ratio of from twenty to twenty-five per cent. of the whole number in the biographical dictionaries. The Portuguese poet Camoens is said by some authorities to have been born in 1517, and by others in 1525; a discrepancy of eight years. Chateaubriand is declared by the English Cyclopaedia to have been born September 4th, 1768; September 14th, 1768, by the Nouvelle Biographie generale of Dr. Hoefer; and September 4th, 1769, by the Conversations-Lexicon. Of course it is clear that all these authorities cannot be right; but which of the three is so, is matter of extreme doubt, leaving the student of facts perplexed and uncertain at the very point where certainty is not only most important, but most confidently expected.

Of another kind are the errors that sometimes creep into works of reference of high credit, by accepting too confidently statements publicly made. In one edition of the Dictionary of Congress a certain honorable member from Pennsylvania, in uncommonly robust health, was astonished to find himself recorded as having died of the National Hotel disease, contracted at Washington in 1856. In this case, the editor of the work was a victim of too much confidence in the newspapers. In the Congressional Directory, where brief biographies of Congressmen are given, one distinguished member was printed as having been elected to Congress at a time which, taken in connection with his birth-date in the same paragraph, made him precisely one year old when he took his seat in Congress.

Even in reporting the contents of public and private libraries, exaggeration holds sway. The library of George the Fourth, inherited by that graceless ignoramus from a book-collecting father, and presented to the British nation with ostentatious liberality only after he had failed to sell it to Russia, was said in the publications of those times to contain about 120,000 volumes. But an actual enumeration when the books were lodged in the King's library at the British Museum, where they have ever since remained, showed that there were only 65,250 volumes, being but little more than half the reported number. Many libraries, public and private, are equally over-estimated. It is so much easier to guess than to count, and the stern test of arithmetic is too seldom applied, notwithstanding the fact that 100,000 volumes can easily be counted in a day by a single person, and so on in the same proportion. Here, as in the statistics of population, the same proverb holds good, that the unknown is always the magnificent, and on the surface of the globe we inhabit, the unexplored country is always the most marvellous, since the world began.

These discrepancies in authorities, and exaggerations of writers, are not referred to for the purpose of casting doubt upon all published history, but only to point out that we cannot trust implicitly to what we find in books. Bearing in mind always, that accuracy is perhaps the rarest of human qualities, we should hold our judgment in reserve upon controverted statements, trusting no writer implicitly, unless sustained by original authorities. When asked to recommend the best book upon any subject, do not too confidently assert the merits of the one you may think the best, but say simply that it is well accredited, or very popular. It is not always safe to recommend books, and the librarian does well to speak with proper reservations as to most of them, and to recommend only what are well known to him to be good, by his own intimate acquaintance with them, or, which is the surest test of all, by the verdicts of critical reviews, or by the constant reprinting of them in many successive years.

It was the well-nigh unanimous report at a Conference of American librarians, upon the subject of "aids to readers", that "nothing can take the place of an intelligent and obliging assistant at the desk." This was after a thorough canvass of the relative merits of the various reference books and helps to readers in book form. Not only the casual reader, and the reader with a purpose may be constantly aided by the librarian's knowledge, and larger experience in the art of finding things, but teachers in the schools, clergymen preparing discourses, and every one seeking to know anything, should find the librarian a living catalogue. There is nothing so effective in the world as individual effort.



CHAPTER 11.

ACCESS TO LIBRARY SHELVES.

The matter of free or unrestricted access to the books on the shelves is a vexed question in libraries. Open and unprotected shelves, either in alcoves or the main reading room, while they appear to be a boon to readers, who can thus browse at will through the literary pastures, and turn over volumes at their pleasure, furnish by no means good security for the books. Some of the smaller public libraries protect their books from access by glass doors in front of the shelves, which form also a partial protection against dust. Others again, use wire screen doors, opened, like the others, by lock and key when books are wanted. Both of these arrangements give to readers the advantage of reading the titles on the backs of most of the books in the library, while protecting them from being handled, disarranged, or removed. But they are also open to the objection that they obstruct the prompt service of the books, by just the amount of time it takes to open the doors or screens, and close them again. This trouble and delay may overbalance the supposed advantages. Certainly they must do so in all large libraries, where the frequentation is great, and where every moment's delay in the book service works disadvantage to numerous readers. While private libraries, or quite small public ones, can indulge in the luxury of glass cases, no extensive collection can be managed with the requisite promptitude under their obstructions.

But how to avoid the indiscriminate and usually careless handling of the books on shelves, by the people frequenting the library, and still extend to readers prompt and full service of all the books they wish to consult on any subject, is a problem. In a few of the great libraries, where that modern improvement, the stack system, prevails, the difficulty is solved by the storing of the books in the outside repositories, or iron book-stacks to which readers are not admitted. In this case the reading room is only for books in use by those frequenting it, or is supplied with a selection of reference books simply, the stacks being drawn upon for all the rest. This of course secures the books both from misplacement and from pillage.

In smaller libraries which have no stack system (and this includes by far the greater number) a variety of treatment prevails. Most of them are unprovided with any effective means of guarding the books on the shelves from handling. The result is great insecurity, and inevitable misplacement of books, amounting often to confusion and chaos on the shelves, unless corrected by much daily re-arrangement by the librarian or assistants. This consumes much valuable time, which ought to be devoted to other pressing duties.

One remedy is to guard the shelves by a railing of some kind, which cannot be passed, except at the gates or passage-ways provided for the attendants. This simple provision will protect the orderly arrangement as well as the safety of the library—two objects both of cardinal importance. Absolutely free access to all the shelves means, sooner or later, loss to the library. And the books most certain to be taken or mutilated are those which it is costly, or difficult, or in some cases, impossible to replace. The chances of abstracting engravings from books are much greater in the shadow of the shelves, than in the open reading-room, under the eyes of many. In any library but the smaller ones, the difficulties and dangers of unrestricted handling of all the books by the public will be developed in the direct ratio of the size of the library. Nor will it do to admit one class of readers to the shelves, and exclude others. It often happens that persons claiming to have special literary or scientific objects, and who profess that they cannot get along at all by having books brought to them, are favored in their wish to go to the shelves, while others are disfavored. This raises at once the just complaint that invidious distinctions are made. The only safe rule to follow is that of universal free access, or impartial and uniform exclusion from the shelves. In the latter case, no one can complain, especially when made aware that he can have all the works on a given subject brought to his seat in a brief time, and can work upon them to much greater comfort and advantage, seated where there is good light and ample room, than if standing up in the shadow of the shelves to pursue his researches.

It is also to be considered that such disarrangement of books as inevitably follows free admission to the shelves deprives the very persons who claim this privilege, of finding what they seek, until a complete replacement takes place, throughout the library, and this is necessarily a work of time. That it involves much more time and consequent delay than is occasioned by the re-shelving of books used in a day, is apparent when we consider that in the latter case, only the number of volumes actually withdrawn from shelves by the library attendants have to be replaced, and that these are in conveniently assorted piles all ready to go to their respective shelves; while in the other case, the displacement is made by many hands, most of them careless of any convenience but their own, and moreover, the disarranged books are, or are liable to be, scattered on the wrong shelves, thus throwing the entire library into disorder, requiring great pains, knowledge, and time to repair.

In any well-regulated library, the absence of any book from its place can almost always be accounted for. Thus it is either—1. In the reading room, in use; or 2. Charged out to a borrower; or 3. Sent to the binder for rebinding, or repair; or 4. Reserved for some reader's use; or 5. In temporary use by a cataloguer, or some other library assistant; or 6. Among the books not yet re-shelved from recent use.

Now each of these is a legitimate reason for the absence of any book not found in its place. By search under each of these heads, seriatim, aided by the memory of librarian and assistants, the missing volume should be readily located, and soon availed of for use.

But in the case of books misplaced by readers, no such tracing out of the whereabouts of any volume is effectual, for the reason that the book may have been (and probably is) put on some shelf where it does not belong. And the question, where in an extensive collection, a book-hunter admitted to freely range over all the shelves, and a stranger to the minute classification of books, has misplaced the missing volumes, is an insoluble problem, except by hunting over or handling the entire library.

In this close practical view of the case we have to add to the long list of the enemies of books, formerly enumerated, those who demand a right to browse (as they term it) among the shelves of a public library, and who displace the books they take down to gratify, it may be, only an idle curiosity. Their offence consists, not in being anxious to see the books, but in preventing others from seeing them, by segregating them where neither librarian nor assistants may be able to find them, when called for. The whole question is summed up in the statement that the ability to produce library books when called for, depends strictly upon keeping them in their proper place: and this is quite incompatible with promiscuous handling upon the shelves.

The preservation of order is alike in the interest of the reading public, of the librarian and his assistants, and of the very persons who complain of it as depriving them of library facilities. If library facilities consist in rendering the books in it unfindable, and therefore unavailable to any reader, then the argument for free range of the shelves arrives at a reductio ad absurdum. The true library facilities consist in a classification and a catalogue which arrange the books in systematic order, and keep them there, save when called into use. Thus, and thus only, can those who resort to a public library for actual research, be assured of finding what they want, just when they want it. The time saved to all readers by the sure and steady preservation of an orderly arrangement of the books, is simply incalculable. Multiply the number of volumes out of place by the number of readers who call for them, and you have some idea of the mischief that may be done through the carelessness of a few favored readers, to the whole community of scholars. Of course the considerations here set forth pre-suppose an active and intelligent librarian, and zealous and willing attendants, all ever ready to aid the researches of readers by the most prompt and helpful suggestions, and by dispatch in placing before them what they most need. The one cardinal design of a library—to supply the largest amount of information in the shortest time, is subverted by any disorganizing scheme. If the library be administered on the just principle of "the greatest good to the greatest number," then such individual favoritism should never be allowed.

It may, indeed, be claimed that there is no rule without some valid exceptions; but these exceptions should never be permitted to defeat the cardinal object of the rule—which is to keep every book strictly in its own place. Let the exception be confined to allowing an occasional inspection of the shelves in the company of a library attendant, and there will be no trouble.

But there is another danger, aside from the misplacement of books. Experience has shown that thefts or mutilations of books have been numerous, in direct proportion to the extension of freedom and opportunity to those frequenting the library. Literary men and book-lovers are frequently book-collectors also; and the temptation to take what is often too loosely considered public property is sometimes yielded to by persons whose character and standing may render them the least suspected. In one of the largest lending libraries in this country, the purloining of books had been carried so far, that the authorities had to provide a wire fence all around the reading room, to keep the readers from access to the shelves. The result was soon seen in the reduction of the number of books stolen from 700 volumes to 300 volumes a year.

After several years' experience of the Astor Library in opening its alcoves to readers (amounting to practical free admission to the shelves to all calling themselves special students) the losses and mutilations of books became so serious, that alcove admissions have been greatly curtailed.

At the Conference of Librarians in London, in 1877, the subject of admission or non-admission to the shelves was discussed with the result that opinions were preponderantly adverse to the free range of the library by readers. It was pointed out that libraries are established and maintained at great cost for serious purposes of reading and study, and that these ends are best subserved by systematic service at a common centre—not by letting the readers scatter themselves about the library shelves. To one speaker who held that every one in a free public library had the right to go to the shelves, and choose his books for himself, it was answered that this was equivalent to saying that it is the idler's right to stroll about in every place devoted to a special business, and interrupt that business at his pleasure.

At the International Conference of 1897, an able defence of open shelves was presented, claiming that it saves much librarians' time in finding books, if readers are allowed to find them for themselves; that thefts and mutilations are inconsiderable; that it makes an appeal to the honor of people to respect the books; that the open shelf system does better educational work; that it is economical by requiring fewer library attendants; that it has grown steadily in favor in America, and that it gives the people the same right in the library which is their own, as the individual has in his own.

On the other hand, it was urged that the arguments for open shelves were all arguments for anarchy; that the readers who want to rummage about for what they want lack proper discipline of the mind; that the number of books lost under it has been very large; that librarians are custodians and conservers, as well as dispensers of books; that all books misplaced are practically lost to the library for the time being; that the open shelf system requires far more space, and is more expensive; and that, however desirable, its general adoption is utterly impracticable.

The practice of libraries in this particular of administration differs widely, as do the opinions of librarians regarding it. In most colleges and universities free access is allowed; and in some public free libraries, both east and west, the readers are allowed to handle the books on the shelves. This is comparatively safe in the smaller town libraries, where the books are in compact shape, and the unavoidable misplacement can be corrected daily in no long time. The experience of "open shelves" in such collections has been so favorable that their librarians have testified that the losses were insignificant when compared with the great public convenience resulting. But the difficulty and confusion arising from free handling of the books on shelves increases in the direct ratio of the size of the library, until, in an extensive collection, it reaches an intolerable result.

What is encountered continually in enforcing the rule of exclusion from shelves is the almost universal conceit that some reader is entitled to exemption from such a rule. Explain to him never so courteously that experience has proved that a library is thrown into confusion by such admission; that while he may be careful to replace every book handled in the same spot, nearly all readers are careless, and he will insist that he is the exception, and that he is always careful. That is human nature, the world over—to believe that one can do things better than any one else. But if such importunities prevail, the chances are that books will be misplaced by the very literary expert who has solemnly asserted his infallibility.

On the whole, open shelves may be viewed as an open question. It may be best for small libraries, as to all the books, and for all libraries as to some classes of books. But make it general, and order and arrangement are at an end, while chaos takes the place of cosmos. The real student is better served by the knowledge and aid of the librarian, thus saving his time for study, than he can be by ranging about dark shelves to find, among multitudes of books he does not want, the ones that he actually does want. The business of the librarian, and his highest use, is to bring the resources of the library to the reader. If this takes a hundred or more volumes a day, he is to have them; but to give him the right to throw a library into confusion by "browsing around," is to sacrifice the rights of the public to prompt service, to the whim of one man. Those who think that "browsing" is an education should reflect that it is like any other wandering employment, fatal to fixity of purpose. Like desultory reading of infinite periodicals, it tends rather to dissipate the time and the attention than to inform and strengthen the mind.

In libraries of wide circulation in America, many have open shelves, and many more free access to certain classes of books. The Newark Free Library opens all departments except fiction; others open fiction and current literature only. Some libraries, notably in England, have a "safe-guarded" open-shelf system, by which the public are given free range inside the library, while the librarians take post at the outside railing, to charge books drawn, and check off depredations. This method may be styled "every one his own librarian," and is claimed by its originators to work well.

At the Conference of the American Library Association in 1899, after discussion, votes were taken, showing 50 librarians in favor of free access to shelves for small libraries, as against only 10 for unrestricted access in large libraries.

The debate brought out curious and instructive facts as to losses of books where free range is allowed. The Denver Public Library lost in one year 955 volumes; the Buffalo Public Library 700 books in seventeen months; the Minneapolis, 300 in a year; and the St. Louis Public Library 1,062 volumes in two years, out of "a very limited open shelf collection." One librarian, estimating the loss of books at $1,000 worth in two years, said the library board were perfectly satisfied, and that "unless we lose $2,500 worth of books a year, the open-shelf system pays in its saving of the expenses of attendance." It does not appear to have occurred to them that a public library owes anything to the public morality, nor that a library losing its books by the thousand, to save the cost of proper management, may be holding out a premium to wholesale robbery.

There is another precaution essential to be observed regarding the more costly and rare possessions of the library. Such books should not be placed upon the shelves with the ordinary books of the collection, but provided for in a repository under lock and key. In a large library, where many hundred volumes of books of especial rarity and value are to be found, a separate room should always exist for this class of books. They will properly include (1) Incunabula, or early printed books; (2) Manuscripts, or unique specimens, such as collections of autographs of notable people; (3) Illuminated books, usually written on vellum, or printed in color; (4) Early and rare Americana, or books of American discovery, history, etc., which are scarce and difficult to replace; (5) Any books known to be out of print; and (6) Many costly illustrated works which should be kept apart for only occasional inspection by readers. Where no separate room exists for safe custody of such treasures, they should be provided with a locked book-case or cases, according to their number. When any of these reserved books are called for, they should be supplied to readers under special injunctions of careful handling. Neglect of precaution may at any time be the means of losing to the library a precious volume. It is easy for an unknown reader who calls for such a rare or costly work, to sign his ticket with a false name, and slip the book under his coat when unobserved, and so leave the library unchallenged. But the librarian or assistant who supplies the book, if put on his guard by having to fetch it from a locked repository, should keep the reader under observation, unless well known, until the volume is safely returned. Designing and dishonest persons are ever hovering about public libraries, and some of the most dangerous among them are men who know the value of books.

This class of reserved books should not be given out in circulation, under any circumstances. Not only are they subject to injury by being handled in households where there are children or careless persons, who soil or deface them, but they are exposed to the continual peril of fire, and consequent loss to the library. There are often books among these rarities, which money cannot replace, because no copies can be found when wanted. In the Library of Congress, there is a very salutary safe-guard thrown around the most valuable books in the form of a library regulation which provides that no manuscript whatever, and no printed book of special rarity and value shall be taken out of the library by any person. This restriction of course applies to Members of Congress, as well as to those officials who have the legal right to draw books from the library.



CHAPTER 12.

THE FACULTY OF MEMORY.

To every reader nothing can be more important than that faculty of the mind which we call memory. The retentive memory instinctively stores up the facts, ideas, imagery, and often the very language found in books, so clearly that they become available at any moment in after life. The tenacity of this hold upon the intellectual treasures which books contain depends largely upon the strength of the impression made upon the mind when reading. And this, in turn, depends much upon the force, clearness and beauty of the author's style or expression. A crude, or feeble, or wordy, redundant statement makes little impression, while a terse, clear, well-balanced sentence fixes the attention, and so fastens itself in the memory. Hence the books which are best remembered will be those which are the best written. Great as is the power of thought, we are often obliged to confess that the power of expression is greater still. When the substance and the style of any writing concur to make a harmonious and strong impression on the reader's mind, the writer has achieved success. All our study of literature tends to confirm the conviction of the supreme importance of an effective style.

We must set down a good memory as a cardinal qualification of the librarian. This faculty of the mind, in fact, is more important to him than to the members of any other profession whatever, because it is more incessantly drawn upon. Every hour in the day, and sometimes every minute in the hour, he has to recall the names of certain books, the authors of the same, including both their surnames and Christian or forenames, the subjects principally treated in them, the words of some proverb or quotation, or elegant extract in poetry or prose, the period of time of an author or other noted person, the standard measurements and weights in use, with their equivalents, the moneys of foreign nations and their American values, the time of certain notable events in history, whether foreign or American, ancient or modern, the names and succession of rulers, the prices of many books, the rules observed in the catalogue, both of authors and subjects, the names and schools of great artists, with their period, the meaning in various foreign languages of certain words, the geographical location of any place on the earth's surface, the region of the library in which any book is located—and, in short, an infinitude of items of information which he wants to know out of hand, for his own use, or in aid of Library readers or assistants. The immense variety of these drafts upon his memory seldom perplexes one who is well endowed with a natural gift in that direction. In fact, it seems actually true of such minds, that the more numerous the calls upon the memory, the more ready is the response.

The metaphysicians have spent many words in attempting to define the various qualities of the mind, and to account for a strong or a weak memory; but after all is said, we find that the surprising difference between different memories is unaccounted for; as unaccountable, indeed, as what differences the man of genius from the mere plodder. The principle of association of ideas is doubtless the leading element in a memory which is not merely verbal. We associate in our minds, almost instinctively, ideas of time, or space, or persons, or events, and these connect or compare one with another, so that what we want is called up or recalled in memory, by a train of endless suggestion. We all have this kind of memory, which may be termed the rational or ideal, as distinguished from the verbal and the local memory. The verbal memory is that which retains in the mind, and reproduces at will what has been said in our hearing by others, or what we have read which has made a marked impression upon us. Thus, some persons can repeat with almost exact accuracy, every word of a long conversation held with another. Others can repeat whole poems, or long passages in prose from favorite authors, after reading them over two or three times, and can retain them perfectly in memory for half a century or more. There have even been persons to whom one single reading of any production was sufficient to enable them to repeat it verbatim. These instances of a great verbal memory are by no means rare, although some of them appear almost incredible. John Locke tells us of the French philosopher Pascal, that he never forgot anything of what he had done, said, or thought, in any part of his natural life. And the same thing is recorded of that great scholar of Holland, Hugo Grotius.

The mathematician Euler could repeat the Aeneid of Virgil from beginning to end, containing nearly nine thousand lines. Mozart, upon hearing the Miserere of Allegri played in the Sistine Chapel at Rome, only once, went to his hotel, and wrote it all down from memory, note for note.

Cardinal Mezzofanti both wrote and spoke thirty languages, and was quite familiar with more than a hundred. He said that if he once heard the meaning of a word in any language, he never forgot it. Yet he was of the opinion, that although he had twenty words for one idea, it was better to have twenty ideas for one word; which is no doubt true, so far as real intellectual culture is concerned. Lord Macaulay, who had a phenomenal memory, said that if all the copies of Milton's Paradise Lost were to be destroyed, he could reproduce the book complete, from memory. In early life he was a great admirer of Walter Scott's poetry, and especially the "Lay of the Last Minstrel", and could repeat the whole of that long poem, more than six hundred lines, from memory. And at the age of fifty-seven he records—"I walked in the portico, and learned by heart the noble fourth act of the Merchant of Venice. There are four hundred lines. I made myself perfect master of the whole in two hours." It was said of him that every incident he heard of, and every page he read, "assumed in his mind a concrete spectral form."

But the memory for names and words has been sometimes called the lowest form of memory. Persons of defective or impaired intellect frequently have strong and retentive verbal memories. Mrs. Somerville records the case of an idiot who could repeat a whole sermon verbatim, after once hearing it, but who was stupid and ignorant as to every thing else. And there are many instances in the books to the same effect.

Another kind of memory may be called, for want of a better name, the local memory. A person who has this strongly developed, if he once goes to a place, whether a room, or a street in a city, or a road in any part of the country, knows the way again, and can find it by instinct ever after. In the same way any one gifted with this almost unerring sense of locality, can find any book on any shelf in any part of a library where he has once been. He knows, in like manner, on which side of the page he saw any given passage in a book, which impressed him at the time, although he may never have had the volume in his hand more than once. He may not remember the number of the page, but he is sure of his recollection that it was the left or the right hand one, as the case may be, and this knowledge will abridge his labor and time in finding it again by just one half. This local memory is invaluable to a librarian or an assistant in shortening the labor of finding things. If you have a good local memory, you can, in no long time, come to dispense with the catalogue and its shelf-marks or classification marks, almost entirely, in finding your books. Although this special gift of memory—the sense of locality—is unquestionably a lower faculty of the mind than some others named, and although there are illiterate persons who can readily find and produce any books in a library which have often passed through their hands, yet it is a faculty by no means to be despised. It is one of the labor-saving, time-saving gifts, which should be welcomed by every librarian. The time saved from searching the catalogues for location-marks of the outside of books, will enable him to make many a research in their inside. This faculty, of course, is indefinitely strengthened and improved by use—and the same is true of the other branches of the sense which we call memory. The oftener you have been to any place, the better you know the way. The more frequently you have found and produced a given book from its proper receptacle, the easier and the quicker will be your finding it again.

Another faculty or phase of memory is found in the ability to call up the impression made by any object once seen by the eye, so as to reproduce it accurately in speech or writing. This may be termed the intuitive memory. There are many applications or illustrations of this faculty. Thus, for example, you see a book on some shelf in your library. You take in its size, its binding, both the material and the color, and its title as lettered on the back. All this you absorb with one glance of the eye. You remember it by the principle of association—that is, you associate with that particular book, in connection with its title, a certain dimension, color, and style of binding. Now, when you have occasion to look up that special volume again, you not only go, aided by your memory of locality, to the very section and shelf of the library where it belongs, but you take with you instinctively, your memory or mental image of the book's appearance. Thus, you perhaps distinctly remember (1) that it was an octavo, and your eye in glancing along the shelf where it belongs, rejects intuitively all the duodecimos or books of lesser size, to come to the octavos. (2) Then you also remember that it was bound in leather, consequently you pass quickly by all the cloth bound volumes on the shelf. (3) in the third place you know that its color was red; and you pay no attention whatever to books of any other color, but quickly seize your red leather-bound octavo, and bear it off to the reading-room in triumph. Of course there are circumstances where this quick operation of the faculties of memory and intuition combined, would not be so easy. For example, all the books (or nearly all) on a given shelf might be octavos; or they might all be leather-bound; or a majority of them with red backs; and the presence of one or more of these conditions would eliminate one or more of the facilities for most rapidly picking out the book wanted. But take a pile of books, we will say returned by many readers, on the library counter. You are searching among them for a particular volume that is again wanted. There is no order or arrangement of the volumes, but you distinctly remember, from having handled it, its size both as to height and thickness, its color, and how it was bound. You know it was a thin 12mo. in green cloth binding. Do you, in your search, take up every book in that mass, to scrutinize its title, and see if it is the one you seek? By no means. You quickly thrust aside, one by one, or by the half-dozen, all the volumes which are not green, cloth-bound, thin duodecimos, without so much as glancing at them. Your special volume is quickly found among hundreds of volumes, and your faculty of memory and intuition has saved you perhaps a quarter of an hour of valuable time, which, without that faculty, might have been wasted in search.

Again, another circumstance which might intervene to diminish the frequency of application of the memory referred to, as to the physical features or appearance of a book sought for, is where the shelf-arrangement is alphabetical, by authors' names, or by the names of the subjects of the books, if it is an alphabet of biographies. Here, the surest and the quickest guide to the book is of course the alphabetical order, in which it must necessarily be found.

This memory of the aspect of any object once looked at, is further well illustrated in the very varied facilities for the spelling of words found in different persons. Thus, there are people who, when they once see any word (we will say a proper name) written or printed, can always afterwards spell that word unerringly, no matter how uncommon it may be. The mental retina, so to speak, receives so clear and exact an impression of the form of that word from the eye, that it retains and reproduces it at will.

But there are others, (and among them persons of much learning in some directions) upon whom the form or orthography of a word makes little or no impression, however frequently it meets the eye in reading. I have known several fine scholars, and among them the head of an institution of learning, who could not for the life of them spell correctly; and this infirmity extended even to some of the commonest words in the language. Why this inaptitude on the part of many, and this extraordinary facility on the part of others, in the memorizing faculty, is a phenomenon which may be noted down, but not solved. That vivid mental picture which is seen by the inward eye of the person favored with a good memory, is wholly wanting, or seen only dimly and rarely in the case of one who easily forgets.

So vital and important is memory, that it has been justly denominated by the German philosopher, Kant, "the most wonderful of our faculties." Without it, the words of a book would be unintelligible to us, since it is memory alone which furnishes us with the several meanings to be attached to them.

Some writers on the science of mind assert that there is no such thing with any of us as absolutely forgetting anything that has once been in the mind. All mental activities, all knowledge which ever existed, persists. We never wholly lose them, but they become faint and obscure. One mental image effaces another. But those which have thus disappeared may be recalled by an act of reminiscence. While it may sometimes be impossible to recover one of them at the moment when wanted, by an act of voluntary recollection, some association may bring it unexpectedly and vividly before us. Memory plays us many strange tricks, both when we wake and when we dream. It revives, by an involuntary process, an infinite variety of past scenes, faces, events, ideas, emotions, passions, conversations, and written or printed pages, all of which we may have fancied had passed forever from our consciousness.

The aids to memory supposed to be furnished by the various mnemonic systems may now be briefly considered. These methods of supplying the defects of a naturally weak memory, or of strengthening a fairly good one, are one and all artificial. This might not be a conclusive objection to them, were they really effective and permanent helps, enabling one who has learned them to recall with certainty ideas, names, dates, and events which he is unable to recall by other means. Theory apart, it is conceded that a system of memorizing which had proved widely or generally successful in making a good memory out of a poor one, would deserve much credit. But experience with these systems has as yet failed to show, by the stern test of practical utility, that they can give substantial (and still less permanent) aid in curing the defects of memory. Most of the systems of mnemonics that have been invented are constructed on the principle of locality, or of utilizing objects which appeal to the sight. There is nothing new in these methods, for the principle is as old as Simonides, who lived in the fifth century before Christ, and who devised a system of memorizing by locality. One of the most prevalent systems now taught is to select a number of rooms in a house (in the mind's eye, of course) and divide the walls and the floors of each room into nine equal parts or squares, three in a row. Then

"On the front wall—that opposite the entrance of the first room—are the units, on the right-hand wall the tens, on the left hand the twenties, on the fourth wall the thirties, and on the floor the forties. Numbers 10, 20, 30, and 40, each find a place on the roof above their respective walls. One room will thus furnish 50 places, and ten rooms as many as 500, while 50 occupies the centre of the roof. Having fixed these clearly in the mind, so as to be able readily and at once to tell the exact position of each place or number, it is then necessary to associate with each of them some familiar object (or symbol) so that the object being suggested, its place may be instantly remembered, or when the place is before the mind, its object may immediately spring up. When this has been done thoroughly, the objects can be run over in any order from beginning to end, or from end to beginning, or the place of any particular one can at once be given. All that is further necessary is to associate the ideas we wish to remember with the objects in the various places, by which means they are readily remembered, and can be gone over in any order. In this way, one may learn to repeat several hundred disconnected words or ideas in any order, after hearing them only once."

This rather complicated machinery for aiding the memory is quite too mechanical to commend itself to any one accustomed to reflect or to take note of his own mental processes. Such an elaborate system crowds the mind with a lot of useless furniture, and hinders rather than helps a rational and straightforward habit of memorizing. It too much resembles the feat of trying to jump over a wall by running back a hundred or more yards to acquire a good start or momentum. The very complication of the system is fitted to puzzle rather than to aid the memory. It is based on mechanical or arithmetical associations—not founded on nature, and is of very small practical utility. It does not strengthen or improve the habit of memorizing, which should always be based upon close attention, and a logical method of classifying, associating, and analyzing facts or ideas.

Lord Bacon, more than two centuries ago, wisely characterized mnemonic systems as "barren and useless." He wrote, "For immediately to repeat a multitude of names or words once repeated before, I esteem no more than rope-dancing, antic postures, and feats of activity; and, indeed, they are nearly the same thing, the one being the abuse of the bodily, as the other is of mental powers; and though they may cause admiration, they cannot be highly esteemed."

In fact, these mnemonical systems are only a kind of crutches, sometimes useful to people who cannot walk, but actual impediments to those having the use of their limbs, and who by proper exercise can maintain their healthy and natural use indefinitely.

I have given you an account of one of these artificial systems of memory, or systems of artificial memory, as you may choose to call them. There have been invented more than one hundred different systems of mnemonics, all professing to be invaluable, and some claiming to be infallible. It appears to be a fatal objection to these memory-systems that they substitute a wholly artificial association of ideas for a natural one. The habit of looking for accidental or arbitrary relations of names and things is cultivated, and the power of logical, spontaneous thought is injured by neglecting essential for unessential relations. These artificial associations of ideas work endless mischief by crowding out the natural ones.

How then, you may ask, is a weak memory to be strengthened, or a fairly good memory to be cultivated into a better one? The answer is, by constant practice, and for this the vocation of a librarian furnishes far more opportunities than any other. At the basis of this practice of the memory, lies the habit of attention. All memory depends upon the strength or vividness of the impression made upon the mind, by the object, the name, the word, the date, which is sought to be remembered. And this, in turn, depends on the degree of attention with which it was first regarded. If the attention was so fixed that a clear mental image was formed, there will be no difficulty in remembering it again. If, on the other hand, you were inattentive, or listless, or pre-occupied with other thoughts, when you encountered the object, your impression of it would be hazy and indistinct, and no effort of memory would be likely to recall it.

Attention has been defined as the fixing of the mind intently upon one particular object, to the exclusion for a time, of all other objects soliciting notice. It is essential to those who would have a good memory, to cultivate assiduously the habit of concentration of thought. As the scattering shot hits no mark, so the scattering and random thoughts that sweep through an unoccupied brain lead to no memorable result, simply from want of attention or of fixation upon some one mental vision or idea. With your attention fastened upon any subject or object, you see it more clearly, and it impresses itself more vividly in the memory, as a natural consequence. Not only so, but its related objects or ideas are brought up by the principle of association, and they too make a deeper impression and are more closely remembered. In fact, one thing carefully observed and memorized, leads almost insensibly to another that is related to it, and thus the faculty of association is strengthened, the memory is stimulated, and the seeds of knowledge are deeply planted in that complex organism which we call the mind. This power of attention, of keeping an object or a subject steadily in view until it is absorbed or mastered, is held by some to be the most distinctive element in genius. Most people have not this habit of concentration of the mind, but allow it to wander aimlessly on, flitting from subject to subject, without mastering any; but then, most people are not geniuses. The habit to be cultivated is that of thinking persistently of only one thing at a time, sternly preventing the attention from wandering.

It may be laid down as an axiom that the two corner-stones of memory are attention and association. And both of these must act in harmony, the habit of fixed attention being formed or guided by the will, before a normal or retentive memory becomes possible. What is called cultivating the memory, therefore, does not mean anything more than close attention to whatever we wish to remember, with whatever associations naturally cling to it, until it is actually mastered. If one has not an instinctive or naturally strong memory, he should not rest satisfied with letting the days go by until he has improved it. The way to improve it, is to begin at the foundation, and by the constant exercise of the will-power, to take up every subject with fixed attention, and one at a time, excluding every other for the time being. There is no doubt whatever that the memory is capable of indefinite improvement; and though one's first efforts in that direction may prove a disappointment, because only partially successful, he should try, and try again, until he is rewarded with the full fruits of earnest intellectual effort, in whatever field. He may have, at the start, instead of a fine memory, what a learned professor called, "a fine forgettery," but let him persevere to the end. None of us were made to sit down in despair because we are not endowed with an all-embracing memory, or because we cannot "speak with the tongues of men and of angels," and do not know "all mysteries and all knowledge." It rather becomes us to make the best and highest use, day by day, of the talents that are bestowed upon us, remembering that however short of perfection they may be, we are yet far more gifted than myriads of our fellow-creatures in this very imperfect world.

There is no question that the proper cultivation of the memory is, or ought to be, the chief aim of education. All else is so dependent upon this, that it may be truly affirmed that, without memory, knowledge itself would be impossible. By giving up oneself with fixed attention to what one seeks to remember, and trusting the memory, though it may often fail, any person can increase his powers of memory and consequently of learning, to an indefinite degree. To improve and strengthen the memory, it must be constantly exercised. Let it be supplied with new knowledge frequently, and called on daily to reproduce it. If remembered only imperfectly or in part, refresh it by reference to the source whence the knowledge came; and repeat this carefully and thoroughly, until memory becomes actually the store-house of what you know on that subject. If there are certain kinds of facts and ideas which you more easily forget than others, it is a good way to practice upon them, taking up a few daily, and adding to them by degrees. Dr. W. T. Harris, the United States Commissioner of Education, gave his personal experience to the effect that he always found it hard to remember dates. He resolved to improve a feeble memory in this respect by learning the succession of English Kings, from William the Conqueror, down to Victoria. With his characteristic thoroughness, he began by learning three or four dates of accession only, the first day; two new ones were added the second day; then one new king added the third day; and thereafter even less frequency was observed in learning the chronology. By this method he had the whole table of thirty-six sovereigns learned, and made familiar by constant review. It had to be learned anew one year after, and once again after years of neglect. But his memory for dates steadily grew, and without conscious effort, dates and numbers soon came to be seized with a firmer grasp than before. This kind of memory, he adds, now improves or increases with him from year to year. Here is an instance of cultivation of memory by a notable scholar, who adds a monition to learners with weak memories, not to undertake to memorize too much at once. Learning a succession of fifty names slowly, he says, will so discipline the memory for names, as to partially or even permanently remove all embarrassment from that source. I may add that a long table of names or dates, or any prolonged extract in verse or prose, if learned by repeating it over and over as a whole, will be less tenaciously retained in memory, than if committed in parts.

The highest form of memory is actually unconscious, i. e., that in which what we would recall comes to us spontaneously, without effort or lapse of time in thinking about it. It is this kind of memory that has been possessed by all the notable persons who have been credited with knowing everything, or with never forgetting anything. It is not to be reckoned to their credit, so much as to their good fortune. What merit is there in having a good memory, when one cannot help remembering?

There is one caution to be given to those who are learning to improve a memory naturally weak. When such a one tries to recall a date, or name, or place, or idea, or book, it frequently happens that the endeavor fails utterly. The more he tries, the more obstinately the desired object fails to respond. As the poet Pope wrote about the witless author:

"You beat your pate, and fancy wit will come; Knock as you please, there's nobody at home."

In these cases, no attempt to force the memory should be made, nor should the attention be kept long on the subject, for this course only injures the faculty, and leads to confusion of mind. To persist in a constantly baffled effort to recover a word, or other forgotten link in memory, is a laborious attempt which is itself likely to cause failure, and induce a distrust of the memory which is far from rational. The forgotten object will probably recur in no long time after, when least expected.

Much discursive reading is not only injurious to the faculty of memory, but may be positively destructive of it. The vast extent of our modern world of reviews, magazines and newspapers, with their immense variety of subjects, dissipates the attention instead of concentrating it, and becomes fatal to systematic thought, tenacious memory, and the acquirement of real knowledge. The mind that is fed upon a diet of morning and evening newspapers, mainly or solely, will become flabby, uncertain, illogical, frivolous, and, in fact, little better than a scatterbrains. As one who listens to an endless dribble of small talk lays up nothing out of all the palaver, which, to use a common phrase, "goes in at one ear, and out at the other," so the reader who continuously absorbs all the stuff which the daily press, under the pretext of "printing the news," inflicts upon us, is nothing benefited in intellectual gifts or permanent knowledge. What does he learn by his assiduous pursuit of these ephemeral will o' the wisps, that only "lead to bewilder, and dazzle to blind?" He absorbs an incredible amount of empty gossip, doubtful assertions, trifling descriptions, apocryphal news, and some useful, but more useless knowledge. The only visible object of spending valuable time over these papers appears to be to satisfy a momentary curiosity, and then the mass of material read passes almost wholly out of the mind, and is never more thought of. Says Coleridge, one of the foremost of English thinkers: "I believe the habit of perusing periodical works may be properly added to the catalogue of anti-mnemonics, or weakeners of the memory."

If read sparingly, and for actual events, newspapers have a value which is all their own; but to spend hours upon them, as many do, is mere mental dissipation.



CHAPTER 13.

QUALIFICATIONS OF A LIBRARIAN.

In directing attention to some of the more important elements which should enter into the character and acquirements of a librarian, I shall perhaps not treat them in the order of their relative importance. Thus, some persons might consider the foremost qualification for one aspiring to the position of a librarian to be wide knowledge in literature and science: others would say that the possession of sound common sense is above all things essential; others an excellent and retentive memory; still others might insist that business habits and administrative faculty are all-important; and others again, a zeal for learning and for communicating it to others.

I shall not venture to pronounce what, among the multitude of talents that are requisite to constitute a good librarian is the most requisite. Suffice it to say, that all of them which I shall notice are important, and that the order of their treatment determines nothing as to which are more and which are less important. So much is expected of librarians that it actually appears as if a large portion of the public were of the opinion that it is the duty of him who has a library in charge to possess himself, in some occult or mysterious way, unknown to the common mind, of all the knowledge which all the books combine.

The Librarian of the British Museum, speaking to a conference of librarians in London, quoted a remark of Pattison, in his "Life of Casaubon," that "the librarian who reads is lost." This was certainly true of that great scholar Casaubon, who in his love for the contents of the books under his charge, forgot his duties as a librarian. And it is to a large degree true of librarians in general, that those who pursue their own personal reading or study during library hours do it at the expense of their usefulness as librarians. They must be content with such snatches of reading as come in the definite pursuit of some object of research incident to their library work, supplemented by such reading time as unoccupied evenings, Sundays, and annual vacations may give them.

Yet nothing is more common than for applicants for the position of librarians or assistant librarians to base their aspiration upon the foolish plea that they are "so fond of reading", or that they "have always been in love with books." So far from this being a qualification, it may become a disqualification. Unless combined with habits of practical, serious, unremitting application to labor, the taste for reading may seduce its possessor into spending the minutes and the hours which belong to the public, in his own private gratification. The conscientious, the useful librarian, living amid the rich intellectual treasures of centuries, the vast majority of which he has never read, must be content daily to enact the part of Tantalus, in the presence of a tempting and appetizing banquet which is virtually beyond his reach.

But he may console himself by the reflection that comparatively few of the books upon his shelves are so far worth reading as to be essential. "If I had read as many books as other men," said Hobbes of Malmesbury, "I should have been as ignorant as they."

If the librarian, in the precious time which is indisputably his, reads a wise selection of the best books, the masterpieces of the literature of all lands, which have been consecrated by time and the suffrages of successive generations of readers, he can well afford to apply to the rest, the short-hand method recommended in a former chapter, and skim them in the intervals of his daily work, instead of reading them. Thus he will become sufficiently familiar with the new books of the day (together with the information about their contents and merits furnished by the literary reviews, which he must read, however sparingly, in order to keep up with his profession) to be able to furnish readers with some word of comment as to most books coming into the Library. This course, or as close an approximation to it as his multifarious duties will permit, will go far to solve the problem that confronts every librarian who is expected to be an exponent of universal knowledge. Always refraining from unqualified praise of books (especially of new ones) always maintaining that impartial attitude toward men and opinions which becomes the librarian, he should act the part of a liberal, eclectic, catholic guide to inquirers of every kind.

And here let me emphasize the great importance to every librarian or assistant of early learning to make the most of his working faculties. He cannot afford to plod along through a book, sentence by sentence, like an ordinary reader. He must learn to read a sentence at a glance. The moment his eye lights upon a title-page he should be able to take it all in by a comprehensive and intuitive mental process. Too much stress cannot be laid upon the every-day habit or method of reading. It makes all the difference between time saved, and time wasted; between efficiency and inefficiency; between rapid progress and standing still, in one's daily work. No pains should be spared, before entering upon the all-engrossing work of a library, to acquire the habit of rapid reading. An eminent librarian of one of the largest libraries was asked whether he did not find a great deal of time to read? His reply was—"I wish that I could ever get as much as one hour a day for reading—but I have never been able to do it." Of course every librarian must spend much time in special researches; and in this way a good deal of some of his days will be spent in acquainting himself with the resources of his library; but this is incidental and not systematic reading.

In viewing the essential qualifications of a librarian, it is necessary to say at the outset that a library is no place for uneducated people. The requirements of the position are such as to demand not only native talent above the average, but also intellectual acquirements above the average. The more a librarian knows, the more he is worth, and the converse of the proposition is equally true, that the less he knows the less he is worth. Before undertaking the arduous task of guiding others in their intellectual pursuits, one should make sure that he is himself so well-grounded in learning that he can find the way in which to guide them. To do this, he must indispensably have something more than a smattering of the knowledge that lies at the foundation of his profession. He must be, if not widely read, at least carefully grounded in history, science, literature, and art. While he may not, like Lord Bacon, take all knowledge to be his province, because he is not a Lord Bacon, nor if he were, could he begin to grasp the illimitable domain of books of science and literature which have been added to human knowledge in the two centuries and a half since Bacon wrote, he can at least, by wise selection, master enough of the leading works in each field, to make him a well-informed scholar. That great treasury of information on the whole circle of the sciences, and the entire range of literature, the Encyclopaedia Britannica, judiciously studied, will alone give what would appear to the average mind, a very liberal education.

One of the most common and most inconsiderate questions propounded to a librarian is this: "Do you ever expect to read all these books through?" and it is well answered by propounding another question, namely—"Did you ever read your dictionary through?" A great library is the scholar's dictionary—not to be read through, but to enable him to put his finger on the fact he wants, just when it is wanted.

A knowledge of some at least of the foreign languages is indispensable to the skilled librarian. In fact, any one aspiring to become an assistant in any large library, or the head of any small one, should first acquire at least an elementary knowledge of French and Latin. Aside from books in other languages than English which necessarily form part of every considerable library, there are innumerable quotations or words in foreign tongues scattered through books and periodicals in English, which a librarian, appealed to by readers who are not scholars, would be mortified if found unable to interpret them. The librarian who does not understand several languages will be continually at a loss in his daily work. A great many important catalogues, and bibliographies, essential parts of the equipment of a library, will be lost to him as aids, and he can neither select foreign books intelligently nor catalogue them properly. If he depends upon the aid of others more expert, his position will be far from agreeable or satisfactory. How many and what foreign languages should be learned may be matter for wide difference of opinion. But so far-reaching is the prevalence of the Latin, as one of the principal sources of our own language, and of other modern tongues, that a knowledge of it is most important. And so rich is the literature of France, to say nothing of the vast number of French words constantly found in current English and American books and periodicals, that at least a fairly thorough mastery of that language should be acquired. The same may be said of the German, which is even more important in some parts of the United States, and which has a literature most copious and valuable in every varied department of knowledge. With these three tongues once familiar, the Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, and Scandinavian languages may be, through the aid of dictionaries, so far utilized as to enable one to read titles and catalogue books in any of them, although a knowledge of all, so as to be able to read books in them, is highly desirable.

In the Boston Public Library, the assistants are required to possess an adequate knowledge of Latin, French, and German. And all candidates for positions in the reading-room of the British Museum Library must undergo a thorough test examination as to their knowledge of the Latin language. Opportunities for acquiring foreign languages are now so abundant that there is small excuse for any one who wants to know French, Latin or German, and yet goes through life without learning them. There are even ways of learning these languages with sufficient thoroughness for reading purposes without a teacher, and sometimes without a text-book. Two assistant librarians taught themselves French and German in their evenings, by setting out to read familiar works of English fiction in translations into those languages, and soon acquired a good working knowledge of both, so as to be able to read any work in either, with only occasional aid from the dictionary for the less common words. It is surprising how soon one can acquire a sufficient vocabulary in any language, by reading any of its great writers. A good way for a beginner to learn French without a master is to take a French New Testament, and read the four Gospels through. After doing this three or four times, almost any one who is at all familiar with the Scriptures, will be able to read most books in the French language with facility. In the great art of learning, all doors are easily unlocked—by those who have the key.

It should go without saying that the librarian should possess a wide knowledge of books. This knowledge should include (1) an acquaintance with ancient and modern literature, so as to be able to characterize the notable writers in each of the leading languages of the world; (2) a knowledge of history extensive enough to enable him to locate all the great characters, including authors, in their proper century and country; (3) a knowledge of editions, so as to discriminate between the old and the new, the full and the abridged, the best edited, best printed, etc.; (4) an acquaintance with the intrinsic value or the subject and scope of most of the great books of the world; (5) a knowledge of commercial values, so as to be able to bid or to buy understandingly, and with proper economy; (6) a familiarity with what constitutes condition in library books, and with binding and repairing processes, for the restoration of imperfect volumes for use.

The librarian should be one who has had the benefit of thorough preliminary training, for no novice is qualified to undertake the role of an expert, and any attempt to do so can result only in disappointment and failure. No one who has read little or nothing but novels since leaving school need ever hope to succeed.

No librarian can know too much, since his work brings him into relation with the boundless domain of human knowledge. He should not be a specialist in science (except in the one science of bibliography) but must be content with knowing a little about a great many things, rather than knowing everything about one thing. Much converse with books must fill him with a sense of his own ignorance. The more he comes to know, the wider will open before him the illimitable realm of what is yet to be known. In the lowest deep which research the most profound can reach, there is a lower deep still unattained—perhaps, even, unattainable. But the fact that he cannot by any possibility master all human knowledge should not deter the student from making ever advancing inroads upon that domain. The vast extent of the world of books only emphasizes the need of making a wise selection from the mass. We are brought inevitably back to that precept by every excursion that we make into whatever field of literature.

The librarian should possess, besides a wide acquaintance with books, a faculty of administration, and this rests upon careful business habits. He should have a system in all the library work. Every assistant should have a prescribed task, and be required to learn and to practice all the methods peculiar to library economy, including the economy of time. Each day's business should be so organized as to show an advance at the end. The library must of course have rules, and every rule should be so simple and so reasonable that it will commend itself to every considerate reader or library assistant. All questions of doubt or dispute as to the observance of any regulation, should be decided at once, courteously but firmly, and in a few words. Nothing can be more unseemly than a wrangle in a public library over some rule or its application, disturbing readers who are entitled to silence, and consuming time that should be given to the service of the public.

When Thomas Carlyle, one of the great scholars of modern times, testified in 1848 before a Parliamentary Commission upon the British Museum Library, he thus spoke of the qualifications of a librarian:

"All must depend upon the kind of management you get within the library itself. You must get a good pilot to steer the ship, or you will never get into the harbor. You must have a man to direct who knows well what the duty is that he has to do, and who is determined to go through that, in spite of all clamor raised against him; and who is not anxious to obtain approbation, but is satisfied that he will obtain it by and by, provided he acts ingenuously and faithfully."

Another quality most important in a librarian is an even temper. He should be always and unfailingly courteous, not only to scholars and visitors of high consideration, but to every reader, however humble or ignorant, and to every employee, however subordinate in position. There is nothing which more detracts from one's usefulness than a querulous temper. Its possessor is seldom happy himself, and is the frequent cause of unhappiness in others. Visitors and questions should never be met with a clouded brow. A cheerful "good-morning" goes a great way oftentimes. Many library visitors come in a complaining mood—it may be from long waiting to be served, or from mistake in supplying them with the wrong books, or from errors in charging their accounts, or from some fancied neglect or slight, or from any other cause. The way to meet such ill-humored or offended readers is to gently explain the matter, with that "soft answer which turneth away wrath." Many a foolish and useless altercation may thus be avoided, and the complainant restored to cheerfulness, if not to courtesy; whereas, if the librarian were to meet the case with a sharp or haughty answer, it would probably end without satisfaction on either side. Whatever you do, never permit yourself to be irritable, and resolve never to be irritated. It will make you unhappy, and will breed irritation in others. Cheerfulness under all circumstances, however difficult, is the duty and the interest of the librarian. Thus he will cultivate successfully an obliging disposition, which is a prime requisite to his success with the public and his usefulness as a librarian.

It ought not to be requisite to insist upon good health as a condition precedent for any one aspiring to be a librarian. So very much depends upon this, that it should form a part of the conscientious duty of every one to acquire and maintain a sound condition of physical health, as a most important adjunct of a thoroughly sound and healthy condition of the mind. This is easier than most persons are aware. If we except inherited constitutional weaknesses, or maladies of a serious character, there is almost no one who is not able by proper diet, regimen, and daily exercise, to maintain a degree of health which will enable him to use his brain to its full working capacity. It demands an intelligent and watchful care of the daily regimen, so that only simple and wholesome food and drink may be taken into the system, and what is equally important, adequate sleep, and habitual moderate exercise. No one can maintain perfect health without breathing good unadulterated air, and exercising in it with great frequency. One's walks to and from the library may be sufficient to give this, and it is well to have the motive of such a walk, since exercise taken for the mere purpose of it is of far less value. The habit of taking drugs, or going to a doctor for every little malady, is most pernicious. Every one, and especially a librarian, who is supposed (however erroneously) to know everything, should know more of his own constitution than any physician. With a few judicious experiments in daily regimen, and a little abstinence now and then, he can subdue head-aches, catarrhs and digestive troubles, and by exercising an intelligent will, can generally prevent their recurrence. If one finds himself in the morning in a state of languor and lassitude, be sure he has abused some physical function, and apply a remedy. An invalid will make a poorly equipped librarian. How can a dyspeptic who dwells in the darkness of a disease, be a guiding light to the multitudes who beset him every hour? There are few callings demanding as much mental and physical soundness and alertness as the care of a public library.

Sound common sense is as essential to the librarian as sound health. He should always take the practical straightforward view of every item of library business and management, remembering that the straight road is always the shortest way between two points. While he may be full of ideas, he should be neither an idealist nor a dreamer. In library methods, the cardinal requisites to be aimed at, are utility and convenience. A person of the most perfect education, and the highest literary attainments, but destitute of common sense, will not succeed in the conduct of a library. That intuitive judgment, which sees the reason of everything at a glance, and applies the proper agencies to the case in hand, is wanting in his composition. Multitudes of emergencies arise in library service, where the prompt and practical sense of the librarian is required to settle a dispute, adjust a difficulty, or to direct what is to be done in some arrangement or re-arrangement of books, or some library appliance or repair. In such cases, the unpractical or impracticable man will be very likely to decide wrongly, choosing the inconvenient method instead of the convenient, the more costly instead of the more economical, the laborious in place of the obvious and easy; in short, some way of doing the work or settling the difficulty which will not permit it to stay settled, or will require the work to be done over again. The man of common-sense methods, on the other hand, will at once see the end from the beginning, anticipate every difficulty, and decide upon the proper course without trouble or hesitation, finding his judgment fully vindicated by the result.

The librarian in whom the quality of common sense is well developed will be ever ready to devise or to accept improvements in library methods. Never a slave to "red tape," he will promptly cut it wherever and whenever it stands in the way of the readiest service of books and information to all comers.

Another quality which every librarian or assistant in a library should possess is a thorough love of his work. He should cherish a noble enthusiasm for the success and usefulness of the institution with which he has chosen to be associated. Nor should this spirit be by any means limited to the literary and scientific aid which he is enabled to extend to others, nor to the acquisition of the knowledge requisite to meet the endless inquiries that are made of him. He should take as much interest in restoring a broken binding, or in seeing that a torn leaf is repaired, as in informing a great scholar what the library contains upon any subject.

No one who is listless or indifferent in the discharge of daily duties is fit for a place in a public library. There should be an esprit de corps, a zeal for his profession, which will lead him to make almost any sacrifice of outside interests to become proficient in it. Thus only will he render himself indispensable in his place, and do the greatest amount of service to the greatest number of readers. I have seen employees in libraries so utterly careless of what belongs to their vocation, as to let books, totally unfit for use, ragged or broken, or with plates loosened, ready to drop out and disappear, go back to the shelves unrepaired, to pursue the downward road toward destruction. And I have been in many libraries in which the books upon the shelves exhibited such utter want of care, such disarrangement, such tumbling about and upside-down chaos, and such want of cleanliness, as fairly to make one's heart ache. In some cases this may have been due in great part to unwise free admission of the public to the shelves, and consequent inevitable disorder; in others, it may be partially excused by the librarian's absolute want of the needful help or time, to keep the library in order; but in others, it was too apparent that the librarian in charge took no interest in the condition of the books. Too many librarians (at least of the past, however it may now be) have been of the class described by Dr. Poole, the Chicago librarian. He said that library trustees too often appeared to think that anybody almost would do for a librarian; men who have failed in everything else, broken-down clergymen, or unsuccessful teachers, and the like.

Passing now to other needful qualifications of librarians and library assistants, let me say that one of the foremost is accuracy. Perhaps I have before this remarked that exact accuracy is one of the rarest of human qualities. Even an approximation to it is rare, and absolute accuracy is still rarer. Beware of the person who is sure of every thing—who retails to you a conversation he has heard, affecting to give the exact words of a third person, or who quotes passages in verse or in prose, with glib assurance, as the production of some well-known writer. The chances are ten to one that the conversation is mainly manufactured in the brain of the narrator, and that the quotation is either not written by the author to whom it is attributed, or else is a travesty of his real language. It is Lord Byron who tells of that numerous class of sciolists whom one finds everywhere—

"With just enough of learning to misquote."

The books one reads abound in erroneous dates, mistaken names, garbled extracts, and blundering quotations. So much the more important is it to the librarian, who is so continually drawn upon for correct information upon every subject, to make sure of his facts, before communicating them. When (as frequently happens) he has no way of verifying them, he should report them, not as his own conclusions, but on the authority of the book or periodical where found. This will relieve him of all responsibility, if they turn out to be erroneous. Whenever I find a wrong date or name in a printed book, or an erroneous reference in the index, or a mis-spelled word, I always pencil the correct date, or name, or page of reference in the margin. This I do as a matter of instinct, as well as of duty, for the benefit of future inquirers, so that they may not be misled. I speak here of errors which are palpable, or of the inaccuracy of which I have positive knowledge; if in doubt, I either let the matter go entirely, or write a query in pencil at the place, with the presumed correct substitute appended.