operation in securing, with an
enthusiasm which amounts to missionary zeal, the best and most uniform
methods, with special reference to mechanical devices. The very motto
smacks of arithmetic and commerce. "The best reading for the largest
number at the least cost." All this is good and proper in its place.
Wise methods are essential to the best results. But we sought in vain
all along the years for the philosophic insight which should grasp the
higher motive of our profession and connect it with the great struggles
of our modern life. After the Columbus year in the clearer air of the
mountain-top, the word for which we were waiting came. I wish it were
possible to stop right here and give you the papers of Mr. Larned and
Mr. Brett, which were read at Lake Placid, as well as the discussion
which followed. I must content myself by quoting Mr. Larned's last
sentence: "Those of us who have faith in the future of democracy can
only hold our faith fast by believing that the knowledge of the learned,
the wisdom of the thoughtful, the conscience of the upright, will some
day be common enough to prevail, always, over every factious folly and
every mischievous movement that evil minds or ignorance can set astir.
When that blessed time of victory shall have come, there will be many to
share the glory of it; but none among them will rank rightly before
those who have led and inspired the work of the public libraries."

This leads us to the first great need of the profession to-day, that the
librarian should be in the noblest sense a large, man, that he should
add to executive and business ability and technical knowledge a broad
and generous culture in Matthew Arnold's sense of the word, "An inward
spiritual activity, having for its character increased sweetness,
increased light, increased life, increased sympathy." He must be an
omnivorous reader, skimming many books, and knowing by instinct which
books and which chapters and sentences to read carefully. He must study
from books and in life the great industrial, social, and religious
questions which stir our age. He must be a scholar without pedantry, a
man of the world without indifference, a friend of the people without
sentimentality.

There follows naturally the second necessity, that the librarian should
be a careful student of his own town. He should know its history and
topography, its social, political, business, literary, and
ecclesiastical life. To this end he should h