this line of personal influence that there seem to me
to be special encouragements to the librarians of small towns, that
here, notwithstanding their limited resources, they have peculiar
opportunities for attaining an almost ideal standard of excellence in
the quality of their work.

It would be unjust to say that a city librarian actually works harder
than his country brother. The duties of the former are mainly those of
guiding, overseeing, and correcting the work of others. The latter, with
his own hands and brain, does most of the work himself. It is as if the
one were architect solely, and the other not only architect, but mason
and carpenter as well. One of the severest trials of the lot of a city
librarian, in the West at least, is that he must work through many
assistants who are not only utterly lacking in any real love or
enthusiasm for their work, but who are many times illy-educated as well.
The remedy for this state of affairs is not likely to be found until our
boards of trustees take for their careful consideration the reply of a
certain irate domestic to her remonstrating mistress: "You can't expect
a good cook and all the Christian virtues for two dollars a week!" If
the necessities of the work do not require the employment of more than
one, two, or, at most, three assistants, the subtle electric current of
the librarian's own enthusiasm may suffer the subdivision without being
utterly dissipated. He can actually do much of the work himself. He
comes into contact with his clientage, which is not so large but that he
may hope to become personally acquainted with many of them, and,
learning their tastes and needs, easily become their trusted friend and
guide. His catalog, too, is his own work, and it is perhaps safe to say
that no one ever properly appreciates a catalog but its maker. Certainly
no one else ever handles it with equal ease and intelligence.

I am afraid the catalog has never been made, and never will be, over
which the ignorant and indolent will not be perplexed and deceived; and,
after all is said, it is to the ignorant to whom the gospel of the
public library is specially sent. If the cataloger himself is constantly
at hand to explain intricacies, to supplement deficiencies, with his own
perfect knowledge of his library, to answer even foolish and stumbling
questioners patiently and intelligently, he may make the puzzling way of
finding and getting a book so plain that "The wayfaring ma