sess, 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 suc