wed precincts, sacred
to literature and science, the voice of controversy should be hushed.
While the librarian may and should hold his own private opinions with
firmness and entire independence, he should keep them private--as regards
the frequenters of the library. He may, for example, be profoundly
convinced of the truth of the Christian religion; and he is called on, we
will suppose, for books attacking Christianity, like Thomas Paine's "Age
of Reason," or Robert G. Ingersoll's lectures on "Myth and Miracle." It
is his simple duty to supply the writers asked for, without comment, for
in a public library, Christian and Jew, Mahometan and Agnostic, stand on
the same level of absolute equality. The library has the Koran, and the
Book of Mormon, as well as the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament,
and one is to be as freely supplied as the other. A library is an
institution of universal range--of encyclopaedic knowledge, which gathers
in and dispenses to all comers, the various and conflicting opinions of
all writers upon religion, science, politics, philosophy, and sociology.
The librarian may chance to be an ardent Republican or a zealous
Democrat; but in either case, he should show as much alacrity in
furnishing readers with W. J. Bryan's book "The First Battle," as with
McKinley's speeches, or the Republican Hand-Book. A library is no place
for dogmatism; the librarian is pledged, by the very nature of his
profession, which is that of a dispenser of all knowledge--not of a part
of it--to entire liberality, and absolute impartiality. Remembering the
axiom that all errors may be safely tolerated, while reason is left free
to combat them, he should be ever ready to furnish out of the
intellectual arsenal under his charge, the best and strongest weapons to
either side in any conflict of opinion.

It will have been gathered from what has gone before, in recapitulation
of the duties and responsibilities of the librarian's calling, that it is
one demanding a high order of talent. The business of successfully
conducting a public library is complex and difficult. It is full of
never-ending detail, and the work accomplished does not show for what it
is really worth, except in the eyes of the more thoughtful and discerning
observers.

I may here bring into view some of the drawbacks and discouragements
incident to the librarian's vocation, together with an outline of the
advantages which belong to it.

In the first place