any vocation. It is very true that it is
not given to mortals to achieve perfection: but it is none the less our
business to aim at it, and the higher the ideal, the nearer we are likely
to come to a notable success in the work we have chosen.

Librarianship furnishes one of the widest fields for the most eminent
attainments. The librarian, more than any other person whatever, is
brought into contact with those who are hungering and thirsting after
knowledge. He should be able to satisfy those longings, to lead
inquirers in the way they should go, and to be to all who seek his
assistance a guide, philosopher and friend. Of all the pleasures which a
generous mind is capable of enjoying, that of aiding and enlightening
others is one of the finest and most delightful. To learn continually for
one's self is a noble ambition, but to learn for the sake of
communicating to others, is a far nobler one. In fact, the librarian
becomes most widely useful by effacing himself, as it were, in seeking to
promote the intelligence of the community in which he lives. One of the
best librarians in the country said that such were the privileges and
opportunities of the profession, that one might well afford to live on
bread and water for the sake of being a librarian, provided one had no
family to support.

There is a new and signally marked advance in recent years, in the public
idea of what constitutes a librarian. The old idea of a librarian was
that of a guardian or keeper of books--not a diffuser of knowledge, but a
mere custodian of it. This idea had its origin in ages when books were
few, were printed chiefly in dead languages, and rendered still more dead
by being chained to the shelves or tables of the library. The librarian
might be a monk, or a professor, or a priest, or a doctor of law, or
theology, or medicine, but in any case his function was to guard the
books, and not to dispense them. Those who resorted to the library were
kept at arm's length, as it were, and the fewer there were who came, the
better the grim or studious custodian was pleased. Every inquiry which
broke the profound silence of the cloistered library was a kind of rude
interruption, and when it was answered, the perfunctory librarian resumed
his reading or his studies. The institution appeared to exist, not for
the benefit of the people, but for that of the librarian; or for the
benefit, besides, of a few sequestered scholars, like himself, and any
wide po