pular use of it would have been viewed as a kind of profanation.

We have changed all that in the modern world, and library service is now
one of the busiest occupations in the whole range of human enterprise.
One cannot succeed in the profession, if his main idea is that a public
library is a nice and easy place where one may do one's own reading and
writing to the best advantage. A library is an intellectual and material
work-shop, in which there is no room for fossils nor for drones. My only
conception of a useful library is a library that is used--and the same of
a librarian. He should be a lover of books--but not a book-worm. If his
tendencies toward idealism are strong, he should hold them in check by
addicting himself to steady, practical, every-day work. While careful of
all details, he should not be mastered by them. If I have sometimes
seemed to dwell upon trifling or obvious suggestions as to temper, or
conduct, or methods, let it be remembered that trifles make up
perfection, and that perfection is no trifle.

I once quoted the saying that "the librarian who reads is lost"; but it
would be far truer to say that the librarian who does not read is lost;
only he should read wisely and with a purpose. He should make his reading
helpful in giving him a wide knowledge of facts, of thoughts, and of
illustrations, which will come perpetually in play in his daily
intercourse with an inquiring public.

CHAPTER 14.

SOME OF THE USES OF LIBRARIES.

Let us now consider the subject of the uses of public libraries to
schools and those connected with them. Most town and city libraries are
supported, like the free schools, by the public money, drawn from the
tax-payers, and supposed to be expended for the common benefit of all the
people. It results that one leading object of the library should be to
acquire such a collection of books as will be in the highest degree
useful to all. And especially should the wants of the younger generation
be cared for, since they are always not only nearly one half of the
community, but they are also to become the future citizens of the
republic. What we learn in youth is likely to make a more marked and
lasting impression than what we may acquire in later years. And the
public library should be viewed as the most important and necessary
adjunct of the school, in the instruction and improvement of the young.
Each is adapted to supply what the other lacks. The school supplies oral