* * * *

THE WOES OF A LIBRARIAN.

Let us give a brief rehearsal
Of the learning universal,
Which men expect to find
In Librarians to their mind.

He must undergo probation,
Before he gets a situation;
Must begin at the creation,
When the world was in formation,
And come down to its cremation,
In the final consummation
Of the old world's final spasm:
He must study protoplasm,
And bridge over every chasm
In the origin of species,
Ere the monkey wore the breeches,
Or the Simian tribe began
To ascend from ape to man.

He must master the cosmology,
And know all about psychology,
And the wonders of biology,
And be deep in ornithology,
And develop ideology,
With the aid of craniology.
He must learn to teach zooelogy,
And be skilled in etymology,
And the science of philology,
And calculate chronology,
While he digs into geology,
And treats of entomology,
And hunts up old mythology,
And dips into theology,
And grows wise in sociology,
And expert in anthropology.

He must also know geography,
And the best works on photography,
And the science of stenography,
And be well up on cosmography,
And the secrets of cryptography.
Must interpret blind chirography,
Know by heart all mens' biography,
And the black art of typography,
And every book in bibliography.

These things are all essential
And highly consequential.

If he's haunted by ambition
For a library position,
And esteems it a high mission,
To aspire to erudition;
He will find some politician
Of an envious disposition,
Getting up a coalition
To secure his non-admission,
And send him to perdition,
Before he's reached fruition.

If he gets the situation,
And is full of proud elation
And of fond anticipation,
And has in contemplation
To enlighten half the nation,
He may write a dissertation
For the public information
On the laws of observation,
And the art of conversation.

He must know each famed oration,
And poetical quotation,
And master derivation,
And the science of translation,
And complex pagination,
And perfect punctuation,
And binomial equation,
And accurate computation,
And boundless permutation,
And infinite gradati