d.pates the attention instead of concentrating it, and becomes fatal to systematic thought, tenacious memory, and the acquirement of real knowledge. The mind that is 51 upon a diet of morning and evening newspapers, mainly or solely, will become flabby, uncertain, illogical, frivolous, an 1, in fact, little better than a scatterbrains. As one who stens to an endless dribble of small talk lays up nothing it of all the palaver, which, to use a common phrase, "goes in at one ear, and out at the other," so the reader wh continuously absorbs all the stuff which the daily press, under the pretext of "printing the news," inflicts upon us, is nothing benefited in intellectual gifts or permanent knowledge. What does he learn by his assiduous pursuit of these ephemeral will o' the wisps, that only "lead to bewilder, and dazzle to blind?" He absorbs an incredible amount of empty gossip, doubtful assertions, tr..ng descriptions, apocryphal news, and some useful, but more useless knowledge. The only visible object of -;-1. Ling valuable time over these papers appears to be to sat-fy a momentary curiosity, and then the mass of materal read passes almost wholly out of the mind, and is tever more thought of. Says Coleridge, one of the forem. -t of English thinkers: "I believe the habit of perus

priodical works may be properly added to the catage of anti-mnemonics, or weakeners of the memory." If read sparingly, and for actual events, newspapers have a value which is all their own; but to spend hours upon em, as many do, is mere mental dissipation.

CHAPTER 13.

QUALIFICATIONS OF A LIBRARIAN.

In directing attention to some of the more important elements which should enter into the character and acquirements of a librarian, I shall perhaps not treat them in the order of their relative importance. Thus, some persons might consider the foremost qualification for one aspiring to the position of a librarian to be wide know!edge in literature and science: others would say that the possession of sound common sense is above all things essential; others an excellent and retentive memory; st.i others might insist that business habits and administrat.ve faculty are all-important; and others again, a zeal for learning and for communicating it to others.

I shall not venture to pronounce what, among the multitude of talents that are requisite to constitute a g-d librarian is the most requisite. Suffice it to say, that all of them which I shall notice are important, and that the order of their treatment determines nothing as to wh are more and which are less important. So much is expected of librarians that it actually appears as if a large portion of the public were of the opinion that it is the duty of him who has a library in charge to possess himself. in some occult or mysterious way, unknown to the con.mon mind, of all the knowledge which all the books comb.ne

The Librarian of the British Museum, speaking to a conference of librarians in London, quoted a remark of Pattison, in his "Life of Casaubon," that "the librarian who reads is lost." This was certainly true of that great scholar Casaubon, who in his love for the contents of the

boks under his charge, forgot his duties as a librarian. And it is to a large degree true of librarians in general, that those who pursue their own personal reading or study during library hours do it at the expense of their usefulness as librarians. They must be content with such snatches of reading as come in the definite pursuit of some

ect of research incident to their library work, supplemented by such reading time as unoccupied evenings, Sundava, and annual vacations may give them.

Yet nothing is more common than for applicants for the position of librarians or assistant librarians to base their asp.ration upon the foolish plea that they are "so fond of reading", or that they "have always been in love with books." So far from this being a qualification, it may become a disqualification. Unless combined with habits of practical, serious, unremitting application to labor, the taste for reading may seduce its possessor into spending the minutes and the hours which belong to the public, in his own private gratification. The conscientious, the useful librar.an, living amid the rich intellectual treasures of centuries, the vast majority of which he has never read, must be content daily to enact the part of Tantalus, in the presence of a tempting and appetizing banquet which is virtually beyond his reach.

But he may console himself by the reflection that comparatively few of the books upon his shelves are so far worth reading as to be essential. "If I had read as many as other men," said Hobbes of Malmesbury, "I ould have been as ignorant as they." If the librarian, in the precious time which is indisputabir his, reads a wise selection of the best books, the masterpieces of the literature of all lands, which have been consecrated by time and the surages of successive generators of readers, he can well afford to apply to the rest, the

short-hand method recommended in a former chapter, and skim them in the intervals of his daily work, instead of reading them. Thus he will become sufficiently familiar with the new books of the day (together with the information about their contents and merits furnished by the literary reviews, which he must read, however sparingly, in order to keep up with his profession) to be able to furnish readers with some word of comment as to most books coming into the Library. This course, or as close an approxi mation to it as his multifarious duties will permit, will go far to solve the problem that confronts every librarian who is expected to be an exponent of universal knowledge. Always refraining from unqualified praise of books (especially of new ones) always maintaining that impartial attitude toward men and opinions which becomes the labrarian, he should act the part of a liberal, eclectic, catholie guide to inquirers of every kind.

And here let me emphasize the great importance to every librarian or assistant of early learning to make the mat of his working faculties. He cannot afford to plod along through a book, sentence by sentence, like an ordinary reader. He must learn to read a sentence at a glance. The moment his eye lights upon a title page he should be able to take it all in by a comprehensive and intuitive mental process. Too much stress cannot be laid upon the every day habit or method of reading. It makes all the difference between time saved, and time wasted; between efficiency and inefficiency; between rapid progress and standing still, in one's daily work. No pains should be spared, before entering upon the all-engrossing work of a library, to acquire the habit of rapid reading. An eminent librarian of one of the largest libraries was asked whether he did not find a great deal of time to read? His repr was "I wish that I could ever get as much as one hour

a day for reading- but I have never been able to do it." Of course every librarian must spend much time in special researches; and in this way a good deal of some of his days will be spent in acquainting himself with the resources of his library; but this is incidental and not systematic read

In viewing the essential qualifications of a librarian, it is necessary to say at the outset that a library is no place for uneducated people. The requirements of the position are such as to demand not only native talent above the average, but also intellectual acquirements above the averaxe. The more a librarian knows, the more he is worth, and the converse of the proposition is equally true, that the less he knows the less he is worth. Before undertaking the arduous task of guiding others in their intellectual pursuits, one should make sure that he is himself so wellgrounded in learning that he can find the way in which to gile them. To do this, he must indispensably have some

ng more than a smattering of the knowledge that lies at the foundation of his profession. He must be, if not widely read, at least carefully grounded in history, science, literature, and art. While he may not, Pke Lord Bacon, take a.l knowledge to be his province, because he is not a Lord Bacon, nor if he were, could he begin to grasp the illimitaEle domain of books of science and literature which have been added to human knowledge in the two centuries and a half since Bacon wrote, he can at least, by wise selection, raster enough of the leading works in each field, to make Im a well-informed scholar. That great treasury of information on the whole circle of the sciences, and the ertire range of literature, the Encyclopaedia Britannica, jderously studied, will alone give what would appear to the average mind, a very 1eral education

One of the most common and most inconsiderate ques