ways. Library funds are usually limited, and we buy first to meet real needs. Second, we usually have some necessary red tape which prevents bookpurchase at very short notice. While for an occasional emergency the tape may be cut, such a practice is unbusiness-like, and, if a little forethought be used, not often necessary. Third, and here is where your bread on the waters returns to you, you will thus be reasonably sure of having the book when you wish it. Knowing it is needed on a certain date, it will be picked out from the other new books and hurried thru or it will be reserved from general circulation. Or, if old and disabled, it will not be sent to the bindery till after you have used it.

If you can not make out a list so far ahead, you can at least let us know a few minutes beforehand if a class is to be sent in for study. Send a boy ahead, or telephone in the morning that they will be in for material on the tariff or industrial arbitration, or Arbor Day. It takes little of your time, and it helps us wonderfully. See how it works. At 4:30, when everybody is asking for the last novel, and all the club women are getting up papers, in come twenty-five youngsters, each with a hazy but urgent demand for something on arbitration. It takes some time to translate their request into its original form, that in which you gave out the subject. It takes a while longer to get together twentyfive good articles. In the meantime, the children are wandering aimlessly about. Our caustic old gentleman-every library has one, and he is a fine mirror for librarians-asks you if you are conducting a kindergarten, and why these children are allowed to disturb real workers. Or, maybe the class does not all One or two canny ones do, quietly, draw out the best material, and keep it. No one else has any show. Now look at this plan: word comes in that the class is to use the references on industrial arbitration between the dates named. May the books be held at the library? The books are collected, marked non-circulating, and placed an a special table. A list is made. The boys and girls settle down at once, and the fiction-reader, the club woman, the caustic old gentleman, and the timid stranger, all get their meed of attention.

come at once.

Apropos of reference work, please look upon me as pleading with you in the name of all the librarians of the country, when I say this. Don't draw out all the books of the library on a subject, and then send your class to the library to look up that same subject in those same books. This is the universal crime. When the class comes in we may explain all day that the books are out. The answer is ever the same, "But Miss Smith said we would find the books in the library." I wish this was an unusual thing. But it happens daily. Please, please don't.

Familiarize yourself with the possibilities of books, and do not send children for information which cannot possibly be had. An infant once came to me for statistics of persons killed by fire and flood since the beginning of the world. Not very long ago a youth was sent in for a statement of the private capital of United States citizens that is invested in foreign countries. The World's Almanac will do wonders, but it cannot help there.

There is a curious I do not know why.

Remember that "sources" are not always to be used. prejudice among some people against the encyclopedia. Most questions asked by most people are answered to their best satisfaction by either the encyclopedia or the dictionary. But many a pupil who hardly knows the order of the alphabet is sent in with instructions not to use the encyclopedia. You will say, "This research work is to teach the use of books." True, oh king! So is a college exercise in the method of least squares to teach mathematics, but you do not assign it to a sixth-grade boy.

It is not so very long ago that a little girl in the eighth grade came in for something about kitchen middens. The child was from an unlettered family, and of no very great intelligence. Knowing this, I gave her Champlin's Young Folks' Cyclopedia of Common Things. It contains a simple account of kitchen middens, all that could possibly be required in gradework. The child refused to use it. "Teacher said not to use the cyclopedia." The only other material we had was in archaeological works just as intelligible to her as so much Greek. In the name of common sense, what was gained here by using "sources"? It would have helped that child, that teacher, and myself, if I had been allowed to give her the book best suited to her.

Again, please remember that the library has its rules, and that the library board has scorned delights and lived laborious days adjusting them to bring about the good of all. You who inculcate obedience should not reckon our laws as naught. If we do not renew books for you, it is because someone else needs them. We try to look all around the circle. Will you not look with us, and away from your own tiny arc?

Remember, too, that the library likes order. We like to preserve the atmosphere of quiet, of dignity, that befits the place and its purpose. You can help us in this if you will remember not to break our rules yourself. We like to have teachers work with their students in the library. But when a teacher treats the reference room as if it were her own schoolroom, and disturbs its calm by long and loud lectures, that is a violation of our rules and of the rights of others. If you wish to show your class how to use Larned's History for Ready Reference, or to discuss a pa sage in the Lady of the Lake, ask if there is not a room you may use. There is usually some place to be had, and many libraries have special rooms for no other use. How can we silence two young people who are noisily whispering if at the same time the teacher is doing the same thing? Now I can understand how the teacher may be drawn into talking about her work in the library rooms; but-horresco referens-what shall be said of the teacher who chooses the library to discuss chiffons with her dear friends? Had you seen, as I have, angry looks from men and women, and surprised looks from pupils, you would never permit yourself this discourtesy. You can help us just here very easily and very materially.

But the wise ladies answer me, yes, I return answer to myself, "All these counsels have most teachers followed from their youth up." It is true. Your burdens are heavy, but you are always ready to help us with ours. I take

pleasure in acknowledging our obligation, and in renaming this talk, “How the teacher helps the librarian.”

HOW CAN THE LIBRARIAN AID THE TEACHER?

WALTER A. EDWARDS, PRESIDENT OF THROOP POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTE, PASADENA, CAL.

When this topic was first assigned me I thought it so simple and trite as hardly to be worth the effort of my pen. But now after some study of the public library and public-school situation I see my error. Instead of being too easy, the subject is of a difficulty far beyond my powers. Understand me. I do not say I cannot suggest a dozen desirable avenues of co-operation between the library and the school. That is easy enough. I agree with Hotspur that Owen Glendower is not the only man who can call spirits from the vasty deep. Why, so can I, or so can any man. But will they come when you do call for them? Ways in which the library can aid the school are obvious and anyone can point them out. But will librarians and teachers put the suggestions into practice? What is needed is not so much information about what can be done, as inducements to do it. It is not enough to say. "This is the way;" someone with influence or authority must add the injunction, "Walk ye in it."

For, many as are the opportunities for co-operation and great as are the benefits thereof, both to the teacher and to the librarian, it is a fact, astonishing but true, that in a great many towns co-operation is as yet unknown. It is indeed gratifying and encouraging that so many libraries are demonstrating the great advantages that flow from an intelligent and helpful relation with the public schools, and I may add that what definite suggestions I shall make are not original ideas of my own but are borrowed from the actual practice of scores of progressive librarians. A recent issue of the Library Journal declares that," co-operation with the schools has perhaps greater possibilities of development and usefulness than almost any other branch of library activity." But it remains true that in a great many places there is absolutely no concerted action for mutual assistance on the part of librarian and teacher, no recognition of the fact that they have a common problem, that they are contributing to the education of the same children and that each has it in his power to lighten the other's burden and so advance the work each has at heart. Why do they persist in working separately, often at cross-purposes, each ignoring the tremendously important work of the other?

Perhaps one reason for lack of co-operation is the fact that the relation of libraries to the schools, tho often discussed, is still a comparatively recent question. For are not public libraries themselves of comparatively recent establishment, at least on the scale and with the universality we are accustomed to? I refer of course not to those great collections of books long ago established at intellectual centers, such as the great universities, but to that strictly

modern invention, the product of universal education and the general diffusion of the taste for reading-the public library. We are so familiar with it, at least with the external aspect of the buildings in which it is housed, that we forget how modern it is. Let me remind you then that in twenty-eight years libraries multiplied in the United States more than threefold, increasing from 2,039 in 1875 to 6,869 in 1903, while the total number of volumes in these libraries increased from eleven and one-half million in 1875 to fifty-four and one-half million in 1903. It will, I think, be admitted that this rapidity of increase constitutes of itself a new problem. I am indeed aware that the figures I have quoted, apparently the only ones available, include school and college as well as public libraries. But certainly the rate of increase of the latter is not less than that indicated in the combined statistics.

But if the public library as a means of satisfying the newly awakened general craving for reading is of recent establishment, how much newer is the conception of it as a distinctly educational institution! Says Larned: "It is not yet a score of years since co-operation between school and library was commenced." Is it then to be wondered at that there still remain places where the advantages of co-operation are not clearly perceived, in fact, where the thought has never been suggested? And we can understand why even in less benighted communities, whose officials do sometimes hear echoes of the progress neighboring towns are making, this new plan is not immediately taken up and put in practice. Some allowance has to be made for a natural disinclination to depart from the established order and strike out on untried paths. Conservatism is strong, even in America, and even in the schools. It seems easier to go on in the old way than to enter on a new one which may lead to unexpected problems and dangers. The librarian hears co-operation proposed, but no provision has been made for it in his library; he has no spare time for it, nor has he made any special study of it. And in order to serve the school he must have some definite knowledge of school methods and the curriculum. Quite naturally therefore he hesitates to enter a field where he is not entirely at home. And as for the teachers, they have their regular work and their accustomed methods of doing that work. The new plan may possibly prove helpful, but it certainly is new and therefore requires some study to master it, some forethought and originality to carry it out. Moreover, the very fact, and it is a fact, that some teachers are not so familiar with books as to be competent to direct the reading of their pupils makes them hold back. They dislike to betray their deficiency to the librarian.

Perhaps also there may exist a little unworthy jealousy on the part of both librarian and teacher. Each is master in his own domain and objects to surrendering even a portion of his authority to another. Each anticipates and is prepared to resent any interference and dictation from the other if an attempt should be made to work together. It is certainly most unfortunate if these and similar feelings prevent a mutually beneficial co-operation between teacher and librarian, and our business is to overcome them if possible and encourage

an intercourse which shall be on both sides considerate, tactful, sympathetic, helpful.

From what I can learn of the situation I think teachers are more to blame for the absence of co-operation than librarians. The initiative naturally falls to the teacher. For the primary object of co-operation is that the librarian may render assistance to the school. There is no reason to doubt that so far as they have time librarians would generally be glad, at the suggestion of the teacher, to make out book lists, compile references, group together special books needed at a given time for study, purchase desired books, etc. But how often do teachers neglect to offer the suggestion! For instance, a certain librarian recently said to me, "Our library always purchases all books recommended for purchase by teachers, and yet very few teachers avail themselves of this privilege." And she went on to say, "Teachers send their pupils year after year for the same books, tho if asked we could suggest valuable new books, but we aren't asked." Teachers neglect to keep the library posted as to coming changes in topics. They fail to warn the librarian that a whole class may descend upon him on such a day all seeking information on a common topic. In a dozen ways they fail to make the most of the educational opportunities which the library affords, and in too many cases they ignore them entirely.

For when you come to think of it a library possesses immense educational possibilities. It is a mighty educational engine, ranking in power not far behind the school, the church, and the daily press. And its great power ought to be directed so that those who come under its influence may get the most good possible from it. To be sure the adult patrons of the library would probably resent as an impertinence any suggestion from the librarian that they were not getting the educational value from the books that they should, and any attempt on his part to supervise their choice of books. Some temperance workers make little attempt to reform the habitual drunkard, saying that he is beyond hope and that the natural working-out of physical laws will soon eliminate him from the situation. So some librarians may say that they have no hope of reforming the grown-up novel debauchee. For he wont listen to their advice nor take their prescriptions. To be sure all librarians are not so pessimistic. A certain library in the central west boasts of having reduced novel-reading from 80 per cent. of the total to 59 per cent. as a result of a welldefined and consistently pursued policy. This librarian, and there are doubtless others like him, thinks he has a responsibility for his patrons' reading and he has actually exercised some decisive influence over it.

But whatever one may think of the men and women, is there any doubt as to the librarian's duty toward the children? For they are still amenable to suggestion. They certainly form a very large fraction of the total patronage of the public library. In some cases the ratio of children using the library to the total number of users is as high as 37 per cent. In the Los Angeles public library the patronage of the juvenile department is equal to the total patronage of all the other departments together except novels and the magazines. Merely