The chance to work in a real library before beginning the course of study would often clarify the student's ideas about library work, even more than it would clarify the director's ideas about the would-be student. We would have, perhaps, fewer applicants who are not very strong but who "love books."
Sometimes I have wondered whether it would not be well to abandon entrance examinations and require instead a health certificate from a physician, a certificate that six months' satisfactory work had been done in his library from a librarian, and a statement that the applicant had read the English Bible through at least three times (this last for its influence on English prose style!).
(2) Direct criticism.
"Indirect criticism" was perhaps the toughest thing in the advanced cataloging course in my honored Alma Mater, and indirect criticism is one of the most trying things that we teachers of library science have to undergo. Librarians can help us by giving us their criticism of our methods and of our students at first-hand.
We have had more or less direct criticism—we would like more.
We have been told (a) That our graduates are not so valuable to certain libraries as their own apprentices. Of course they are not, at first, but they should be more valuable later. (b) That they are wedded to library school methods. I believe there is less justice in this criticism than there was some years ago. (c) That our schools are not "laid out and conducted in accordance with recommendations from experts in pedagogy." We plead guilty. (d) That the schools "almost inevitably tend to exalt technique and routine." I do not think that we mean to do this. We know that culture and gumption are more important than any amount of knowledge of technique and routine, but we expect our students to finish their cultural studies (so far as such studies can be finished) before coming to us, and we can not teach gumption. It is heaven-born. We exist largely for the purpose of teaching technique and routine but never for one moment do we mean to exalt them over the weightier matters of the law.
I have gone a little out of the way to answer these few direct criticisms. Some of us have profited by them. Give us more.
We would like direct rather than indirect criticism of our graduates. Unfavorable comments on training in general, or on the training of a particular school, do not take the place of direct criticism of individuals. Librarians would be doing a kindness by writing to the school from which they had a trained assistant who was lacking in ways that reflected on her training and stating plainly what the defects were, so that the school might profit by the knowledge.
Then, too, librarians would often save themselves trouble by co-operating with the schools to the extent of writing for the record of a graduate whom they think of engaging. Many do this, but not all. A librarian or trustee may select an assistant at a conference on account of her good looks and pleasant manners, and when he finds out (it is usually a "he" who makes this error of judgment) that she is not all his fancy painted her, he blames the school that trained her. The school could have told him perhaps, if asked, wherein she was lacking.
(3) A living wage. This is the most important of the three points in which we wish for co-operation. It is getting to be a serious question as to whether women of ability can afford to go into library work. We do not expect luxuries, but to do good work we must keep fit. We need rooms that admit plenty of fresh air and we need nourishing food. We are obliged to dress fairly well. We ought to go to library meetings, and trustees do not usually pay the way of the assistants with the smaller salaries. Recreation is a necessity if we are to keep sane. But how can we afford to travel, or even to see a play or to buy a book, on the salaries many of us get?