This instruction in technique should be simple, but it does not follow that a teacher who has learned merely these elements of technique is fitted in turn to give satisfactory instruction to other teachers or even to administer a school library in the best way. To do this a librarian of wide training and experience is necessary,—one whose knowledge of library theory and practice is wide enough to give the perspective necessary to judge what is essential, and intimate enough to determine what adaptations should be made to fit either general library conditions or special contingencies of individual libraries. Efficient simplicity is the result not of ignorance but of trained judgment and the apparent simplicity obtained by reckless or ignorant amputation of library manuals may be worse than none at all. A well managed school must have a well-administered library and a well-administered library implies a competent librarian, not merely the regular presence of a teacher with rather fewer classes and consequently more leisure than her colleagues.
Indeed, though considerable technique has been suggested as advisable, I am very strongly of the opinion that technique, if by this term is meant the processes of keeping library records, should be thrust upon teachers only as a necessity, not as a desirability. In a school so small that one teacher or a very few teachers at most must do all kinds of work, it will be necessary and therefore it must be taught to these teachers. In larger and better equipped schools there is no more reason for teacher-librarians with a mere smattering of library training than there is logic or justice in compelling the teacher of English or of history to be the principal's secretary.
Of even more importance than technique is a careful study of important reference books. Only a small proportion of the books which would be useful can possibly be obtained and it is very important that the teacher be able to use to the utmost such books as the school may possess. The compilation of reading lists and lists of references, whether for the use of the teacher or the guidance of the pupil, implies the use of bibliographies, footnotes and appendixes and a consideration of the bibliographic aids which are so common in modern text-books and so little used by teachers.
Moreover, the teacher must know some of the principles of book selection, must know a fair number of the best aids to book selection and must know where to find and how to use good book reviews. No approved list of library, library commission, or state department of public instruction can take the place of independent knowledge, though these approved lists are indispensable aids.
The proper relations of school and public library certainly must be taught if any closer and more general co-operation of the two is to be brought about. Both teacher and librarian must be parties to such co-operation and each needs to know the point of view of the other.
There is no general agreement as to the amount of time which the normal school ought to devote to library instruction. In a summary compiled in 1909 by the Newark free public library (Public libraries 14:147), the number of hours devoted to such work in 28 normal schools varied from one lesson to 60. Most of the schools which are recognized as leaders in this work gave about 20 lessons. There is reason to believe that the general situation has not materially changed except that the shorter courses are being lengthened and more normal schools are offering courses in library methods. The small number of lessons in even the good courses makes directness and emphasis on essentials imperative. If all normal school students had been taught to use books before entering the normal school, considerable time which is now used in teaching things which should already be known could be devoted to the methodic and pedagogic side of the subject.
More and more normal schools are putting instruction in library methods on a par with other subjects by giving credits for it. This is only what all ought to do. No normal school is doing its work well if it sends its students out unskilled in the use of the tools of their own trade. A course in the use of books and libraries is no more of a luxury in the general training of any teacher than a gas range and a kitchen sink are luxuries in the equipment of a domestic science department or planes and chisels in a manual training room.
It is not merely altruism that urges librarians to encourage this work. It is highly commendable to increase the good feeling between two members of the so-called "educational trinity," the church, the school and the library, but the benefits to the library will be more direct than mere pleasure in promoting the success of another line of social welfare. To ensure its own permanence, the library must have a reading public in the future as it has in the present and the adult reader of the future is the child of the present. To ensure the further development of the library, not only readers but more readers are needed and the library will be sure of getting them only when school room and children's room work together, and when not only those who come to the library from choice, but all the children whom the community entrusts to the school are taught in the school the latent power in the books the library offers for their use and are taught by trained teachers how best to make that latent power dynamic.
The discussion of this paper was led by Mr. W. J. Sykes, librarian of the Ottawa public library, and formerly head of the English department of the Collegiate institute of Ottawa, who read a paper prepared by Dr. L. B. Sinclair, dean of the school for teachers, Macdonald college.
MISS MARY E. HALL, librarian of the Girl's high school, Brooklyn, N. Y., read a paper on