And the responsibility should include not merely a zeal for the general reader, but a regard for the scholar: since a benefit to the general reader may end with himself, but a benefit to the scholar becomes amplified and diffused through him. He is not, be it understood, a class by himself. He includes the specialist whose vocation is research in a particular field; but he includes also the reader for whom research is but an avocation. He is the unusual man, but he is also the usual man in his unusual moments. What is the conscious aim of the one may be the incidental achievement of the other—to advance knowledge. And the aid rendered by the library to either may be of a consequence to the community more far reaching than the mere diffusion of ascertained knowledge among a multitude of individuals.
If the effort of our libraries in this direction has not kept pace with their efforts in the others, the explanation is obvious in the emphasis necessary upon the others during the past fifty years. But the time has come when the obligation to the scholar should resume its due place—in our programs, as well as in our practice.
And with the resumption of that interest may we not hope for a recognition—a recognition—in our organizations also of that type which gave personality to the libraries of old?—I mean the type represented by the Panizzis, the Garnetts, the Winsors, Pooles, Cutters and Spoffords. For however indifferent such men may have been, or might be today, to the mere mechanism which of late we have been exalting, and which we must hold to be necessary under modern conditions, they succeeded in producing an atmosphere which had a potency of its own, which no mere mechanism can reproduce, and for which the zeal of routine personal service, however "missionary" in spirit, cannot be a substitute. For the mechanism gives the impression of intervening between the reader and the book; and the routine personal service fails from the very nature of its effort. The reader reached out to may be pleased and aided: but he loses the lesson and the penetrating suggestion afforded by the mere absorption of the old-time librarian in the book itself. It was that which once took the visitor out of himself, away from affairs, and gave him touch with a different world, a sense of different values. Does he not miss it now? I think he does; and that, however he may respect the mere efficiency of the modern librarian, as administrator, his really affectionate admiration turns back to the librarian of the old school whose soul was lifted above mere administration, or the method of the moment, or the manner of insistent service, and whose passionate regard was rather for the inside of a book than for the outside of a reader,—even the librarian to whom a reader seemed indeed but an interruption to an abstraction that was privileged.
I for one, should be sorry to think that this type has passed finally. There is need for it; there should be a place. I trust that it will be restored to us; and I deplore the influence upon the younger generation in our profession of referring to it with condescension if not with contempt.
"Our profession." I use the term because it is current. We have assumed it, and no one has challenged it. There are grounds on which it might, I suppose, be challenged. "The word implies," according to the Century Dictionary, "professed attainments in special knowledge, as distinguished from mere skill; a practical dealing with affairs, as distinguished from mere study or investigation; and an application of such knowledge to uses for others as a vocation, as distinguished from its pursuit for one's own purposes." The latter two requirements are certainly met: we are engaged in practical affairs, and to the use of others. But the "professed attainments in special knowledge, as distinguished from mere skill," while certainly represented in individuals among us, are not with us conditions of librarianship as a vocation or as an office, nor have we in America, as they have in Germany, the conventional preparation, the preliminary examination as to qualifications, and the license which by law or usage are requirements in the professions strictly so-called. A profession should imply uniform standards in such qualifications: but the qualifications of persons accepted among us for library posts of importance,—even among persons who have made notable successes in such posts, vary extraordinarily in both kind and degree. A profession should imply a certain homogeneity in ideals, methods and relations; while among us there is still a notable diversity. The modern library with its large establishment and organization, and the responsibility of large funds, has, like the modern university, created a demand in its administrators for the traits necessary in business rather than characteristic of the professions or expected of them. (This demand, and the vogue of woman in our work—a vogue which finds its completest recognition at this meeting—are indeed the most notable of recent phenomena affecting our personnel.) As yet the conventional training has not attracted a sufficiency of men and women with such traits to meet the need; nor has it, on the other hand, attracted a sufficient number of men and women grounded in special branches of the sciences and the arts to fill the positions in our research libraries which administer, and should interpret, the literature of these. The actual personnel of our association includes therefore the utmost diversity in trait, education and experience.
A considerable such diversity exists among teachers, and does not disentitle them to the claim of constituting a profession; and we are sometimes called educators. But we cannot claim to be, for we lack the didactic authority, purpose and method.
The final characteristic of a profession is its influence upon the community as such. Now, our lack of such an influence as a body is in part due to the lack of that homogeneity in ideal method and personnel—but in part also to the necessary limitations of our office. We are necessarily non-partisan. We are to furnish impartially the ammunition for both sides of every issue. The moment we become identified with a single side merely, we lose our influence and our authority. And it matters not whether the issue be political, or theological or economic or social. If it be scientific, or merely literary, we have more freedom, since the subject matter is more nearly academic and less emotional. But even here we must avoid the charge of faddism. In a contest of morality we may indeed take side against the baser, because with this we have no influence and no need to court one. But there are today few moral issues clearly distinguishable as such in which there is need or temptation for us to engage.
The result of this neutrality is an attitude which to the world at large must seem somewhat colourless; but also a habit of mind which insensibly in itself becomes neutral. We are content to be observers. We avoid becoming contestants. Such characteristics do not go to the solidification of opinion in a profession, nor to the assertion of it in an aggressive way.
The sum total of all of which (observations upon us) is that in spite of our numbers, in spite of the momentous aggregate that our "establishment" represents, in spite of the assured place which it occupies in the community and the social system, we are at present, and in many ways must continue to be, an aggregate of individuals rather than a body politic. But even as the Devil's advocate I would not so conclude in a deprecatory sense, for we may find and show many reasons for complacency—and special opportunities for service—in the relations which this situation implies.