The library schools have been commended repeatedly by this association and their services are too obvious for comment. In considering, however, what they can do for the profession today, we shall assume the role of the devil's advocate and endeavor to point out how they may serve more fully in what they are doing and what they should do that perhaps is not being done. In the time available we can do little more than summarize.
The first library school was founded and conducted in connection with a university library and for several years at least, its curriculum showed the strong influence of university demands. The curricula of the later schools have been modified somewhat, but changes have been unimportant as compared to the traditions retained. These were carried from the pioneer school to those established later with certain general basic principles which doubtless always will be kept.
For several years a feeling has been sensed, although vaguely expressed that changes and modifications in library school courses were needed. There have been convictions that the schools were not as closely in touch with certain growing activities in library work as libraries themselves were with growing demands and new fields open to them. These convictions have been most pronounced in the schools themselves. As stated by one library school director,—"In some way, the library school should train its students to meet the vital demands that humanity makes upon all who come regularly in communication with people." The aim of the school seems more clearly realized than the means of attaining it, but efforts are seen in the shifts and changes in curricula. In preparing its students to meet the vital demands that humanity will make, it is evident the schools have concluded this can best be done by additions rather than eliminations from courses of study. The training conducted by the oldest school began with a three months' course which in the second year was increased to seven months and then to two years. Another school, typical of several, has never increased the time period over one year, but has so increased the work required that in eight and one-half months, including vacations and holidays, instruction and examinations are given in forty-three subjects, a minimum of three hundred and seventy-seven hours of practice work is required, and a trip of six hundred miles in ten days is taken when some fifteen to twenty libraries are inspected and reported on.
In these crowded courses of study, the schools should be expected by the profession to prevent its ideals from being smothered in the stress of technical work. The usual incentive to enter library work comes from a love of books but this love will avail little if it be unaccompanied by a consuming desire that the community also share it. Generalities and pseudo-sentiment concerning ideals have invited ridicule, but no librarian, however reticent or how unrecognized his actuating principles may be, can carry on his work successfully without following the vision which vitalizes his professional life. From 1876 to the present day, this association has cherished its aims and our schools can do no greater service than imparting those guiding principles that the means of work may not become the end.
No institution can create qualities lacking in a student and library schools will concern themselves mainly with the mechanics of library work, which is most difficult to obtain elsewhere. But this instruction may either strengthen or weaken indispensable qualities for librarianship and the profession reasonably can expect the schools to foster such. Three related qualities which should be developed in prospective librarians are: a sense of proportion in library work, initiative and judgment.
When we consider the importance of a proper sense of proportion, should we not congratulate ourselves that the schools are devoting less attention to a particular handwriting and other incidentals, the insistence on which always seemed to belittle the dignity of a great work. Legibility in a medical prescription is more important than on a catalog card, but medical colleges and library schools alike can concentrate their strength on more vital needs.
In expecting the schools to develop initiative and good judgment in a student, it is not suggested that students be encouraged to attempt changes in systems of classification, cataloging and other technical processes which have been perfected by the best library thought of two generations. In such a course as book selection, however, after general principles are presented, cannot students be thrown more fully on their own judgment and their practice work be confined to evaluating current publications? Their conclusions could then be verified by comparison with selections in the order department. A year's work confined to sitting in judgment on books from five to fifty years old, when these books are known to be desirable through their presence on the shelves, deadens initiative and judgment and makes routine of what should be one of the refreshing pleasures of the work.
One of the profession's needs today is more men—men whose abilities would qualify them for the highest positions in any work, and these the library schools should attract. While many of the most useful and talented library workers are women, the fact remains that the demand for good men far exceeds the supply, yet we find an astonishing shortage in the schools. Even the school most largely attended by men, reports a decrease since the year 1903. More than one school has attracted so few that the presence of a man is noteworthy and there seem to be schools connected with universities where hundreds of young men are preparing for professional life, that have yet to enroll one man student.
Should we not expect the schools to supply more men? Can they not co-operate with the American library association in presenting the claims and rewards of librarianship to young men in the universities? Not only would such presentations interest both men and women, but they would help to dispel many existing mediaeval conceptions of library work which still survive. Our shortage in men cannot be due entirely to the financial returns in library work. The average salary of men in that work exceeds the average in several crowded professions, and yet our greatest rewards are not in money returns. Men may regard the school courses simply as means to an end, and if so, perhaps the means could be made to appeal more strongly to men. It is rash in these days to compare attributes of the masculine and feminine mind, but may we venture to say women, as a rule, have more patience and enjoyment than men in work requiring sustained attention to details. Do not library school courses, as now arranged, appeal largely to the house-wifely instincts and cannot courses be devised for men who never intend to fill library positions where the exercise of these instincts will ever play so important a part in their work as will problems of administration and questions of library policy. We shall admit that all students should have sufficient training in cataloging for instance, to know good or poor cataloging when met with. But personally I fail to see why a man destined for administrative work should necessarily have to do expert cataloging in order to appreciate it, any more than he would first have to write a book before his judgment in book selection for his library could be relied on.