IT has been thought that the results of a questionnaire recently sent out by the Pratt Institute Library School to its graduates may not be without interest for the profession at large. There are nowhere in print, so far as I am aware, recent statistics giving details as to the conditions of employment, salaries, hours of work, vacations, etc., for so large a number of trained librarians as are here presented.

Whether these results can be taken as representative for the graduates of other library schools, I cannot say. Judging from our experience, the classes whose members have been out in the field from ten to twenty years show the highest salary averages, so that library schools established since 1900 would probably not average as well as Pratt Institute, while an older school would doubtless show higher averages for its earlier classes at least.

Questionnaires were sent out to 284 graduates now in the field, 267 of whom responded. Of these 262 are in active work; 160 of them are employed in public libraries, 39 in college and school libraries, 30 are in special libraries, 18 are in federal or state libraries (including library commissions).

The 262 represent 23 classes and earn (excluding three who are doing private cataloging or other piece work) a total salary fund of $282,340, or an average salary of $1081. Salary statistics were first collected by the school in 1896 when there were six classes in the field, at which time the average salary was $607. An average for the last six classes (1908-1913), which is a fair basis of comparison, is $901, ranging from $773 for the graduates of 1913 to $1138 for the class of 1908. That would indicate that the average salary paid trained workers during their first six years of service has risen from $607 in 1896 to $901 in 1914, or nearly 50 per cent. The average salary paid our graduates in

1910, when the last statistics were gathered, was $939 as against $1081 in 1913, showing a gain of $142 in three years. There were 131 salaries over $1000 reported in 1913 when there were only 84 in 1910.

A classification by kinds of position shows 76 librarians with an average salary of $1176. This number includes 42 librarians of public libraries with an average salary of $1189, the range being from two at $600 to one at $3600; eight high school librarians with a range of $720 to $1400, the average being $1181; seven normal school librarians with an average of $1209, and twelve librarians of special libraries with an average of $1295. Ten librarians of private schools and small colleges whose salaries only average $1000 help bring down the average for librarians, but in many of these cases, easy hours and long vacations compensate for a smaller wage.

Heads of departments, 43 in all, receive an average salary of $1208, libraries large enough for a classified service paying more to department heads than many small libraries can give their librarians. Analyzing these figures we find 12 head catalogers with an average salary of $1223, 10 heads of circulation departments with an average of $1324, 8 reference librarians averaging $1088, 7 heads of special reference departments averaging $1257. Of other department heads, supervisors of children's work, heads of order departments, of departments of extension and instruction, there are too few to make the average significant.

There are 23 branch librarians among our graduates receiving an average of $1023, with a range of from $720 to $1500, and six first assistants in branches who receive an average salary of $870.

In children's work there are 14 children's librarians who average $949; counting in with these three supervisors of children's departments raises the average to $1271.

Nine assistants in children's rooms average $654.

Besides the 8 head catalogers there are 34 catalogers, whose work is not administrative in nature, who receive an average salary of $948 with a range of from $600 to $1500.

Nine assistants in circulation departments receive an average of $751 with a range of from $650 to $1020. Five reference assistants receive an average of $756; 10 assistants in special libraries receive $1036 on the average, and II miscellaneous assistants whose duties refuse to be classified receive an average of $753.

Grouping by the size of the employing library gives results that are interesting, though in many cases the groups are too small to be conclusive and are hence not included here. Forty libraries under 10,000 volumes pay an average salary to the librarian of $963. But this group includes most of the high school and normal school libraries where conditions and standards differ from those of the average public library. Excluding these we find an average salary of $903. Twenty-eight libraries of 10,000 to 50,000 volumes pay an average salary of $1172 to their librarians. Excluding one New England library of over 20,000 that pays its librarian only $600 would bring the average up to $1192. Six libraries of from 50.000 to 150,000 volumes give an average of $2400 to their librarians.

Six branch librarians in library systems of from 100,000 to 200,000 volumes get an average of $820; in libraries of 200,000 to 500,000 volumes, five branch librarians get $1005, while in systems of over 500,000 volumes, twelve branch librarians average $1095.

There is less difference in the salaries of catalogers in libraries of different size. Five head catalogers in libraries of from 50,000 to 100,000 volumes get an average of $1280; in libraries of 100,000 to 200,000 the same number receive an average of $1295; assistant catalogers in the first instance receive $856 while in the second $974

A grouping of executive positions by the number persons over whom supervision

is exercised showed significant results. Those having but one person under their direction, of whom there were 21, get an average of $892. Twenty-seven persons responsible for two assistants' work average $990; 19 who are responsible for the three persons receive $1037 on the average; a fourth subordinate raises the salary of 13 executives to $1042. Twelve having headship over five assistants receive $1260. Twenty having from 6 to 10 under them are paid at an average rate of $1266; eight receiving an average of $1454 exercise authority over from 10 to 20 persons; five chiefs over 20 to 30 subordinates average $1560, and five having from 30 to 100 under their charge average $2135. Beyond that the number is too small for grouping, but the salaries increase rapidly.

It would be interesting to see how far the circulation of a library entered into the problem, but unfortunately, not anticipating its desirability, the questionnaire did not include a request for circulation statistics, and to discover the latest figures for all the libraries involved would take more time than is feasible, and a further analysis showing the average salary for executive positions, in which the size of the library, amount of responsibility, and type of position are combined, is also impossible for the same reason.

A word before closing as to hours and vacations. Forty-two hours a week is still the schedule in 66 cases, but 114 persons work less than 42 hours a week, while only 36 report more than 42 hours a week, 38 work 40 hours a week and the average for all is 401⁄2 hours; 23 reported that no specified time was required of them.

A month's vacation is preponderatingly the amount allowed in public libraries; it is almost universal except for heads of departments, some of whom report two months. Only 41 report less than a month, and these are mainly in business and special libraries, while 43 report more than four weeks, these being in educational libraries, for the most part. So many of these have 8 to 10 weeks, however, that they bring up the average vacation to six weeks.

Summing up we find that while in

1899, when a similar questionnaire was sent out, the average graduate of the school worked 421⁄2 hours a week with 4 weeks and 5 days vacation for $686 a year, in 1913 the same average person works 401⁄2 hours a week, has 6 weeks vacation and receives $1081 a year. May not these figures be taken as indicative of a general upward tendency in the profession at large toward better conditions of work and more adequate pay?

the year 1830, when the great development of physical energies began, all school-teaching has learned to take for granted that man's progress in mental energy is measured by his capture of physical forces, amounting to some fifty million steam horse-power from coal, and at least as much more from chemical and elementary sources; besides indefinite potentials in his stored experience, and progressive rise in the intensities of the forces he keeps in constant use. He cares little what becomes of all this new power; he is satisfied to know that he habitually develops heat at 3000° centigrade and electricity by the hundred thousand volts, from sources of indefinitely degraded energy; and that his mind has learned to control them. Man's reason once credited with this addition of volume and intensity, its victory seems assured. The teacher of history need then trouble himself no further with doubts of evolution; but the teacher of physics seems at least to an ignorant world whose destiny hangs on the balance-very much required to defend himself." No matter what the author's solution might be, the book is stimulating in raising a real problem.

It would be an interesting bibliographical study for one of the maturer students in some library school or for a younger working member of the profession, to prepare an annotated bibliography of the books referred to or quoted in Mr. Adams' book, extending it, perhaps, beyond the date of the latter to the present year.

FOR THE LIBRARIAN'S STUDY "The librarian who does not read, is lost." A COUPLE of years ago Mr. Henry Adams, the historian of the period of Jefferson and Madison, printed for private distribution a volume to which he gave the somewhat indifferent title "A letter to American teachers of history." Under this title the author offers an interesting discussion of two tendencies of modern thought and the influence they have, or should have, on historical teaching. The two tendencies are expressed in the terms of the theory of evolution (or conservation of energy) and the theory of dissipation of energy. How can the latter be reconciled with the former? Can it at all? If the latter theory is more than a hypothesis, what of human progress?

The author quotes, in the first of the two chapters of the book, called "The problem," one after the other of the physicists, biologists and anthropologists of the last few decades, showing that they, one and all, have accepted, for their own sciences, the theory of the dissipation of energy. In the second chapter, "The solutions," he discusses the various solutions that have been offered, and offers, if not very distinctly, what one might suppose to be his own, namely, that while the physical universe, including man as a biological phenomenon, is subject to the law of dissipation, humanity need not be: "If the physicist cannot make mind the master, as the metaphysician would like, he can at least abstain from making it the slave." In the following paragraph we have the essence of the book, if I understand the author rightly: "Since

The two theories discussed by Mr. Henry Adams have found authoritative propounders in two works recently published by the University of Chicago Press: Professor Jacques Loeb's volume of popular biological essays entitled "The mechanistic conception of life," and a volume of lectures on "Heredity and eugenics," by several authors. The keynote of Professor Loeb's book is given in the first essay, which has given its name to the whole volume. Its object is "to discuss the question whether our present knowledge gives us any hope that ultimately life, i.e., the sum of all life phenomena, can be unequivocally explained in physico-chemical terms." And

the author draws the conclusion that "if on the basis of a serious study this question can be answered in the affirmative our social and ethical life will have to be put on a scientific basis and our rules of conduct must be brought into harmony with the results of scientific biology." "Not only is the mechanistic conception of life compatible with ethics; it seems the only conception of life which can lead to an understanding of the source of ethics." These are the final words in this first essay. The others deal with such subjects as "The significance of tropism for psychology," "On the nature of the process of fertilization," "On the nature of formative stimulation (artificial parthenogenesis)," "Experimental study of the influence of environment on animals."

"The inheritance of physical and mental traits of man and their application to eugenics"—and here we come to the final purpose of the book, to show what conclusions may be drawn from known biological facts and from biological theories pertaining to the future conscious development of the human race.

The lectures on "Heredity and eugenics" were held at the University of Chicago during the summer of 1911, under the auspices of the biological departments of the University, by Professors J. M. Coulter and W. L. Tower, of Chicago; W. E. Castle and E. M. East, of Harvard, and Dr. C. B. Davenport, of the Station for Experimental Evolution, Carnegie Institution of Washington. Professor Coulter opens the series with a general introduction on "Recent developments in heredity and evolution," subjects which, he says, "have to do, not only with the most fundamental conceptions of biology, but they have come to be of immense practical importance in animal and plant breeding. From every aspect, therefore," the author continues, "they appeal to all persons intelligent enough to be interested in the progress of knowledge and in human welfare." The purpose of the series is, then, to present these facts in a popular form, but authoritatively, so as, if possible, to counteract the misleading suggestions contained in many ephemeral publications. This first lecture presents the historical background necessary for an understanding of the problems discussed in the rest of the series: on "Heredity and sex," on "The application of biological principles to plant breeding," on the "Modification of the germinal constitution of organisms by experimental processes," on

In this connection I wish to call attention to an article in the last volume (1912) of Annalen der Naturphilosophie (Leipzig: Akademische Verlagsgesellschaft): “Ueber die Gefährdung unserer nationalen Tüchtigkeit im modernen Staat," by A. Nordenholz. The author shows how, in modern society, we find a "counter-selection," as he calls it, an undercurrent of forces that work for the survival of the unfittest. The capitalistic organization of society with its grip on the industrial world causes a degeneration of the working masses, physical, intellectual and moral. The milieu in which the individual lives becomes unfavorably differentiated and acts as a degenerative force. It is from this great mass of individuals whom the circumstances have made unfit that the race is mainly recruited. The most intelligent, the physically and morally strongest element which rises above the milieu into which it was born becomes comparatively unproductive. Another element in the counter-selection is to be found in modern charity, which makes it so much easier for the degenerates not only to subsist, but to propagate. To counteract this phase of the counter-selection the author suggests a "conscious adaptation of our personal activity and our social institutions to the demand for a raising of the standard of our race," or, as he also expresses it, a "harshness of pity."

In the same volume of this journal is an article on "Das Aufsteigen geistiger Begabter in England," by a man whose name is quite well known in the library world, Dr. Ernst Schultze, of Hamburg, the founder of the Volksbücherei in that city. "The causes of the growth of talent and genius, the conditions under which they develop, how they rise to importance and fame-of all this we know next to nothing. Science has just begun to turn to the investigation of these im

mensely difficult problems." The author does not intend to solve the problem, but to show how in England gifted men from the "lower" strata of society have risen to positions of eminence, and the means that in each case have accomplished such results. Another article of particular interest to librarians is called "Gedanken über praktische Litteraturwissenschaft." The author, Reinhard Buchwald, had been asked to give a series of popular lectures on literary history, and in preparing for these he decided to set forth nothing that he had not himself used as preparation for his own reading or to clear up already existing independent judgments. The article, then, is a study of what makes for literary value, and a discussion of the place of literary history in the republic of sciences; the author places it among the historical disciplines, besides church history, as a part of "kulturgeschichte."

This journal is specially called to the attention of librarians. It is one of those very general periodicals to which one might turn for a discussion of almost anything under the sun. And a browsing through its eleven volumes is particularly stimulating, because every article is written from a definite philosophical standpoint, that of energetics, or the theory of combined conservation and dissipation of energy, whose foremost modern exponent, Wilhelm Ostwald, is its editor.

AKSEL G. S. JOSEPHSON.

SUGGESTIONS FOR GREATER LIBRARY PUBLICITY

GREATER publicity for libraries and their work was a topic which received considerable attention at the meeting of the Council in Chicago. At the first session Mr. Willis H. Kerr read a report on "Possible newspaper publicity for the American Library Association, its conferences, and work in general," which provoked discussion and which is here reprinted in full:

room for more of the right sort of publicity for the Association and library work in general. The sort of publicity here in mind is this: Not that we shall get at the people, but that the people shall get at us.

First, publicity for the A. L. A. conferences. Traveling through England during the early days of last September, I was impressed by the amount of space devoted by all of the best British newspapers to the Bournemouth meeting of L. A. U. K. The London Times ran nearly a column each day and commented editorially. One could not help being glad that the indexing of periodicals is vital to the British newspaper public, or that rural libraries and books for the holiday makers make news. And then I discovered that the London

A report has been asked on greater publicity for the American Library Association, its conferences and work in general.

It is assumed that we all grant there is

Telegraph, the Manchester Daily Mail, some of the Devonshire papers-in fact, all the best newspapers-carried the same story. The account must have been furnished to all the papers by a discerning L. A. U. K. publicity man. The Salt Lake meeting of the National Education Association was more adequately reported in the daily press, nation-wide, than any preceding meeting-better even than the rows and battles of Boston and Chicago-with this difference, that education and not politics was heralded from the Salt Lake meeting. The Associated Press representative at Salt Lake got his "stuff" from the N. E. A. publicity man. It was telegraphed daily and appeared in 870 dailies in all parts of the country. Material for special stories in Chicago and New York papers was furnished by the N. E. A. publicity man. Several days before his election to the N. E. A. presidency, the photograph and a biographical sketch of Dr. Joseph Swain were on file with several hundred newspapers, with release conditioned on telegraphic advice; the publicity man had made a shrewd guess. On the last day of the N. E. A. sessions the publicity man released to the local papers and to the Associated Press interviews with 160 "leading educators," many interviews accompanied by photographs. To interview 160 men in five busy days is a feat at which even the newspaper men wondered. Direct dispatches were sent to newspapers in local