without understanding our work, and looks at us with puzzled and marveling eyes when we speak of cataloging and classification, of charging systems and reserves and renewals and lists, but who hasn't any desire to know more or to really understand and would much rather talk or hear something else. The case is much what our own case would be if our city accountant insisted on explaining to us the details of his system, or the school superintendent should expect us to grow enthusiastic over the system of markings adopted in the schools. Even when we are doing things in themselves interesting, the expression of them in figures is death to the interest of the outsider. One incident is worth a whole table of statistics. Can we not decide on what are the attractive, the picturesque, the dramatic, the convincing, the inspiring features of our work, and set these before the public that reads the magazines and the newspapers-particularly the magazines, since these have more than a local constituency.

Why should we not be able to gain admission to some of the general periodicals? Have they not been giving room of late to the confessions of ministers, editors, authors of best sellers, and even of brakemen? Why not the confessions of librarians of all types? And what could be more picturesque than the career of some of our traveling libraries? What more dramatic than the work of city branches among foreigners? What more inspiring and illuminating than the work being done with children, with state institutions, with rural communities? Is there not some mind-reader among us who can show convincingly the power and influence of a given book, the psychology of a given reader? Is not the censorship of books and magazines a new subject, worthy of a disquisition? While-among ourselves you will let me mention names-we have Miss Hewins and Mr. Bostwick, Miss Helen Haines, Miss Maud Campbell, and numerous other ready pens, and while such magazines as the North American Review, the Atlantic Monthly, the Outlook and Independent, World's Work, etc., are looking for subjects which have novelty, can we

say that we are not ready and that there is no field?

Mary Antin's recognition-about the first evidence of grateful appreciation in print that libraries have had-makes one wonder if there are not others among the crowds educating themselves at our shelves who might be willing and able to tell the part that free libraries have played in their lives. Such publicity might bring not only increase of dignity and of appropriationsit might arouse some of the other agencies working along their separate lines to seek closer and more constant coöperation. It might represent the work in a way to draw to it the very people we want from all parts of the country, who are drifting into better known professions because we are making no effort to reach them by setting forth the parts of our work that make a more general appeal than the strictly professional.

Have we not ourselves reached the point where we must relegate the technical and the administrative to their places and cease to be absorbed by them to the exclusion of that which is really the mark of our high calling-the knowledge of the book's contents and the application of these contents to the condition of the individual? Must we not provide not only the cataloger and the reference assistant, the desk worker and the clerk, but also the psychologist, the teacher, the comrade in literature? When we begin to see our calling in its essentials, to care more for the end than for the means to that end, public recognition will come and all things else shall be added.

AN EARLY TRAVELING LIBRARY SYSTEM.

Nov. 10, 1835.-We went aboard (the whale-ship) and spent an hour or two. They gave us pieces of whalebone, and the teeth and other parts of curious sea animals, and we exchanged books with them -a practice very common among ships in foreign ports, by which you get rid of the books you have read and re-read, and a supply of new ones in their stead, and Jack is not very nice as to their comparative value.-DANA, Two years before the mast.

grant a vacation, with pay, to their employes. We believe that the librarians of the state are entitled to the same considertion, and we would suggest that the librarians be granted a vacation of at least 14 days per year with full pay.

A PROTEST-"SUBORDINATES" VS. "ASSISTANTS"

QUITE recently the term "subordinates" was used by a prominent librarian in the middle West, in referring to his assistants. About the same time the term was used in a similar manner in an article in Public Libraries, expressing opinions on the subject of transferring assistants from one position to another.

In the latter case, the "subordinates" were acknowledged as our professional colleagues upon whose zeal, enthusiasm and professional spirit the success of our libraries depends. If that is so, why not eliminate that hateful term "subordinates" and substitute that of "assistants"?

In the former instance, the librarian is killing the zeal, enthusiasm and professional spirit among his "employes," especially among the trained workers, by the constant use of the term "subordinate."

Imagine yourself a young woman of average refinement, a college graduate who has had library school training, and three or four years of general experience as an assistant in some library. Your ideals are high, and you wish to realize them. In order to do so, it is necessary to obtain experience in some particular branch, which it is impossible for you to receive where you are. An opportunity in that line is offered unexpectedly at a slightly better salary than you are receiving; brilliant promises are made as to your future "raises" if you will accept the position. You take it and find yourself "hired"! The term "hired" gives the first mental jolt! You are placed under a young tactless girl who has a high school education, and no library training outside of the three years' experience in that special department of that particular library, and who is receiving 40 per cent. more salary than you,

the trained worker. She is called "your adviser." Your enthusiasm rises; if she can do so well, having spent no time or money in special preparation, evidently your chances are unlimited! Wait. The promised "raises" do not appear, because you are receiving the highest salary paid to "subordinates," and there are no signs of a vacancy "higher up."

An assistant, regardless of her enthusiasm, zeal and professional spirit, if constantly referred to, and treated as a subordinate, naturally comes to the conclusion that she is a "flat failure." What incentive is there for her to put forth her best efforts in the work? Instead of the social, educational and business opportunities supposed to be open to a trained worker, the "subordinate" is made to feel that she is on a level with the lowest scrub-woman; with all her college education, she knows nothing; even the janitor, with no education, is receiving more salary than she.

Fortunately the conditions stated above, although too common in democratic America, are becoming more rare.

Eliminate the term "subordinate"; substitute that of "assistant"; treat your coworkers as equals, rather than inferiors, and the psychological effect will be apparent in an improvement in the quality and quantity of their work, as well as in their loyalty to the library; they will be able to retain, or regain, their self respect, without which success in library work, as in everything else except crime, is impossible. MABEL SOUTH-CLIFFE.

CENTENARY OF THE IMPERIAL PUBLIC LIBRARY OF ST. PETERSBURG

LITERARY circles in Russia celebrated in January the 100th anniversary of the foundation of the Royal Library in St. Petersburg. The event was made the occasion for special exercises in the different literary clubs throughout the city. To celebrate the centenary the imperial government has appropriated a large sum of money for a publication which shall contain a description and history of the library.

grant a vacation, with pay, to their employes. We believe that the librarians of the state are entitled to the same considertion, and we would suggest that the librarians be granted a vacation of at least 14 days per year with full pay.

A PROTEST-"SUBORDINATES" VS. "ASSISTANTS"

QUITE recently the term "subordinates" was used by a prominent librarian in the middle West, in referring to his assistants. About the same time the term was used in a similar manner in an article in Public Libraries, expressing opinions on the subject of transferring assistants from one position to another.

In the latter case, the "subordinates" were acknowledged as our professional colleagues upon whose zeal, enthusiasm and professional spirit the success of our libraries depends. If that is so, why not eliminate that hateful term "subordinates" and substitute that of "assistants"?

In the former instance, the librarian is killing the zeal, enthusiasm and professional spirit among his "employes," especially among the trained workers, by the constant use of the term "subordinate."

Imagine yourself a young woman of average refinement, a college graduate who has had library school training, and three or four years of general experience as an assistant in some library. Your ideals are high, and you wish to realize them. In order to do so, it is necessary to obtain experience in some particular branch, which it is impossible for you to receive where you are. An opportunity in that line is offered unexpectedly at a slightly better salary than you are receiving; brilliant promises are made as to your future "raises" if you will accept the position. You take it and find yourself "hired"! The term "hired" gives the first mental jolt! You are placed under a young tactless girl who has a high school education, and no library training outside of the three years' experience in that special department of that particular library, and who is receiving 40 per cent. more salary than you,

the trained worker. She is called "your adviser." Your enthusiasm rises; if she can do so well, having spent no time or money in special preparation, evidently your chances are unlimited! Wait. The promised "raises" do not appear, because you are receiving the highest salary paid to "subordinates," and there are no signs of a vacancy "higher up."

An assistant, regardless of her enthusiasm, zeal and professional spirit, if constantly referred to, and treated as a subordinate, naturally comes to the conclusion that she is a "flat failure." What incentive is there for her to put forth her best efforts in the work? Instead of the social, educational and business opportunities supposed to be open to a trained worker, the "subordinate” is made to feel that she is on a level with the lowest scrub-woman; with all her college education, she knows nothing; even the janitor, with no education, is receiving more salary than she.

Fortunately the conditions stated above, although too common in democratic America, are becoming more rare.

Eliminate the term "subordinate"; substitute that of "assistant"; treat your coworkers as equals, rather than inferiors, and the psychological effect will be apparent in an improvement in the quality and quantity of their work, as well as in their loyalty to the library; they will be able to retain, or regain, their self respect, without which success in library work, as in everything else except crime, is impossible. MABEL SOUTH-CLIFFE.

CENTENARY OF THE IMPERIAL PUBLIC LIBRARY OF ST. PETERSBURG

LITERARY circles in Russia celebrated in January the 100th anniversary of the foundation of the Royal Library in St. Petersburg. The event was made the occasion for special exercises in the different literary clubs throughout the city. To celebrate the centenary the imperial government has appropriated a large sum of money for a publication which shall contain a description and history of the library.