with daily handling there are always some pupils who do not know just how much information a plain unabridged dictionary can offer, with its various appendices and supplements. This instruction should come early in the course of the prospective teacher and of the pupil as well. Simple dictionary work is begun with satisfactory results in the fourth grade. The distinguishing characteristics of the several dictionaries, namely the Century, Standard, International, and Murray's English Dictionary, should be discussed and well understood by student-teacher and pupil.

Chamber's Book of Days comes early in any list of books useful as guides to information.

Next in importance in "running down" information comes the indicesthe Statistician for the early grades and Statesman's Year Book, the Newspaper Directory, and Lippincott's Gazetteer for high schools.

Next would come a knowledge of the use of the general encyclopedias— what investigations the Britannica will serve and to what an American cyclopeIdia will lend most assistance.

After the general encyclopedias will come the special-subject dictionaries and cyclopedias, covering antiquity, history, literature, etc., also biographies of special countries and special classes. Who's Who is invaluable in furnishing information regarding living people.

Ready access to that indispensable literature which is ever appearing in periodicals would be well-nigh impossible were it not for Poole's Index, with its supplements, the Annual Library Index, Reader's Guide to Periodical Literature, with its cumulative index, and lastly the Library Index. For students in the upper grammar grades and certainly in the high schools, a knowledge of the service of these indices, especially Poole's, is desirable. Acquaintance with the periodicals themselves should be cultivated in connection with the use of the keys to them.

For an extended treatment of any one subject the student will find help in the Cumulative Book Review Digest, issued monthly by Wilson & Co., Minneapolis. Giving the scope of a work and criticisms of the press, the student consulting such a book is enabled to make more definite selection of material. Some books of quotations, too, may lend themselves with profit to the process of instruction, and direction in their use should not be omitted.

Pictures continue to hold equal place with books as powerful educators, especially for the young. Provision should be made for their addition to the library supply. They abound in magazines, newspapers, railroad guides, and advertising material of all kinds and are ofttimes of a character well suited to schoolroom purposes. Instruction in the mounting, classifying, and numbering of these should be included in a normal course. The numbers should tell the subject. Pictures of places should fall under class, Geography; of people under class, Biography; of nature under class, Nature-study; copies of art under class, Art, etc.

The same principle carries over to the use of magazine and newspaper

articles. These furnish some of the most valuable material for children but are lost to them for lack of arranging and systematizing. Teachers have a faint idea of just how this material might be used but are at a loss to find it when it is wanted. If teachers were trained in the mounting and sorting of valuable clippings under subjects, such as geography, history, biography, and the like, and in indexing them, they would find that the time was not idly spent. The separate mountings should not be bound but loosely strung or merely inclosed between two stiff covers, thereby permitting of a somewhat general distribution among classes. This work helps in two ways. It extends materially the supply of the library at little expense and furnishes wholesome occupation for the pupils who always have their lessons and never have enough to do.

This cursory treatment of the necessity for and the material of instruction of all prospective teachers in the uses and contents of libraries with a view to directing student energy is to be considered as merely suggestive. My task was to add one more word to what has been said before on the necessity for library instruction. The systematic working-out of the material for instruction is respectfully left to those who will be appointed to do this important work.

But that students shall be instructed in the material of libraries is not enough. They should be put to the task of "running down" information as a test of their ability. Furthermore, in normal schools, they should be assigned to handle this work in the training-school as any other subject might be handled. One student-teacher might be assigned to look after the reference side of the work of several classes. Children, as they progress in the grades, should show increasing skill in the use of books and this increasing skill should be the measure of the skill of the teacher, for on the ability to use books depend the usefulness of the teacher and the student possibilities of the taught.

Was not Carlyle in one sense right when he said: "The true university of these days is a collection of books." The same might be said in a measure of all schools. Books might be regarded as mere signboards and the teachers only as wise guides.

Someone has said, "It is an inspiring thought that the proper bringing-up of a commonplace American child requires us to sift out the gold nuggets from a whole civilization." This thought has ever inspired the normal schools, but let it not be said of them that, while they engaged in the process of sifting, they looked not to the training of sifters.

PRESIDENT'S ADDRESS

THE LIBRARIAN AS A TEACHER

J. N. WILKINSON, EMPORIA, KAN.

The librarian should be estimated on the basis of ability to teach. Too frequently, the librarian's work is estimated as people estimate the work of a

janitor. The low view holds the librarian responsible mainly for such things as keeping the books in their place and keeping off the dust. These things are, of course, important but only as they contribute to the real end of the librarian's work, which is the teaching of the reader. Teaching is the highest function of the human being and the conscious giving of instruction is the activity that most distinguishes man from the other animals. He who creates and stimulates

a desire for knowledge and places that knowledge within the reach of the seeker is doing the very best service as a teacher.

The librarian is in charge of a field where many go at first for casual browsing only. He should be able so to herd all who enter this field that they will find rich pastures and be sure to come again. The reader may come seeking an inferior book, but the librarian, if not able to furnish the book sought, should be able to find some other that will interest. The reading of inferior books would not be a loss of time if it should be the way of approach to an interest in good books. Without the guiding influence of a living present personality, the habit of reading worthless books is likely to become fixed and the time spent upon them to be worse than wasted. If a reader is to grow, he must be helped to a comprehension of books beyond his grasp. The putting of the question, "Understandest thou what thou readest ?" opens the way for instruction unto life and salvation just as surely now as it did in the days of Philip and the eunuch.

While the library is properly a laboratory for independent research, the students in this laboratory need an ever-present teacher in the person who has charge of the laboratory. When the reader calls for a book or is looking along the shelves, the librarian can learn his taste and, by an intelligent interest in what interests him, guide him into the way of life. The Wisconsin plan of employing a man to furnish members of the state legislature all that is in print on a subject under discussion illustrates the librarian's teaching-function. The reader needs not merely instruction in bibliography but in such matters as how to make notes for personal use.

The librarian gives instruction to many people not commonly thought of as under such tuition. Ladies' clubs get the librarian's help in making their programs and for individual preparation on the subjects. Books are selected by the librarian to send to the fire departments and street-car barns of cities and the lighthouses and life-saving stations of the seacoasts. Pictures are selected for loaning to the homes that the taste of the whole family may be improved. The librarian goes with a supply of books as a missionary to the slums. The recreation parks and the library children's rooms have the story-telling hour where the librarian is doing the most difficult kind of teaching and doing it so as to add to the interest in the books that are offered there. The teaching librarian guides the reading of the children so they will not continue in just one class of books and thus incur an arrested development.

The librarian is, in a sense, the head of a great school open to all every day of the week and every hour of the day, and calling to aid as co-operating

teachers the authors of all lands and all ages. This school teaches on a liberal plan what the ordinary day school gives in more intensive fashion. In view of these facts, it would seem that the librarian should be selected with reference chiefly to natural fitness for teaching and should be trained with strict reference to effectiveness as a teacher.

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HOW THE TEACHER CAN HELP THE LIBRARIAN

MISS MIRA JACOBUS, LIBRARIAN, PUBLIC LIBRARY, POMONA, CAL. There is much that might be said about the theoretical relation of the library and the school. But as to this, in the words Mr. Hale put into the mouth of his immortal double, "There has been so much said, and on the whole so well said, that I will not occupy the time." So, not laying again the foundation, we will adopt the distinction already laid down by others, that "the library's mission is to continue the work of the schoolroom along new lines," "that the school should furnish an impulse to individual tastes, and the library the means to direct that impulse into systematic lines of readi.g."

We may go at once to the heart of the matter: how best can the teacher impart this impulse?

First, she must herself read books and love them. Nothing will take the place of this "invincible love of reading." The reading she does to get information must be supplemented by that she does because she would starve without. And this again must be supplemented by what acquaintance she can get with children's books.

So much for the preparation of the heart. What is she to do in the classroom? She may first systematically train her pupils in the use of books as I tools. The primary requisite is a knowledge of the alphabet. This is, I believe, no longer fashionable, but it is handy to have.

The boys and girls should be taught the makeup of a book, the special use of title-page, contents, and index. We find many a person who does not know these things. You will help them greatly if you do no more than this.

When they have learned how a book is built, tell them that as books have indexes so have libraries. If you can, explain the use of the main bibliographic aids, the shelf lists, the catalog, the periodical indexes, etc. But at any rate, let them know that a library is not a trackless wilderness. It has guideposts and guides, in the persons of the attendants. Encourage them to learn the main trails.

Teach them the proper care of books, and respect for library property. Handle books carefully, and insist that students do the same. If you have a loan collection of library books in the schoolroom, have a formal record of those who borrow them. If the class is free to pick up a book and carry it off, as some advise, the books will indeed be picked up, and not laid down again. A business-like record will save the trouble of replacement.

So much for the use and care of books as tools. They are that, but to

Į you and me they are more than that, they are friends. Shall we not introduce them to the children? The schools of Elgin, Illinois, have (or had, for I am not sure just what they are doing now) a very good plan for this. Lists of books are copied on the blackboard of each room. The children are urged to read five, and encouraged to read more before they are changed at the middle of the year. No compulsion is used, but each pupil is credited with the number read. The books are freely discussed after reading.

In Pomona we use a plan which we think excellent. A list of recommended books is made out for each grade from the third to the eighth. These books are all in the library. The children become members of the library, draw their books like any other citizens, and use them in the reading classes. Each child keeps a record of the books he reads. He may read as many or as few as he chooses, and just what he chooses, within the limits of the carefully selected list. I need not point out what opportunities such a plan gives the teacher to direct and inspire the child's reading, to teach him the use of the library, to make him a lifelong friend to books.

What about the teacher in her direct relation to the library? How can she help the librarian and herself?

First, you may acquaint yourself with the local library, its rules and its tools, its limitations and its resources. It will not take you very long to get an idea of its scope in your own field. Ask to see the shelf lists and the catalogs. Even if the shelves are not open to the public, you can probably get permission to examine them. Ask the librarian what other material is to be had along your line of schoolwork. If the library issues a bulletin of new books, keep up with this. Then when you send your class to us, you will not bewilder them and drive us into a frenzy by bidding them read what is not there and never has been.

Learn to ask for the specific subject you have in mind. Let your culture demonstrate itself in your clearly defined requests. A man once came to me and asked for books about fruits. I gave him some general works of reference, and asked what fruit he was especially interested in. He replied, "What I want is the onion." I ran down the odorous vegetable, and set before him a new lot of books, but after examining them he still did not look satisfied. "You see," he finally said, "what I really want is the effect of the onion on the human system." This is about the way most people present their needs. The skilled and patient librarian can ascertain your real object. We develop an intuition about it. But it takes time, and not always do we have time, and not all of us are patient, I am sorry to say.

The New York Public Library has arranged lists of books for each week, to correspond with the schoolwork. The books are set aside between the dates given. Other libraries would do the same and gladly if you would tell us what you are to need. So if your plan book calls for the life of John Adams the last week in October, why not notify the library and ask that it be reserved, or purchased if not already on the shelves. This will be a help in several