on daily in our libraries, we shall not wonder why some men attain to so much more knowledge than others." Mr. H. L. Koopman, Librarian of Brown University.

Efficiency is the word with which the world is conjuring at the present time and stranger things are coming to light in the efficiency tests than in the old days of magic. We are all bent upon finding "the ratio of the useful work or the effect produced, to the energy expended in producing it." No teacher hopes to impart any considerable portion of the information he has on his subject and every teacher sighs as he thinks how rapidly his pupils forget the little information they have gained. If teaching were measured by such standards as this suggests, the teachers' profession would be a sorry one indeed. The teacher may hope however, that the student will gain some little information and skill in handling the subject and will see its place in the universal scheme of knowledge. The student may even gain a desire to dig deeper into it in the future. He should have above all things on the completion of the course in a subject, a knowledge of the working methods of the subject and the tools for further work. For most subjects, the great tool-house is the library. It is the duty of every professor to display, if necessary by force, the library privileges of his subject. No matter how well the few lessons in the Use of Books and Libraries may be presented by the librarian, unless they are constantly reinforced by each member of the teaching staff they cannot bring their best results to the pupils. Students are often slow to make the practical application of the principles.

Practically as well as theoretically the library should be the center of the education scheme. As in the olden days all roads led to Rome so in the modern period, from every subject on the curriculum the avenues lead to the library. In this day of intense specialization on the part of college and high school teachers, it is the source that makes even greater specialization possible and yet always offers the balance of a broadening horizon. To each student it should be a laboratory where ideas can be worked out. It should be also the place where interests of all sorts and pleasure for the leisure hours or minutes may be found. Thousands go through school never having gained such ideas of a library and are therefore the losers for life. It has been no one teacher's business to give it it is the dawning privilege of a new instrument in the

education machinery — the librarian. For the directors of the art galleries, laboratories, museums, and libraries are the ones on whom the great masses are dependent for educational guidance after their formal school career is ended. It is therefore very important that the student-teacher's be told of these manifold possibilities of the library, because they cannot impart this information unless they have it and these are ideas that should be constantly working out in the educational system from the kindergarten to the college. The practical value of such work cannot be overestimated it means that you will actually have better carpenters, better lawyers, better brick-layers, better musicians and tradesmen. If a training school has any considerable number of books it certainly needs a competent librarian. A mere collection of books is no longer a library. A library is a collection of books organized for working purposes. The organization demands a knowledge of library science which is best gained by systematic training. Some schools are so small that they must combine the duties of the librarian with that of the teacher. In such cases, the teachers should be led to see the necessity of obtaining some training in library science.

The large business houses are appointing librarians although they have very small collections of books. They have found that it is essential to keep these collections carefully selected and up-todate. They see the necessity of keeping their men in touch with the literature along their special lines. The business librarian also keeps the men in his house in touch with this literature, in the large libraries of their respective cities as well as the libraries of the country. Perhaps our school systems would be more nearly abreast of the times if we took such an attitude toward the educational literature and the literature of our special subjects. In institutions where there is a librarian it is better to have him give the instruction in the Use of Books and Libraries than to have such instruction given by some teacher less familiar with the subject. In choosing the librarian for such institutions, his ability to teach should be a determining factor.

Some institutions are giving short courses in the Use of Books and Libraries for which credit is being given, others give no credit though they require the work. Again it is given as an elective, sometimes with credit, simetimes without. In other institutions.

from one to ten lectures with assigned lessons for each are given in a required course in English, Methods, or some other subject. These lectures usually embrace some part or all of the following subjects:

1. Library agencies of value to teachers, students and children -national, state, civic, and rural.

2.

The physical and bibliographical make-up of a book.

3. Some of the general reference books and their use, dictionaries, cyclopaedias, handbooks, etc.

4. Bibliographical aids in education.

5. The organization of the training school's library — regulations, catalog, classification, etc.

6. How to make a bibliography.

This is a period when the school people have acknowledged the necessity of a collection of books, a few see the necessity of organizing the collection into a library and provide for it, others who see it do not see a way to have it done. So we find many of our teachers going out into schools where they are asked to classify, catalog and manage the library for the grades or high school, and they find themselves wholly unprepared for such duties. To meet these difficulties some summer schools in library science admit teachers assigned to library duties. Some schools training teachers are offering library courses adapted to such needs. The Indexers, a commercial house of competent librarians have a plan for taking care of the technical side of the school library, by putting the library in order, cataloging, classifying, etc. and if the library is at a distance, sending minute directions for the arrangements so that a teacher may easily carry it out. Then the teacher would have only the reference and bibliographical problems of the library to work out.

The time has come when differentiation in library work is necessary and certain library schools are undertaking special lines of work. The demand for librarians to work with children and teachers is now great enough to provide special training for such librarians. Normal schools and high schools in cities need special librarians, elementary schools need at least a supervisor for a number of schools. The demand on the average teacher is too great

to expect her to add this specialized course to her training and to keep up in a subject which requires such constant reading.

The part played by infancy in any undertaking is always difficult. The place of this subject on the curriculum of the elementary, high, college and graduate schools will probably never be great in quantity of time alloted to it, but to me, and I have been teaching it for sixteen years, it is one of the most vital subjects and will do more to eliminate waste, and to bring about efficiency in our students, than will any other one subject allotted even much more time.

In case I have wandered from my thesis or confused you with my elaborations in closing I will briefly sum up my convictions:

1. Every school having to do with the training of teachers needs a course in the Use of Books and Libraries given its students by a competent librarian. Such a course will train students to eliminate much of the waste in their present methods of study and make them more efficient workers.

2. Such courses now being given usually contain: (a) an outline of the library agencies of value to teachers and children; (b) an outline of the methods, devises, and regulations employed by the particular library especially if they are universally used by libraries; (c) systematic training in general reference books, bibliographies, and indexes: (d) an explanation of the construction of a book and its economic use; and (e) definite instruction in the making and keeping of bibliographies.

3. Such instruction is necessary at the present time to carry out the curricula, to train student-teachers to instruct their future pupils in these lines, and to open up the avenues for their future study and research when the formal school course is ended.

4. Libraries in elementary, high and advanced schools need to be systematically organized by expert librarians, who have also a knowledge of school aims and methods. Where this is not yet practical a teacher should be assigned to the library work and given some training in library economy.

House-Keeping as a Public School Study

T

MABEL L. KEECH, PHILADELPHIA, PA.

HE teaching of house-keeping in public schools is a much discussed subject in our country, and its importance is being more and more realized, with the prospect that it will soon become a part of the schoolgirl's program. Domestic Science often includes very little outside of cooking, and the necessity of a preparatory course is being keenly felt.

An argument to discourage this forward step is occasionally given to this effect, that the home itself should be sufficient for such teaching, and that to introduce it into the school would cause indifference to parental duty. It is true that mothers should work with their little daughters in the home and encourage them to do the pleasant, small tasks while they are young, thus creating a homelike atmosphere; but many mothers cannot, others will not, and still others are not capable. Among the first class are those whose other home ties, such as caring for aged parents, or earning the living for the family, prevent proper overseeing of the child's work. In the second, are those who have not a large portion of patience, and who would rather do the work themselves than be hindered by a child; also those who leave all their work to servants, thinking themselves and their children above such menial service, or prefering to indulge in a constant whirl of social life. Scarcely less to be pitied are those who have been robbed of comforts because of poverty, and who are ignorant and careless because they have never had a home to care for except a furnished attic or basement room in a tenement house.

It stands to reason that girls who are handicapped by such conditions in the home, should have the instruction in school. Instead of parents feeling relieved of the responsibility and becoming more careless, their interest will be awakened by the enthusiasm of the girl over her school training, and they themselves will be incited to be more painstaking. Those mothers who are ideal in their home life surely will not object to their girls having an extra hour a week of house-keeping in school. Imagine the influence in