yourself. Don't try to direct. The fellow that wants your direction
will cause you to ooze out the information he needs, and you will
hardly know that you have told him anything.

I may be, and doubtless am, saying much that is quite unnecessary, but
I have tried to bear in mind some of my own mistakes, and of others
around me. I have been impressed with the fact that librarians seem
to think that they must or ought to know everything, and get to think
they do know. It is a delusion. One can't know it all, and only a
hopeless case tries.

Be more than content to be ignorant on many things. Look at your
position as a high-grade business one, look after the working details,
have things go smoothly, know the whereabouts and classification of
the books, and let people choose their own mental food, but see to it
that all that is put before them is wholesome.




CHAPTER XXXVI

The librarian as a host

Maude R. Henderson, in Public Libraries, September, 1896


Each librarian needs to have an ideal for society; must have before
him an end of which his work will be only a part.