Page:Library Administration, 1898.djvu/42

in proportion to their industry. On days when the Bodleian was closed they also had lectures on the details of library work.

"This system the librarian found himself eventually compelled to give up in order to otherwise utilise the extra time bestowed on it. He abandoned it, nevertheless, with extreme reluctance, and not without hopes that in some future year, however distant, he might be able to resume it. It enabled him to cultivate in the under-assistants sympathy with many kinds of knowledge, strict regard for accuracy and method, and courage to attack the most difficult kinds of work; it gave him a more accurate gauge of their individual capacities, and of their characters; and it helped them, he hopes, to feel that there was a common bond of personal sympathy and official duty amongst themselves, and between each and him.

"The effect on the working power of the library has been to markedly increase the numerical force, and to take almost all the mechanical or inferior work off the assistants, who are thus left free to devote nearly their entire time to a higher class of work.

"Financially, it has been shown that most of the mechanical and inferior work can be paid for at the rate of £26 a year, instead of at rates varying from £90 to £200, and that a numerical increase of fifty per cent, can be effected at an extra cost in salaries of under seven per cent.

"From a disciplinary point of view the experiment has also worked well. No boy has been taken into the library without proper inquiry into his character, and it is well understood that his services will be dispensed with if after reasonable admonition he ceases to give satisfaction. As a consequence, the general average of industry and discipline is high.

"Some vacancies having arisen in the senior staff of the library, some of the oldest and most promisingunder-