Its advantages, except in departments where the work is largely mechanical, such as recovering books, pasting labels, running indicators, etc., are that it keeps one in touch, more or less, with the intellectual life and progress of the world; it pays regularly and fairly well; it brings one in contact with agreeable and often gifted people; and, unlike teaching, it is put aside at the day's end.
On the other hand, however, the unthinking, mechanical library worker can very easily lead a most superficial life, because her work lays undue emphasis on the intellectual side of life. Some librarians hold, however, that there really is no great goal in sight for the very able and ambitious girl; that is, she has not the same wide scope for achievement and the development of her creative faculties as the writer, the musician, the artist, the designer. She never really becomes her own mistress, as one successful librarian expressed it. Even when she is head librarian she is ruled by the board of directors. Expressing it broadly, she has less chance to give expression to her individuality than girls in many professions, like the arts, the sciences and the law.
But taking the profession as a whole, it is the ideal one for the girl who is content with routine work, a comfortable salary and the ability
