Page:The Girl Who Earns Her Own Living (1909).djvu/108

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to serve her fellow-men in a capacity which can never be termed mean, narrow or menial. She must always feel the uplift of the books among which she moves, and the call of those who need the help of her broader intelligence and equipment.

All these things the girl of sufficient education must consider, and then turn to the question of preparation.

The day of haphazard library work is past. The modern library, large or small, is systematized like the modern business establishment. The custom of giving a position to the mayor's niece when she comes back from a year at a city school, because she is the mayor's niece, and dresses well, and has nice white hands, has passed. The librarian, like the teacher, must pass an examination, and for this she must be as familiar with the high school branches and as closely in touch with the current events and literature as the candidate for a position in an up-to-date school.

Librarians throughout the country believe in a training-school. At a recent examination for applicants in connection with the public library system in New York City, only five per cent. of the girls who had been prepared at library schools failed.

There are two ways of preparing for these examinations. One is in the free training-