A Tutor Reflects

It is not a new idea that the evolution of a librarian depends on more than learning professional facts and studying the day to day work of a library. To some extent librarians, like creative artists, may be persons with inherited propensities, but like artists they are improved beyond comparison by organised education. Better education for librarianship is a primary necessity for professional progress both in the services offered to readers and in the estimate of a librarian's worth by those readers. It is difficult to find evidence, however, that many librarians give sufficient thought to the nature of librarianship, as distinct from library services and technical practices, to be troubled with the subject of improving professional education, or even to wonder if it has any importance except as a preliminary to the passing of professional examinations and the payment of professional scales of salaries.