- About Bookbinding -

SONG OF SOME LIBRARY SCHOOL SCHOLARS.
Three little maids from school are we,
Filled to the brim with economy
Not of the house but library,
Learnt in the Library School
1st Maid - I range my books from number one.
2nd Maid - Alphabetically I've begun.
3rd Maid - In regular classes mine do run.
All - Three maids from the Library School.
All - Three little maidens all unwary,
Each in charge of a library,
Each with a system quite contrary
To every other school.
Our catalogues, we quite agree,
From faults and errors must be free,
If only we our way can see
To find the proper rule.

Boy's remark on returning a certain juvenile book to the library: "I don't want any more of them books. The girls is all too holy."

"Half the books in this library are not worth reading," said a sour-visaged, hypercritical, novel-satiated woman.-"Read the other half, then," advised a bystander.

THE WOES OF A LIBRARIAN.

Let us give a brief rehearsal
Of the learning universal,
Which men expect to find
In Librarians to their mind.

He must undergo probation,
Before he gets a situation;
Must begin at the creation,
When the world was in formation,
And come down to its cremation,
In the final consummation
Of the old world's final spasm:
He must study protoplasm,
And bridge over every chasm
In the origin of species,
Ere the monkey wore the bret'ches,
Or the Simian tribe began
To ascend from ape to man.

He must master the cosmology,
And know all about pyschology,
And the wonders of biology,
And be deep in ornithology,
And develop ideology,
With the aid of craniology.
He must learn to teach zoology,
And be skilled in etymology,
And the science of philology,
And calculate chronology,
While he digs into geology,
And treats of entomology,
And hunts up old mythology,
And dips into theology,
And grows wise in sociology,
And expert in anthropology.

He must also know geography,
And the best works on photography,
And the science of stenography,
And be well up on cosmography,
And the secrets of cryptography.
Must interpret blind chirography,
Know by heart all mens' biography,
And the black art of typography,
And every book in bibliography.

These things are all essential
And highly consequential.

If he's haunted by ambition
For a library position,
And esteems it a high mission,
To aspire to erudition;
He will find some politician
Of an envious disposition,
Getting up a coalition
To secure his non-admission,
And send him to perdition,
Before he's reached fruition.

If he gets the situation,
And is full of proud elation
And of fond anticipation,
And has in contemplation
To enlighten half the nation,
He may write a dissertation
For the public information
On the laws of observation,
And the art of conversation.

He must know each famed oration,
And poetical quotation,
And master derivation,
And the science of translation,
And complex pagination,
And perfect punctuation,
And binomial equation,
And accurate computation,
And boundless permutation,
And infinite gradation,
And the craft of divination,
And Scripture revelation,
And the secret of salvation.

He must know the population
Of every separate nation,
The amount of immigration,
And be wise in arbitration,
And the art of navigation,
And colonial annexation,
And problems Australasian.
He must take his daily ration
Of catalogue vexation,
And endless botheration
With ceaseless complication
Of decimal notation,
Or Cutter combination.

To complete his education,
He must know the valuation
Of all the publications
Of many generations,
With their endless variations,
And true interpretations.
When he's spent a life in learning,
If his lamp continues burning,
When he's mastered all philosophy,
And the science of theosophy,
Grown as learned as Mezzofanti,
As poetical as Dante,
As wise as Magliabecchi
As profound as Mr. Lecky
Has absorbed more kinds of knowledge
Than are found in any college;
He may take his, full degree
Of Ph. or LL. D.
And prepare to pass the portal
That leads to life immortal.

Back