20 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 
our teaching will remember that librarians need a training school more than 
teachers, who have had the experience of their own school life as a pattern; 
for librarians till two years ago never had opportunity for training, and 
came to their work like teachers who had been ‘self-taught, and not only 
had no normal school advantages, but had never been in a school or class- 
room even as pupils. As evidence of the growth of the idea, we may note 
that this library school, which began two years ago with a twelve weeks’ 
course and provision for 5 to 10 pupils, has in two years developed to a 
course of full two years with four times as many students at work, and in 
spite of rapidly increased requirements for admission iis to-day embarrassed 
by five times as many candidates as it can receive. This means a recogni- 
tion of the high calling of the modern librarian who works in the modern 
spirit with the high ideals which the school holds before its pupils. 
It should be mentioned that this plan for a library school origin- 
ated with Mr. Dewey himself. Some eight years before the first library 
school was established in the United States, the British Library 
Association passed a resolution in favour of training library assistants 
in the general principles of their profession, but nothing practical came 
of the suggestion at the time. Since then a library summer school 
has been established, under the auspices of the Library Association 
of the United Kingdom, but it is inferior to the American schools in 
every way. We must look on this side of the Atlantic for the most 
phenomenal progress in this branch of librarianship. Since the first 
Library School was established at Columbia College, in 1887, similar 
institutions have sprung up all over the United States. In 1889 Mr. 
Dewey transferred the Columbia College School to the New York 
State Library at Albany. Here he organized the school upon a sound 
and permanent basis, with a strong faculty, and a thorough course of 
training, leading up to the degree of B.L.S. (bachelor of library 
science), given only to those students who pass the entire course with 
honours. A summer course is also offered by this school, for the 
benefit of persons who already hold a library position and wish to 
gain a broader conception of library work as a whole. 
Other library schools are those at the Pratt Institute, Brooklyn; 
at the Drexel Institute, Philadelphia; and at the University of Illinois, 
where library economy has been given a regular place among the col- 
lege courses. At Madison, under the auspices of the State University, 
is another school, the Wisconsin Summer School of Library Science. 
Professor Wm. I. Fletcher, whose valuable continuation of Poole’s 
Index most of us know the value of, established a library school at 
Amherst College in 1891, which he personally conducts for five weeks 
in midsummer. Lastly may be mentioned the Washington School 
of Library Science, organized in 1897 at Columbian, University, and in 
which instruction is given in every department of library economy 
and administration. 
