The sun., 1919-09-21
CIR Ethrartan'a Gnrnrr
y CONDUCTED BY
FRANK PARKER SToCKBRIDGE.
ON MINDS AND INDEXES.

indexes would be unnecessary Libraries would be-
mere repositories Of fiction, and the reference
librarians would all be out of job. The human
mind being, as it is, crude and unreliable instru-
ment that seldom works with accuracy and never
twice alike, libraries and reference librarians are
the best expedient we have been able to devise to
keep the human race from lapsng into utter ig-
norance with each new generation.
What Woodrow Wilson once referred to, out Of
his long experience pedagogue, the amaz-
ing power Of the human mind to resist the intro
duction of knowledge is trfng compared with
the power Of the human mind to mslay mslabel
and mix up generally such trifing bits of knowl-
edge as it has been possible to insert into it. Any
man made machine that did not function more ac-
curately than even fairly expensive and well
trained minds would be scrapped after one trial by
any intelligent business man.
A Ballad of Misquotation
One may go along for years acquiring knowledge
and storing it away for future USE may even
acquire reputation for encyclopaedia versatility
and accuracy; then one day not only misquote
perfectly familiar passage of Scripture but attri-
butte it to Solomon when every faithful reader of
III. G. Wells knows it was Job who said it. A really
efficient mind would have no need Of reference
books; knowledge once acquired would be always
and instantly available when wanted
Once in a while one finds librarian whose
knowledge Of books and what they contain seems
absolutely superhuman and whose memory works
with precision that is fairly uncanny Such
man was the late Ainsworth r. Spofford, for many
years Librarian of Congress, when the collection
that has since expanded into the worlds greatest
library was housed in cramped and cluttered quar-
tiers in the Capitol itself, half the books buried in
inaccessible crypts-and no card index Except for
the fiction and general literature in constant de-
mand there was no way whatever of finding out
what books there were in the library or where
they were except to ask Mr.. Spofford He knew
them all. remember small boy in Washington
asking of the library assistants if he could tell
whether there was sequel to The S,ciss Family
Robinson.
Mr.. Spofford happened to be passing the desk
and the assistant asked him. he thought for few
seconds. sit is called Paul Preston's Voyages he
said, "and you will find it either the second or
third shelf from the top in such and such an alcove
about the middle of the shelf 1 don t think it has
been called for in twenty years. 4"
Mr.. Spoford was right. The book was where he
said it was with quarter of an inch of dust on it.
Nobody else in the library had ever heard of it.
Incidentally it was great disappointment to the
juvenile reader who had called for it, This was
only one of hundreds of such incidents that demon
strated the capacity of memory perfectly trained
in one direction. But after Mr. Spofford's death
there were found in his desk thousands of checks
and money orders received over period of years
for copyright fees which he had thrown in there
and forgotten! Books interested him, business did
not.
The Trained Fact Hunter
Your ideal reference librarian is somebody who
is interested in every branch of human knowledge
and whose memory covers a thousand times as
many items as could be indexed on the cards of
the Library Of Congress itself A visitor to the New
York State Library at Albany the other day was
hunting for the text of the Farmers Alliance plan
for issuing currency against grain stored in Gov
eminent warehouses There wasn't hint in the
card index courteous young man asked if he
could help. In five minutes the seeker had what
he wanted, as well as figures on the present per
capita circulation of currency and half dozen
other collateral bits of information which the ref
erence librarian knew where TO find, but which no
card index in the world contains.
properly constructed mind would no ;rdooo.5