Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1930-07-06

gress in Washington, and far
from those tourists, are rows of little Gu
bicles.
Each cubicle has its shelf of books, its
typewriter table, waste basket and Office
chair On the door of each cubicle is
slip of paper with q name-a name from
Iowa. a name from China, a name from
Massachusetts,, name from Czechoslo-
vakia And there or in the stacks them
selves, are the scholars Of many places
whose temporary workshops these cubIcles
have become.
Leading away from these workshops
are steel shelves of books locked behind
steel bars-books so precious that only
the serious scholar has access to them.
Beyond those stacks of books, unseen,
yet ready for instant usefulness, are con-
Sultants," specialists in various fields of
research, whose business it is to know
the collections and to stand ready to help
the serious reader TO research among
them.
Thus simply and except in the reaches
of scholarship still little known, a great
new experiment today operates both in
librarianship and in education-the libra
ry-university
It is a university without lecturers or
laboratories. 1t is a place where knowl-
edge is sought, not imposed; where read
ing is guided not controlled; where the
ripeness of living experience meets with
the richness of the learning of the past
for the serious student and for him
alCna.
Such is the elimination of a creative
lifework filled with imaginative ideas,
the lifework of Herbert Putnam, the Ma
tion's librarian
there exist today as signs of our times
changes over the glorious COS the new sort
of college president and the new sort or
librarian.
The new sort of college president is an
experimenter Example, Lowell of Har-
ward Angel of Yale), who seeks to loos-
en- up the rigid, the traditional. He is q
good executive. He is financial wizard
in the sense of conjuring moneys for his
purposes from every possible source. He
is tactful enough to keep on his faculty
odd birds who are all for pure scholar
ship without himself being too scholarly
to be practical.
The new sort of librarian knows the
thoroughly modern science of library
technique we'll enough TO judge the quail
fications of staff, but he has an ear for
the voice of the public. He knows. in
the words of Herbert Putnam, chow to
get books for the public and how t. get
the public to the books
To me, in fact, there are three institu
peculiarly American in their versatility
American university which teaches us to
pies the American library which exhibits h
craft and the American drug store which
books.
This is a f1ippant expression of some
which runs to the core of certain Anne
tendencies of today, something very fine
is a f1ippant expression of the struggle to
real education, real book-loving and art-l
and music-loving in a great democracy.
And significantly in this age, Herbert Put
impersonally serious, delicately humorous,
trating and, above all, creatively exec
stands as combination in himself of libr
and educator.
remember in my youth having some
hand acquaintance with the president
great Western State university. Pres
Charles Kendall Adams was q scholar a
gentleman. Being both, his efforts to ez
appropriations from rural legislators fol
maintenance of pure scholarship were S
times pathetic, sometimes ludicrous.
remember, for example, the time VIII
was possible to consolidate with the univ
library a great historical collection, but
desideratum was impossible of achieve
because the tiny old churchlike structur
the campus was already stacking its bool
the floor for lack of shelf ROOM
Rural legislators could look at those
and remain cold But the sight of the
md daughters of their friends without ade
,ating accommodations was different pi