A Book for All Readers Part 32

Says the Nation:

A Philadelphia catalogue, whose compiler must have been more interested in current events than in his task, offers for sale "Intrigues of the Queen of Spain with McKinley, the Prince of Peace, Boston, 1809." How G.o.doy should become McKinley, or McKinley should become the Prince of Peace, is a problem for psychologists.

CONFUSION OF KNOWLEDGE.

The following are some specimens of answers to Examinations of candidates for Library employment, given within the past five years:

"A sonnet is a poem which is adapted to music, as Petrarch's sonnets"; "a sonnet is a short poem sometimes and sometimes a long one and generally a reflection, or thoughts upon some inanimate thing, as Young's 'Night thoughts.'" "An epic is a critical writing, as 'Criticism on man'"; "an epic is a literary form written in verse, and which teaches us some lesson not necessarily of a moral nature"; "an epic is a dramatic poem."

Epigrammatic writing is very clearly defined as "critical in a grammatical way." "Allegory is writing highly colored, as Pope's works"; "allegory is writing of something that never happened, but it is purely imaginary, often a wandering from the main point." A common mistake regarding the meaning of the word bibliography results in such answers as "bibliography--a study of the Bible;" or "gives the lives of the people in the Bible." An encyclopaedia was aptly defined as "a storehouse of knowledge for the enlightenment of the public," while another answer reads "Book of Books, giving the life of famous persons, life and habits of animals and plants, and some medical knowledge." A collection of works of any author is termed "an anthropology." "Anthology is the study of insects." Folklore is defined as "giving to animals and things human sense"; an elegy means "a eulogy," oratory, "the deliverance of words."

Belles-lettres is to one applicant "beautiful ideas," to another "the t.i.tle of a book," to another "short stories"; again "are the letters of French writers," and still another writes "French for prominent literature and light literature." A concordance "is the explication or definition of something told in a simpler form," is the extremely lucid answer to one question, which was answered by another candidate as "a table of reference at back of book."

The t.i.tles of books are too seldom a.s.sociated with their authors' names, resulting in such answers as "Homer is the author of the Aeneid"; "Lalla Rookh" was written by James Blackmore; "Children of the Abbey," by Walter Besant (while another attributed it to Jane Porter); "Bow of orange Ribbon," by George Meredith; "Hon. Peter Stirling," by Fielding; "Quo Vadis," by Browning; "Pamela," by Frank Stockton (according to another by Marie Edgworth); "Love's Labour's Lost," by Bryant (another gives Thomas Reade as the author, while still another guesses Schiller); "Descent of Man," by Alexander Pope (another gives Dryden); "The Essay on Man," by Francis Bacon.

One candidate believes "Hudibras" to be an early Saxon poem; another that "Victor Hugo's best known work is William Tell"; another that "Aesop's Fables is a famous allegory." Charlotte Bronte is described as an "American--nineteenth century--children's book." Cicero was "known for Latin poetry." "Dante is an exceedingly bitter writer; he takes you into h.e.l.l and describes Satan and his angels. He wrote his play for the stage." Another's idea of the Divine Comedy is "a play which could be acted by the priests on the steps of a church for the benefit of the poorer cla.s.s."

Civil service in the mind of one young woman was "the service done by the government in a country, domesticly."

A Christian socialist is "an advocate of Christian science." "A limited monarchy is a kingdom whose ruler is under the ruler of another country."

Legal tender is "the legal rate of interest"; another considers it "Paper money." In economics, some of the answers were "profit-sharing, a term used in socialism, the rich to divide among the poor." "Monopolies is the money gained by selling church properties"; while "a trust is usually a place where a person puts some money where it will be safe to keep it."

About noted personages and historic events and places the answers are equally startling. "Moliere was a French essayist and critic" (also "a French writer of the nineteenth century,") Cecil Rhodes, "the founder of Bryn Mawr College"; "Seth Low--England, eighteenth century;" Attila "a woman mentioned in the Bible for her great cruelty to her child;" Warren Hastings "was a German soldier" (also "was a discoverer; died about 1870"); "Nero was a Roman emperor B. C. 450." Perhaps the most unique guess in this line was "Richard Wagner invented the Wagner cars;"

Abbotsford is "the t.i.tle of a book by Sir Walter Scott;" "Va.s.sar College is a dream, high-up and unattainable;" "Tammany Hall is a political meeting place in London;" "the Parthenon, an art gallery in Athens."

Pedagogy seemed one of the most perplexing of words. It was defined by one as "the science of religion," by another as "learned pomposity;" but the most remarkable of all was "pedagogy is the study of feet."

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 cla.s.ses 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 breeches, Or the Simian tribe began To ascend from ape to man.

He must master the cosmology, And know all about psychology, 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 antic.i.p.ation, 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 pa.s.s the portal That leads to life immortal.

FOOTNOTES:

[3] Mostly from the Library Journal, New York.

CHAPTER 26.

RARE BOOKS.

There is perhaps no field of inquiry concerning literature in which so large an amount of actual mis-information or of ignorance exists as that of the rarity of many books. The makers of second-hand catalogues are responsible for much of this, in describing the books which they wish to sell as "rare," "very scarce," etc., but more of it proceeds from absolute ignorance of the book-markets of the world. I have had mult.i.tudes of volumes offered for sale whose commercial value was hardly as many cents as was demanded in dollars by their ill-informed owners, who fancied the commonest book valuable because they "had never seen another copy." No one's ideas of the money value of any book are worth anything, unless he has had long experimental knowledge of the market for books both in America and in Europe.