A Book for All Readers: An Aid to the Collection, Use, and Preservation of Books and the Formation of Public and Private LibrariesSpofford, Ainsworth Rand
Science
A Book for All Readers: An Aid to the Collection, Use, and Preservation of Books and the Formation of Public and Private Libraries
Spofford, Ainsworth Rand
Books; Library science
It ought not to be requisite to insist upon good health as a condition
precedent for any one aspiring to be a librarian. So very much depends
upon this, that it should form a part of the conscientious duty of every
one to acquire and maintain a sound condition of physical health, as a
most important adjunct of a thoroughly sound and healthy condition of the
mind. This is easier than most persons are aware. If we except inherited
constitutional weaknesses, or maladies of a serious character, there is
almost no one who is not able by proper diet, regimen, and daily
exercise, to maintain a degree of health which will enable him to use his
brain to its full working capacity. It demands an intelligent and
watchful care of the daily regimen, so that only simple and wholesome
food and drink may be taken into the system, and what is equally
important, adequate sleep, and habitual moderate exercise. No one can
maintain perfect health without breathing good unadulterated air, and
exercising in it with great frequency. One's walks to and from the
library may be sufficient to give this, and it is well to have the motive
of such a walk, since exercise taken for the mere purpose of it is of far
less value. The habit of taking drugs, or going to a doctor for every
little malady, is most pernicious. Every one, and especially a librarian,
who is supposed (however erroneously) to know everything, should know
more of his own constitution than any physician. With a few judicious
experiments in daily regimen, and a little abstinence now and then, he
can subdue head-aches, catarrhs and digestive troubles, and by exercising
an intelligent will, can generally prevent their recurrence. If one finds
himself in the morning in a state of languor and lassitude, be sure he
has abused some physical function, and apply a remedy. An invalid will
make a poorly equipped librarian. How can a dyspeptic who dwells in the
darkness of a disease, be a guiding light to the multitudes who beset him
every hour? There are few callings demanding as much mental and physical
soundness and alertness as the care of a public library.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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