This is the plan that I recommend. It is the most difficult of all, and no regulations or specifications can be formulated for carrying it out. For this reason it will never be widely in favor. A wicked and rebellious generation demands a sign, and in this plan there is neither sign nor formula except that general principle of helpfulness and willingness to place the common whole above the selfish part that is at the antipodes of both wickedness and rebellion. It is a personal matter and it adds one important qualification to those already necessary in department heads--the ability to do team work. This qualification, however, is so important, quite apart from its necessity in connection with this plan, that we may consider it an advantage, rather than otherwise, that the plan puts it forward and insists upon it. On the whole I think that a library with mediocre department heads having this qualification is better manned, and will do more satisfactory work than one with a staff of supremely able experts, cranky, self-centered and all pulling different ways. The efforts of members of a body like a library staff are not to be measured arithmetically--they are what mathematicians call “vectors”--directed quantities, like force, velocity or acceleration. To know where a man will bring up one must have not only his speed, but its direction. The sum of two equal forces may be anything from zero up to their double, depending on their relative directions, and if the sum is zero, no matter how large the components may be, the result is precisely the same as if those components are small, or as if neither existed. It is this sort of thing that an eminent employer of labor had in mind when he advised, “If two of your subordinates don’t get along together, _discharge both_ of them, no matter how good they are.” In this man’s estimation the relative value of team work evidently stands pretty high. I should not follow his advice, however, without giving everyone a fair chance. I have known the opinions of one department head about another and their ability to work together to improve greatly on acquaintance.