What the executive officer is looking for all over the world is initiative, guided by common sense; but it is rare. Possibly our education fails to develop it; possibly no system of education could develop it. But it exists; and we are all happy when we find it. Throwing out of consideration the really lazy, ignorant or incompetent assistant, competent subordinates may be of three kinds--first, he who has been trained to do certain things in certain ways and continues to do only those things in only those ways, not realizing the possibility of change or improvement; secondly, he who does realize this possibility but has been taught, or at any rate believes, that it is not his place, but only his superior’s, to take active steps toward something more or better; and thirdly he who both realizes and acts, who does what he can to see that such steps as he can properly take to improve matters are taken and that such as he can not take of his own accord are suggested, in a proper manner, to his superior. If I were asked to sum up, in a few words, the things that differentiate a well run from a poorly run institution I should say, first, the existence of a staff composed of persons of this third variety, and secondly a chief executive who appreciates and uses them. A progressive executive with a staff of assistants who faithfully obey orders and do nothing more will not go far. His institution may make no mistakes; it may run like a machine, but it will have the faults of a machine--its product will be machine made. With a live staff and a poor executive there will be a maximum of mistakes, absurd and ill-judged plans--a failure to co-ordinate effort in different lines. With plenty of initiative in the staff, and with an executive to select, restrain, encourage and control, we have an approach to the work of a single living organism, the most perfect tool of evolution. While this means the encouragement of suggestion it also means rejection and selection. It means that while the staff will have to bear disappointment with good nature and without diminution of initiative, the executive, on his part, must realize that a hundred impractical suggestions do not disprove the possibility, or even the probability, that the assistant who makes them may ultimately offer some plan, method, or device of great value. Some of the greatest improvements in library service are due to persons with an imagination and an initiative especially prone to run wild in impractical suggestions.