The layman’s influence, control exercised by and through the viewpoint of the general public, is a most excellent thing, however much the expert may chafe under it. This is apparent in every art and craft. The expert, the man who has made a study of technique, of the way to do it, comes more and more to think of the method rather than the result--to elaborate detail and manner and to take keen joy in their recognition and comparison. So it is with the worker in art or in literature, and thus we have what are called painter’s pictures and musician’s music and poet’s poems--works that interest and delight those whose business it is to produce them, but which leave the general reader or hearer cold. It is evident that these, no matter how valuable or interesting they may be from one standpoint, are not the highest examples of their class. Better are the crude attempts of native genius which kindle enthusiasm and arouse the best impulses while breaking every canon of art. Best of all, of course, are the works where the technique and the result are both admirable and where the technical resources of the workers are brought to bear consciously, directly and successfully upon the attainment of the result. And to produce such works two forces must generally co-operate--the trained skill and enthusiasm of the artist and the requirement of the general public that his work must appeal to them, interest them, take them a message. Now this is of interest to us here and now, because, just as we occasionally have “composer’s music” and “architect’s buildings,” so, it is “to be feared, we may have librarian’s libraries--institutions that are carried on with the highest degree of technical skill and with enthusiasm and interest and yet fail of adequate achievement because the librarian makes the mistake of regarding the technique as an end instead of as a means--of thinking that if his methods be precise, systematic and correct, good results must needs follow, instead of aiming directly at his results and adapting his methods to their attainment.