During the recent years I spent in the East, it was my privilege to become intimately acquainted with one of the most distinguished engineers our country produced during the last half-century. One day when I had occasion to call upon this gentleman, I was directed to proceed from his office to one of the noisiest departments of his extensive mills. There I finally located him seated on an anvil, watching taciturnly the moving throng of busy mechanics. I learned afterwards that the lifelong habit of this philosophic engineer was to emerge from his secluded office and enter the quarters where the "wheels turn around." There he would in his quiet manner ask shrewd questions and enter into conversation with any one whose task or skill attracted him. It is on behalf of the rank and file in the library world that I draw upon this recollection of an industrial organization noted for its resources and efficiency. Invite the confidence of every member of the staff, welcome suggestions, allow your assistants to voice the conclusions their experience and service bring home to them, listen with sympathy to suggestions prompted by loyalty and daily pondering. There are times when we may well forget our official gradings, when it will prove profitable to learn from the members of the crew how our theories stand the test. The question of hours, salaries and vacations can be answered only in a general way. The gauge by which we examine the running of the human machinery entrusted to us should be read with sympathy, and we should set a pace that we can hold the entire day or the working period of a normal life. Speaking for our own institution, we adhere to the 42-hour weekly schedule with provision for a weekly half-holiday. Evening work should certainly never exceed the number three in any one week and personally I'm leaning toward the more desirable two evenings a week. Where a special evening force is employed the recommendation of course, does not apply. The restroom and the kitchenette are now so generally established as to be past the stage of argument. These restrooms should be well equipped and no niggardly considerations should stand in the way of making them neat, airy and inviting in order to afford comfort and relaxation. The appearance and atmosphere of the restroom should banish the dull sense of drudgery and evoke the gentler side of life.