[43] “The public libraries and museums should be remitted to special committees of the education authority. On each of these committees it would be desirable to co-opt representatives of voluntary organizations and societies specially interested in the work of the committees, such as local educational bodies, scientific societies, and art clubs. Librarians and curators should, of course, have direct access to their respective committees and the fullest possible scope for their powers and special knowledge.” Adult Education Committee: _Third Interim Report_, 56. [44] Bostwick: _The American Public Library_, p. 95. [45] Adult Education Committee: _Third Interim Report_, 19. [46] Adult Education Committee: _Third Interim Report_, par. 9-12. VI TRAINING IN LIBRARIANSHIP The pioneers of our municipal libraries were mostly men who had had no experience of library administration, and learned their craft and coached their assistants after studying the best type of older libraries, improvising new methods to suit new circumstances. In 1876 the American Library Association was founded, and in 1877 the Library Association of the United Kingdom. Their objects were first, educational, through the medium of personal intercourse and the exchange of information; and secondly propagandist, the furtherance of the library movement. In some of the larger towns classes were carried on for the instruction of the staff; and in 1884 the Library Association drew up an examination syllabus, which was a first step in defining the proper qualifications of a librarian. Classes open to any assistant were held at various centres, and in 1893 an annual summer school was started. The Association next appointed an Education Committee, which before long co-operated with the London School of Economics in holding courses of lectures, conducted correspondence classes, elicited similar efforts from provincial branches, and held yearly examinations. Certificates were granted in the separate subjects, Literary History, Bibliography, Classification, Cataloguing, Library Organization, and Library Routine; and when an assistant had taken these seriatim he might obtain a full diploma, after he had shown some knowledge of Latin and of a modern foreign language, and written an original thesis on an appropriate subject. The weak point of this admirable programme was that it did not provide for systematic training or even for continuous study. Perhaps it was an initial mistake to award certificates in single subjects, for the majority of those gaining such certificates never approached the final stage, and in a dozen years less than a dozen candidates won the diploma. But the standard of the qualifications had to be adapted to the educational level of the ordinary library assistant, and to the extreme disadvantages under which he laboured. His hours were long, his pay was low, and, penny rate libraries being uniformly understaffed,