Page:Library Administration, 1898.djvu/24

 the entrance examination is one that runs through the whole of the Civil Service examinations in this country—to select men of general capacity, whose education rather fits them to learn than fills them with knowledge. Sometimes, luckily for the public service, candidates of special attainments are found and nominated, whose general knowledge enables them to take the first place in the competitive examinations. These are ideal candidates, and necessarily not common. The only organised education and examination of librarians in this country is directed by the Library Association of the United Kingdom. The education takes the form of a " Summer School for Students of Librarianship," which is "intended to give library assistants and others who are training for appointments in libraries an opportunity of gaining a practical insight into those subjects which, as a rule, they can only learn from books, and to enable them to compare the various systems of library management." The programme of the 1897 School, just brought to a successful close, will give a good idea of the methods of the school:—