Page:The Duties and Qualifications of a Librarian (1780).djvu/48

42 or by science, if they were not consecrated, according to the intention of their generous founders, to the advancement, the glory, and the perfection of science and literature?

But that a library may fully attain the end of its foundation,—that it may be in reality useful, and useful with equal certainty and facility,—it should be administered by a librarian distinguished for soundness of judgement no less than for the readiness and accuracy of his memory. Men would love to find in him, not that vain and imperfect bibliographical knowledge that attaches itself merely to the surface, much less the narrow preferences inspired by the spirit