Page:The library a magazine of bibliography and library literature, Volume 6.djvu/201

 Obituary. 189 ling from library to library in quest of knowledge which in most cases has been gathered by the librarians with great sacrifices continued through a long course of years. Why, in the name of common-sense, should the claims of the young college person be advanced with so much pertinacity, when everyone knows that the very best librarians are those who have grown up with libraries, and spent years in acquiring that special techni- cal knowledge, which, it is evidently assumed by some, any academic young man or women can absorb through the pores of the skin in half an hour's study ? For every profession in existence special training is demanded in addition to the general education imparted in schools and colleges, and on these grounds I maintain that no person, male or female, has a right to aspire to chief library positions on the sole strength of a college degree. British librarians are working up the material they already have in their existing staffs, and it is unquestionable that library assistants are improving every year in all-round ability, being in their own sphere equal to any body of assistants in any other profession. I must therefore, deprecate the wholesale manufacture of library assistants, chosen solely from college-bred young men and women, till the aspirations of those who have already made librarianship a " life work " are better rewarded, and the efforts of assistants to improve themselves are encouraged and fostered in every possible way. I write in no narrow spirit of trade unionism, but solely with the view of controverting the extraordinary idea which is obtaining so much hold, that a university education necessarily fits any man or women for any position in life with- out further preparation. I shall be glad if a discussion can be raised in THE LIBRARY on this very important matter. B. W. J. HAGGERSTON. WE regret to have to record the death of Mr. W. J. Haggerston librarian of the Newcastle-upon-Tyne Public Library, which occurred on Sunday, May 6th. He had been ill for the last two years, and the library committee had on several occasions given him prolonged leave of absence, but no permanent good ensued. He was born in 1848 at Brecon. In 1861 his parents removed to Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and in 1867 young Haggerston was appointed junior assistant in the library of the Literary and Philosophical Society. Five years afterwards he obtained the posi- tion of librarian of the new public library at South Shields, which was opened in 1873 ; and in 1879 he was appointed first librarian of the New- castle Public Library. This library was opened in 1880 with 20,000 volumes, a number which has increased in fourteen years to nearly 80,000, a result greatly due to the marked ability with which he advised the purchases of the books committee. Mr. Haggerston was present at the Library Conference held in London in 1877, and was for many years a member of the Council of the L.A.U.K., but he had not attended an annual meeting since that of Dublin in 1884. THOMAS HURST. THOMAS HURST was born on the 8th of January, 1834, in Sheffield. His father was a joiners' tool manufacturer. His mother was the head teacher in the girls' department of the Lancasterian Schools in Sheffield for a period of forty years. Until the age of 21 Thomas Hurst was a teacher in this school, where he had, for some time, the sole charge of 400 boys. His father had the intention of sending him to a University,