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The Library.

than those who have been brought up in the old-fashioned way. A woman may have as solid an education as a man, and use it as a means of earning a livelihood, and still be a womanly woman.

The wider the education possessed by a librarian the more successful the work is likely to prove, and now that librarianship is being found to be as well suited to the capacity of woman as man, there will be keen rivalry between the sexes, for our colleges, Girton and Newnham amongst the number, are sending out year by year women who are well taught, self-reliant, and ready to work to the best of their ability in whatever calling they have chosen. That of librarianship will be, I think, one which will commend itself to many as a means of helping others in the search after knowledge, and will also be found an agreeable employment. Miss Black, who was one of the first two librarians at the People's Palace, London, formerly of Newnham College, Cambridge, passed the graduation examinations, and would have obtained the degree had she been a man. Miss James, the late librarian, had three ladies as assistants, two of whom studied at Newnham College, and the other at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford. All these ladies have found the work most attractive, and, to quote their own expressed opinions, they think there is at present no occupation more suited to women who are fairly well educated, and possess a real love of books. It ought not to be taken up as a mere pastime however, for nothing can be done in this work without earnestness, interest and thoroughness, also devotion to books. At Blackpool, Bridgwater, Darlaston, Darwen, Glossop, Nantwich, Poole, Fleetwood, Middleton, Northwich, Sittingbourne, Willenhall, Carnarvon, Galashiels, Hawick, Selkirk, and Widnes, ladies fill the office of librarian. At Peel Park Library and Regent Road, Salford, and at two or three of the branch libraries at Manchester, ladies are employed as librarians. In addition to the above named towns, the following libraries employ female assistants, viz.:—Battersea, Clerkenwell, Westminster and Chelsea, London; Aberdeen, Derby, Doncaster, Edinburgh, Oldham, Nottingham, Paisley, Sheffield, Glasgow (Stirling's Library, Baillie Institution), Bradford, Bristol, Manchester, Liverpool, and St. Helens, and the three lady librarians at Blackpool, Salford, and Widnes have female assistants.