Part 28

I once heard a man of great intelligence, the ex-president of a small college, firmly maintain that if one had a basketful of letters of the alphabet, written on cards, and dumped them all out on the floor, it was absolutely impossible that they should be found so arranged, we will say, as to spell out Milton’s “Paradise Lost”. Now such a happening is extremely unlikely, but the chance that it should occur can be calculated mathematically and expressed in figures. The arrangement in which “Paradise Lost” is spelled out, however, is no more unlikely than any other possible arrangement, and some one of these arrangements is bound to occur, no matter how unlikely any particular one is beforehand. No one of them, therefore is impossible, including Paradise Lost. But I admit that where chances are so adverse, we may use the word “impossibility” in a rough sense, and so I use it in asserting that it is impossible for persistent “bad luck” to be due to pure chance.

Just here we may consider whether a man may rise above ill-luck, may conquer it, may turn it into good fortune. The ancients evidently believed that he could; that is why they represented Fortuna’s wheel as turning. Its rotation may not only “lower the proud”, as Tennyson puts it, but may also elevate the humble--change a run of ill-luck into a “lucky strike”. The Psalmist ascribes both these functions to the Almighty himself. “_Deposuit potentes de sede, et exaltavit humiles_”. All this was occult to them of old time; it need be so to us only in the sense that occult means “hidden”. If the hidden causes of a man’s ill luck may be revealed to him, wholly or partially, by study, or even if he can make a plausible guess at them, and if he finds that they are within his control, he can of course mitigate them or perhaps abolish them. I greatly fear that in most cases of this kind they are beyond his regulation, either because they are congenital or because they are due to habits so ingrained that changing them is impossible. The very fact that he attributes his failures to “luck” shows that he has made some effort to get at the cause and has failed in that, as in other things. The use of the word “luck” enables him to keep his self-respect. It does not, however, make him a more valuable assistant, and his superiors must not fail to take it into account in an estimate of his work.

I believe that some inquiry into possible physical causes may repay us. Teachers tell us of cases where incredible stupidity turned out on examination to be due to deafness. I personally knew of a maid servant whose apparently idiotic actions were caused by near-sightedness. She did not know--poor girl--that her eyes were not perfectly normal. In all such cases treatment of the physical cause, if it is treatable--alters the “run of luck” at once. All of our libraries should have medical officers, as the New York Public Library has, and the members of the staff should be periodically inspected. There should be a rigid physical examination on entrance.

I ask you to consider, in this connection, the career of Ulysses S. Grant, which has always seemed to me one of the most remarkable in our history. As I walked down the Gravois Road in St. Louis the other day, along which Grant used to drive his loads of wood from the farm, to sell in the city, it seemed as if I could see the stumpy figure clad in its faded army overcoat seated on the load and urging his slow-going mules toward St. Louis, then far away. If there ever was a man who was “down and out”, it was Grant at this time. He had been uniformly “unlucky”. He had had his chance--a good one--and had passed it by. Opportunity, which we are falsely told knocks only once at a man’s door, had sounded her call and he had made no adequate response. A graduate of West Point, with creditable service in the Mexican War, with good connections by birth and marriage, here he was, living in a log cabin on a small farm, hauling wood to city customers. Yet just three years later this man’s name was the best known in the country and had gone around the world. He was a victorious general in command of armies. A few years more and he was President of the United States. He was uniformly “lucky”. His “luck had changed”. What made it change? I can not find that Grant the successful military commander was a different man in any way from Grant the farmer and teamster. He was supremely fitted for military command under a particular set of conditions. When those conditions arose, his genius took the line of least resistance. Such a career is not unique. We learn from it that ill luck may be simply negative--due, not to active causes that force one back, but simply to the absence of the conditions under which alone one may move forward. Vocational guidance may help us here--or it may not. It would not have helped Grant. If he could have been subjected to some miraculous series of tests that would have brought out the fact that, failure as he was, he could achieve brilliant success at the head of an army what would that have availed? There was no army for him, and there was no war in which it could fight. If the question “Is he lucky?” is to be answered “No--but he might become so, if he were at the head of the U. S. Steel Corporation”. I am afraid that the result would be the same as without that qualifying statement.

When a librarian was leaving a large field of endeavor to enter upon a still larger one, his office-boy, hearing some speculation regarding his successor, was heard to say, “I could hold down that job myself. I’ve watched everything he does and there isn’t a thing I couldn’t do”. What he had watched were the motions and they looked easy. But we should not laugh at this kind of confidence. An old stager said to me once “Oh, these young men! They think they can do it all; and the trouble is that _sometimes they are right_.” A young man is a neutral in luck. His good or bad fortune is yet to be revealed. The complete vocational test would be one that could tell whether the office boy were really fitted to be librarian, and if he were, would see that he ultimately became librarian. Now we must rely not only on the boy’s own ability to estimate his powers but on his fighting strength to realize his vision. And there is more to it than this. A worker may have the ability and may know that he has it, and yet he may distrust his own estimate and so fail to follow it up. This is one of the saddest varieties of “ill-luck”. We often hear it said “He can do that, if he would only realize it”. Too often, however, the man or the woman does realize it perfectly well; his self estimate of his powers may be quite high enough; it may even be too high. Talk with him and you may discover to your surprise that he thinks highly of himself. But at the critical moment he loses his nerve. Doubts arise in his mind. Is he, after all, as able to rise to the emergency as he has always thought himself? He hesitates; and he is lost. His “ill luck” has again been too much for him.

Somewhat similar to failures of this sort are those that arise from lack of initiative. Here I think our training is somewhat at fault. I can almost pick out at sight the library assistants whose training has been in schools where obedience has been the chief thing inculcated, the following of rules and formulas, the reverence for standards and authority. They are of the greatest value in certain positions, but they can not advance far. They are afraid to go beyond the beaten path--to take chances, not, as in the case just considered, because they distrust themselves or their judgment, but because they have been trained not to adventure. Now adventuring is the only way in which mankind has ever got anywhere. There are conditions in which chance-taking is criminal, as it usually is when much is staked for little. The engineer who risks the lives of a train-load of passengers in order that he may avoid losing a minute on schedule time, is a criminal chance-taker. He may have done it once before with success, and the belief that he is “lucky” may induce him to do it again. The trouble with the over-cautious worker is that because he feels that this kind of adventuring is wrong, it is also wrong for him to stake his personal comfort against a possible great advance in the quality of service that he is doing. Perhaps I have put it awkwardly. It is not so much personal comfort that is at stake, though that is an element, as the feeling that doing things well “in the way that we have always done them” is better than disorganizing them for the purpose of shuffling them into a better combination.

I have on more than one occasion, in Library School lectures, urged this point of view, and I have advised more stimulation to venturesomeness, less pointing out of old paths and more opportunities to break new ones. No one ever reached a new place by following an old path. The path-breakers may be “lucky” or “unlucky”. I agree that the “unlucky”--the congenital blunderers--ought to be kept out of the adventuring class--but how shall we tell who they are except by trying? I have thought, possibly without justification--that I have detected a slight attitude of disapproval on the part of Library School authorities when such advice as this has been given. “Let the student first learn the standards, to do things by rule, to obey authority--then he can branch out into initiative.” But can he? My fear, somewhat justified by experience, is that he can not. The standards must be taught. The rules must be known and followed, but if along with this there is no stimulation to initiative and the continual instilment of a feeling that progress depends on the divine curiosity of the explorer--we shall be training only routine workers and for our advances we shall have to depend on those whom we stigmatize as untrained. They will be the “lucky ones”.

Here are cases where luck is a function of attitudes of mind and may be reversed if a change can be made in that attitude. There are other such. Take for instance the case of the grouchy man--the man who has a quarrel with the world. He is sure that he is unlucky--and sure enough, he is! He does not expect to be advanced, and no one would think of advancing him. His attitude and its natural results react on each other until he becomes a confirmed misanthrope. Then there is the man without interest in what he is doing. Who would be so foolish as to intrust an important task to a man who, it is quite evident, does not care whether it is done well or ill, or whether it is done at all? These persons betray their lack of interest in ways that are familiar to us all. They utterly lack initiative, but for other reasons than the persons whose cases have been discussed above. They have no objections to adventure, but a venture presupposes interest. No one ever set out to find the North Pole who was utterly indifferent to its location or the character of its surroundings. All true success is built on a foundation of lively interest. Hence persons of this sort are peculiarly unlucky. They watch subordinates and newcomers pass them in the race, and they are perfectly certain that this is due to favoritism, or to luck. They themselves are unlucky, and of course they will always remain so, unless they can alter their neutral attitude.

In thinking over the lack of initiative of which I have complained above and the failure of our training to supply it, it occurs to me that we carry this lack over into our work. We are apt to complain of the difficulty of finding persons who are fitted for positions of command and responsibility. What do we do to elicit the qualities that make one fit for such posts?

We have in our own library a system of efficiency reports, which are filled out by department-heads yearly, one for each assistant. These give needed information about the work of members of the staff, and they also sometimes reveal quite clearly the state of mind of those who make them out.

Two of the questions are, “In what did the assistant fall short?” And “What did you like most about the assistant?” It strikes me, on running over these reports, as I have just done, that the qualities most valued when present and most lamented when absent, are those of a good subordinate--the assistant who goes quietly, efficiently and quickly about doing what she is told to do, is pleasant about it and does not shirk. Here are some of the things that our department-heads like best:

“earnestness, industry and intelligence”

“alertness; readiness to take suggestion”

“excellent standards of work”

“close application to business”

“absolute dependability”

“persistence”

“excellent worker; steady; reliable”

“enthusiasm and eagerness to learn”

“close attention to business”

“tenacity and faith in herself”

“minds her own business”

“fine spirit in work”

“obliging, willing and ready service”

“industry and intelligence”

“general information”

“calm, cheerful nature”

“honesty of purpose”

“patience under criticism”

“politeness and willingness to oblige”

“loyalty, faithfulness and goodness”

“accuracy and systematic methods”

“neat and ambitious”

All these things are fine, I agree, but there is not one of them that suggests the possibility of advancement to a position of command where administrative ability and initiative will count. I do not suggest that these qualities are absent, but I think the record shows that we are not on the lookout for them and possibly do not value them as we ought. Only once in a while do I find a suggestion that a tendency toward such qualities is of interest, as when, one assistant is commended for “independence and good judgment” and another for “resourcefulness”.

And when we come to the “weak points” reported, the same facts stand out. Here are some of them:

“lack of accuracy and system”

“too sensitive”

“too reserved”

“often thoughtless”

“not sufficiently painstaking”

“too deliberate”

“tries to work too fast”

“lack of poise”

“rather slow”

“hesitates to ask for needed help”

“lack of system”

“impractical and idealistic”

“not very responsive”

“so eager that she is a bit aggressive at times”

Here, too, the deficiencies reported are predominantly those that would make a bad subordinate; although here and there we may detect one of the other kind; for instance,

“does not know how to find and develop the best in her assistants”

“not self-reliant”

“disinclined to assume responsibility” These are all faults of poor executives.

We shall never be able to pick good officers if we do not know how to detect in our privates the qualities that would fit them to command and how to encourage the development of such qualities when there is anything on which to base it.

Luck may not only be “in” but “of” the library. The whole institution may be in the lucky or unlucky class. I think you have known both kinds. The former seem to prosper, to do good work and to win golden opinions by the very fact of their existence. The latter have small appropriations, a poor standing in the community, and are finally destroyed by fire. Now personal ill-luck is and remains personal, but the ill-luck of an institution may be of various kinds. It may reside in a person or persons, or in a system, or in a building--or in all three. If the Jonestown Public Library is unlucky, the ill-luck may be that of its librarian, or of his staff, or he may be operating an unlucky system, or his building may be unlucky. I am an especial believer in unlucky buildings. Some there are in which it appears to be as impossible to run a successful library as it would be to grow vegetables in an ash-bin. Sometimes one can pick out the trouble with half an eye, although the same degree of astuteness seems to have been beyond the architect, or the board, or the librarian who co-operated to produce it. But in many cases we know the trouble only by its fruits; its roots are hidden, and the best we can do is to recognize that the library’s ill-luck comes from an unlucky building, and leave it at that.

There are so many sources of this kind of general library ill-luck, that it is a wonder we do not see more unlucky libraries. There are not so very many lucky ones either, except so far as this proceeds from the possession of a staff whose members are individually lucky.

The statistician knows that the way to eliminate chance is to multiply instances. The insurance actuary does not know when you will die, but he knows that of a million men of your age, very nearly so many will die within the next year. It is because he deals with a large number of cases that he can put his system on a business footing. There may be only one white ball in a bushel of black ones; you might conceivably draw that white ball at the first trial, but if you did you would properly refer to it as “luck”. If, however, you could multiply the number of trials, you would bring up the white ball sooner or later. There may be only one good way of accomplishing a result among thousands of bad ones. If you should hit on the right one at the first trial you would be “lucky”, but, luck or no luck, you will get it if you keep on long enough. Patience is always a winner in the long run.

This is the way in which much of our knowledge is collected. Edison found the right substance for his first carbon filament by sending for all sorts of materials from all over the world, carbonizing them, and trying them out. The right one proved to be a kind of bamboo. If Edison had hit on this at the first trial it would have been so “lucky” a chance as almost to be counted a miracle; as it was, he eliminated chance by multiplication. Nothing annoys an executive so much as to be told that the adoption of this or that course will result in a specified way, when no one has ever tried it. This was a common attitude in the time of Galileo, when the idea that anything could be found out by observation or experiment was regarded as a public scandal. That was the time when a man refused to look through the newly-invented telescope for fear that he might see something contrary to the teachings of Aristotle. These people are not all dead by any means. I have heard them assert that a proposed change would ruin the library and then object to trying it because they were afraid the result would be contrary to their own predictions. The medieval philosophers at least had Aristotle to fall back on; their modern successors would appear to be posing as Aristotles themselves.

A housemaid recently said to her mistress “I’ve told everybody to-day ye weren’t at home; now don’t sit in the window and make me a liar.” No discovery; no falsehood, you see. So if we librarians can be prevented from trying experiments, the false predictions of some of our advisers will not be false in their own eyes, simply because they will not be exposed.

My advice to librarians, and to everyone else is to keep on trying experiments. If you get a satisfactory result the first time, you may stop, and ascribe it, if you please, to your good luck. If the result is unsatisfactory, however, you need not stand pat on your ill luck.

“If at first you don’t succeed Try, try again”.

There is more philosophy in that than in all Aristotle. It is also a practical exposition of the doctrine of chances. Somewhere is the combination that you want. You will find it, if you only keep on long enough.

Libraries that are afraid of being victimized by chance, or, as we may put it, becoming martyrs to bad luck, should ponder somewhat more closely the possibilities of relief from insurance. Of course here I am using the word “luck” in its simpler meaning of unforeseen occurrence. Take the case of the library that suffers from the fact that an influential member of the committee that fixes the amount of its annual appropriation has eaten something indigestible for breakfast. Such an unforeseeable occurrence, such a “piece of bad luck”, might cost a library anywhere from two to twenty thousand dollars, according to the usual size of its appropriation.

Equally injurious might be the illness of the president of the Board, throwing upon an incompetent member the duty of presenting the library’s claims and needs. It is surely unjust that a public-service institution should be at the mercy of such trivial chances. In some states, including my own, the library is removed from such ill-luck as this by a statutory provision fixing its public income, subject to proper checks and taking away the ability of an individual’s illness or indisposition to lower it. But where this ill-chance is still in its baleful working order, why should not the library be protected against it by insurance? Such protection would be analogous to the corporation insurance taken out by large industrial companies to offset the loss likely to result from the death of an officer on whose administrative ability much of the company’s earning power depends, or to the payment of death duties by insurance, now being advocated by many companies, and adopted on a huge scale by Mr. J.P. Morgan. Insurance is the great equalizer; it multiplies instances, enlarges the field of possibilities and abolishes ill-luck. We are availing ourselves of it in case of possible damage by fire or storm, or of loss through our liability as employers. We may in future use it to cut out chance and luck in other fields also and to make our resources so dependable that we may devote to the extension and betterment of service the ingenuity now often spent solely in devising means “to get along”.

I am afraid that you will compare this address very unfavorably with the celebrated chapter on snakes in Iceland, because whereas the author of that was able to announce the non-existence of his subject in six words, it has taken me a good many thousand. You will do me an injustice, however, if you think that I have simply been demonstrating the non-existence of luck. I believe that when we say a man is lucky, we mean something definite, and that thing surely has an existence. It may not be the Goddess Fortuna, or her modern successor, but it is very real and it is worth investigating and taking into account. If you are told that one of your assistants is “lucky”, do not laugh it away. Find out the facts, and if they indicate that she is unusually successful in what she undertakes, be thankful that you have a lucky person on your staff. Cherish her and promote her. And if you can find such a person outside of your library, with the other necessary qualifications, prefer him, or her, in making an appointment, to one of the “unlucky” variety. It is of the lucky kind that the world’s geniuses are made--inventors like Bell, Edison and Marconi, captains of industry like Carnegie, Rockefeller and Henry Ford, soldiers like Napoleon, Grant, and Moltke, statesmen like Lincoln, Gladstone and Bismarck, poets like Shakespeare, Dante and Goethe. We have had too few of these in the library profession. They were all lucky and what we need, especially in the present emergency, is plenty of “Luck in the Library”.

THE LIBRARY AS A MUSEUM