~~~REATISES, essays, and addresses on education for librarianship now I come a dime a dozen. To say that I was invited to add my two cents' worth is not a reasonable excuse for doing so: I could have refused the invitation. I did not refuse. The subject is one that circumstances forced me to deal with, bit by bit, for fifteen months. When a change of circumstances removed it from the center of my interests, I was frankly curious to see what the various facets of the problem would look like if fitted together and how well the pattern thus developed could survive criticism. My obligations to others are heavy and will be evident. I have read with varying degrees of attention and profit a fair amount of the literature on the subject. If the names of Williamson, Reece, Wilson, Munn, Carnovsky, Butler, and Wheeler come first to mind, it may be partly because I have read or re-read their respective studies most recently. I am peculiarly indebted to the faculty and to my fellow-students in the Graduate Library School in I939. From my own students in the Graduate Library School from I942 to I946, I am sure that I learned more about the nature and problems of education for librarianship than I ever succeeded in imparting to them. Some aspect of education for librarianship was the subject of almost daily discussion with my colleagues in the school, and in the last months of my association with that pleasant place, the subject was discussed by the faculty as a whole both frequently and at great length. Beyond the confines of the school, I am indebted most to the chancellor, Robert Maynard Hutchins, not only for his own thought on the subject, but for his remarkable power of inducing thought in others, even in an administrative officer; and to Clarence Faust, then dean of the College and later dean of the Graduate Library School, for what understanding I have of general education as both the beginning and the center of education for librarianship. Although itVis a pleasure for me thus to acknowledge my indebtedness to others, I doubt that others are likely to find much, if any, satisfaction in observing the use I have made of my obligations. None of the persons upon whose wisdom I have drawn will agree with all or even much of what I am about to say; and I suspect that some will disagree with everything from the ground up.