rooms: one the special study of Mr. Bancroft, another occupied as a study by the only lady assistant, and two apartments for the use of two gentlemen who reside in the building.
The history of the Bancroft Library would, if suffered to end here, leave the reader still uninformed of its most remarkable feature—its success in enabling its founder to carry out his literary aspirations. In the incipiency of his undertaking, Mr. Bancroft entertained the idea of contenting himself with writing upon several minor topics; but when he beheld the value and extent of his material, he was dissatisfied to garble it in the manner proposed, and relinquished that idea. He then withdrew himself from the cares of business as much as possible (though never able to do so entirely), and set himself to write the "History of the Pacific," from Darien to Alaska.
Upon beginning at the first appearance of Europeans on any part of the coast, he found himself invariably confronted by the aboriginal population, whom he could neither ignore nor properly represent without making a special study of ethnology. To the examination of this subject he then applied himself, purchasing all the authorities most valuable on the history, antiquities, religion, manners, and customs of the original inhabitants of the North American continent, and with the help of a number of assistants in reducing to form and established limits an enormous mass of facts, produced in a few years his "Native Races," in five volumes.
The work, which was well received by the learned and students throughout the world, was good training, both for Mr. Bancroft and those associated with him in the labor of extracting from many thousands of authorities exactly the matter required for the greater work of the "History of the Pacific States." Byasystem of indexing, which has been brought to great perfection, as before stated, anything in the library, from a single sheet to a heavy quarto, is known with certainty to the librarian. By a system of note taking or references, which places all the material on a certain subject in one budget under its proper date, the writer is enabled to compare at once all his authorities on that subject, and is prepared to judge of the credibility of his witnesses by the weight of his evidence.
It is safe to assert that no historical writing was ever done under better conditions. A large corps of readers has gone over the whole collection. Their notes constitute the indexes just mentioned. The secretary, who first reduces the matter contained to something like form, saves the author considerable labor in that part of the work, the plan being one to which all those doing similar work conform, under his direction. Both references and abstracts pass examination, and are compared with the originals, to prevent mistakes or erroneous inferences.
No history was ever attempted that dealt so much with the beginnings of things, this being one of its most attractive features. The men who made the history of the country, be they ever so humble, have their proper place, and are preserved like flies in amber, for the view of generations yet unborn, who will look upon the pioneers of the Pacific coast with as much wonder as we of the nineteenth century regard the founders of Athens or Rome; but will know a good deal more about them than we do of the early Greeks and Romans, and a good deal more than we do about the early kings of Great Britain or the founders of the New England colonies. In these volumes, the descendants of the native sons of the Golden West in the generations to come may look for their ancestry, and will take the same pride in them that the descendants of the Randolphs of Virginia or the Standishes of Massachusetts take in theirs.
From this point of view, too much importance cannot be attached to the library which Mr. Bancroft has collected, nor to the work to which he is devoting his life, together with the faithful co-workers who deserve well of the public for conscientious application to a really serious, long-continued, and laborious task; albeit, it is with Mr. Bancroft and his assistants a labor of love.
