Page:Hubert Howe Bancroft His Work and His Method.djvu/11

168 Henry L. Oak, a Dartmouth graduate and school teacher, be- came general librarian and perhaps chief of all Bancroft's assistants and advisers. A native of Sweden whom the master calls Wm. Nemos, showed special predilection for linguistics and the more abstruse subjects. He had pursued studies in mathematics and philosophy and in part prepared for Upsala University. Thomas Savage, late custodian of the library, was for many years the master's main reliance on Spanish-American affairs. He possessed a thorough knowledge of the Spanish. Frances F. Victor was surpassed by none "in ability, conscientiousness, and never-ceasing interest and faithfulness." (261) Ivan Petroff proved of great value in preparing Russian matter; Cerruti abstracted much material by fair means and by foul, from prominent families. And other names, simply to mention a few - for unfortunately they are strangers in the world of letters - include Walter M. Fisher, T. A. Harcourt, A. Goldschmidt, J. J. Peatfield, Alfred Bates, Alfred Kemp, and others. It would be extremely difficult to find one man who wrote on Bancroft's works whose name would carry the real authority of a history specialist.

There is no way of determining what work was done by individual collaborators, and of course it is impossible to tell just what historical work is from the hand of the chief of staff. The real writers are for most part unknown people, - I will not call them, with one critic, "a horde of hack writers." Yet the editor, who had once owned himself an artisan, with very doubtful mod- esty remarks in another connection; "The best brains of the best men were poor enough for me, and I wanted no secondary interest or efforts." (577) He early took an aversion to female helpers (except Frances Victor), and in a burst of characteristic style he thus expatiates : "Hard work, the hardest of work is not for frail and tender woman. It were a sin to place it on her. Give her a home, with bread and babies, love her, treat her kindly, give her all the rights she desires, even the defiling right of suffrage if she can enjoy it, and she will be your sweetest, loveliest, purest, and most devoted companion and slave. But lifelong application, involving lifelong self-denial, involving constant pressure on the brain, constant tension on the sinews, is not for women, but for male philosophers or - fools. So long since I forswore petticoats in my library; breeches are sometimes bad enough, but when un- befitting they are disposed of somewhat more easily." " I have today nothing to show for thousands of dollars paid out for futile attempts of female writers." (236)

Mr. Bancroft has left us a detailed account of his method of writing history. "An investigator (he urges) should have before him all that has been said upon his subject; he will then make