Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 4.djvu/312

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302
William Alfred Morris.

pleted if he considered them necessary, either for the sake of treatment or style, but the extent of his writing as printed in this work certainly falls far short of that necessary to substantiate the claim which he has made to its authorship. The chapter which he wrote was that on the Hyperboreans. As to this work, he tells us in the Literary Industries that during the first half of the year 1873 he "was writing on northern Indian matter, giving out the notes on the southern division to go over the field again and take out additional notes": (Lit. Ind. 571). As to his further connection with the work, he says that in December of the same year he became convinced that the plan of treating Indian languages adopted by Goldschmidt was not the proper one, and that the latter was "obliged to go over the entire field again and re-arrange and add to the subject matter before I would attempt the writing of it." (Lit. Ind., 573.) This passage ascribes the actual preparation of the volume to Goldschmidt, and the writing referred to here must have been largely in the nature of editorial work. It is hardly to be presumed that a man of Mr. Bancroft's education and slight literary experience would have attempted at this time anything so ambitious as the complete preparation of a treatise on Indian languages.

We see, then, that although the influence of Mr. Bancroft was felt in arrangement and even in style, the Native Races was written almost entirely by other persons. But one would hardly suppose that such was the case from reading the words: "During the progress of this work I succeeded in utilizing the labors of my assistants to the full extent of my anticipations": (Lit. Ind., 304).

When speaking in the Literary Industries of work done for him by others, Mr. Bancroft shows a habit which is derived from his long experience as manager of a business concern. His constant tendency is to speak of work