Concerning the understanding Mr. Bancroft had with his corps of writers generally as to the public acknowledgment of their work which he would make, information is not at hand. Only one had ever before written and published a book, and perhaps the majority gave no thought to the rights which would be theirs as authors. Certain it is that when the greater number of the more prominent writers entered the library, the work was planned on a much smaller scale than that upon which it was carried out, and, as they did not know that they were to become the authors of entire or consecutive volumes, the question was not then of the importance which it assumed with the later growth of the series. What the understanding was with those who first entered the library we can not say definitely, but his ideas on that subject seems to have been a survival of the encyclopædia project. To Mrs. Victor, just prior to her entering his service, he wrote on August 1, 1878: "The work is wholly mine. I do what I can myself, and pay for what I have done over that; but I father the whole of it and it goes out only under my name. All who work in the library do so simply as my assistants. Their work is mine to print, scratch, or throw in the fire. I have no secrets; yet I do not tell everybody just what each does. I do not pretend to do all the work myself, that is, to prepare for the printer all that goes out under my name. I have three or four now who can write for the printer after a fashion; none of them can suit me as well as I can suit myself. One or two only will write with very little change from me. All the rest require sometimes almost rewriting." He further adds that it gives him pleasure to acknowledge his obligations to his assistants, but that this acknowledgment is always voluntary on his part and not claimed as a right by them, and says that while he is not sure of mentioning certain persons in connection with certain parts as he had done in the introduction to the Native Races, he will certainly not do more than that. The only mention which he promises definitely to his writers is a biographical notice in the Literary Industries. "The work in the library," says he, "good or bad, is mine; were it not so, I would simply do what I could with my own fingers, or do nothing." It is easy enough to see why Mr. Bancroft should wish to have absolute control of manuscripts to insure good work, and a complete covering of the field, but it is difficult to see how he could justly make the claim before the world that manuscripts turned out by other persons were his writing.