ds may at any time be of great value to their own medical
advisers in later life. I have reason to regret that some such Albums
were not kept for my wife and myself, for they would have afforded the
necessary data by which to 'size up' the abilities and conduct of our
children. I know, for instance, pretty well what was my own Galtonian
rank as a schoolboy, and I am constantly asking myself whether my boy
will do as well, better, or worse. Now fortunately I do happen to
remember roughly what stages I had reached at one or two transition
periods of school-life; but if only such an Album had been kept for me,
I could turn it up and check my boy against myself in each subject at
each yearly stage. You will gather from this that I consider it of great
importance that ample details of school-work and intellectual
development should be entered in the Album. I find the space at my
disposal for these entries insufficient, and consequently I summarize in
the Album and insert a reference to sheets of fuller details which I
keep; but it might be well, when another edition of the Album comes to
be published, to agitate for the insertion of extra blank pages after
the age of eight or nine, in order to allow of the transcription of full
school-reports. However, the great thing is to induce people to keep an
Album that will form the nucleus round which any number of fuller
records can cluster."

It is not necessary that the Galtonian type of Album should be rigidly
preserved, and I am indebted to "Henry Hamill," the author of _The Truth
We Owe to Youth_, for the following suggestions as to the way in which
such a record may be carried out:

"The book should not be a mere dry rigmarole, but include a certain
appeal to sentiment. The subject should begin to make the entries
himself when old enough to do so properly, i.e. so that the book will
not be disfigured--though indeed the naivity of juvenile phrasing, etc.,
may be of a particular interest. From a graphological point of view, the
evolution of the handwriting will be of interest; and if for no other
reason, specimens of handwriting ought to appear in it from year to
year, while the parent is still writing the other entries. There may now
be a certain sacramental character in the life-history. The subject
should be led to regard the book as a witness, and to perceive in it an
additional reason for avoiding every act the mention of which would be a
disfigurement of the history. At t