dearly prize the
opportunity of visiting the places where I have been educated, and
of turning over pages showing myself and my companions as we were in
those days. But no such records exist; the institutions last and
flourish, the individuals who pass through them are dispersed and
leave few or no memorials behind. It seems a cruel waste of
opportunity not to make and keep these brief personal records in a
methodical manner. The fading of ordinary photographic prints is no
real objection to keeping a register, because they can now be
reproduced at small charge in permanent printers' ink, by the
autotype and other processes.

I have seen with admiration, and have had an opportunity of availing
myself of, the newly-established library of well-ordered folios at
the Admiralty, each containing a thousand pages, and each page
containing a brief summary of references to the life of a particular
seaman. There are already 80,000 pages, and owing to the excellent
organisation of the office it is a matter of perfect ease to follow
out any one of these references, and to learn every detail of the
service of any seaman. A brief register of measurements and events in
the histories of a large number of persons, previous to their
entering any institution and during their residence in it, need not
therefore be a difficult matter to those who may take it in hand
seriously and methodically.

The recommendation I would venture to make to my readers is to
obtain photographs and ordinary measurements periodically of
themselves and their children, making it a family custom to do so,
because, unless driven by some custom, the act will be postponed
until the opportunity is lost. Let those periodical photographs be
full and side views of the face on an adequate scale, adding any
others that may be wished, but not omitting these. As the portraits
accumulate have collections of them autotyped. Keep the prints
methodically in a family register, writing by their side careful
chronicles of illness and all such events as used to find a place on
the fly-leaf of the Bible of former generations, and inserting other
interesting personal facts and whatever anthropometric data can be
collected.

Those who care to initiate and carry on a family chronicle
illustrated by abundant photographic portraiture, will produce a
work that they and their children and their descendants in more
remote generations will assuredly be grateful for. The family tie
has