Gallon's “Life History Album”

Abstract

IN 1902 the second edition of “The Life History Album”, by the late Sir Francis Galton, was published by Messrs. Macmillan and Co. Ltd. This album contains blank tables and squared paper by means of which to record the physical and mental development of ‘children’ from the ages of 0 to 100 years. I have kept (and am continuing) such records of my two daughters from 0 to 22 in one case, and 0 to 15 in the other. Such individual records are of interest to those concerned, but are of little value to biologists unless there are many of them. As the second edition was published twenty-six years ago, there are probably by now several hundreds of these albums containing records, and it would be well if, say, the Galton laboratory had a list of the names and addresses of the owners so that the albums could be borrowed by that laboratory for some particular investigation.