356 



The Journal of Heredity 



of some one of our name. What a 

 satisfaction it would be if instead we 

 could go into some quiet room and 

 have brought to us to look at, to hold 

 in our hands and to show to our child- 

 ren the actual photographs of our 

 forefathers, the accounts of what they 

 had done, little incidents of their lives, 

 anything which gives them a real 

 personality for us and strengthens our 

 interest in the family. 



Let us picture in our imaginations 

 such a graveyard as could be made, 

 providing someone who could do it were 

 convinced of its value. Somewhere in 

 it there would be a beautiful building 

 — as beautiful as art can make it — and 

 in it a series of halls with alcoves and 

 quiet places like a great library. In- 

 stead of books, however, there would 

 be stored away in fireproof vaults the 

 priceless records of the men and women 

 ■ — the famiHes — who lie buried in the 

 cemetery and at any time these would 

 be available to any one who had a 

 right to them and they could be taken in 

 to one of the rooms or alcoves to be 

 looked over and studied. There would 

 be quiet reading rooms and special view- 

 ing contrivances where moving pictures 

 of families could be seen and places 

 fitted up so that phonographic records 

 of the voices of the past could be heard. 

 There would be photographs and 'ac- 

 counts also of the uncles and aunts, 

 and of the little children who died 

 young, so that we could gef an actual 

 tangible idea of the family. ;.Jt would 

 help us reaUze our place in the family 

 and our responsibility to it. 



There need be nothing dreary or 

 morbid about such a place, indeed if 

 it were so the whole object would be 

 defeated. It should be the natural 



place to which one would take visiting 

 relatives and those who were coming 

 into the family by marriage, and the 

 children would go too and realize that 

 it means something to belong to a 

 family, that it is a pleasant thing to be 

 proud of one's family and that one 

 would like to add to the family prestige 

 oneself. 



Visits such as these would give a 

 background to our lives — would tie us 

 to the past and also make us realize 

 that to our children must come the 

 burden and the pleasure of passing on 

 the light of our lives into that great 

 and wonderful future upon this earth 

 in which increasing millions of babies 

 still unborn must live their lives, let 

 us hope, as happily as we have. 



At funerals and at weddings families 

 gather together, but we part again too 

 often without strengthening the ties 

 which would bind us to the past and 

 make us feel that pride of family which 

 must be at the bottom of the making 

 of a better race. First, better families, 

 then their spread and increase, and 

 through them a gradual raising of the 

 level of the whole race. It is the only 

 way unless the laws of heredity are 

 a myth. 



To lay up treasure for ourselves in 

 heaven is one thing, but is it not quite 

 as noble to try to do things now which 

 will make the earthly lives of future 

 generations happier and more spiritual 

 and more wonderful ? 



If we are to make the world better; 

 if that is one of the reasons for our 

 existence, why is not the establishment 

 of these Libraries of Family History, a 

 really constructive way of doing it? 

 Why does not someone do it? 



