days of the family. This interest is not a mere idle curiosity, but is the natural and intelligent desire of the mind to find out all that can be learned of that antiquity out of which it has come. Savages may be content to roam about amid the ruins of the houses formerly inhabited by their greater ancestors, but civilized and enlightened men insist on pry ing into that fact and endeavoring to learn its buried htstory It is to this spirit that we are indebted for all the wonderful discoveries which have opened to us the histories of the mighty empires of antiquity

Again, the author has felt a natural desire to learn more about his own kindred. The past he has sought to explore has not been the past of aliens and foreigners, but of those whose blood flows in his veins. He acknowledges a strong family feeling as a motive in his work. He looks with contempt on that foolish pride of birth which claims credit for a past virtue which it is unable or unwilling to copy; but he believes that to be descended from worthy ancestors should prove to an honorable mind a powerful incentive to hand down to posterity a record of like worth, while a noble spirit will be moved to redeem from shame a name which former possessors have dishonored His family esprit du corps has long caused him to cherish the record of the past. And he rejoices that his early life, spent in part at least amid the simplicity and hardships of the pioneers of Kentucky , has enabled him to appreciate the homely virtue and sturdy valor of the true-hearted men and women who helped so much to produce the happy days in which their descendants live. Thus, as a sort of link between the not very remote past and the present, he takes great pleasure in keeping fresh the memory of those of his kindred who have ceased from their labors.

A final reason for this book may be found in the value of family biography and history. History, with all its great lessons, is but a sort of congeries of biographies, and the most charming, and important history ever writen - that found in the Bible - is most often that of a family, sometimes carried out to very obscure individuals. What opportunities are there in a family history for the accurate study of human nature! If, as Dr. Holmes said, a child's education should begin a hundred years before his birth, an inquiry into his character should begin at least as early. In a well-written family history how carefully may be observed the law of heredity, with its manifold variations! And as the family is a human family, its

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