6 GEORGE LINCOLN GOODALE— ROBINSON tMEMOIRS [vo A ™xt 



During his professional career Doctor Goodale traveled much. He visited Europe nine 

 times and, for a man who had not been educated there, came to have a very unusual familiarity 

 with the foreign laboratories and museums. He was a linguist of ability and acquired a broad 

 knowledge of foreign literatures, public affairs, trade relations, colonial enterprises, tropical 

 agriculture, and a host of matters contributing much to his powers as a broad administrator 

 of a museum. 



In 1890 and 1891, in company with a cousin, Capt. (later brigadier general) Greenleaf 

 Austin Goodale, he made a journey of great length visiting Egypt, Ceylon, Australia, Tasmania, 

 New Zealand, Java, and the Straits Settlements, as well as several points in China and Japan. 



His primary object was personally to view the notable botanical establishments at places 

 like Peradeniya, Buitenzorg, Melbourne, Syndey, and Tokyo, to establish friendly relations 

 with their directors, and to secure by purchase or exchange a choice selection of objects suitable 

 to the further development of the Harvard Botanical Museum and Garden. In these matters 

 he met with gratifying success. Among the exhibits obtained many were unusual and several — 

 such as a living specimen of the fern Todaea iarbara ( T. africana) and a gigantic rata log, a lig- 

 nified aerial root some 5 feet in diameter — were doubtless at their time unique in America. 



More and more Doctor Goodale turned his attention to the economic side of botany and 

 took much interest in the problems of tropical agriculture. Among these was the improvement 

 of the sugar cane. To further experimental work in this field the Harvard Botanical Garden 

 was able to establish, through the influence of Doctor Goodale and with the generous financial 

 support of Mr. Edwin F. Atkins, of Boston, a tropical garden and experiment station in Cuba, 

 at Soledad, near Cienfuegos. 



Here not only many sugar canes, but a variety of other tropical plants of economic impor- 

 tance, were brought together for observation and experimental purposes. Doctor Goodale made 

 several journeys to Cuba in the interests of this enterprise, which is now being further developed 

 and already forms a notable instance of North American scientific effort brought to bear upon 

 tropical economic problems. 



Doctor Goodale was a member of many societies both scientific and social. He was a 

 presiding officer of unusual ability, managing business with smoothness, speaking little himself, 

 but directing cleverly the discussions of others. His good judgment, ready and sympathetic 

 interest, and his uniform courtesy made him a valued member on many committees. He was 

 in 1889 vice president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the 

 following year its president. His retiring address, delivered at Washington, was entitled 

 "Useful plants of the future." He was vice president of the Boston Society of Natural History 

 from 1887 to 1890, and its president during the year 1891-92. He was one of the founders of 

 the New England Botanical Club and was its president from 1897 to 1899. He received the 

 honorary degree of A. M. from Bowdoin in 1869, and of LL. D. from Amherst in 1890, from 

 Bowdoin in 1894, and from Princeton in 1896. 



With manifold duties of instruction and administration, the care of the botanic garden, 

 financing and development of the museum, with wide professional correspondence and con- 

 stant attention to the improvement of working conditions in his science, Doctor Goodale had 

 little opportunity for personal investigation. It is probable he was right in judging that his 

 special talents could be most effectively turned to other ends. However, he had a sympathetic 

 interest in the research of others, and many of his publications took the form of appreciative 

 reviews to give wider publicity to their results. 



His writings, though numerous, were for the most part brief. Except for his Physiological 

 Botany, already discussed, he published but one work of size, namely, The Wild Flowers of 

 America. His part in this was to supply appropriate letterpress of a popular scientific nature 

 to accompany 50 colored plates painted by Isaac Sprague, the leading American botanical 

 artist of the period. The task had no great scope, but was conscientiously performed, and the 

 resulting work has been highly prized by many flower lovers and, long anticipating the nature- 

 study publications of the. present day, gave popular instruction to many readers who could 

 enjoy its clearly written text and striking, colored plates, though they would have been unlikely 



