14 Memorial of George Broivii Goode. 



endowed in his more unpretending and large human sjmipathies, and it 

 was this latter that distinguished him as a citizen and a historian. 



It has been said time and again, with more or less truth, of the great 

 English universities, and possibly of similar great schools in our own 

 country, that they tend to make a caste, and that men who come out 

 from them find themselves separated from the great mass of their fellow- 

 citizens, out of sympathy with the thought, the action, and the daily life 

 of the generation in which they move. This certainly could never be 

 said of Doctor Goode. As a citizen he was full of patriotic American 

 enthusiasm. He understood, as all must understand who look with 

 seriousness upon the great problems that confront a free people and who 

 measure the difiiculties of those problems — he understood that at least 

 one preparation for the discharge of the duties of American citizenship 

 was the general education of the people, and so he advocated as far as 

 possible bringing within the reach of all the people not only the oppor- 

 tunities but the attractions and the incitements to intellectual living. 

 It was one of his favorite ideas that there should be in every town, 

 and even in the villages of the country, at least some sort of a library, 

 at least some sort of a reading room, at least some sort of a museum, 

 to quicken and generate the intellectual life of that communit}^ and 

 possibly to stimulate men to the high career which he and others like 

 him have been stimulated to from such beginnings. 



But Doctor Goode knew also that mere education — literary or scien- 

 tific — whatever it might do for the individual, however much of power 

 or distinction it might give to him, and however much of personal enjoy- 

 ment and luxury it might bring to him, is not the only thing required to 

 make an American citizen, and I am satisfied that the work which he 

 did in the field of American history was connected, closely connected, 

 with this general idea. It is not only that we have free institutions in 

 this country, it is not only that we have universal education, at least 

 within the reach of the people of this country ; we have as our chief reli- 

 ance for success in the future, as it has been our chief safety in the past, 

 the rich political heritage of hundreds of years' training in these institu- 

 tions, and Doctor Goode, with the quick and warm sympathies of the 

 man and of the historian, seems to have felt that he could do no greater 

 service to the people of his day and generation and to his country than 

 in the most attractive and concrete way (if I may so express it) to lead 

 the young men of this country to the study of the history of the past — 

 to the deeds and the writings of the great men to whom we owe the 

 foundation and the perpetuation of our institutions. This was probably 

 somewhat the result of his personal sj'mpathies, feeling that what 

 influenced him would influence others, and it was a wise and proper 

 conclusion. 



The study of the past, the study of the lives of those who have been 

 eminent and useful men in the past, is a potent influence on high, intel- 



