460 Memorial of George Brown Goode. 



XVIII. 



With 1869 we reach the end of the third period and the threshold of 

 that in which we are hviug. I shall not attempt to define the character- 

 istics of the natural history of to-day, though I wish to direct attention 

 to certain tendencies and conditions which exist. L,et me, however, refer 

 once more to the past, since it leads again directly up to the present. 



In a retrospect published in 1876,' one of our leaders stated that 

 American science during the first forty 3^ears of the present century was 

 in "a state of general lethargy, broken now and then by the activity of 

 some first-class man, which, however, commonly ceased to be directed 

 into purely scientific channels. ' ' This depiction was, no doubt, some- 

 what true of the physical and mathematical sciences concerned, but not 

 to the extent indicated b}^ the' writer quoted. What could be more 

 unjust to the men of the last generation than this ? " It is, " continues he, 

 "strikingly illustrative of the absence of everything like an effective 

 national pride in science that two generations should have passed without 

 America having produced anyone to continue the philosophical researches 

 of Franklin." 



I may not presume to criticise the opinion of the writer from whom . 

 these words are quoted, but I can not resist the temptation to repeat a 

 paragraph from Professor John W. Draper's eloquent centennial address 

 upon Science in America: 



In many of the addresses on the centennial occasion [he said] , the shortcomings 

 of the United States in extending the boundaries of scientific knowledge, especially 

 in the physical and chemical departments, have been set forth. "We must acknowl- 

 edge with shame our inferiority to other people," says one. "We have done nothing," 

 says another. . . . But we must not forget that many of these humiliating 

 accusations are made by persons who are not of authority in the matter; who, 

 because they are ignorant of what has been done, think that nothing has been done. 

 They mistake what is merely a blank in their own information for a blank in reality. 

 In their alacrity to depreciate the merit of their own country they would have us 

 confess that, for the last century, we have been living on the reputation of Franklin 

 and his thunder rod. 



These are the words of one who, himself an Englishman by birth, 

 could, with excellent grace, upbraid our countrymen for their lack of 

 patriotism. 



The early American naturalists have been reproached for devoting 

 their time to explorations and descriptive natural history, and their work 

 depreciated, as being of a character beneath the dignity of the biologists 

 of to-day. 



The zoological science of the country, [said the president of the Natural His- 

 tory section of the American Association a few years since] , presents itself in two 

 distinct periods : The first period may be recognized as embracing the lowest stages 



'North American Review, January, 1876, pp. 100, 107. 



