Memoir of Groroe Brown Goode. 55 



tioii the entire mass would be deposited on the bare space assigned to 

 the Smithsonian exhibit. Usually other exhibitors had their material 

 half arranged by this time, and the fear was expressed by sympathetic 

 bystanders that the Smithsonian would not be ready. The cases would 

 be unpacked and the specimens put in them in whatever position they 

 happened to stand, and up to the last day all would seem to be in con- 

 fusion; but Doctor Goode knew his resources and his men as a general 

 knows his army. Suddenly all detailed work would come to an end, 

 and in the course of a few hours, as if by magic, the entire exhibit would 

 be put in place. He had a pardonable pride in this sort of generalship, 

 for whether at Chicago or Atlanta it had never failed him, and it earned 

 the highest encomiums at Berlin, I^ondon, and Madrid. 



Doctor Goode 's services at these various expositions were recognized 

 b}^ diplomas and medals, and from the Spanish Government he received 

 the order of Isabella the Catholic, with the grade of commander. 



I have already spoken of Mr. Goode's administrative qualities as shown 

 in his management of the National Museum ; l:iut his contributions to 

 museum administration and the history of museums were not confined to 

 his own work. From all parts of America and even as far distant as 

 Australia his opinion was sought with regard to the plans for museum 

 buildings as well as on minor matters of installation. All requests for 

 such information and advice were fully answered in minute detail. 



It was into his papers on museums that some of his best thoughts went, 

 and it was there that we find epigrammatic statements which are con- 

 stantly quoted by all interested in the matter. 



The first paper by him on this subject appeared in the College Argus, 

 March 22, 1871. It was entitled Our Museum, and was a description of 

 the collection in Judd Hall. This article indicated plainly the museum 

 instinct, for it was largely intended to make known the deficiencies in 

 the collection, and pointed out how students and professors could make 

 these good on their summer excursions. He also published a guide to 

 this museum. 



In 1888 he read before the American Historical Association a paper 

 entitled Museum Histor}- and Museums of History. Here he traced 

 the growth of the museum idea from the beginning down to the present 

 time, repeating his now oft-quoted phrase, "An efficient educational 

 museum may be described as a collection of instructive labels, each illus- 

 trated by a well-selected .specimen." Atlases of ethnological portraits 

 and works like those of Audubon he described as ' ' not books, but 

 museum specimens, masquerading in the dress of books." 



Even more forcible was a lecture delivered before the Brooklyn Insti- 

 tute in 1889, entitled Museums of the Future. "The museum of the 

 past," he wrote, "must be set a.side, reconstructed, transformed from a 

 cemetery of bric-a-brac into a nursery of living thoughts. " . . . " The 

 people's museum should be much more than a house full of specimens 



