SPENCER FULLERTON BAIRD 277 



arrange for exchange with foreign nations. In this way he had an 

 enormous corps of enthusiastic helpers and aids which, if they 

 had been paid, would have cost the government enormous and 

 impossible sums. 



There is a feature of the life of Professor Baird which commends 

 itself to many naturalists; this was his influence over young men 

 and the cordial aid he always stood ready to give them. He was 

 a remarkable organizer, and as such possessed a keen insight and 

 discernment of a remarkable quality. He recognized the fact 

 that the great museum he was building up was not for to-day, but 

 for all time, and that new men would be required in the future 

 and should be trained to fill the positions in the various depart- 

 ments; hence he was always on the lookout for young men of 

 promise and marked ability, and scores of the leading naturalists 

 in the United States to-day owe their prominence to his good judg- 

 ment; and the methods of study which he advocated. Dr. John 

 Billings in his life of Agassiz, cites an illustration which bears on 

 this point. The Institution had received some interesting Semitic 

 inscriptions, and a young man named Mason who had been 

 making studies along these lines called to see them. Professor 

 Baird gave him a hearty welcome and listened quietly to his 

 explanations. When Mason completed his work and was about 

 to leave, Baird said to him, "I want you to give up your Semitic 

 work and devote yourself to American ethnology. We have two 

 continents awaiting some one, you are the one, you must stay 

 with us." In this way America gained one of its greatest ethnolo- 

 gists, and Dr. Otis T. Mason is still connected with the govern- 

 ment Institution a living example of the good judgment of the 

 late secretary. 



The sagacity, the positive genius of his discernment is shown in 

 the selection of his assistant, the late Professor G. Brown Goode, 

 who was appointed to share the administrative work, as his assist- 

 ant, in 1887. Dr. Goode was already connected with the Fish 

 Commission and he was given the charge of the National Museum. 

 The two men were alike in their modesty and their many virtues, 

 and their only serious difference during many years of arduous 



