March 5, 1897.] 



SCIENCE. 



375 



artistic, and therefore the truthful and real- 

 istic, development of taxidermy in the ar- 

 rangement of natural groups of animals. 

 To crown all, like Baird, he entered into 

 the largest conception of the wide-reaching 

 responsibilities of his position under the 

 government, fully realizing that he was not at 

 the head of a university or of a metropolitan 

 museum, but of the museum of a great na- 

 tion. Every reasonable request from another 

 institution met a prompt response'. I well 

 recall Goode's last visit to the Ameri- 

 can Museum, the hearty approval of the 

 work there, and especially his words : " I 

 am glad to see these things being done 

 so well in this country." Not the advance- 

 ment of "Washington science, but of Ameri- 

 can science, was his dominating idea. 



In fact, every act and every word of 

 Goode's breathed the scientific creed which 

 he published in 1888 : 



"The greatest danger to science is, perhaps, the 

 fact that all who have studied at all within the last 

 quarter of a century have studied its rudiments and 

 feel competent to employ its methods and its lan- 

 guage, and to form judgments on the merits of cur- 

 rent work. In the meantime the professional men 

 of science, the scholars, and the investigators seem to 

 me to he strangely indifferent to the question as to 

 how the public at large is to he made familiar with 

 the results of their labors. It may be that the use of 

 the word naturalist is to become an anachronism, and 

 that we are all destined to become, generically biolo- 

 gists, and specifically, morphologists, histologists, 

 embryologists and physiologists. 



"I can but believe, however, that it Is the duty of 

 every scientific scholar, however minute his specialty, 

 to resist in himself, and in the professional circles 

 which surround him, the tendency toward narrowing 

 technicality in thought and sympathy, and above all 

 in the education of non-professional students. 



"I cannot resist the feeling that American men of 

 science are, in a large degree, responsible if their fel- 

 low-citizens are not fully awake to the claims of sci- 

 entific endeavor in their midst. 



' 'I am not in sympathy with those who feel that their 

 dignity is lowered when their investigations lead to- 

 ward improvement in the physical condition of man- 

 kind, but I feel that the highest function of science 

 is to minister to their mental and moral welfare. 

 Here in the United States, more than in any other 



country. It is necessary that sound, accurate knowl- 

 edge and a scientific manner of thought should exist 

 among the people, and the man of science is becom- 

 ing, more than ever, the natural custodian of the 

 treasured knowledge of the world. To him, above 

 all others, falls the duty of organizing and maintain- 

 ing the institutions for the diffusion of knowledge, 

 many of which have been spoken of In these ad- 

 dresses — the schools, the museums, the expositions, 

 the societies, the periodicals. To him, more than to 

 any other American, should be made familiar the 

 words of President Washington In his farewell ad- 

 dress to the American people : 



" Promote, then, as an object of primary impor- 

 tance, institutions for the general diffusion of knowl- 

 edge. In proportion as the structure of a government 

 gives force to public opinions, it should be enlight- 

 ened." 



As a naturalist Goode did not close any 

 of the windows opening out into nature. 

 His breadth of spirit in public affairs dis- 

 played itself equally in his methods of field 

 and sea work and in the variety of his ob- 

 servations and writings. While fishes be- 

 came his chief interest, he knew all the 

 Eastern species of birds after identifying 

 and arranging the collection in his College 

 Museum. He loved plants, and in the lat- 

 ter years of his life took great pleasure in 

 the culture of the old-fashioned garden 

 plants around his house. He was not wed- 

 ded to his desk, to dry bones nor to alco- 

 holic jars. His sea studies and travels 

 ranged, as early as 1872, fi-om the Bermudas 

 to Eastport, on the Bay of Fundy ; to Casco 

 Bay in 1873 ; to ISToank, on Long Island 

 Sound, in 1874. Here he conceived his great 

 ' Index Bibliography of American Ichthyology,'' 

 and here he met his future colleague, Bean, 

 who describes him as ' a young man with 

 plump cheeks and a small mustache.' 

 During the following two years his Assistant 

 Curatorship at the National Museum con- 

 fined him, but in 1877 he was studying the 

 fisheries off Halifax, and in 1879 off Prov- 

 incetown. The work of the fishery census 

 was starting up in earnest, and Goode was 

 busy planning and getting together his men. 

 Special agents were sent out to every part 



