Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 50.djvu/421

Rh reform, and climaxes of human achievement. This great anthropological syllabus of all knowledge Dr. Goode used as the modulus of his own thoughts and a plan by which he arranged his books, his pictures, his clippings from newspapers, useful facts gathered here and there, and everything of a material nature which he desired to preserve."

He was interested in botany and versed in it, making the study of the flowers one of the attractions of his excursions; an earnest student of all matters pertaining to American history, a delver in genealogy from his boyhood, author of a work on his family history, and one of the editors of the Wesleyan University Alumni Record; one of the founders of the American Historical Association and a member of the Southern Historical Society; was interested in patriotic societies, and an officer of those of the Sons of the Revolution and Colonial Wars. He was a founder of several scientific societies in Washington and a member of others in this country; was a past president of the Philosophical Society and the Biological Society of Washington; was elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences in 1888; had been chosen in the American Association to be vice-president for the Section of Zoölogy at its meeting of 1897; and was a member of the Zoölogical Society of London.

Great as were Dr. Goode's scientific attainments and achievements, his friends and biographers are most emphatic in their testimonials to his personal attractiveness. Prof. S. P. Langley, whose associate he was in the Smithsonian Institution for many years, says, in the memorial he contributed to Science: "I have never known a more perfectly true, sincere, and loyal character than Dr. Goode's; or a man who with a better judgment of other men or greater ability in molding their purposes to his own, used these powers to such uniformly disinterested ends, so that he could maintain the discipline of a great establishment like the National Museum, while retaining the personal affection of every subordinate. . . . His historical powers in grouping incidents and events were akin to genius. His genealogical writings showed wide and accurate research, while his literary faculty displayed itself with singular charm in some of his minor writings. But how futile these words seem to be in describing a man of whom perhaps the best, after all, to be said is that he was not only trusted but beloved by all with an affection that men rarely win from one another!"

Mr. Gill says: "His disposition was a bright and sunny one, and he ingratiated himself in the affections of his friends in a marked degree. . . . But in spite of his gentleness, firmness and vigor in action became manifest when occasion called for them."