Frank J. Goodnow

Experts have lived, however unjustly, under a cloud of suspicion in America. The specialist who theoretically knows all about a given subject has been viewed as knowing too little about practicalities to be useful in the world of action. If there is anything in the rule Frank Johnson Goodnow was the complete exception to it. The country’s first expert in governmental administration, the author of many learned textbooks, for thirty years professor in the faculty of political science at Columbia University, he twice faced the severe tests in actual administration and twice came off with flying colors. The first time was in China, in 1913–1914, when the new republic called him from America to be its adviser. No trace of academic rigidity or over-elaborate rationalization was visible. He made no effort to apply the governmental axioms of the western world to the peculiar problems of the Chinese people. He saw at once that the responsible cabinet system could not possibly function successfully there and by his foresight gave invaluable aid to President Yuan Shih-kai when the dissolution of parliament made possible a centralized rule more in keeping with Chinese tradition. Then, at the age of fifty-six, he was called to the presidency of Johns Hopkins and solved a serious problem in administration to the satisfaction of everyone. That great institution had been diverted from its original field of scholarship by the excitements of undergraduate expansion. With the sureness of touch of a born administrator Goodnow found the necessary formula and applied it with skill and directness. For fifteen years he presided over the faculties of this great postgraduate institution. Plainly this great scholar kept alive a native ability to go to the core of a problem and solve it with due regard to the particulars of its scene as well as upon the basis of theory and the past. If there is a quarrel between scholarship and practical affairs its source would seem to reside in the quality of the student rather than in any weakness of learning itself. During his many years at Columbia the tall, commanding figure of Goodnow was a familiar sight in the club-house. As in the case of too many a good Centurion, the club lost heavily by his departure from the city; but he remains for those who knew him as delightful a companion as he was distinguished in his long career.

Geoffrey Parsons
1939 Century Memorials