378 JOSEPH LOVERING. 



upon his office, there was already in the possession of his department a 

 no inconsiderable number of philosophical instruments, some of which 

 had a real historical interest, but they did not meet the requirements of 

 a more modern science. Only a small annual appropriation could be 

 obtained for the expenses of his lectures ; but by carefully husband- 

 ing the resources, and doing all the mechanical work with his own 

 hands, he was able from time to time not only to purchase the indis- 

 pensable articles, but also to procure all the novelties as they appeared. 

 He judiciously used his large knowledge and judgment in the original 

 selection, and by constant watchfulness prevented the apparatus from 

 deteriorating, and thus during his long term of service he brought 

 together one of the most complete cabinets of physical apparatus in 

 this country. Nothing delighted him more than some new mode of 

 illustrating a recondite principle in a striking way, and every year, at 

 the meeting of the old Scientific Club of Cambridge he would delight 

 his associates also by bringing forward and explaining some such piece 

 of apparatus, and he rose to the highest point of enthusiasm when he 

 made it to appear that the paradoxes of science were no paradoxes at 

 all, but the necessary unfoldings of fundamental laws. 



Besides his uninterrupted work for the College, Professor Lovering 

 discharged other executive duties in which he exhibited his usual faith- 

 fulness and good judgment. From 1854 to 1873 he was the Perma- 

 nent Secretary of the American Association for the Advancement of 

 Science, — an office which requires an unusual amount of executive 

 skill, besides tact and affability. On the Permanent Secretary de- 

 volve the arrangements for the annual meeting, the collection and dis- 

 bursement of the funds, and the publication of the yearly volume of 

 Proceedings. It is all important that he should commend the Asso- 

 ciation to the successive communities where it meets, and commend 

 himself to the local committees. All this service Professor Lovering 

 rendered with great success, and carried the society through the dis- 

 integrating period of the Civil War, when its continued life seemed 

 impossible, and so skilfully managed its finances as not only to print 

 a volume of Proceedings every year, but also to leave in the treasury 

 at the end of his term of office a valuable stock of publications and 

 a goodly cash balance. On resigning this office, Mr. Lovering was 

 elected President of the Association, and served as such at the Port- 

 land meeting of 1873. Both his reception and his retiring addresses 

 were admirable in thought as well as in spirit, and are excellent 

 examples of the best use of idealism in science. 



In the first of these he said : " It is impossible for the man of 



