OF ARTS AND SCIENCES. 837 



young man, and through our long acquaintance he did not seem to age 

 until within the few last years. Of course such an impression largely 

 arises from the constancy of the mutual relations of men growing old 

 together ; but after making all allowance for the point of view, I think 

 it will still appear that our colleague, although a very young old man, 

 was a very old young man. As I look back I think this arose very 

 much from the absence of that nervous susceptibility which is such a 

 hindrance to most of us, and greatly increases the friction under which 

 we work. Professor Lovering's imperturbability was notorious with 

 all the graduates of the College during the last half-century. When 

 he lectured he never showed the least emotion, and in the class-room 

 his control of the muscles of his countenance was extraordinary. Not 

 many years after the period I have mentioned, I passed through the 

 regular course in Physics at our College, and I can see the Professor 

 now, sitting like an inquisitor on an elevated chair overlooking the 

 class, with his spectacles over the forehead, with the text-book, to 

 which he never referred, on the desk before him, and directing his 

 questions to one man after another in the clearest but most incisive 

 terms, and in the exact order of the book, without hesitation or failure 

 of memory. Each student was expected to take up the subject where 

 the last left it, and I still wonder at the feats of memory which en- 

 abled some of the class to repeat mathematical formulas, even differ- 

 ential equations, without the remotest intelligent knowledge of their 

 meaning. But although it was obvious that the Professor followed 

 every detail and noticed every inaccuracy, yet the most absurd blun- 

 ders and ridiculous incongruities never elicited a smile, or were any 

 further noticed than by calling up the next man. No direct instruc- 

 tion, not even any elucidation of the book, was ever attempted. We 

 did learn the book so far as it was intelligible to us, but nothing more. 

 We must not, however, judge such exercises by our present standards. 

 This formalism was the fashion in the education of the time, and the 

 all but universal rule in the College. 



The dulness of the recitations was, however, at times enlivened by 

 the dry humor for which Professor Lovering was so noted among his 

 friends. An incident which he was fond of telling himself is very 

 characteristic, and recalls vividly those old college days. In the text 

 of Herschel's Astronomy, which was recited verbatim for many years 

 in the well known class-room at the south end of University Hall at 

 Cambridge, there is quite a full description of the seven asteroids 

 known at that time, and then follows a sentence something like this : 

 " Besides these seven, others will probably be discovered." One day 

 vol. xxvu. (n. 8. xix.) 22 



