742 A MEMOIR OF ELIAS LOOMIS. 



he frequently said that in liis early days he never had a thought of 

 asking what subjects he was most fond of, but studied what he was told 

 to study. 



At the age of 14 he was examined and was admitted to Yale College, 

 but owing to feeble health he waited another year before actually en- 

 tering a class. In college he appears to have been about equally pro- 

 ficient in all of the studies, taking a good rank as a scholar, and main- 

 taining it through his college course. President Porter remembers well 

 the retiring demeanor of the young student, and his concise and often 

 monosyllabic expressions, peculiarities which he retained through life. 

 During his junior and senior years he roomed with Alfred E. Perkins, 

 whose bequest was the first large endowment of the college library. 

 He graduated in 1830. 



A few weeks before graduation he left New Haven and entered a 

 school, Mount Hope Institute, near Baltimore, to teach mathematics, 

 and he remained there for a year and a term. One of his classmates, the 

 late Mr. Cone of Hartford, said that Mr. Lcomis had intended to spjend 

 his life in teaching, and that it surprised him when he heard that his 

 purpose was abandoned, and that Mr. Loomis had gone, in the autumn 

 of 1831, to the Andover theological seminary with the distinct expecta- 

 tion of becoming a preacher. This new purpose was however again 

 changed, when a year later, he was appointed tutor in Yale College. A 

 vacancy in the tutorship in the May following (1833), and while not yet 

 22 years of age he returned to New Haven and entered upon the duties 

 of the office. Here he remained for 3 years and one term. In the 

 spring of 1836 he received the appointment to the chair of mathematics 

 and natural philosophy in Western Reserve College, at Hudson, Ohio. 

 He was allowed to spend the first year in Europe. He was therefore 

 during the larger part of the year 1836-'37 in Paris attending the lec- 

 tures of Biot, Poisson, Arago, Dulong, Pouillet, and others. He did 

 not visit Germany because of want of money. A long series of letters 

 written by him at this time aj)pearedin the Ohio Observer, and the con- 

 trast between England and France as he saw them, and the same 

 places as seen by the tourist to day is decidedly interesting. 



He purchased in London and Paris apparatus for his professorship 

 and the outfit for a small observatory, and in the autumn of 1837 began 

 his labors at Hudson. Here he remained for 7 years, maintaining with 

 unflagging perseverance both his work in teaching and his scientific 

 labors. In judging of this work at Hudson we must remember that he 

 was not with ])erfect surroundings. He was without an assistant and 

 without tiie counsel and encouragement of associates in Ins own branches 

 of science. The financial troubles which culminated in this country in 

 1837 were peculiarly severe upon the young and struggling college. 

 Money was almost unknown in business circles in Ohio, trade being 

 almost entirely in barter. In this way i)rincipally was i)aid so much of 

 the promised salary of $000 per annum as was not iu arrears. In one 



