SKETCH OF JOSEPH LOVERING. 691 



them having any knowledge of the subject. He was afterward 

 fitted for college under his pastor, the Rev. Dr. James Walker, 

 subsequently Professor and President of Harvard University, to 

 whom he recited daily, entered the sophomore class at Harvard 

 in 1830, and was graduated in 1833. He entered the Divinity 

 School in Cambridge in the fall of 1834, and remained there two 

 years, but was practically employed in teaching almost constantly 

 after graduation : in the first year, in a small private school in 

 Charlestown ; in 1834-'35, as assistant to Prof. Peirce in the in- 

 struction of the college classes in mathematics; in 1835-'36, as 

 proctor and instructor in mathematics; in 1836-'37, as tutor in 

 mathematics and lecturer in natural philosophy ; and from 1838 

 to 1888, as Hollis Professor of Mathematics and Natural Philoso- 

 phy. Retiring from this active professorship after fifty years 

 of service, he became, as he still is, Hollis Professor Emeritus. 

 He acted as Regent in 1853-'54 during Prof. Felton's absence in 

 Europe ; succeeded to that office in 1857, and held it till 1870 ; but 

 passed a year's leave of absence — given to him in consideration of 

 his long and uninterrupted services to the college — in 1868-'69, in 

 Europe. When the Jefferson Physical Laboratory was opened 

 in 1884, he was appointed its director, and during the four years 

 of his administration made annual reports of its activities. 



While his college duties demanded the largest share of his 

 time and his best thoughts, he found and improved opportunities 

 to make a good record of other work — all for the increase and 

 dissemination of knowledge. Among these extra-collegiate exer- 

 cises were nine courses, of twelve lectures each, and each lecture 

 delivered to two different audiences in the earlier years, on 

 astronomy and physics, at the Lowell Institute ; shorter courses 

 of lectures at the Smithsonian Institution, the Peabody Institute 

 of Baltimore, and the Charitable Mechanics' Institution of Boston ; 

 and single lectures in different towns and cities in New England. 

 He edited, in 1842, at the request of the author, a new edition of 

 Farrar's " Electricity and Magnetism." One of his essays on the 

 aurora borealis, in the " Memoirs " of the American Academy of 

 Arts and Sciences, fills a thick quarto volume. Other memoirs, 

 on terrestrial magnetism, the aurora, the determination of trans- 

 atlantic longitudes, etc., published in the same series, attest the 

 fertility of his researches. 



As Permanent Secretary of the American Association for the 

 Advancement of Science, from 1854 to 1873, Prof. Lovering edited 

 fifteen volumes of its "Proceedings." Retiring from this office 

 on being elected President of the Association for 1873, he put 

 upon record that, when he entered upon its duties at the eighth 

 meeting of the Association, the body had an annual income of 

 only a few hundred dollars, and was dependent upon the gener- 



