974 
GARDINER GREENE HUBBARD. 
In 1883 Gardiner Greene Hubbard and 
Alexander Graham Bell founded this Jour- 
NAL. It was first published at Cambridge 
by Moses King, and its first editor was 8. 
H. Seudder. The magazine was designed 
to be a means of communication between 
scientific men of America as a bearer of 
scientific news, an agency for the announce- 
ment of scientific discoveries and a forum 
for scientific discussion. It was not in- 
tended as a business enterprise, but it was 
hoped to establish it on a sure foundation 
as a gift to American scientific men. The 
death of Mr. Hubbard was announced in 
the last week’sissue. As one of the original 
board of directors for the JouRNAL it may 
be appropriate for us to recount some of his 
achievements in the interests of scientific 
affairs. 
Mr. Hubbard was born in Boston on the 
25th of August, 1822. He came of a 
scholarly ancestry, his father, Samuel, 
being an alumnus of Yale, and a Doctor of 
Laws from Yale, Dartmouth and Harvard, 
an accomplished lawyer, and a member of 
the Supreme Court of Massachusetts. The 
family is English, its first representative in 
America being William Hubbard, a gradu- 
ate of Harvard in 1642 and known as an 
early historian of New England. Mr. 
Hubbard himself was graduated at Dart- 
mouth in the class of 1841, studied law at 
Cambridge, and was admitted to the bar in 
1843, when he entered the office of Benja- 
min R. Curtis and remained with the firm 
until Mr. Curtis was elevated to the Su- 
preme Bench of the United States. Mr. 
Hubbard continued to practice his profes- 
sion in Boston for more than twenty years, 
and subsequently in Washington for five 
years. The degree of Doctor of Laws was 
conferred on him by Dartmouth and by 
Columbian University. His career as a 
lawyer was eminently distinguished, al- 
though it terminated twenty years ago, at 
SCIENCE. 
[N. S. Vou. VI. No. 157. 
which time he was drawn into more active 
public life. 
It is not Mr. Hubbard’s legal experience 
of which we shall speak, but of the réle 
which he played in certain public affairs. 
and for which he will long be remembered. 
In 1860 he was led by the result of a severe 
illness in one of his children to investigate 
the possibility of teaching the deaf to speak. 
At this time there were two systems of in- 
struction for deaf children prevailing in | 
Europe—gesture language and oral speech. 
In 1803 Francis Greene, a merchant of 
Boston who had a deaf child, thus became 
interested in the education of the deaf and 
made some study of the oral system. A 
memorial tablet has just been erected to 
Greene in Boston. In 1844 Horace Mann 
went to Europe and made a special study 
of the subject as it was practiced in Ger- 
many, and on his return attempted to in- 
troduce the system in America. About 
the same time the philanthropist Howe, 
who was the teacher of Laura Bridgeman, 
became interested in the same subject. An 
account of the case was published by the 
Smithsonian Institution. During this epoch 
the wife of Governor Lippett, of Rhode Is- 
land, whose child was deaf, attempted to 
teach the oral method, and about the same 
time Mr. Hubbard, whose little daughter 
had been rendered deaf by severe illness, 
became interested in oral speech, and by 
him Miss Rogers was induced to open a 
school of this character at Chelmsford, near 
Boston. Mr. Hubbard advertised for pupils. 
for her school and supported it with his. 
own means. The pupils here assembled 
made rapid progress, when Mr. Hubbard 
applied to the Legislature for a charter for 
the school. In the first instance it was re- 
fused ; the chairman of the committee, him- 
self having a deaf child, was the champion 
of sign language. Mr. Hubbard was not 
discouraged; he still pressed the subject 
on the public and enlisted those who 
