36 GARDINER GREENE HUBBARD 



that led him to cast such a wealth of thought and labor into the 

 National Geographic Societ}^, the beloved child of his old age. 

 He carried it daily upon his heart. He planned for it con- 

 stantly. He was never too busy or too weaiy to consult and 

 act for its welfare. He had willing and efficient helpers ; but 

 no one will be more quick than they to say that the President 

 made it what it was, easily the leading organization of its kind 

 in the United States. The estimation in which he was held 

 among the scientific men of the National Capital is shown by 

 the fact that he was thrice elected President of the Joint Com- 

 mission of the Scientific Societies of Washington, and held that 

 honorable position from the formal organization of the Commis- 

 sion in 1895 until his death. 



But, if not a technical scientist, Mr Hubbard's intense sym- 

 pathy with science was supplemented by a wide and far from 

 inaccurate knowledge". He was a close student of the electric, 

 or magnetic, telegraph, and the late president of the Western 

 Union Company said he had done more than any other man to 

 make the service of that great corporation popularly available. 

 His capacities in such directions were widely recognized, and 

 for many years he was first vice-president of the American Asso- 

 ciation of Inventors and Manufacturers. One of his last labors 

 was filling the semi-scientific position of Commissioner of Awards 

 at the Tennessee Exposition. At the cost of immense care and 

 very wide and protracted correspondence he formed his jury of 

 fifty experts, and then spent three busy weeks in Nashville in 

 directing and supervising their labors. So highly was his work 

 appreciated that when death came there lay upon his desk an 

 invitation to do the same thing next year at Omaha. 



It was this scientific leaning, combined with a fine commercial 

 talent and matured business judgment, that enabled him to ren- 

 der to the telephone that inestimable service by which, perhaps, 

 he will be most wideby known and longest remembered. In no 

 sense its inventor, Mr Hubbard's unfaltering faith in its possi- 

 bilities fitted him to take this product of the splendid genius of 

 his son-in-law, Professor Bell, and make it practicably available 

 and commercially profitable. When the invention — one of the 

 greatest of the century — was to all intents and purposes com- 

 plete, it had brought with it an enormous task. "A new art was 

 to be taught to the world, a new industry created, business and 

 social methods revolutionized." Mr Hubbard was the man for 

 the hour. " It does speak." cried Sir William Thomson ; and 

 Mr Hubbard added, " I will make the world hear it." He did. 

 What men thought a toy he showed to be a machine of price- 



