HUBER, VICTOR AIME: Social reformer; b. at Stuttgart Mar. 10, 1800; d. at Wernigerode (40 m. s.w. of Magdeburg) July 19, 1869. After private instruction, he took up the study of medicine, languages, and history at Göttingen. Although baptized in the Roman Catholic Church, he was indifferent toward all confessions and without religious convictions. When twenty years old he passed his medical examination at Würzburg. To complete his studies he went to Paris, where he enjoyed the friendship of Humboldt, Cuvier, Benjamin Constant, Lafayette, and others. In the course of time he became dissatisfied with the medical profession. Personal experiences and contact with many famous men changed his religious and social views and brought him nearer to Christianity. In 1828 he became teacher in the business school of Bremen. In 1833 he was appointed professor of modern philology at Rostock, in 1836 at Marburg. A call to Berlin in 1843 developed the ideals of politics and social reform to which his nature inclined him.
On account of his views regarding Church and politics Huber was received coldly, and as a teacher he was not very successful; so he was thrown chiefly upon writing. In 1845 he edited a periodical called Janus, Jahrbücher deutscher Gesinnung, Bildung and That, but with little success. Moreover, the year 1848 made him lose his faith in a regeneration of monarchy, and he was never reconciled with the idea of constitutional government. The cardinal points of his program were association and colonization. The working classes should be organized according to their occupations upon the material basis of a common property which was to be newly produced by them and upon the religious and moral foundations which Christian education offers according to the needs and customs of each class of people. If a certain locality possessed more people than it could support, he proposed a scheme of colonization by transplanting the surplus into another locality. In their efforts to redeem themselves the laboring classes should be assisted by the ruling classes. Huber's efforts at practical realization of his ideas in Berlin were met by indolence and indifference on the part both of the conservative party and of the laboring classes, and church people did not see any importance in his scheme for the building up of congregations. Isolated from all his friends, Huber left Berlin in 1851 and settled at Wernigerode, where he tried his ideals on a smaller scale, but also without sucoees. His most prominent works are Rsiaebriefe (2 vols., Hamburg, 1865); Socials Frayen
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Bibliography: & Elvere, Vidor AimE Huber, 2 vols., Bremen, 1872-74; E. JBger, Vidor Aims Hub-, Berlin, 1880; ADB. mi. 249.
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