October 13, 1916] 



SCIENCE 



531 



Professor Willard D. Fisher has been ap- 

 pointed professor of economics and director of 

 the graduate division of business administra- 

 tion. 



Dr. John C. Shedd, who for the past year 

 has been dean of Olivet College and for seven 

 years head of the physics department, has en- 

 tered upon his work as head of the physics de- 

 partment of Occidental College, Los Angeles. 



Dr. M. C. Tanquary, zoologist on the Crock- 

 erland Arctic Expedition, returned to this 

 country early in the summer and has recently 

 been appointed assistant professor of entomol- 

 ogy in the Kansas State Agricultural College. 

 Mr. A. H. Hersh, of Princeton University, has 

 been appointed instructor in zoology to suc- 

 ceed Mr. Ray Allen, who has accepted a posi- 

 tion in Cornell University. 



The following laboratory appointments have 

 been made in the laboratories of the Univer- 

 sity and Bellevue Hospital Medical College: 

 P. V. Prewitt, A.M. (Missouri), instructor in 

 physiology; E. P. Hoskins, Ph.D. (Minne- 

 sota), instructor in anatomy, and J. L. Conel, 

 Ph.D. (Illinois), instructor in anatomy. 



Dr. L. V. Heilbrun has been appointed to 

 an instructorship in microscopic anatomy in 

 the college of medicine of the University of 

 Illinois. Last year he was associate in zool- 

 ogy at the University of Chicago. 



Dr. Harlan L. Trumbull, instructor in 

 chemistry in the University of Washington, 

 has been promoted to be assistant professor. 



Dr. Frederic A. Besley has been appointed 

 professor of surgery in Northwestern Univer- 

 sity Medical School and a member of the at- 

 tending surgical staff at Mercy Hospital. 



C. F. Burger has been appointed instructor 

 in plant pathology in the graduate school of 

 tropical agriculture of the University of Cali- 

 fornia at Riverside, and Alfred Free Swain, 

 formerly of Montana State College and of 

 Stanford University, assistant in entomology 

 there. Ralph Patterson Royce, formerly live- 

 stock editor of the Missouri Farmer, has been 

 appointed instructor in animal husbandry at 

 the University of California Farm. 



Dr. James E. Bell, instructor in chemistry 

 in the University of Washington, has been 

 called as associate professor to Throop Insti- 

 tute of Technology, Pasadena, Calif., where 

 he will have charge of the work in inorganic 

 chemistry. 



DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE 



DIFFUSION VS. INDEPENDENT ORIGIN: A RE- 

 JOINDER TO PROFESSOR G. ELLIOT 

 SMITH 



In the " crude sketch of views " published in 

 Science for August 11, 1916, Professor Elliot 

 Smith attempts to discredit a method in 

 ethnology which he regards as dogmatic and 

 to substitute for it another which he appar- 

 ently regards as critical. The issue is the 

 time-honored one of diffusion vs. independent 

 development in culture. 



It seems to the writer that the picture of the 

 modus operandi of " most modern ethnolo- 

 gists " drawn in the initial paragraphs of Pro- 

 fessor Smith's sketch is an altogether errone- 

 ous one. Without doubt the writers of the 

 classical period of English anthropology often 

 abused the concepts of " independent origin " 

 and "psychic unity of mankind." Of them 

 may be mentioned Spencer, Tylor, Lubbock, 

 Frazer, Lang. The concept of the diffusion of 

 culture through historic contact was, how- 

 ever, by no means foreign even to these think- 

 ers, although they may have neglected to make 

 sufficient use of it in their theoretical con- 

 structions. Tylor, in particular, was thor- 

 oughly conversant with the problems and 

 manifold difficulties involved in the phenom- 

 ena of cultural diffusion. As to the modern 

 ethnologists, it would be hard indeed to men- 

 tion one who has not at some time of his 

 career grappled with the problem of diffusion 

 vs. independent development, in material cul- 

 ture, art, religion, social customs. Nor is 

 there one who in his interpretative attempts 

 would make use of the concepts of " psychic 

 unity " and " independent origin " to the ex- 

 clusion of those of " diffusion " and " historic 

 contact." 



On the other hand, a school of thinkers has 

 arisen within relatively recent years, who, fol- 

 lowing in the lead of Ratzel, have, however, 



