To the Editor:
Dr. Melville J. Herskovitz, the author of the biographical 9tudy of Franz Boas that I reviewed in your pages (March), has written to me to protest two statements that I made in the review. The first is that Boas sometimes struck his students, and on checking my sources I find that I have been taken in by malicious gossip, and consequently wish to withdraw the statement and to apologize for it. The second is that Boas believed Jews to be especially gifted linguistically, and here I still stand by the famous Boas student who so informed me in confidence, although Dr. Herskovitz’s denial that Boas held or was capable of holding any such prejudice should certainly be put on the record.
Stanley Edgar Hyman
North Bennington, Vermont
_____________