Shocking reference

Dear Editor:

We were profoundly dismayed in reading Judy Wright’s article of “George Savory:  More than a Minister” (COURIER, April 5). While he may have had an unusual life, phrenology is a dangerous matter.  “The study of the structure of the skull to determine a person’s character and mental capacity” served as the basis for Hitler’s ideology of increasing the “Aryan” population in Germany.

While Savory had no way of knowing [about] the criminal uses to which phrenology would be put [to use] by the Nazis, for Judy Wright to write of it in 2008, as a kind of fascinating fad in history, without mentioning its frightful consequences, is shocking.

Eva Fleischner, Jeanne Audry Powers
Claremont