Still in the throes of re-conversion, the History Department filled two of its empty chairs last week by the appointment of Clarence Crane Brinton '19 to the McLean Professorship in Ancient and Modern History, and Frederick Merk, chairman of the Department, as Gurney Professor of History and Political Science.

The McLean chair, being awarded to Professor Brinton, is one of the oldest in the University; its previous holders include Jared Spark, 1815, also a president of the College, and Ephraim Whitman Gurney '52, for whom the Gurney chair is named. The last McLean Professor was William Scott Ferguson, who became an emeritus last spring.

Merk Succeeds Merriman

Professor Merk well-known to undergraduates as part of the Schlesinger-Merk-Buck team which teaches History 5, is the successor of two of the University's most famous historians. His immediate predecessors were the mediaevalist Charles Homer Haskins '08 and Roger Bigelow Merriman '96.

Among Professor Brinton's many historical works are: "English Political Thought in the Nineteenth Century," "A Decade of Revolution," "The Lives of Talleyrand," "The Anatomy of Revolution," and "Nietzsche." His most recent book is the first in a series on American foreign relations: "The United States and Britain."

Professor Merk has written "Fur Trade and the Empire" and collaborated with F. J. Turner on "A List of References on the History of the West."