Why is Wundt, and not Fechner, considered the founder of the new psychology?
Fechner is credited for the implementation of measuring techniques to psychology. He was purely interested in unraveling the mystery, behind the interaction of mind and material world. He was not interested in founding a field of science.
Wundt is known as the founder of psychology. He developed psychology into a new discipline, which had its own journal. He was the first one to set up proper laboratories, conduct scheduled experiments and investigated areas, which would later become topics of healthy debates.
Wundt, introduced areas of study like attention, feeling, reaction, and perception. Even though Wundt was not the originator of the idea of experimental psychology, he is still credited as the founder. The answer lies in the definition of founder or founding of school.
The founding of school of thought is governed by the founder, and not the originator. There is a stark difference between these two. The originator is the creator of the idea, while the founder is the one who propagates that idea.
There is no doubt about the originators job but perhaps, the idea of selling it is more important. The propagation of the originators idea should be impactful. The founder need not have great scientific abilities or be a brilliant scientist. Founder requires prior knowledge of the material and promotional skills.