MR. SCHOLASTIC
Maurice R. Robinson '19 as presidentand publisher of Scholastic Magazines, Inc.,fills the responsibility of being teacherfor millions of American school children
EACH week " during the school year some 110,000 public, parochial, and private elementary and secondary schools receive packages through the mails containing current issues of one or more of the seventeen periodicals issued by Scholastic Magazines, Inc. of New York. These magazines, in turn, are distributed by the school teachers to nearly six million youngsters in grades one through twelve.
Founder, president and publisher of Scholastic Magazines is Maurice R. (for Richard) Robinson '19, a man who has devoted a lifetime to this enterprise which is generally recognized as one of the major influences in the education of American youth.
"I cannot recall a day," Mr. Robinson remarked recently, "when I did not look forward to the work that was waiting for me at my office."
This abundance of energy and zest (he still puts in a 60-hour week) and long experience in the highly volatile field of educational publications are the ingredients which Mr. Robinson parlayed from a little four-page weekly - The Western Pennsylvania Scholastic - which he founded in 1920, soon after graduation, to the complex, nationwide Scholastic Magazines operation of today. This operation now embraces seventeen magazines, a growing Scholastic Book Services which distributes selected paperbacks through six student book clubs, and various science, world affairs, and literary units plus assorted other educational services.
A year ago, when elected president of the American Textbook Publishers Institute, Mr. Robinson told the delegates, "I am not now and never have been, in the usually accepted sense of the word, a textbook publisher; nor do I intend to become one."
"I regard my efforts as largely being in the field of educational publications," he told us recently. "The primary objective of Scholastic Magazines and the affiliated book clubs is to present the clearest explanation of current affairs, the best contemporary thought and creative expression, and the most helpful guidance for adjustment to life, adapted to the understanding and interests of youth. Good citizens honestly differ on important public questions, and the young people of today need training under wise teachers to participate in solving these problems as the adult citizens of tomorrow. We therefore believe that all sides of these problems should be impartially discussed in the schools and in classroom magazines, with deep respect for facts and for logical thinking."
The idea of becoming a magazine editor and publisher first came to Mr. Robinson while he was a student at Dartmouth. A native of Wilkinsburg, Pennsylvania (just outside of Pittsburgh), where his family owned and operated a modest department store, Robinson entered Dartmouth just before World War I, then interrupted his studies to serve in the Army from 1917 until March 1919. Back in college, he spent much of his time with Raymond McPartlin '20 and Richard M. Pearson '20 (then editors of The Dartmouth) in developing plans for a magazine called College which they proposed to publish after graduation.
However, others were at work on the same idea, as they discovered in the spring of 1920 when announcement' was made of a new magazine, The Intercollegiate World, which was to appear in a matter of months with contents and format closely resembling the magazine the Dartmouth seniors hoped to publish. TheIntercollegiate World lasted two years, although the back section of it was later developed into the popular College Humor magazine.
Returning home after graduation with his dreams temporarily dashed, Robinson turned to writing publicity for the Pittsburgh Chamber of Commerce, but not for long. One summer day, while visiting in the office of the Superintendent of Schools in Pittsburgh, he noticed some wall charts showing projected increases in school enrollments, both locally and nationally.
"I felt immediately that here was a real opportunity to publish a magazine for high school students, a much greater potential than the college field," Robinson recalls. "I went home immediately, wrote to McPartlin and Pearson about the idea and within a few days McPartlin and I were busily at work planning and preparing our first issue. After the first few months, however, Ray had to find a job with steadier income. He joined the staff of the Manchester (N.H.) Unionand Leader and, in 1923, of the BostonGlobe, where he remained until his death in 1951."
On October 22, 1920 the inaugural issue of The Western Pennsylvania Scholastic was launched, with the purpose of covering the activities of some fifty Western Pennsylvania high schools, members of the Western Pennsylvania Intercollegiate Athletic League, for which Scholastic became the official organ.
Although the early issues were devoted primarily to social and athletic events, Robinson stated then that a major purpose was "to create admiration and respect for the scholar and the leader in academic work which will be commensurate with the honors given to athletes."
Two years later, in 1922, when Scholastic expanded to become a national magazine, prize story contests were already firmly established and later similar awards were established for student artists. The first issue of Scholastic containing all-student-written material appeared in 1925 and one of the prizes in the literary division went to a Miss Florence Liddell of Avalon (Pa.) High School, a young lady who, after graduation from Trinity College in Washington, went to work for Scholastic and in 1934 married Maurice Robinson. The Robinsons now live in Pelham, New York, and have five children - Richard (Harvard '5B) who after a year at St. Catherine's College, Cambridge University, and two years teaching English at Evanston (Ill.) Township High School is now on the Scholastic Magazines staff; Sue (Wellesley '61) who is an English teacher; Barbara, a recent student of Wellesley; Florence, who is a sophomore at Trinity College, Washington; and William, who is now attending Pelham High School.
Mr. Robinson has few interests outside of his personal family and the Scholastic family, although he is an ardent golfer. His broad interests in the field of education take him to Washington frequently, to work with the United States Office of Education. Indeed, John W. Studebaker, former U. S. Commissioner of Education, has for the past fifteen years been vicepresident and chairman of the editorial board of Scholastic Magazines.
There is not space to write in detail of the history and growth of Scholastic Magazines during the past 42 years, nor of the various men who, along with Robinson, were instrumental in its rapid rise in the publishing world. There were many dark days during the early years of development, when financing was almost impossible to obtain and payrolls were met only with great difficulty. By 1942, just at the start of World War 11, there were four magazines being issued - Scholastic, The Scholastic Coach, JuniorScholastic, and World Week. The real expansion came during the postwar period, in the years 1946-1960, when these publications were added: Practical English and Scholastic Teacher (1946), LiteraryCavalcade (1948), News Time (1952), Practical Home Economics (1952), Summer Time (1954), Co-Ed (1956), News Explorer (1957), Science World (1959), Science World - Junior Edition (1960), News Pilot, News Ranger, and News Trails (all 1960).
The first book club - Teen Age Book Club - in 1948 was a joint venture between Pocket Books, Inc. and Scholastic Magazines, but three years later it was purchased outright by Scholastic. Five other book clubs - Lucky Book Club, Arrow Book Club, Campus Book Club, Science World Book Club, and Reader's Choice - were all organized under the Scholastic imprint during the years 1958-1961.
Each of these clubs sells directly to youngsters through the school, usually with one student in each room assuming responsibility for taking orders and payments. Mr. Robinson carefully guards circulation figures for his book clubs as a "trade secret," although the combined circulation in 1959-60 for all paperbacks through some 80,000 clubs was unofficially reported at "several million."
Scholastic Magazines, Inc. is not public. Major stockholders who have voting control of the company are Mr. Robinson, G. Herbert McCracken, partner and another early pioneer of Scholastic, and the six children of the late Augustus K. Oliver of Pittsburgh, former chairman of the board and company treasurer from 1932 to 1947. Most of the remaining stock is owned by 61 career employees at all levels of the company from clerk to senior executive.
Nick Sandoe Jr. '45, now Associate Director of Development at Dartmouth, worked in the circulation department at Scholastic for two years after the war.
"Scholastic was beginning its postwar expansion at the time," Sandoe recalled, "but it was still small enough so that everybody could know everyone else. Robbie and several of his long-time associates took a personal interest in each employee and the result was a wonderful family kind of loyalty."
When we talked with Mr. Robinson last fall Scholastic Magazines had just opened a new order-processing and book-distributing center across the river in New Jersey and also was just beginning to move into new and larger office quarters in the Hippodrome Tower, at 44th and Sixth Avenue in Manhattan, where more than 200 of the 600 people who now work for Scholastic will be housed. Mr. Robinson was busy also on a report dealing with publishing in Russia, having recently returned from a trip there as a member of a six-man government team.
"It was a fascinating trip," he reported, "and all of us in the delegation concurred in some basic views.
"It is extremely difficult for a U. S. textbook publisher to visualize, despite its simplicity, the publishing procedure of the USSR. On the other hand, it was practically impossible for the Russian officials to begin to understand the intricacies of our own sales and distribution problems.
"The monolithic system of publishing existing in the USSR today is intended to further the interest of the State under plans approved by the State, and is far too impersonal to serve the interest of the reader. Different publishers, including the textbook firms, draw up annual master plans. These are then approved partially or in toto, and the paper is allotted to the printer who produces the books in a single annual printing. The finished books are bought outright by the state book distributors (Knigotorg).
"Editorial selection is almost entirely divorced from marketing considerations, thus eliminating, a vital access to historical and current experience. As a result the editorial process is removed from reality and innovations tend to become arbitrary. Strict adherence to master editorial plans in any case seriously restricts creativity.
"One textbook is published for each course; this assumes an evenness in the educational system which is obviously non-existent in an emerging society of diverse ethnic origins spread over a vast geographic area. Although about 190 million textbooks were printed in the Soviet Republic alone during 1961, no more than 80 to 85 basic titles are available, and many of these are reprints and revised editions.
"Finally, no American publisher could possibly be at home in the USSR system of publishing, with its confinements and its ground rules of control and censorship. The very life and spirit of publishing, as we know it, is alien to publishing in the USSR, so that despite many parallels and similarities between the two countries, in publishing they are worlds apart."
As the Scholastic enterprises move near the half-century mark there are big plans for the future. But Mr. Robinson is fully alert to the problems raised by rapid expansion. He told Publisher'sWeekly recently: "There is a danger in growing too fast. For example, we started the Scholastic literature units as an experiment, and they've been going pretty well. They're the first thing of ours to be sold like a textbook, and this means staffing up to handle adoptions."
Today the foreign market offers Scholastic perhaps its greatest challenge and opportunity. Scholastic is a minority stockholder in an English company now testing paperback book clubs like Scholastic's in British classrooms; and Scholastic Book Clubs have been operating extensively in Canada for the past several years through a wholly-owned subsidiary, Scholastic TAB Publications, Ltd.
Last fall while visiting Scholastic's headquarters in New York we chatted with Ernest Schwehr, who currently holds the title of public relations director. Schwehr's background and training, however, are chiefly in the area of foreign marketing, and it seems clear that Mr. Robinson and his company are casting appraising glances at international markets.
"Not only can Scholastic magazines and books fill a crying need for up-to-date teaching materials in many foreign countries today," Schwehr told us, "but - what is almost more important right now - they can play a vital role in presenting this country to the future citizens of the world."
Most men beginning their 68th year are looking forward to retirement, but Mr. Robinson goes busily on with his daily chores and with the Scholastic'programs for the future. That 50th anniversary year is just around the corner and by that time Scholastic may well be a world-wide operation.
If the school enrollment projections of 1920 made Mr. Robinson eager to get into the field of educational publishing, what must today's school enrollment studies do to the Scholastic planners? Only time will tell, but fortunately for millions of youngsters it's a good bet that Scholastic publications will be streaming into our nation's classrooms for years to come, and even more effectively doing their job of supplementing and enriching what is being taught to those who will be the adult citizens of tomorrow.
Photo by Kratovil. By permission of Business Week.
Some of the 17 Scholastic magazines read by school children each week.
Paperback book clubs for children in six age groups are asuccessful and growing part ofScholastic Magazines' program.
