Britannica's Birthday

Nobody seems to know the exact day, but this month the Encyclopedia Britannica celebrates its 175th birthday. The unique educational institution is not what it used to be. Even its nationality has changed with time. Founded in Scotland, the Britannica now belongs to the University of Chicago, to which it came as a gift from Sears, Roebuck (TIME, Feb. 1).

Britannica's first (three-volume) edition was issued by a three-man "society of gentlemen," was restricted to art and science, contained no biographical or historical pieces, brushed off Women in three words ("female of man"), was "uncertain" whether California, ". . . be a peninsula or an island."

The current (24-volume) Britannica contains more than 35,000,000 words on 41,000 topics, gives Women six separate articles, is now certain about California. The Britannica has been popularized. And if, as some critics feel, its scholarship has not its full earlier vigor, it has survived the mail-order interlude.

Says 49-year-old Editor Walter Yust: "They used to gather up a staff of editors and get out a new edition. Then the editorial staff would be fired and a sales staff hired. The sales staff would work for as many years as there was still a market. . . . Then the sales staff would be fired and a new editorial staff would be hired. Each new editorial staff would have its own revision methods. . . . The revisions weren't very thorough and there were always a lot of articles badly out of date."

Worth Two Cents. Credit for improving revision methods goes to Ohio-born, frog-voiced Elkin Harrison Powell, 54, president of Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc. since 1934, and Editor Yust, a patient, diligent stringbean of a Pennsylvanian who joined the staff in 1930. In 1939, Yust started a revision schedule under which every article would be scrutinized at least twice a decade. As helpers in this job he has University of Chicago graduate students, paid in the form of $1,000 scholarships.

Articles are written by experts, who get a scholar's rate of 2-c- a word. Included with the Britannica essays of Macaulay, Scott and Stevenson are eminent moderns: Henry Ford (Mass Production), Albert Einstein (Space-Time), Julian Sorell Huxley (Courtship of Animals), George Bernard Shaw--who accepted $68.40 for 3,420 words on Socialism.

New printings are now published about every eight months, with some 3,000 pages altered in each new printing. Sales have been boosted since 1939 by the publicity obtained on the Information Please radio program (sets are given to winners). Highest sales were in 1942: 21,000 sets. The cheapest set sells for $150, and more than 40% of all sales are to families earning less than $2,500 yearly.

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