To most U.S. citizens nothing could be more British than the toploftical Encyclopaedia Britannica. Yet for more than 20 years the Britannica has been controlled by the world's biggest mail-order house, Chicago's Sears, Roebuck & Co.
Last week University of Chicago President Robert Maynard Hutchins announced that Sears had given the Britannica to his university. The transfer itself was logical enough: members of Chicago's philanthropic Rosenwald family, identified with Sears, Roebuck for half a century, have long been generous supporters of the university. Onetime Chairman Julius Rosenwald was responsible for Sears's acquisition...
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