However, Robert still sat in on classes at the University of Glasgow and received an unofficial education and a formal mentor from Francis Hutcheson.
Robert had initially started the press, however Andrew Foulis had joined in on the venture to form a partnership after spending 1738 and 1739 in England and France together.
In Paris, Andrew and Robert had found some extraordinary books that they had purchased, imported back to England and then sold them for a profit; hence the beginning of their lucrative and prestigious partnership.
In 1741, Foulis' brother Robert had established the bookshop at Glasgow; this was a full ten years prior to John Smith opening his first shop in the city.
The brothers had also published more practical and less extravagant editions of the classics and works from contemporary writers, including their mentor Francis Hutcheson.
According to Richard B. Sher and Andrew Hooks the brothers had a goal and vision that they hoped their publishing would fulfill; "to translate into print culture the values of the classical, aesthetic, moralistic, Hutchesonian Enlightenment in Glasgow."
The Foulis Presses continued to import rare editions of the classics and purchase manuscripts with promising upside from mainland Europe and in turn sold them to the local scholars and collectors.
[1] Their publications were famous both for beauty and accuracy; the 554 works they printed included editions of Horace, Homer, Milton, and Thomas Gray.