In the summer of 1891, Robinson was appointed Lecturer of European history at what then was called the Wharton School of Finance, University of Pennsylvania.

In 1895, he moved to Columbia University as a full professor, where he mentored numerous students who went on to become influential leaders in various fields, notably professorships around the United States.

(Harry Elmer Barnes)[8] Robinson's book, The Mind in the Making: The Relation of Intelligence to Social Reform (1921), was a bestseller, introducing a generation of readers to the intellectual world of higher education.

And if Mr. Robinson had exercised his undoubted gifts of vivacity and apparent lucidity in these fields, I would have been the last to cavil at the crudities and superficialities inseparable from all such endeavors.

But he makes his appeal as a critical thinker and a lifelong student of history, and it is therefore fair to remind him of what, in spite of the complaisance of American reviewing, he probably knows – that in the judgment of those whom he once would have regarded as his peers he is fast forfeiting his claim to the title of historian by his reckless disregard of the warning historia scribitur ad narrandum, non ad probadum[10] [history is written in the narrative, not proven].

Books Articles Historian Jay Green, in 1999, stated: From his innovations in historical methodology and research to his revisions of secondary and undergraduate pedagogy, Robinson endeavored to reform the modern study of history, making it relevant and useful to contemporary peoples.