Adam Smith’s University of Glasgow years were his life’s ‘most useful, happiest & honourable period’

A letter from Adam Smith to his mother in which he requests her to “send some stockings”. They were very close and lived together for most of Smith’s life. (Photo courtesy: University of Glasgow, Glasgow)

Adam Smith (1723-1790) spent a large part of his life in the University of Glasgow — from being a young student, to returning as a highly respected lecturer, and was eventually appointed to the position of Rector. In a telephonic interview, Professor Graeme Roy, professor in Economics and dean of External Engagement in the College of Social Sciences at the University of Glasgow, talks of Smith’s continued legacy and the lores about Smith the student and the teacher.

The Gilbert Scott Building of the University of Glasgow where Adam Smith enrolled as a student & later returned to the university as a professor (Photograph courtesy: University of Glasgow, Glasgow)

“At the University of Glasgow, the fourth oldest university in the United Kingdom, the first question every Adam Smith student has to answer is ‘What is wealth?’ Before Smith, wealth was synonymous with gold but after the Industrial Revolution, the definition of wealth changed and Smith completely redefined it.” Thus began the conversation with Professor Graeme Smith, Dean of External Engagement in the College of Social Sciences at the University of Glasgow.

Professor Roy goes back in time — 286 years — to the day in October of 1737, when Smith, then barely 14, joined the University as a student entering directly into second year due to his exceptional Latin skills. He studied logic, metaphysics, mathematics, Newtonian physics and moral philosophy — a fairly standard set of subjects at the time.

Professor Graeme Roy in front of the statue of Adam Smith in the University of Glasgow. (Photo courtesy: University of Glasgow, Glasgow)

As a student, Smith was noted for “his studious disposition, his love of reading and his power of memory.” The arts curriculum at that time extended over five sessions but Smith did not complete the course required for a degree, In the three sessions that he attended, Smith took classes in Latin, Greek, Mathematics, and Moral Philosophy.

Smith was a student at the University until 1740 and returned to the campus in 1751 first as Professor of Logic and then as Professor of Moral Philosophy. During the 13 years of his active academic work in the University, Smith also served several administrative posts, including Quaestor (Treasurer), responsible for buying books for the Library, from 1758 to 1760. The University still has Smith’s handwritten receipts for funds received for the library.

In 1762, the University of Glasgow awarded Adam Smith an honorary Doctorate in Law. (Photo courtesy: University of Glasgow, Glasgow)

During his time, there were barely 300 students at Glasgow College and the Moral Philosophy chair never had more than 80 or 90 in the public class and 20 in the private. The College sessions were spread between October 10 and June 10; Smith’s public classes were held from 7.30 to 8.30 am. At 11 am, Smith often spent an hour deliberating on the lecture he delivered in the morning.

A copy of an early edition of Adam Smith’s book The Theory of Moral Sentiments (Photo courtesy: University of Glasgow, Glasgow)

“As a teacher, Smith is remembered as an amenable and sometimes quirky personality. He was sometimes described as being a little bit absent-minded and had an aura of always being in profound thought,” Prof Roy added.

In his book, Life of Adam Smith (1895), John Rae talks of Smith being “extremely accessible, and was even in the habit of seeking out the abler men among them, inviting them to his house, discussing with them the subjects of his lectures or any other subject, and entering sympathetically into their views and plans of life. In delivering his lectures he trusted almost entirely to extemporary elocution. His manner, though not graceful, was plain and unaffected, and as he seemed to be always interested in the subject, he never failed to interest his hearers”.

Smith had a peculiar way of delivering lectures. In his biography, Rae quotes Smith’s own description of that quirk. “During one whole session, a certain student with a plain but expressive countenance was of great use to me in judging of my success. He sat conspicuously in front of a pillar: I had him constantly under my eye. If he leant forward to listen all was right, and I knew that I had the ear of my class; but if he leant back in an attitude of listlessness I felt at once that all was wrong, and that I must change either the subject or the style of my address.”

Smith never married and during his 13 years at the University, he changed three houses within the campus, one of them being a mansion in Professor’s Court which was considered very grand by the local populace. Smith’s regular income from his class work did not exceed £170 a year, so he kept an occasional boarder in his house for an extra buck.

“The salary might seem trifle but the University tradition was to provide accommodation to the teaching faculty, hence the salary was decent enough. Then, the teachers dressed formally and often rode on horseback,” Professor Roy added.

The Matriculation record of Adam Smith. (Photo courtesy: University of Glasgow, Glasgow)

Smith described his time in the University "as by far the most useful and therefore by far the happiest and most honourable period" of his life.

It is the 300th birth anniversary year of Adam Smith, and to this day, the man, his thoughts and his presence still figure prominently on the campus of the University of Glasgow — his name on the University’s Memorial Gate, to the Adam Smith Chair in Political Economy, and the triple-accredited Adam Smith Business School. Of course, the stories of Adam Smith as a student and as a teacher!

Title page of the first edition of 'The Wealth of Nations' published in March, 1776. (Photo courtesy: University of Glasgow, Glasgow)

Did you know these University of Glasgow facts?

• Founded by the papal bull of 1451, the University of Glasgow is the fourth oldest university in the United Kingdom.
• Scotland’s first female medical graduates completed their degrees here in 1894.
• The world’s first ultrasound images of a foetus were published by Glasgow Professor Ian Donald in 1958.
• In 1840, the University became the first university in the UK to appoint a Professor of Engineering.
• In 1881, eminent Glasgow Professor of Natural Philosophy, William Thomson, later Lord Kelvin, created one of the first houses in the world to be fully lit by electricity on the University campus.
• In 1896, the world's first hospital X-ray department is opened at Glasgow's Royal Infirmary by graduate John McIntyre.
• In 1957, it was the first university in Scotland to have an electronic computer.