Adam Smith begins delivering public lectures in…

1756 CE to 1767 CE

Adam Smith begins delivering public lectures in 1748 in Edinburgh, sponsored by the Philosophical Society of Edinburgh under the patronage of Lord Kames.

His lecture topics include rhetoric and belles-lettres, and later the subject of "the progress of opulence".

On this latter topic, he first expounds his economic philosophy of "the obvious and simple system of natural liberty".

While Smith is not adept at public speaking, his lectures meet with success.

Best known for his 1776 work The Wealth of Nations, Smith was born in Kirkcaldy, in the County of Fife, Scotland.

His father, also Adam Smith, is a Scottish Writer to the Signet (senior solicitor), advocate, and prosecutor (Judge Advocate) and also serves as comptroller of the Customs in Kirkcaldy.

In 1720 he married Margaret Douglas, daughter of the landed Robert Douglas of Strathendry, also in Fife; he died two months before his son Adam he was born.

The date of Smith's baptism into the Church of Scotland at Kirkcaldy was 5, June 1723, and this has often been treated as if it were also his date of birth, which is unknown.

Although few events in Smith's early childhood are known, the Scottish journalist John Rae, Smith's biographer, recorded that Smith was abducted by gypsies at the age of three and released when others went to rescue him.

Smith was close to his widowed mother, who probably encouraged him to pursue his scholarly ambitions.

He attended the Burgh School of Kirkcaldy from 1729 to 1737, where he learned Latin, mathematics, history, and writing.

Smith had entered the University of Glasgow when he was fourteen and studied moral philosophy under Francis Hutcheson.

Here, Smith developed his passion for liberty, reason, and free speech.

In 1740 Smith was the graduate scholar presented to undertake postgraduate studies at Balliol College, Oxford, under the Snell Exhibition.

Adam Smith considered the teaching at Glasgow to be far superior to that at Oxford, which he found intellectually stifling.

Smith is also reported to have complained to friends that Oxford officials once discovered him reading a copy of David Hume's Treatise on Human Nature, and they subsequently confiscated his book and punished him severely for reading it.

Smith nevertheless took the opportunity while at Oxford to teach himself several subjects by reading many books from the shelves of the large Bodleian Library.

When Smith was not studying on his own, his time at Oxford was not a happy one, according to his letters.

Near the end of his time there, Smith began suffering from shaking fits, probably the symptoms of a nervous breakdown.

He left Oxford University in 1746, before his scholarship ended.

In Book V of The Wealth of Nations, Smith will comment on the low quality of instruction and the meager intellectual activity at English universities, when compared to their Scottish counterparts.

He attributes this both to the rich endowments of the colleges at Oxford and Cambridge, which makes the income of professors independent of their ability to attract students, and to the fact that distinguished men of letters can make an even more comfortable living as ministers of the Church of England.