User:Remember
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I sincerly am just trying to make this a better Encyclopedia. Any advice is welcome. Thanks. Remember
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[edit] Pages that I think are interestingBelow are a series of wikipedia pages that I think are interesting:
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[edit] SandboxSmith entered the University of Glasgow when he was fourteen and studied moral philosophy under Francis Hutcheson.[1] Here he developed his passion for liberty, reason, and free speech. In 1740, Smith was awarded the Snell exhibition and entered Balliol College, Oxford. From all accounts, Smith did think much of the teaching at Oxford. Commenting on his schooling, William Robert Scott said "the Oxford of his time gave little if any help towards what was to be his lifework," In Book V, Chapter II of his Wealth of Nations, Smith wrote: "In the University of Oxford, the greater part of the public professors have, for these many years, given up altogether even the pretence of teaching". Smith is reported to have complained to friends that while at Oxford college officials once detected him reading a copy of David Hume's Treatise on Human Nature and as a result, the book confiscated and he was punished severely. New Ideas page 12. Rae at 24 [2]. In Book V of The Wealth of Nations, Smith comments 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 made the income of professors independent of their ability to attract students, and to the fact that distinguished men of letters could make an even more comfortable living as ministers of the Church of England. Smith did, however, take the opportunity while at Oxford to use its large library to teach himself by reading copious amounts of books in many subjects and in different languages. Rae at 22. Nevertheless, besides Smith's ability to study on his own, his time at Oxford did not seem to be a happy one according to his letters from the time. Rae at 24-25. Smith left the university in 1746. [edit] Personal characterNot much is known about Smith's personal views beyond what can be deduced from his published works. His personal papers were destroyed after his death.[2] He never married[3] and seems to have maintained a close relationship with his mother, with whom he lived after his return from France and who died six years before his own death.[4] Contemporary accounts describe Smith as an eccentric but benevolent intellectual, comically absent minded, with peculiar habits of speech and gait and a smile of "inexpressible benignity."[5] Smith is often described as a prototypical absent-minded professor.[6] He is reported to have had books and papers stacked up in his study, with a habit he developed during childhood of speaking to himself and smiling in rapt conversation with invisible companions.[6] Various anecdotes have discussed his absentminded nature. He supposedly fell into a tanning pit while talking with a friend. Another episode records that he put bread and butter into a teapot, drank the concoction, and declared it to be the worst cup of tea he ever had. In another example, Smith went out walking and daydreaming in his nightgown and ended up several miles outside town before he realized where he was.[6] Smith is reported to have been an odd-looking fellow. One author stated that Smith "had a large nose, bulging eyes, a protruding lower lip, a nervous twitch and a speech impediment." New Ideas 12. Smith is reported to have ackowledged his looks at one point saying "I am a beau in nothing but my books." New Ideas 12.
[edit] Early YearsImage:HumanNewborn.JPG|right|thumb|Baby M's magnificant birth [edit] References
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