ABSTRACT
it is indeed fitting that an occasional pilgrim should pass between Glasgow and Kirkcaldy. For we have the high privilege of sharing our most distinguished son and citizen. When I lecture on Adam Smith to each new class at the University, I begin by telling them that no citizen of Glasgow has ever influenced world practice and opinion so deeply, and so for good, as did Adam Smith. The young people of today often look rather surprised: the students of this physics-chemistry-ridden age think of Kelvin and James Watt. I have even met people from Kirkcaldy who have raised an eyebrow at my enthusiasm. We, however, in Glasgow owe you still more. For in Patrick Gillespie you gave us one of our more forceful Principals of the seventeenth century. And, with all our cities, we are in your debt for Adam architecture, especially for Robert Adam, a schoolfellow of Adam Smith in Kirkcaldy.
