The Select Society

The Select Society imitated the academies which were then common in the larger French towns. It was partly:

• a debating society for discussing topics of the day
• a patriotic society for promoting Scotland’s arts, sciences, and manufactures.

The idea was first mooted by Allan Ramsay, the painter.

• He had travelled in France in 1739, with James Oswald, M.P.
• He was struck by some of the French institutions.

Smith was one of the first of Ramsay’s friends to be consulted about the suggestion.

• He threw himself so heartily into it.

Their first formal meeting was on May 23, 1754. Smith was one of the 15 persons present and assigned the duty of:

• explaining the object of the meeting and
• the nature of the proposed institution.

Dr. A. Carlyle was present. He says that this was the only time he ever heard Smith make a speech.

But he was little impressed with Smith’s powers as a public speaker.

• His voice was harsh.
• His enunciation was thick, approaching even to stammering.[81]

Many excellent speakers often stutter much in making a simple business explanation which they are composing as they go along.

Smith always stuttered and hesitated a deal for the first 15 minutes even in his class lectures.

• But his elocution grew free and animated, and often powerful, as he warmed to his task.

The Society had a rapid and remarkable success.

• The 15 original members soon grew to 130.

Men of the highest rank as well as literary name flocked to join it:

• Kames and Monboddo
• Robertson and Ferguson and Hume
• Carlyle and John Home
• Blair and Wilkie and Wallace, the statistician
• Islay Campbell and Thomas Miller, the future heads of the Court of Session
• the Earls of Sutherland, Hopetoun, Marchmont, Morton, Rosebery, Erroll, Aboyne, Cassilis, Selkirk, Glasgow, and Lauderdale
• Lords Elibank, Garlies, Gray, Auchinleck, and Hailes
• John Adam, the architect;
• Dr. Cullen, John Coutts, the banker and member for the city
• Charles Townshend, the witty statesman.
• A throng of all that was distinguished in the country.

It met every Friday evening from 6 to 9, at first in a room in the Advocates’ Library.

But when that became too small, it was moved to a room hired from the Mason Lodge above the Laigh Council House.

It had debates in which the younger advocates and ministers—men like Wedderburn and Robertson—took the chief part.

• These debates became speedily famous over all Scotland as intellectual displays to which neither the General Assembly of the Kirk nor the Imperial Parliament could show anything to rival.

Hume wrote in 1755 to Allan Ramsay, who by that time had moved to Rome, that:

• “the Select Society has grown to be a national concern.
• Young and old, noble and ignoble, witty and dull, laity and clergy, all the world wanted to be a member

• our young friend Wedderburn has acquired a great character by his appearance”
• Wilkie, the minister, “has turned up from obscurity and become a very fashionable man, as he is indeed a very singular one.
• Monboddo’s oddities divert
• Sir David’s (Lord Hailes) zeal entertains
• Jack Dalrymple’s (Sir John of the Memoirs) rhetoric interests.
• The long drawling speakers have found out their want of talents and rise seldomer.

In short, the House of Commons is less the object of general curiosity to London than the Select Society is to Edinburgh.

The ‘Robin Hood,’ the ‘Devil,’ and all other speaking societies are ignoble in comparison.”[82]

The second regular meeting was held on June 19, 1754.

Adam Smith was Præses. He gave out the subjects for debate on the following meeting night:

• Whether a general naturalisation of foreign Protestantism would be advantageous to Britain, and
• Whether bounties on corn exportation is advantageous to trade, manufactures, and agriculture.[83]

Lord Campbell makes it appear as if Smith chose the latter subject by himself, according to a rule where the chairman of one meeting selected the subject for debate at the next meeting.

It shows the line his ideas were taking at that early period of his career.

But that rule was not adopted for some time after the second meeting It is mentioned in the minutes that on this particular occasion, that the Præses declared the questions that were agreed upon by the majority of the meeting to be the subject of next night’s debate.”[84]

Smith possibly suggested the subjects.

Whether it be due to his influence or whether it arose merely from an interest at the time, the subjects they discussed were very largely economic.

In a selection of them published by the Scots Magazine in 1757 every one partakes of economics.

“What are the advantages to the public and the State from grazing? What from corn lands? What should be most encouraged in this country? Whether great or small farms are most advantageous to the country? What are the most proper measures for a gentleman to promote industry on his own estate? What are the advantages and disadvantages of gentlemen of estate being farmers? What is the best and most proper duration of leases of land in Scotland?

What prestations beside the proper tack-duty tenants should be obliged to pay with respect to:

• carriages and other services,
• planting and preserving trees,
• maintaining enclosures and houses,
• working freestone, limestone, coal, or minerals,
• making enclosures,
• straightening marches,
• carrying off superfluous water to other grounds, and
• forming drains?

What restrictions should they be put under with respect to:

• cottars,
• live stock on the farm,
• winter herding,
• ploughing the ground,
• selling manure, straw, hay, or corn, thirlage to mills,
• smiths or tradesmen employed on business extrinsic to the farm,
• subsetting land,
• granting assignations of leases, and
• removals at the expiration of leases?

What proportion of the produce of lands should be paid as rent to the master?

In what circumstances the rents of lands should be paid in money?

• in what in kind?
• when they should be paid?

Should corn be sold by measure or by weight?

What is the best method of getting public highways made and repaired, whether:

• by a turnpike law, as in many places in Great Britain,
• by county or parish work,
• by a tax, or
• by what other method?

What is the best and most equal way of hiring and contracting servants?

What is the most proper method to abolish the practice of giving of vails?”[85]

The society had a special agricultural branch.

• It met once a month and discussed chiefly questions of husbandry and land management.

The above list of subjects looks, from its almost exclusively agrarian character, as if it had been the business of this branch of the society merely than of the society as a whole.

Still the same causes that made rural economy predominate in the monthly work of the branch would give it a large place in the weekly discussions of the parent association.

The members were largely connected with the landed interest

Agricultural improvement was then on the order of the day.

Smith attended this society very frequently.

He does not appear to have spoken in the debates.

With respect to agrarian and commercial problems, he had the best opportunities of hearing them discussed first hand by experts.

The society sometimes discussed literature or art, or familiar old historical controversies, such as whether Brutus did well in killing Cæsar?

No subject was tabooed except those that might stir up the Deistic or Jacobite strife:

The rules say: “such as regard revealed religion, or which may give occasion to vent any principles of Jacobitism.”

But most of the questions debated were of an economic or political character:

• outdoor relief
• entail
• banking
• linen export bounties
• whisky duties
• foundling hospitals
• whether slavery was advantageous to free people?
• whether a union with Ireland would be advantageous to Great Britain?

Sometimes more than one subject would be got through in a night. Sometimes the debate on a single subject would be adjourned from week to week until it was thrashed out.

Every member might speak 3 times in the course of a debate if he chose, once for 15 minutes, and the other twice for ten.