Markets & Morality

Prof. Estelle visited Haworth HQ today. Think there is something to the manufacturer of all Ferrari interiors being M&M’s most enthusiastic supporter? 😎 Photo credit: Mr. Richard Haworth

This week we celebrated ten years of facilitating a fellowship for Hope College students and faculty attending the Acton Institute’s annual Acton University!

Day 3: Glasgow, the dear green place. We were welcomed to the (new!) University of Glasgow by Adam Smith scholar Dr. Craig Smith and enjoyed the Hunterian Museum. We grabbed lunch at The Griffin before our excellent tour of the historic Glasgow Cathedral with volunteer and Friend of the Cathedral Tom. We then stopped by the site of the original University where Smith was so popular that students purchased small busts of him and liked to mimic his mannerisms. It was a fun day, walking in the footsteps of our 2024 predecessors (those alumni will recognize all these people and places that we were fortunate to see again) but we outdid them a bit by walking everywhere this time. 12 miles today!

“For the next stop’s Kirkcaddy!” Day 2 took us on the train to Kirkcaldy, Fife, Adam Smith’s birthplace and home while he wrote the Wealth of Nations. We saw the church where he was baptized (which provides the only record of his birth year), where he attended school, and the market cross on our tour by . We also had lunch at and a wee stroll with another son of Kirkcaldy, Mr. George Proudfoot, who told us a lot about his beloved town over the last 100 years. We walked the beautiful Fife Coastal Path to Ravenscraig Castle and enjoyed . After much fish and chips and steak pie, we needed a salad dinner (and maybe a few biscuits.)

First day in the UK: Edinburgh, the Scottish Enlightenment, and a whole lot of Adam Smith. Charles from gave us a wonderful tour again (as in 2024) including to Smith’s final home and his burial place. We had lunch from (a couple people tried and liked haggis!) with a view up the hill. In the afternoon, rare book librarian Elizabeth showed us selections from Smith’s own library at the University of Edinburgh, including a first edition Copernicus, Samuel Johnson’s dictionary, and a first edition Theory of Moral Sentiments. We took advantage of the invitation to sit down and read the books, turning the same pages Smith himself turned around 250 years ago.

A very thought-provoking, encouraging Celebration of Learning tonight!

Join Emmaus Scholars, us, and everyone else who knows what’s up this Monday for an excellent lecture on the relevance of the liberal arts! 7pm. Winants. Be there.