<P> Smith was born in Kirkcaldy, in the County of Fife, Scotland . His father, also Adam Smith, was a Scottish Writer to the Signet (senior solicitor), advocate and prosecutor (Judge Advocate) and also served as comptroller of the Customs in Kirkcaldy . In 1720, he married Margaret Douglas, daughter of the landed Robert Douglas of Strathendry, also in Fife . His father died two months after he was born, leaving his mother a widow . 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 mother, who probably encouraged him to pursue his scholarly ambitions . He attended the Burgh School of Kirkcaldy--characterised by Rae as "one of the best secondary schools of Scotland at that period"--from 1729 to 1737, he learned Latin, mathematics, history, and writing . </P> <P> Smith 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 . </P> <P> Smith considered the teaching at Glasgow to be far superior to that at Oxford, which he found intellectually stifling . In Book V, Chapter II of The 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 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 . According to William Robert Scott, "The Oxford of (Smith's) time gave little if any help towards what was to be his lifework ." Nevertheless, Smith 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 . </P> <P> 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 . </P>

A great economic thinker who believed in free markets was