Michael

I am unfamiliar with this reference to Adam Smith, certainly in any book he wrote.  It may be a paraphrase of something else he wrote, but does not spring to mind.

In Glasgow UNiversity, the students paid the professor direct to attend his class - if he was a inadequate lecturer and tutor students would not pay him to attend his classes.  All faculty salaries paid by the University did not include amounts to pay them for teaching - they had to rely on their student's judgements to make up the teaching part of their salaries.  Smith considered this a good system of remuneration and recommended it to be adopted in English universities, where 'public professors 'have for these many years, given up altogether even the pretence of teaching (WN Vi.f.8, 761).  This resulted in poor teaching standards, which he compared from his three years at Glasgow and his six years at Oxford.   I believe it would have similar affects if adopted in universities today, which is why teaching unions oppose such measures, and prefer 'tenure' systems that protect faculty from the judgement of students (under the guise of protecting them from 'political' interference), and why we get 'grade' drifts, and other bad (corrupt) habits.

Gavin Kennedy
Professor Emeritus,
Heriot-Watt University
________________________________________
From: Societies for the History of Economics [[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of michael perelman [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 08 September 2011 04:10
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [SHOE] adam smith question

I recall reading a story in one of the Adam Smith books about a
professor who did not have to lecture because students did not attend.
 One day students blindsided him by coming to class, but the professor
dismissed the class for lack of a quorum.  Is this my memory or my
imagination?

--
Michael Perelman
Economics Department
California State University
Chico, CA
95929

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http://michaelperelman.wordpress.com