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The Scottish Intellect

The Scottish Intellect: Episode 5: Democratic Intellectualism

Factual: History

Democratic Intellectualism

Episode 5

Episode 5: Democratic Intellectualism

BBC Radio Scotland - The Scottish Intellect, Democratic Intellectualism

Billy Kay traces the role of the university in Glasgow's mercantile and industrial history

Billy Kay examines the role of the universities in the rise of Glasgow from a medieval ecclesiastical centre to a mercantile powerhouse and industrial giant of the 19th century.

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In "Democratic Intellectualism", Billy Kay visits the University of Glasgow to discover how the rise of the university parallels the development of the city. Adam Smith's magnum opus, The Wealth of Nations was influenced by discussions with the city's merchants trading with the Americas. James Watt experimented on the steam engine while repairing scientific instruments at the university. The Foulis brothers who came from a modest background created a publishing press that was famous throughout Europe and established a very Glaswegian tradition that married the pragmatic and practical with the creative and intellectual. Among their workers was a poet called John Mayne who celebrated Glasgow's vibrant university scene and stressed the centrality of the University in the identity of the city's burgeoning population.... 

If ye've a knacky son or twa ,
To Glasgow College send them a'
Where, for the Gospel or the Law
Or classic Lair,
Ye'll find few places hereawa'
That can compare

There they may learn, for sma' propine,
Physician, Lawyer or Divine:
--- the gem that's buried in the mine
Is polish'd here ,
Till a' its hidden beauties shine,
And sparkle clear. 

Billy also explores the idea of The Democratic Intellect - the title of a seminal book on the Scottish university tradition by George Elder Davie who feared that the broad-based, generalist Scottish tradition was being eroded through contact with the English tradition of early specialisation. Scottish universities also enjoyed a history of democratic access and we discover that African American and Jewish American doctors studied in Glasgow when there were severe restrictions and quota systems for them in the United States. Dr Lionel Gossman, the former Professor of Romance languages at Princeton University, who comes from Glasgow's Jewish community talks of his pride in his alma mater which gave him every chance in life, and to which he still contributesas an alumnus in exile. 

Billy also visits the famous Beer Bar in the Glasgow University Union and talks to present day students David Birrell and Jordan Stodart of Glasgow and Tom Radford of Strathclyde University on the balancing act students perform trying to get a good degree while getting as much out of university life as possible. On the latter, they enthuse about the Union's great annual event called Daft Friday....which was begun just over a century ago by students who later became well known as the playwright James Bridie and the Unionist politician, Walter Elliot. Elliot was also the man who first coined the term "democratic intellectualism" to describe the pride he felt in the Scottish university tradition. The current Chancellor of Glasgow University, Sir Kenneth Calman endorses this sentiment and its importance to Scottish identity.

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