Adam Smith's famous lectures on rhetoric and belles lettres, first delivered in Edinburgh from 1748 to 1751, were the first formal lectures on the subject of “English” in Britain to give singular pedagogical prominence to the application of selections from English literature in the university classroom. Literary and educational historians over the years have acknowledged Smith's role particularly in the teaching of rhetoric; but they have hesitated to assign any significant historical value to the theory that his extensive use of selections from English literature in his lectures was less belletristically inspired, in spite of his refined literary interests, and more the result of his deeply felt, practical concern over the future of a laissez-faire economic system that by its very nature advocated a lessening of political, social, and religious control over the commonwealth. Smith's decision to use selections from English literature in his classroom, as this essay argues, was based largely on the belief that vernacular literature could provide a ready context for the teaching of ideological, social and moral lessons. As an economist, Smith was naturally interested in the insular “business” of higher education, but he was also interested in the broader role that he thought higher education should play in preparing students for the “real business” of the real world.