Paul Steenstrup Koht
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Paul Steenstrup Koht | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Member of Parliament for Skien | |
| In office 1889–1891 | |
| In office 1892–1894 | |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 28 August 1844 Bodø, Norway |
| Died | 26 August 1892 (aged 47) Skien, Norway |
| Party | Liberal Party |
| Spouse | Betty Giæver |
| Children | Four, amongst them Halvdan Koht |
| Profession | Educator, Politician |
Paul Steenstrup Koht (28 August 1844 – 26 August 1892) was a Norwegian educator and politician for the Liberal Party. He was the father of Halvdan Koht, historian and Labour Party politician.
Having developed a penchant for Greek and Roman poetry in his student years, Koht lectured in philology as an adult. He also taught living languages, most notably Norwegian.
Despite the conservative political views of his family, Koht became fascinated by the radical national liberal movement of the late 19th century. His first political activism was manifested in his editing of Tromsøposten; in the late 1870s and early 1880s he chaired the Tromsø Labour Association, which catapulted him into the political limelight. Eventually becoming elected as both city mayor and Member of Parliament, he advocated radical reforms, amongst them common suffrage and the eight-hour day.
He was born at Bodø in Nordland, Norway. He was the son of Joachim Andreas Koht, a pharmacist, and Johanne Andrea Conradi. Koht finished secondary education in 1861 and graduated with a cand. philol. degree in 1868. Koht's biographer, Bernt A. Nissen, maintained that he developed his literary taste while studying: the circle spending their leisure time in "the green chamber" of the Students' Society had, according to Nissen, a decisive influence on Koht. In a bulletin titled Samfundsblade, Koht—together with Sofus Arctander, Ole Furu and Hans Brecke—recited Ancient Greek and Latin poems.[1]
In the year following his graduation, Koht started his tuition at Norwegian schools. Inspired by the classical languages of his formative years, he taught Ancient Greek and Classical Latin in addition to Standard Norwegian—he taught those languages for the remainder of his tutorial career. He began at Gjersten School, before moving to Tromsø, where he taught at the school of his childhood. He was appointed preceptor of that school in 1871.
In 1885, Koht moved with his family to Skien, where he would live for the rest of his life. Having been instantaneously appointed head teacher of Skien Upper Secondary School, he travelled to Germany and Switzerland in the subsequent year—he had received a travel grant from the government to study the educational systems of German-speaking Europe. On his return to Skien, Koht continued his tuition at the secondary school; amongst his students was his son Halvdan Koht,[2] who, two years before the elder Koht's decease in 1892, took his examen artium there, continuing with philological studies in Kristiania.[3]
