Wilhelm Ostwald's Pedagogy: An Analysis of the Nobel Prize Nomination Letters

Abstract

The Baltic-German chemist Wilhelm Ostwald (1853–1932) was nominated several times for the Nobel Prize in chemistry between 1904 and 1909. Many of these nominations were based on his pedagogical works. The appreciation of Ostwald's pedagogical activity can shed light on how science pedagogy was seen in the early twentieth century and how Ostwald was considered by his contemporaries. Based on sources from the Nobel Prize archives and other documents, in this paper we discuss the views of the Nobel Prize nominators on Ostwald's pedagogical works as presented in the nomination letters and the evaluation of The Nobel Committee for Chemistry on the merits of pedagogy.