Look Who it Was Random video

Jan Klein - Wanting both - to teach and to be a botanist (17/106)

81 views · Published 4 August 2017 · 2:37 · Indexed 21 September 2026

Channel: Web of Stories - Life Stories of Remarkable People · 2017 · Science & Technology

Watch on YouTube

To listen to more of Jan Klein’s stories, go to the playlist: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXsV928hMY0&list=PLVV0r6CmEsFz1ysDpkSO2qHjHriuyxNfa

Born in 1936, Jan Klein is a Czech-American immunologist who co-founded the modern science of immunogenetics. He is the author or co-author of over 560 publications including the book 'Where Do We Come From?' which examines the molecular evolution of humans. From 1977 to his retirement in 2004, he was the Director of the Max Planck Institute for Biology at Tübingen, Germany. [Listener: Colm O'hUigin; date recorded: 2005]

TRANSCRIPT: The gymnasium which I visited from 1951 through 1954... it was decided that I wouldn't go to... I would attend the university to study botany. Botany, but not as a professional botanist, but as a teacher. My very naive thinking was at that time that I could be both, that I could be a teacher and a botanist. Many of the professors at the gymnasium in the older times, were that kind. Most of the studies on the flora of Silesia, of Czechoslovakia were done by these kind of people; it was a hobby for them. They were teachers of biology and in their free time they were registering the plants in the different areas, so I wanted to be of the same kind. I thought it's not fair to be a scientist and be paid for it, to me it looked like it was always fun. And I didn't think I should be paid for having fun so I wanted to have an occupation where I could... which I could be paid for and then on my free time be a botanist. So I applied to the university which was directed toward educating teachers. I sent the application to a different school than I normally should have done... the closest such university, to my area where I was born was in Olomouc or in Brno. Olomouc and Brno, both in Moravia, so most of the students who went from Silesia went to either of these two universities and I was expected to do the same thing.

More from this channel