Who was Carl Linnaeus?
He was born in Rshult, in the south of Sweden. He was the oldest of five children of a typical Swedish clerical family as they lived in the early 18th century, and the destiny for Linnaeus was to follow in the footsteps of his father, Nils Linnaeus, who was a clergyman. Linnaeus attended the grammar school in nearby Vxj, preparing himself to study theology at the university. However, his performance in school was poor, and so were his grades. Luckily, Linnaeus had a very knowledgeable and open-minded teacher, whose name was Dr Johan Rothman. Rothman spotted the genius in Linnaeus and supported his interest in the less – as it was thought in that time – utilitarian study of plant life. Rothman introduced Linnaeus to the 17th century theories of botany, and by the time Linnaeus left grammar school he was well acquainted with the field. Through Rothman, Linnaeus became conscious of the relationship between plants in their groups and classes, so we can say that the direction of his scienti
