Growing Up

Louis Pasteur was born on December 27, 1822 in the small French town of Dole. He grew up in the nearby town of Arbois, studying at its l'Ecole Primaire. Surprisingly, his academics were not his strong point during this period, preferring art, fishing, and activities of the sort over maths and sciences.

Pasteur's father, a peasant farmer, refused to allow Louis to go into the field of art. Either by his father's influence or of his own accord, Pasteur's interest in the sciences skyrocketed during his college years and entered l’Ecole Normale Superieure, and from there his scientific career accelerated exponentially.

Influences

One of Pasteur's most famous traits was his nationalism - he refused a Prussian award due to bitter feelings from the Franco-Prussian war. Why is his nationalism so strong?

• He experienced the entire French Revolution - he served in the forces near the beginning of the Revolution.
• His mother died while he was in service.
• He had a close political relationship with Napoleon, recieving many funds from his country.
• His country loved him and praised him as a national hero.

Pasteur showed incredible promise in art, painting extremely sophisticated portraits of his mother and father during his college years. His father, however, wished him to be a professor in Arbois, and took him away from the artistic field. Some argue that its his own choice to go into the sciences, but its undeniable that his father played a role in his decision. Note that as they were of the lower class, his parents often worked all day long to sustain their children. This not only caused Pasteur to respect his parents, but also respect work and develop a very high work ethic. Pasteur was living proof that work created success.

Serendipity seems to have been on Pasteur's side as well. Not just in the cholera case did unintended events benefit him, but also it seems like one event in his life led to another in completely different fields - his understanding of crystal shapes contributed to his understanding of microorganisms - from chemistry directly to biology.