Bernhard Cathrinus Pauss | |
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.jpg) B.C. Pauss, photographed by Gustav Borgen | |
| Born | 6 April 1839 Tangen, Drammen |
| Died | 9 November 1907 (aged 68) |
| Resting place | Vår Frelsers gravlund |
| Known for | Theologian, educator, author and humanitarian and missionary leader |
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Bernhard Cathrinus Pauss (born 6 April 1839 at Tangen, Drammen, died 9 November 1907 in Christiania) was a Norwegian theologian, educator, author and humanitarian and missionary leader, who was a major figure in girls' education in Norway in his lifetime.
A member of the Paus family, he grew up at Tangen in Drammen where his father Nicolai Nissen Paus was a shipowner and where his mother Louise – a daughter of the privateer and adventurer Bent Salvesen – ran a small school. He earned the cand.theol. degree in 1865 and became a teacher at Nissen's Girls' School, the country's preeminent educational institution for women and girls. In 1872 he succeeded Hartvig Nissen as its headmaster and owner. He also headed its affiliated women's teachers college, the first higher education institution open to women in Norway, and the school eventually offered a complete program with "Kindergarten – Girls' School – Gymnasium – College." He led the political fight to allow girls access to middle school exams and to expand educational opportunities for girls and women at all levels, and the school became the epicenter of the emerging women's rights movement from the 1870s onward. He was a member of the government-appointed committee which proposed the Higher School Act, adopted in 1896.
He was also a lecturer at the Norwegian Military Academy from 1868 to 1882. In 1872 Bishop Jens Lauritz Arup also appointed him as bell-ringer of the Penitentiary, effectively its head teacher, but he was succeeded by theologian Sønke Sønnichsen after a year. He was also a vespers priest—an office traditionally often held by headmasters of latin schools, who were traditionally theologians—in Christiania and regularly conducted services in the Trinity Church and the Palace Chapel. He was chairman of the Norwegian Santal Mission (1887–1907), in succession to Oscar Nissen, and founded and edited the journal Santalen. He also wrote and edited several schoolbooks in Norwegian and German, including the reading book series Læsebog i Modersmaalet, that was one of the most widely used schoolbooks in Norway for over half a century. A village in India, Pauspur, was named in his honour.
He was married in his first marriage to Augusta Thoresen, a daughter of the timber merchant Hans Thoresen, and in his second marriage to the women's rights pioneer Anna Henriette Wegner, a daughter of the industrialist Benjamin Wegner and the early women's rights pioneer and co-owner of Berenberg Bank Henriette Seyler. He was the father of the surgeon and President of the Norwegian Red Cross Nikolai Nissen Paus, the industrial leader Augustin Paus and the lawyer, mountaineer and business executive George Wegner Paus.