One of the liveliest debates in the late 19th century Ottoman Empire was about the boundaries, benefits and potential dangers of the new sciences of the Europeans – the sciences that the Empire had been adopting. What made this debate possible was the emergence of the Ottoman-language press and the birth of print capitalism in the 1860s. The growth of the press and the appropriation of the European sciences were parallel and closely connected processes in the Ottoman Empire of the 19th century. Thus it is not surprising that the symbol of print capitalism in the Ottoman Empire also played a key role in the construction of a discourse on science and scientists, and – to a considerable extent – became the symbol of science itself. In this paper, I analyze the work and significance of this man, Ahmed Midhat Efendi (1844-1912). Primarily an autodidact, Midhat had a uniquely successful career as a journalist, novelist, and publisher of newspapers and books. In the hundreds of essays and books (both non-fiction and fiction) that he published, Midhat aimed at what he regarded as disseminating “useful knowledge” and making the Ottoman people aware of matters of which it was ignorant. In his long career he also transformed himself from a writer of “controversial” essays on evolution and materialism into an ally of the Sultan, an advocate of the raison d'état, and a critic of “over-westernization.” The meaning of science and the role of scientists was one of Midhat’s favorite topics. In a society where the "new sciences" had not yet been institutionalized and evolved into a true career path, the contribution of his endless writings to the emergence of a dominant Ottoman discourse on science was matchless. At a time of severe censorship, the newspapers he published constituted the space within which the Ottoman debate on science took place, and to many young Ottoman students of science, Midhat was the person to communicate with, if not to consult – even on scientific issues. In this respect, Ahmed Midhat’s position not only blurs the line between “popularizer” and “scientist” but also helps us place “science” within its specific social, political, and ideological context. Midhat himself was aware of this, as he frequently wrote on his own role. His very complaints about the general lack of specialization and professionalization in the Empire that put “too big a responsibility” on him and made him the “headteacher of the nation” demonstrate unmistakably what else is at stake in definitions of and discussions on science.