He entered the Realschule
in
Stuttgart
at
the
age
of fourteen and left
with the so-called
One-Year-Volunteer
Certificate,
the possession of
which
released
the
young
German
intelligentzia
from the
compulsory
three
years
of
military
ervice. In reality, this arrangement
gave
preferential
treatment to the "better classes" which could afford
better
schooling
for their
sons,
and
so
keep
them from
rubbing
shoulders with the
sons
of the
common
people.
-
Hermann
Einstein,
it
seems,
showed
a
marked
inclination for
mathematics,
and would have
liked to
pursue
studies in this
or some
related
field.
His father's
means,
however,
with
a
large family
to maintain and
two
daughters
to
provide for,
were
too limited
to
allow Hermann to
pursue
his
inclination.
As
a
result, he
decided to become
a
merchant.
Perhaps
this
very
potential,
left fallow in the father,
developed
all the
more
strongly in his
son
Albert. Hermann
Einstein served
an
apprenticeship
in Stuttgart and then became
a
partner in
a
cousin's business in Ulm.
The financial
means
brought
to the
marriage
by
his
wife,
and the
progress
of the
business, might
have allowed his
young
family
not
just
a
carefree but
a
very prosperous
life. The future seemed
secure,
and
there
was
such complete harmony of character between Hermann and his
wife that the
marriage
would not
only
remain untroubled
throughout
their
lives,
but would also
prove to
be,
at each turn of fate, the
one
thing
that
was
firm and reliable. Had Hermann remained in Ulm, his
son
Albert would also have been granted
a more
carefree
youth.
But the
family's
external circumstances
were
to
change
in the
course
of time.
A younger
brother
of
Hermann
Einstein,
named
Jakob,
who later
exerted
a
certain intellectual influence
on
Albert while he
was
growing
up,
finished his studies in engineering and wanted
to
start
a
plumbing
and electrical business in Munich. Since his
own
means
were
insufficient,
he
prevailed
upon
his
brother
Hermann to
join
in
the
venture, both
personally
as
business
manager
and with
a
large
investment. And
so
the
family
moved to Munich at the
beginning
of
1882, when Albert
was
barely two
years
old. Begun modestly, at
a
time
when all the world
was
beginning
to install electric
lighting,
the
enterprise
had
good prospects. But Jakob Einstein's
plans
were
more
ambitious.
His
fertile
and manifold ideas led
him,
among
other
things,
to construct
a
dynamo
of his
own
invention,
which
he wanted to
produce
on a
large
scale. That
required
a
larger plant,
and
substantial funds to start
operating
it. The entire family, and
especially
Hermann's father-in-law
Julius
Koch,
participated
financially
and made
the
new
enterprise possible.
It is hard to
say
just
why it
never
really
flourished. Whether because the
highly
imaginative
Jakob Einstein
dissipated
his
energies,
or
because,
as an
impetuous
optimist he
never
understood how to deal with realities
-
in
short, business
affairs
grew
progressively
worse.
The
fault
may
also
have
lain
with Hermann
Einstein,
Albert's father, who,
owing
to his
more
contemplative
nature,
may
have lacked the
qualities
required
of
a
businessman
on a
grand
scale. Hermann Einstein had
a
particularly
pronounced
way
of trying to get to the bottom of something, by
examining it from
every
side, before he could reach
a
decision. And
since everything could always be looked
at
from
a new
point
of view,
that
particularly
enterpreneurial trait of being decisive
at
the right
moment about
the right
matters
was
impaired.
In
addition, he
was
endowed with
an
unfailing goodness
of
heart,
a
well-meaning nature
that could refuse
nothing
to anyone.
So
even
though
Jakob
Einstein,
constantly seeking
novelty
and change and unable to learn from
any
failure,
was an
over-eager
and
even
stubborn
optimist,
his brother
xvi
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