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Bavaria. This city is of no significance in his life, however, since a year after his birth the family moved to Munich. A year later a daughter was born and there were no other children. Munich, the city in which Albert spent his youth, was the political and intellectual center of southern Germany. Thus the family had already departed from the romantic nooks of Swabia and had made a transition to a more urban life. Their house, however, was a cottage surrounded by a large garden in the suburbs. Albert’s father, Hermann Einstein, had a small electrochemical factory that he operated with the aid of his brother, who lived with the family. The former attended to the commercial side of the enterprise, while the latter acted as technical director.
    Hermann Einstein was an optimistic person who enjoyed life. He was not a particularly good business man and was frequently unsuccessful, but such failures did not change his general outlook on life. His mode of life and his
Weltanschauung
differed in no respect from those of the average citizen in that locality. When his work was done, he liked to go on outings with hisfamily into the beautiful country around Munich, to the romantic lakes and mountains, and he was fond of stopping at the pleasant, comfortable Bavarian taverns, with their good beer, radishes, and sausages. Of the traditional Jewish fondness for reading edifying literature he had retained only a love for German poetry, especially that of Schiller and Heine. The dietary laws and other customary usages of the Jewish community were to him only an ancient superstition, and in his house there was no trace of any Jewish custom. Or, to put it more concisely, the ancient customs themselves had disappeared, but several humane usages connected with them were retained. For instance, every Thursday the Einstein family invited a poor Jewish student from Russia to share their midday meal with them — a reflection, no doubt, of the old Sabbath custom. Similarly, their preference for the dramas and poems of Schiller, replete with moral pathos, was a substitute for the reading of the Bible. In his political views, too, Einstein’s father, like most others, was afraid of the dominant Prussians, but admired the new German Empire, its Chancellor Bismarck, General Moltke, and the old Emperor Wilhelm I.
    Einstein’s mother, born Pauline Koch, was of a more serious and artistic nature, with a fine sense of humor. But the rather meager material conditions under which she lived led her to be satisfied with a tolerably secure existence for herself and her children. She found much happiness and consolation in her music, and when engineers from the factory dropped in for an evening visit, they accompanied her on the piano. Above all she loved German classical music, especially Beethoven’s piano sonatas.
    The uncle who lived with the family was a man whose interest in the more refined aspects of intellectual life was greater than that of the father. He was a trained engineer, and it was from him that Albert received his first impulsions in mathematics.
    There can be no doubt that this origin in a provincial, semi-rural milieu was of the greatest significance for Albert Einstein’s entire psychological development. He has never become a completely urban person. He was always somewhat afraid of Berlin and later also of New York. Connected with this attitude is a certain trait that characterizes his artistic taste and that certainly appeared old-fashioned to modern Berliners. Einstein’s preference for the German classics in literature as well as in music was expressed at a time when the intellectual circles of Berlin declared that such tastes had long since been superseded. Hispredilection for Schiller is a particularly characteristic feature, by which one recognizes a member of a culture not that of twentieth-century Berlin.
    On the whole, little Albert was no child prodigy. Indeed, it was a very long time before he learned to speak, and his