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teaching had not been so good as it appeared in Einstein’s memory and perhaps he had only imagined it. But in any case the visit was very embarrassing for Einstein and he departed as quickly as possible.
     
4.
Intellectual Interests
    When Einstein was five years old his father showed him a pocket compass. The mysterious property of the iron needle that always pointed in the same direction no matter howthe compass case was turned made a very great impression on the young child. Although there was nothing visible to make the needle move, he concluded that something that attracts and turns bodies in a particular direction must exist in space that is considered empty. This was one of the impressions which later led Einstein to reflect on the mysterious properties of empty space.
    As he grew up, his interest in natural science was further aroused by the reading of popular scientific books. A Russian Jewish student who ate at Einstein’s home on Thursdays called his attention to Aaron Bernstein’s
Naturwissenschaftliche Volksbücher
(
Popular Books on Natural Science
), which were widely read by laymen interested in science about that time. These books discussed animals, plants, their mutual interdependence, and the hypotheses concerning their origin; they dealt with stars, meteors, volcanoes, earthquakes, climate, and many other topics, never leaving out of sight the greater interrelation of nature. Soon Einstein was also an enthusiastic reader of such books as Büchner’s
Kraft und Stoff
(
Force and Matter
), which attempted to gather together the scientific knowledge of the time and to organize it into a sort of complete philosophical conception of the universe. The advocates of this view, frequently called “materialism” although it should rather be called “naturalism,” wanted to understand and explain all celestial and terrestrial occurrences by analogy with the natural sciences and were particularly opposed to any religious conception of the nature of the universe.
    Today such books as Büchner’s
Kraft und Stoff
are considered superficial and we may wonder how at that time young people like Einstein who were capable of independent thought could have been stirred by them. Yet if we have any sense of historical values and justice, we should ask ourselves what recent books are to be regarded as the analogues of those earlier works. In reply we can point to such books as Sir James Jeans’s
The Mysterious Universe
. Probably a really critical judge would not be able to say that Büchner’s book is more superficial than those of similar contemporary writers. At any rate, we find a very good popular presentation of the scientific results themselves, and a rather vague philosophical interpretation, which may be accepted or not according to one’s taste.
    Einstein’s interest in mathematics was also aroused at home and not at school. It was his uncle and not the teacher at the gymnasium who gave him his first understanding of algebra.“It is a merry science,” he told the boy; “when the animal that we are hunting cannot be caught, we call it
x
temporarily and continue to hunt it until it is bagged.” With such instruction, Albert found a great deal of pleasure in solving simple problems by hitting upon new ideas instead of just using a prescribed method.
    He was impressed most, however, when at about the age of twelve he obtained for the first time a systematic textbook on geometry. It was a book to be used in a class that had just started, and, like many children who are curious about the new subjects they are going to take up in school, he tried to delve into the subject before it acquired the unpleasant and irksome quality that teachers generally imparted. Having begun to read the book, he was unable to put it down. The clarity of the exposition and the proof given for every statement, as well as the close connection between the diagrams and the reasoning, impressed him with a kind of orderliness and