l86 RELATIVITY, THE GENERAL THEORYtherefore, to disqualify a man only because he happens to be a Jew. Indeed, one
occasionally finds people also among non-Jewish scholars who in regard to a com-
mercial perception and utilization of their academic profession develop qualities
which are usually considered as specifically "Jewish." Therefore neither the com-
mittee nor the faculty as a whole considered it compatible with its dignity to adopt
anti-Semitism as a matter of policyf and the information which Herr Kollege
Kleiner was able to provide about the character of Herr Dr Einstein has com-
pletely reassured us' [SIa]. Opinions such as these of course do not describe just
Zurich in 1909 but western civilization in the early twentieth century.
The secret faculty vote of March 1909 on the Einstein appointment was ten in
favor, one abstention. On July 6, 1909, Einstein submitted his resignation to the
patent office. Two days later a new mark of rising eminence: the University of
Geneva bestowed on him his first honorary doctorate.* On October 15 he com-
menced his new university position; on the 22nd he, Mileva, and Hans Albert
were registered as residing at Moussonstrasse 12. That same month the new asso-
ciate professor and doctor honoris causa attended, at age thirty, his first physics
conference, at Salzburg. At this meeting he gave the report so highly praised by
Pauli. On December 11, 1909, he gave, for the first but not the last time in his
life, an inaugural address, this one entitled 'On the Role of Atomic Theory in the
New Physics.' Einstein's salary in his new position was 4500 SF per annum, the
same amount he had received as a technical expert second class in Bern.
New reponsibilities awaited him: six to eight hours of teaching and seminars
per week, students to be taken care of, among them Hans Tanner, his first PhD
student, who did not get his degree with Einstein, however.** He appeared in
class in somewhat shabby attire, wearing pants that were too short and carrying
with him a slip of paper the size of a visiting card on which he had sketched his
lecture notes [S2]. In his later years, Einstein used to say that he did not enjoy
teaching. 'He [E.] obviously enjoyed explaining his ideas to others, and was excep-
tionally good at it because of his own way of thinking in intuitive and informal
terms. What he presumably found irksome was the need to prepare and present
material that was not at the moment at the center of his interest. Thus the prep-
aration of lectures would interfere with his own thought' [S3].
In his Zurich period, from October 1909 to March 1911, Einstein published
eleven papers on theoretical physics, including the one on critical opalescence. He
also was active as an experimentalist. In his Bern days, he had published a paper
that contained the idea for an apparatus intended to measure small voltages [E4].
•p... den "Antisemitismus" als Prinzip auf ihre Fahne zu schreiben.. ..'
* Marie Curie and Ostwald were also among the recipients of honorary degrees.
"After Einstein left for Prague, Tanner went to Basel, where he got his degree in 1912. Another
student, Hermann Schuepp, was given a PhD thesis topic by Herzog before Einstein arrived at
Zurich. Einstein acted as the referee for this thesis, which was accepted by the faculty on December
21, 1909 [Dl].