Felipe Fernández-Armesto’s commentary, “Marking Schemes are an Abo­mination,” (Bulletin, September 2008) repeats the old saw that “Einstein never did very well at school, anyway.”

If one cares to type ‘Einstein failed school’ into Google, one can find several careful accounts that debunk this myth. Einstein actually did well in school, particularly (and not surprisingly) in mathematics and science. There are a number of reasons for the persistence of the “Einstein failed high school” myth.

As a free-spirited Jew, he was disdainful of the authoritarian German school system and his contempt for some of his teachers must have been mutual.

Einstein wrote the admission exams for ETH (Switzerland’s science and technology university) in Zurich at an unusually young age and with little formal prepa­ration, so it took him two attempts before he passed. As an adult, Einstein was modest and self-effacing and he pro­bably spun some self-deprecating tales about his youth.

Nevertheless, the story that the su­preme genius of the 20th century could not pass high school — while reassuring to generations of sluggardly adolescents — is untrue.

David Josephy
Molecular & Cellular Biology
University of Guelph

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