Hookers, dung and university (by A. Einstein)

I revisit in this section one of history’s great sarcastic men: Albert Einstein, also known as a scientist. After finishing his university studies in 1900, Einstein began a veritable ordeal in search of a job at a university as a researcher. For two years he received rejection after rejection at every university, of which there were many, where he applied for a teaching job. In the end, he had to be content with a position as a third class assistant –the lowest– at the patent office in Bern –and that thanks to a good contact– a job that did not seem the best choice to start a scientific career.

This caused Einstein to develop a certain apprehension –if not disgust– towards academic and university institutions. He left evidence of this in several sharp quotations that ridiculed the pomp and circumstance of the academic world. For example, when in 1909 he got his first teaching post –at the University of Zurich– he wrote to a colleague:

Now I too am an official member of the hookers’ guild.

Later, when he had experience of the university world, his opinion of the profession improved somewhat, although not much if we take into account the comment he made to David Mitrani, a Romanian economist:

Universities are like beautiful dung heaps on which sometimes a beautiful flower grows.