From Polytechnikum to Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule (1905–1911)

Growth and reform

By the end of the nineteenth century the Polytechnikum had outgrown the framework of 1854. The number of students passed one thousand around 1900 and exceeded two thousand by the end of the First World War.¹ The rigid timetables of a school, with compulsory courses and annual promotion from class to class, no longer suited an institution whose professors pursued research of international significance. The reform debate that began in 1905 had three results. The separation agreements with the university, the city and the canton, discussed above, created the conditions for a federal building programme. The introduction in 1908 of standard study plans for each discipline gave students a freedom of choice comparable to that of a university, turning the pupils of the “Poly” into university students. In the same year the school obtained the right to award doctorates, and by 1909 nine candidates had received the doctoral degree in chemistry, mechanical engineering and the natural sciences.²

In 1911 the institution received the name Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule. The colloquial name “Poly” survived in Zurich for decades.³ The renaming completed the development that the compromise of 1854 had set in motion. The federal university that the Council of States had refused was never created. What the Confederation obtained in its place was a technical university of the first rank, which by the eve of the First World War could compare itself with the technische Hochschulen of Germany and with the leading engineering schools of France.

Albert Einstein in Zurich

No figure illustrates the international reach of the institution better than Albert Einstein, whose Zurich years span precisely the transition from Polytechnikum to ETH. After obtaining his school-leaving certificate in Aarau, Einstein entered the sixth division of the Polytechnikum in 1896, the school for teachers of mathematics and the natural sciences. Mileva Marić was the only woman registered in his course, and the lecture notes of his fellow student Marcel Grossmann, which Einstein used to prepare for his examinations, have been preserved. In the physics practical course for beginners taught by Jean Pernet, Einstein received the lowest possible mark after frequent absences. He nevertheless completed his studies with a diploma in July 1900.⁴

Because the Polytechnikum could not yet award doctorates, Einstein obtained his doctorate from the University of Zurich. He submitted his thesis on a new determination of molecular dimensions in 1905 and received the degree in January 1906 from the university's section of mathematics and natural sciences.⁵ The episode shows how the two Zurich institutions complemented each other before 1908. At the beginning of 1912 Einstein was appointed professor of theoretical physics at ETH with effect from 1 October 1912. In Zurich he worked with Marcel Grossmann, by then professor of mathematics, on the problem of gravitation. At the end of November 1913 he asked for his release, which the school board granted on 6 December 1913, and he moved to Berlin to take up a position at the Prussian Academy of Sciences.⁶

Einstein's case has a place in a book on the financial centre only as a symbol, although the symbol is a strong one. It demonstrates the attraction that the Zurich institutions exercised on talented young people from abroad, the willingness of the school board to appoint a young theoretician whose work had no immediate practical application, and the competitive disadvantage of a Swiss institution against the financial resources of Berlin. The last point still applies. ETH competes for professors with universities whose endowments dwarf its budget, and its ability to retain talent depends on the attractiveness of Zurich as a place to live and work, including its tax regime, its security and its schools.

Notes

1. Peter Fleer and Hans Werner Tobler, “Eidgenössische Technische Hochschulen (ETH)”, HLS, version of 27 November 2012, https://hls-dhs-dss.ch/de/articles/010419/. ↩
2. ETHistory 1855–2005, epoch summary “1904–1911: Vom Polytechnikum zur Hochschule”, https://www.ethistory.ethz.ch/besichtigungen/epochen/ETH05_epochen.pdf. ↩
3. Wikipedia (German), “ETH Zürich”, https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/ETH_Z%C3%BCrich. Cited for orientation. According to this article, the colloquial name remained in use into the 1970s. ↩
4. ETH-Bibliothek, Einstein Online, “Einstein’s Studies at the Polytechnic Institute in Zurich (1896–1900)”, https://library.ethz.ch/en/collections-and-archives/platforms/einstein-online/studium-am-polytechnikum-in-zuerich-1896-1900.html. ↩
5. University of Zurich, “Albert Einstein’s Doctoral Certificate Returns to UZH”, UZH News, 2022, https://www.news.uzh.ch/en/articles/media/2022/Einstein.html. ↩
6. ETH-Bibliothek, Einstein Online, “Professor at the ETH Zurich (1912–1914)”, https://library.ethz.ch/en/collections-and-archives/platforms/einstein-online/professor-an-der-eth-zuerich-1912-1914.html. ↩

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