Einstein attended elementary school at the Luitpold Gymnasium in Munich. 
     There were two events that had a marked effect on his childhood. One was an encounter with a compass at age five, where he marveled at the invisible forces that turned the needle. The other was at age 12, when he discovered a book of geometry which he read over and over.
    In 1889, the Einstein family invited a poor medical Polish medical student, Max Talmud, to come to their house for evening meals. Talmud introduced Albert to higher mathematics and philosophy. One of the books Talmud shared with Albert was a children’s sceince book in which the author imagined riding alongside electricity that was traveling inside a telegraph wire. 
    Einstein began to wonder what a light beam would look like if you could run alongside it at the same speed. If light were a wave, then the light beam should

appear stationary, like a frozen wave. Yet, in reality, the light beam is moving.
    This paradox led him to write his first
"scientific paper" at age 16, "The Investigation of the State of Aether in Magnetic Fields." 
    In 1894, Hermann Einstein’s company failed to get an important contract to electrify the city of Munich and he was forced to move his family to Milan, Italy. Albert was left at a boarding house in Munich to finish his education at the Luitpold Gymnasium. Alone and repelled by the looming prospect of military duty when he turned of age, Albert withdrew

 from school using a doctor’s note to excuse him and traveled to Milan to join his parents. His parents were concerned about the  problems that he would face as a school dropout and draft dodger with no employable skills.
    Fortunately, Einstein was able to apply to the Eidgenössische Polytechnische Schule (Swiss Federal Polytechnic School) in Zürich, Switzerland. Lacking the equivalent of a high school diploma, he failed much of the entrance exam but received exceptional marks in mathematics and physics. Because of this, he was admitted to the school provided he complete his formal schooling first.  He went to a special high school run by Jost Winteler in Aarau Switzerland,and graduated in 1896 at age 17.