The Rudolf Steiner Archive

8. Human Development and Education in the Light of Anthroposophy

[ 1 ] Like a profound spiritual admonition, the words addressed to humankind echo from ancient Greece: “Know thyself!” And one may well apply this saying to the general understanding of humanity, rather than to the personal, and in doing so, the understanding of humanity is, in a sense, designated as the pinnacle of all human knowledge and striving. And we can indeed sense from the way this phrase resonates with us that it is not meant merely in a scientific-theoretical sense, but is very much intended as a spiritual admonition in a moral-religious sense. And one might say: Following the conclusion of an epoch of humanity’s spiritual development that encompassed so much, a kind of counter-word now stands before our soul. This counter-word was, to be sure, spoken nearly fifty years ago and has today, in a certain sense, even been forgotten, having vanished from people’s consciousness. Nevertheless, the entire modern state of the soul—that which today harbors the great inner conflicts—lives under the influence of this more recent statement. It is the statement that Du Bois-Reymond uttered: “We cannot know,” the words: “Ignoramus, Ignorabimus.” Even though many today believe they have moved beyond a commitment to this phrase, the way we, as human beings who seek to understand and believe, relate to the world is still deeply shaped by it today. It is, in a sense, the spoken—or unspoken—commitment to the findings of scientific research and their significance for a general understanding of the world and a view of life.

[ 2 ] Now, however, anyone who has been part of spiritual life for decades and who has observed how this spiritual life has developed over the course of the last three to four centuries cannot help but, in a sense, justify what is regarded today as knowledge in the face of the natural sciences. After all, natural science has achieved such magnificent things in the exploration of the external sensory world; it has achieved so much in the application of instruments and experimental methods for the study of this external sensory world and its great laws, and it has substantiated and confirmed its findings through the manifold empirical, technical, and practical applications without which we can no longer even conceive of our modern life. This natural science aims to gain an understanding of the world that is as independent as possible from what human beings might bring to their understanding of the nature of things and worldly processes through their desires, prejudices, and preconceptions. And it is precisely by eliminating all personal bias that natural science has achieved all its successes. Yet it is precisely those who stand entirely honestly on the ground of natural science—those who recognize just how beneficial this natural science has been for understanding external nature—who, through the application of these methods, must increasingly come to realize: Science, as it has developed today, cannot penetrate the realms in which the human soul and spirit reign. One might say, not because of its shortcomings, but precisely because of its merits.

[ 3 ] If one surveys what has been accomplished in the various fields of the natural sciences, one will say to oneself: these natural sciences naturally also strive to return to the human being. They strive to apply their methods to the essence of the human being. But it can investigate nothing more than the outer, physical, bodily nature of the human being. We see this most clearly when the scientific method is applied to the human being, becomes experimental psychology, and is carried out today using a truly magnificent scientific research method. We see there how the psychological manifestations in the human constitution are examined. But we realize that through all these investigations we cannot approach precisely that which can be called the eternal in human nature—that which must be called the aspect of human nature toward which the human being carries within himself a deep longing to recognize it in its true essence, and regarding which he at least initially harbors the hope that it will reveal itself to him as lying beyond the boundaries of earthly life, as extending and exerting its influence beyond birth and death. Nothing is to be said here against such experimental methods as those of experimental psychology. It is precisely the foundation of that research from which I take the liberty of speaking to you this evening that acknowledges these methods in their full validity. But precisely because they can also be seen through—even within their limitations—from this perspective, it must be said that these methods cannot approach the true essence of the soul-spiritual. And this was also what compelled certain discerning researchers to acknowledge that natural science simply cannot reach what is, on the one hand, the essence of matter itself, and on the other, the essence of human consciousness. But if human beings cannot investigate how their consciousness—that is, the soul working within them—grasps matter, then they must bid farewell to that great imperative: “Know thyself!” Then we would have brought to a close that period of human spiritual development since Greek antiquity, with the exhortation “Know thyself!” as something beautiful and powerful—yet nothing more than an illusion of humanity. Then we must admit: this demand cannot be fulfilled. The deeper one delves into the spirit of natural science, the more one must, from the standpoint of anthroposophy, agree with those who speak of the “Ignorabimus” of natural science—those who say that natural science has limits that it, for its part, cannot transcend. The question arises, however, whether the human mind can readily find peace in the recognition of such limits, and whether it does not, from the outset, seek to disregard—as something particularly prejudiced—the very desires that the human heart harbors in this regard.

[ 4 ] What I would like to describe to you this evening as anthroposophical research seeks to provide an answer to this question. It seeks to understand to what extent this demand of the soul is in any way justified. Many people today look at the magnificent achievements of natural science on the one hand, and on the other hand feel that natural science cannot touch upon what is truly soul-and-spiritual. And so many of those who do not wish to stop at acknowledging the limits of human knowledge turn to one form or another of mysticism—that mystical way of viewing the world which attempts to reach what pertains to the eternal aspect of the human being through contemplation of one’s own inner self. And through such mystical contemplation, many beautiful things have indeed been brought forth from the depths of the human soul, from the depths of life that otherwise remains in the subconscious or unconscious. Through such mystical contemplation, many people have come to believe that what is brought up from the depths of the soul—what is present within the human being—is directly rooted in divine-spiritual existence, so that by bringing it up, one would bring the divine-spiritual to revelation in human cognition itself, and thereby advance toward an exploration of the eternal nature of the human being and the connection between the human being and the divine.

[ 5 ] Thus, anyone who raises the great questions of the human soul’s existence today stands, I would say, between two cliffs that seem to set insurmountable limits on knowledge: the natural scientific on one side, the mystical on the other. But no matter how much mysticism promises, and no matter how beautiful and magnificent many mystics draw from the human soul, most mystical endeavors simply could not stand up to knowledge that is truly trained and disciplined by science. For those who, through the rigorous methods of natural science, have become accustomed to judging all things—including those within human beings themselves—soon discover that what the mystic often draws from the depths of his soul is, after all, nothing other than what he may have acquired in some way, many years ago, from the external world in the form of ideas and feelings, which may then have been transformed by his vivid imagination into powerful images—but these ideas and emotional contents, having sunk into the depths of the human being, have been altered by the human organism, which has such a secret, meaningful connection with the soul in relation to external cognition. And it is precisely to the profound connoisseur of the soul that it is revealed how that which, having been gained in a mystical way, is held to be eternal, is nothing other than an altered—indeed, by the human organism itself altered—result of memory.

[ 6 ] And so, ultimately, if one wishes to approach deeper experiences—the great questions of human existence—one must admit: Natural science offers no way to penetrate these questions in any way. It confines its findings to a specific realm, so that through its findings one can perceive only the outward aspects of the human being; it does not allow one to approach the human being itself. Ultimately, this is the necessary admission one must make. Serious and sincere natural science, in particular, does not come close to the human being. And mysticism, as it usually first appears, does not arise from within the human being. Natural science, by penetrating the world, comes from the world but not to the human being; mysticism, by penetrating the human being, comes from the human being but not out into the world. If one then allows what arises in the soul from these two perspectives to truly take effect, in accordance with one’s own feelings, one asks oneself once again: Is it not perhaps possible to go even beyond what mysticism offers on the one hand, and what scientific knowledge offers on the other?

[ 7 ] I have already taken the liberty, in the lecture I was allowed to give a few days ago at the “Urania,” of pointing out how anthroposophy, as a spiritual science, strives to examine closely precisely what a person assimilates into their memory. And so, ultimately, memory turns out to be that which can be deepened. Today, just as a few days ago, I do not wish to delve into deep philosophical or epistemological discussions, but rather to remain within the realm of popular consciousness. Such discussions could be had; but we will best understand what is meant from the perspective being discussed here if I stick to the popular level.

[ 8 ] What lives on in our memory—what fills the essence of our being by enabling us at any moment to conjure up before our eyes what we have experienced—is, after all, brought into the human soul through impressions from the outside world. These are sensory impressions that we take in and process through our concepts, and which, unbeknownst to us, undergo changes within us and then resurface—either spontaneously, or with effort, when we need them, brought up from the depths of our soul. And if we wish to bring to mind what actually lives in the human soul through memory, we can come to no other conclusion than to say to ourselves: It is like something that is reflected back—even after a long time—from the mirror of the soul, which lies deep and everlasting within our human being. The external world is reflected in our soul through our memory, through our capacity to remember. And as I said, even if—due to time constraints and circumstances—I am not currently in a position to discuss the nature of this mirror of the soul in detail, this image will suffice for our understanding. Our memory does not take us to the very core of our soul’s essence. Just as when we have a mirror before us, we see in the mirror what is in front of it, so too does memory, in the mystical concepts evoked, offer us nothing other than the reflection of the external world. If one wishes to behold what lies behind the mirror, then the mirror must either be removed or shattered. In a certain sense, we must break through this inner mirror—this power of memory within us—in order to look deeper into our being. And we shatter this mirror of the soul—that is, we go even deeper into the human being, beyond what this mirror presents to us as mysticism—when we internally activate our thinking, which we otherwise allow to be stimulated by experiments, and when, through meditation and concentration on a specific thought, we repeatedly strengthen our soul forces.

[ 9 ] I described it in detail in the Urania lecture; I have discussed it in my books—how, through a particular exercise of thought, one can descend even below the mirror of memory, how one can look deeper into one’s own being. One might suppose that one would then be looking into what constitutes our physical organization. For there is no doubt: for ordinary consciousness, we penetrate psychically only as far as the mirror of memory, and in the process, the processes of the physical organization distort the external image we behold in the mirror of the soul into a distorted reflection. But if we cultivate an ever more active form of thinking—one with which we live inwardly as with our blood and our breath, so that our entire being participates in this inwardly living thought—and if we penetrate deeper into our human nature, then what is revealed to us is not a physical human being, but rather a spiritual-soul aspect that can only be revealed through this invigorated, strengthened thinking. Then what is revealed to us in the human being is that which is entirely of a spiritual-soul nature, which remains unconscious to consciousness, but which, through its very nature, shows that it existed before the human being began its earthly existence through birth—indeed, through conception.

[ 10 ] That this can be the case becomes clear when we consider that, just as memory—through its very content—shows us that we are not dealing with the representation of a present event but with a past one, so too do we have the same certainty regarding the nature of our experience when we approach the experience described, which leads us deeper than mystical contemplation. Then we gain a spiritual picture of all that is truly creative in that first epoch of human life, in which such a wondrous, formative activity is exerted upon the sensory-nervous system, the brain, and the rest of the human organism. But through such contemplation, we trace the human soul-spiritual being beyond birth and death; we look into a spiritual world in which we existed as spiritual-soul human beings with our essential core before we descended into this earthly world and clothed ourselves in what our ancestors gave us: a physical human body.

[ 11 ] It is certainly true that one arrives at this perspective not only through that nebulous human faculty which is today referred to as “clairvoyance.” Even if the term “clairvoyance” is used for what I have just described, it must be understood as precise clairvoyance. For the person who approaches spiritual research like a precise scientist activates their thinking in such a way that this thinking draws forth from the human being not only memories, but also things that lie beneath the power of memory—things that were creative within the human being before the power of memory had developed, before the human being began their earthly existence.

[ 12 ] This is the one aspect that anthroposophical research turns to when confronted with the two principles described above. It seeks to deepen the spiritual through precise thought processes and, on this one side, goes beyond birth to the knowledge of the eternal core of the human being. But just as one must recognize what the mystic so beautifully cultivates as his contemplation—which leads him to illusions—if one wishes to arrive at scientific knowledge and not remain stuck at those points where the mystic often remains, and just as one must, so to speak, strive for knowledge of the pre-birth human being as a continuation of the mystical path, so, on the other hand, one must attempt, through the deepening of scientific research, to take a further step in spiritual knowledge. And this unfolds in the following way.

[ 13 ] Yes, we encounter limits precisely when we apply scientific methods to the world in an honest way; we encounter limits precisely when we apply them to natural processes in a realistic way; there we encounter limits that we express in the concept of “material consciousness” and so on. But it is one thing to stand within these limits and say, “Human beings cannot go beyond this; we must resign ourselves to it,” and quite another to begin, precisely at these limits, to struggle with one’s whole being, saying: Perhaps these limits stem from the fact that we restrict the abilities we possess within ourselves in order to perfect the natural sciences—but then, if we continue to struggle, employing all our human abilities to grapple with these concepts, which will now be constrained by limits, perhaps we can transcend those limits. — I know that an objection arises easily; people will say: Yes, it is indeed so good, so beneficial, that the natural sciences have understood how to exclude the human element from scientific methods—by adhering to measuring, counting, the results of the scales, and so on—that is, to detach what is called research methods, what is known, from the human being. It is dangerous to mix the human element back in.

[ 14 ] If one does this in the manner prescribed by anthroposophical research—namely, by first standing firmly on the ground of natural science, by having fully resolved to objectively detach the research methods from the human element, and by introducing the personal struggle into that detached framework—then something different emerges. Then one respects the demands of natural science while at the same time introducing the human element into the objectivity of natural science. And here one must say: If one has imbued oneself with the insights of the natural sciences over the past centuries—especially the nineteenth century—by, so to speak, filling one’s soul completely with the spirit of the natural sciences, and if one can then nevertheless devote oneself with one’s entire personality precisely to the things that science describes, then a gift of human nature—which is otherwise not at all regarded as a power of cognition—becomes a power of cognition. This devotion to something that has been attained as an objective reality ultimately becomes an objective expression of human love. When, with full respect for the scientific way of thinking, after having surveyed the phenomena of the world from the scientific point of view as far as possible, and can then detach oneself from this way of thinking—if one brings such heroism to one’s research that one immerses oneself in the scientific findings with a devotion one would otherwise only muster when developing love in the world, especially human love, —then love itself becomes knowledge, and then, with the love that has undergone a metamorphosis to become a power of knowledge, one penetrates beyond what natural science is capable of providing.

[ 15 ] This is not the work of a single day, but of long epochs of human life: to penetrate to those entities that lie beyond the boundaries of the natural sciences. But what then becomes apparent is this: At the very moment when one, so to speak, breaks through those boundaries and looks behind the scenes set up by scientific knowledge, something in human beings themselves—which had previously always remained opaque—strangely becomes transparent: We wake up in the morning, go about our daily work with a waking consciousness arising from the forces of our connection to the earth and from our soul, and we fall asleep in the evening. What happens to the soul-spiritual within the physical-bodily realm eludes human consciousness. What plays a role in human life there are the confused dreams devoid of any value for understanding. So that we can say: The entire development of human life is composed of what we experience while awake and what we experience while asleep. And we do not realize that, when we look back, we always link the morning to the evening, and let fall out of our consciousness that which we cannot reach with it—that which eludes consciousness—so that we exclude the periods we have slept through. The question now arises as to whether what sleep provides a person in the soul-spiritual sense might not be just as important as what the waking state provides.

[ 16 ] Certainly, only the waking state can be taken into account when it comes to external life, and the more civilization has turned its attention to the mere observation of external life, the more it has neglected the observation of the waking state. But for human life itself—as even level-headed philosophers have conceded—what happens during the ample third of our earthly existence that we spend asleep is no less essential than what we experience while awake. Yet this becomes vividly apparent only when, after our struggle with nature, we have broken through the boundaries that define things by means of ultimate concepts. Then what happens is that the empty space of experience—which we otherwise sleep through, and which, apart from dreams, contains nothing for us—this empty space of cognition fills with content; we learn to look toward that which otherwise shrouds itself in the darkness of sleep. Just as we can look back upon what, in waking life, presents itself as the knowledge we have experienced—as physical, sensory human beings—with the Earth and its phenomena, so too does knowledge of a spiritual-soul nature now emerge from that state in which the human being exists between falling asleep and waking up. The darkness between falling asleep and waking up is illuminated; this third of our life becomes transparent to us, and what we behold is then our true self—the form of thinking, feeling, and willing. We perceive that which, unbeknownst to our consciousness, is constantly at work within us on our spiritual-soul being, and we see through to its essence as that which is separated from us through the gate of death when we shed the physical body. As sleep becomes transparent to us, we learn to recognize the true nature of human immortality. When we look beyond the mystical, when we go beyond ordinary mysticism, we come to know the pre-birth nature of the human being; when we take natural science seriously but begin to grapple with its limits, we come to know what the human being carries within itself of immortal existence. And so the human being, in its development, takes shape for us as we see, so to speak, how a pre-birth human being penetrates into the physical human organism, I would say, is increasingly absorbed into this physical human organization, as the physical human organization becomes ever more powerful, as that which has been drawn into the human being through birth gradually fades away more and more in physical human existence as the human being develops further, as, so to speak, the human being becomes more and more a physical-bodily being from this perspective. But to the same extent that this development proceeds, to the same extent that our innate spirit and our innate soul submerge within the physical body, there emerges that which, when we observe sleep, appears to us as the future being of the human being. |

[ 17 ] As we look more and more toward the end of normal human life, we see how, in contrast to the fading spiritual life of prenatal existence, the spiritual-soul being of spiritual human existence after death emerges. There, in every single moment of earthly life, we see a measure of what the human being has brought with them from the worlds of eternity into earthly existence—what they craft for themselves to carry through the gate of death into a spiritual world; through this recognition, we advance toward immortality. The path I am describing to you—to arrive at an understanding of the human being by transcending both mysticism and natural science—is not one that can be dismissed by casually labeling it “clairvoyant”; it is a path in which one knows how each step follows the previous one, just as the mathematician knows how one mathematical derivative follows another. The path I have been able to outline for you—referring, in doing so, to the books mentioned—is the path of anthroposophy, that path which, in terms of knowledge, leads to the pre-birth and immortality of the human soul in such a way that one could account for every step to the strictest mathematician, and which shows that one need not remain within the realm of natural science to penetrate into the human being, nor must one remain within mysticism to approach the world, but rather how one can, through knowledge, unite worldly existence with the understanding of human existence. If natural science and mysticism are both pursued sufficiently in this way, then the possibility will once again present itself for the future spiritual civilization of humanity to fulfill the word that approaches humanity with such powerful urgency: “Know thyself!”

[ 18 ] Such knowledge, as I have just described it, differs, however, from the knowledge that is bound to the nervous system—which is essentially intellectual knowledge. And allow me to make a personal remark, one that is, however, entirely objective. As a researcher of the spiritual realm, when one attempts to penetrate this area—which I describe as the worlds one must pass through before birth and after death—one becomes aware: You cannot get by with the kind of thinking that otherwise serves you in life; you must develop a strengthened form of thinking that engages the whole person. — This does not make one a medium; yet such thinking must engage the whole person. Such thinking penetrates into sensation and feeling, and even demands that the person surrender to it with the full content of their will. At the same time, thinking about spiritual content is such that it cannot be incorporated into memory in the usual way, like any other kind of knowledge. Here, too, I would like to make a personal remark: You see, when a researcher of the spiritual world gives a lecture such as this one, he cannot prepare it in the same way as he would a typical scientific lecture. If he did, he would be appealing solely to memory. But what has arisen through such deep immersion cannot be incorporated into memory; it must be relived anew at every moment. It can, of course, be brought down into those realms where we express our insights in words, but one must engage one’s whole being in this endeavor. And that is why I have deeply experienced that I am now only able to incorporate into human language what I succeed in researching in the spiritual world—and by incorporating it into human language, it also becomes embedded in memory; I succeed only when I draw a few lines or write them down, so that not only the head but also all the other organ systems are involved. One must feel the need to resort to one method or another, for one cannot manage it—it fluctuates—if one tries to grasp it with the mind alone. The essential point is that I give expression to the thought through lines and thus fix it in place. That is why one can find whole cartloads of old notebooks of mine that I never look at again. They are not meant for that purpose, but rather so that what I have painstakingly extracted from my mind can be brought to the point where it can be clothed in words and thus brought within the reach of memory. Once you have written it down—once you have participated in the creative process with more than just your head and your thoughts, but with other parts of your organism—then you are able to hold on to that which threatens to slip away. The rest of the human organism is, after all, initially uninvolved—unconsciously dormant even more so than the processes of the mind—and when we incorporate anything into our will, we draw upon those organs that are in a state which, while awake, we describe as sleeping. We are, in fact, awake only in our thoughts, in our mental images; for how that which we imagine penetrates our organism as a decision of the will to become a movement of the hand or finger remains entirely shrouded in darkness in ordinary consciousness. What happens between the process in the brain and the resulting movement can only be recognized by the researcher of the spirit. And so one entrusts spiritual insight—which is not ordinary intellectual knowledge—to the entire human organism. By acquiring knowledge of the human being from within the whole person, one is able to apply this knowledge—which can grasp the pre-birth and post-death realms as concrete realities—to practical life in a completely different way than one would be able to without this true understanding of the human being.

[ 19 ] Now those who stand on the ground of anthroposophical research—I would say, through a twist of fate that, however, also extends to the other fields of human education, namely pedagogy and didactics—dare to introduce human education into practical life. Those who imbue themselves with an understanding of the human being derived from such research as I have described acquire a more refined instinct—a spiritualized instinct—for everything that develops within the human being throughout the various stages of life, from birth to death. We need only have the courage to view human development—the understanding of which we require—on a higher level, just as we otherwise view anything within the scientific world using rigorous scientific methods.

[ 20 ] This leads, for example, to the following: We are always pondering what the effect of the soul-spiritual on the physical-bodily aspect of the human being might actually be. But we fail to realize that we should not apply the methods of speculation to such questions; rather, we should also apply the methods of observation to them. When genuine observation of human beings is developed in a truly human way, then we see—I am speaking here from a popular perspective—how, in the earliest stage of a child’s life, from birth until the teeth begin to fall out, the most significant human faculties emerge in a wondrous way from the indeterminate depths of the child’s being. We see how that dynamic develops through which the human being, as an upright creature, establishes itself in balance within the world; how language and thought emerge from the depths of the soul and find physical expression. But what we see culminates organically in the change of teeth. This event has the distinctive characteristic of being a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence in human life. What happens during the change of teeth does not repeat itself. In a sense, a full stop is placed within the human organism, bringing together a sum of forces. Only someone who is unfamiliar with this human organism could believe that the change of teeth stands alone. No, it does not stand alone; it stands as the outwardly perceptible expression of what is taking place throughout the entire human organism. A person goes through something that they will never experience again in later life; otherwise, they would keep losing and regrowing their teeth in a periodic cycle. But anyone who observes human beings is aware of this significant transformation of the human being’s spiritual and soul nature during that period of life. Yet people do not take note of the transformation that takes place during this phase of a person’s life. If I were to describe what educators and pedagogues should know—the foundation of the understanding of the human being that I wish to discuss here—it would go far beyond the scope of a lecture, and so I shall merely sketch it out.

[ 21 ] Take memory, for example. If one considers it superficially, one might say that memory functions in a certain way until the teeth begin to fall out, and then it changes somewhat. But memory before the change of teeth is something different from memory after the change of teeth. Today, precisely because of our scientific mindset, we lack the proper observational skills for such intimate expressions of human nature. A proper observation reveals that the marvelous memory before the change of teeth is nothing other than the fulfillment of habits that manifest from within. Memory develops up to the time of the first tooth loss from the forces—the power—of habit. When it comes to a memory that can be compared to a habitual movement, one can say that, for memory, one image follows another.

[ 22 ] In short, what we call memory undergoes a metamorphosis as the child goes through the process of losing baby teeth around the age of seven. It undergoes a metamorphosis from a more physical, bodily experience to a spiritual, soul-based experience. Once one begins making such observations, further insights emerge that are immensely characteristic of human development as it proceeds. For example, once one has developed an instinct for observation and internalized the findings of spiritual research, one sees that until the change of teeth, the child is an imitative being. Of course, one must not take such things too literally, but in the first stage of life the child is, in a sense, a single, large sensory organ. We can compare the child’s entire life in this first stage to a single sensory organ; we can compare it to the inner organization of the eye. Just as the eye takes in the external world and, through the exertion of the will and by means of the organic structure, builds up internally the image of what is impressed upon it, so the child is constantly striving, through imitation arising from its inner being, to reproduce what is present in its surroundings. The child is entirely a sensory organ, an active sensory organ. Precisely because the child’s entire being functions as a sensory organ, the child not only imitates and inwardly experiences—in a dreamlike state, entirely unconsciously—what constitutes external movement, gesture, speech sounds, and the thought contained in speech sounds, but—and this is the distinctive feature—the following always arises from this starting point: The imitating child observes the moral significance of the gestures made by its father and mother. The moral significance of, for example, a facial expression finds its counterpart in the child’s consciousness; it becomes ingrained in the child, in its physical constitution. The child organizes itself right down to the level of its blood vessels by empathizing with what is happening in its surroundings. Only when we grasp the full scope of this will we truly be able to distinguish between what is inherited and what is acquired in this imitative way from the environment during the child’s earliest years. Then one will see that wonderful interaction between the environment and the child, and the true concept of the science of heredity—which is mystical to the sober observer—will be able to be placed on an entirely different foundation. But this also reveals the special nature that the human being brings with them when, as a spiritual-soul being, they enter earthly existence at birth with an etheric body—a term that refers to something unfamiliar to today’s conception of reality. What characterizes the child is a physical-religious being. It is indeed the case that the child is devoted with its body to the physical external world and its moral content, just as we, in a religious mood, can be devoted to something that reveals itself to us as divine. It is in a physical-religious mood; because this mood is purely physical-religious, it naturally does not contain the mood of piety or similar states that later develop into spiritual religiosity. But if we trace human development, we see how what existed within the body up to the change of teeth then appears transformed; how what was entirely confined to the physical-bodily realm in the first epoch begins to flow into impulses of feeling and will. And when we send the child to elementary school, we must realize that the child’s inner life undergoes a metamorphosis. At that point, what was physical-bodily experience—after the aforementioned turning point marked by the change of teeth, that which occurred in physical-bodily development—is partly left behind and emerges in a different form as soul-spiritual, appearing as soul and feeling. That which was initially present in the forces of growth—in the plastic, formative forces—and which acted as a spiritual-soul element within the body during the change of teeth: a part of this detaches itself and transforms into the free spiritual-soul element after the change of teeth. And what we call growth—that which has been at work in the body—gradually transforms into the spiritual-soul aspect. If we bear this in mind and are equipped with this insight, then as teachers and educators we will approach the child we are educating correctly, with our whole attitude and all our knowledge. Then we know that within this physical, bodily, and sensory being—who is in a state of religious devotion to their environment—the spiritual-soul being that existed in pre-earthly existence grows into this being, just as a bodily-religious being would. Let us put ourselves in the shoes of an educator who stands before the child in this way. He will be aware of his responsibility; he knows that the spiritual worlds have sent him down to guide a being whom he must discern and unravel through its physical expressions. He will stand before the child in such a way that he devotes himself to helping ensure that everything the child has brought with them from the spiritual and soul worlds can truly come to manifestation. And with reverence for his calling, the educator will stand before the child, for with every month, with every year, he sees that everything the child has brought with it from the spiritual-soul world is being transformed into the physical-bodily realm. And he will observe the ways in which he can influence the child, and he will be able to perceive what was physical before the transformation—in the first epoch, up to the change of teeth; in the second epoch, from the change of teeth to sexual maturity, it transforms as a transition into the soul, and only with sexual maturity does it transform into the spiritual. The human being then appears to us in such a way that what was experienced in his or her constitution during the early childhood years now finds expression in his or her spiritual grasp of the world: the physical-religious becomes spiritual-religious. Now we perceive the connection: how that which is physical becomes soul-spiritual. Now we no longer speculate about the physical-bodily, about spirit and soul; now we see how, in the various stages of human development, at one time the spiritual-soul aspect reveals itself directly, and at another time we see how the spiritual-soul being of eternity works within the physical-bodily. Now we gain an understanding of the human being based on the interaction between body and soul, grounded in the observation of human beings, which becomes the foundation for proper human education.

[ 23 ] By a twist of fate, the opportunity has arisen to apply the insights gained from such observations in a practical, didactic, and pedagogical way during the years when one is able to guide a child’s development. In Stuttgart, Mr. Emil Molt founded the “Waldorf School” as an independent elementary school, to which the lower grades of the middle school were later added. The leadership was entrusted to me. I was now able to introduce the methods that arise from the understanding of human nature described above. This involves, first of all, setting aside what is otherwise called the “learning objective” and deriving it directly from human development itself.

[ 24 ] I have only sketched out what I have described, but it appears that, day by day, one can observe the child in new ways through the pedagogical instinct that arises from working with the child and on the child, and that one can thereby discern how the child’s life unfolds; that one can discern what needs to be done each week, each month, and that one allows the essence of the human being to dictate what one, as an educator, must impart to the child: for example, that initially, when the child enters elementary school, the child in this phase of development has a completely natural aversion to learning to read and write directly. And that is understandable. Consider that these peculiar symbols we call letters—through which we read and write, and which are, after all, something entirely foreign to human beings—arose from the original written symbols over the course of a long cultural evolution. Original writing, after all, arose from the images and symbols of what it represented; it was still closer in expression to what it signified; at that time, it was still similar to what one perceived directly. The child who starts school and is expected to learn these derived written symbols feels no connection to symbols that are alien to his or her sensibilities. This understanding only awakens with sexual maturity and is quite different from that experienced between the ages of six and eight and between the ages of fourteen, fifteen, and sixteen. Because the child is only just emerging psychologically, it relies on the pictorial, which presents itself just as sensory perception and sensory observation do. Once this is recognized, one can introduce the appropriate educational impulses for this age; but then one must move on to those things to which we moved in our school practice at our school in Stuttgart. The aim is to guide the child toward drawing that is painting, and painting that is drawing. One must not only engage them with their heads and eyes, but involve their whole being, and it is wonderful to see the remarkable imagery that emerges—what the children achieve through drawing while painting and painting while drawing. If this is guided in the right way, one can develop—from what is familiar to the children—letters, writing, and reading. We have them learn to read after they have learned to write, because in reading, a person is involved only intellectually, whereas in writing, the whole person is engaged.

[ 25 ] This is an example of how we try, based on an understanding of human nature, to achieve in practical pedagogy and didactics what human education is meant to achieve. Those who observe how a person is predisposed with regard to their religious life will also find the opportunity to introduce moral and religious impulses. In this way, the following becomes apparent: It is remarkable how children between the ages of nine and ten—in the first third of the second stage of life—go through certain changes during this period. All of this takes place unconsciously. We see how the child, having passed through the stage of tooth replacement, makes the transition from an imitative being to one who, under the authority of the educator and teacher, assimilates everything. You will believe the man who wrote *The Philosophy of Freedom* thirty years ago when he says that he will not approach you as an advocate for authority, but precisely when one has recognized from that *Philosophy of Freedom* what freedom means, one can also appreciate that it is inherent in human nature that, from the time of tooth replacement until the onset of puberty, the child is a being who perfectly imitates what he or she sees in the teacher or educator. We see that the child wants to model itself on the teacher not only through language—out of its inner nature—but also in every aspect of human expression. Once the child has become accustomed to this necessary, self-evident sense of authority, one can observe how it goes through a kind of crisis between the ages of nine and ten. Everything happens in accordance with feelings and sensations; the child is not consciously aware of it; but the child approaches the educator and wants something special. And if we were to put it into words, the child would say: Up to that point, beauty was beautiful because the teacher and educator considered it beautiful; up to that point, truth was true because the teacher and educator considered it true. — From this point on, however, the child senses: Who justifies this authority before the whole world? Where does it get the truth and beauty to call them true and beautiful? The child is going through a crisis; it knows nothing of what I have formulated here, but simply feels something like this. And we, as teachers and educators, must observe this moment so that the right words are spoken again and again, if necessary, by the educator to the child. For this is the crux of the matter: the child’s entire future life depends on what we do in this moment of crisis—whether it will be joyful and secure, or whether it will be alienated and inwardly paralyzed.

[ 26 ] This method of educating human beings shows us that, as educators, we must do what is beneficial for life as a whole. Then, when we delve into such an observation of life, we will see how something that is properly instilled in a child during early childhood only comes to maturity later in life. Let me give you an example. We know people who, when they have grown older—perhaps when they have become very old—and enter a gathering, do not need to speak much at all; they are a source of calm, peace, and blessing for the group. These are people who, often simply through the nuance of their words and the way they speak, can have a profound effect on those around them, bestowing moral impulses and grace. If one does not content oneself with observing life over short periods of time, but instead makes the effort to observe the entire course of a human life, then one comes to realize that such people—who have such a blessed effect on others—had the good fortune as children to look up to other people or to something that was offered to them with reverence. From this reverence, experienced between the ages of ten and fourteen, develops what makes us benefactors in later life—which I would like to express figuratively as follows: No hand can be raised in blessing in later life that has not learned, in childhood, to fold itself in prayer. This is merely a figurative way of pointing out how a true understanding of human nature instills in the child a sense of moral goodness and an aversion to evil—so that these may grow and live, just as the human body itself grows. One gets the feeling that presenting a child with sharply defined concepts is like shackling the child’s developing organism. We must give the child concepts and impulses that can grow along with the organism, that can grow spiritually and emotionally, that carry within them the inner potential to become ever richer and richer, so that later, looking back with joy, one can see that the child’s life continues to sprout within the now-aged human body. Through a few examples, I would like to show you how a genuine understanding of human nature—achieved in the way I described at the very beginning of my lecture—applies to pedagogy and the child’s development. You will see at the school in Stuttgart—which will have to prove to you what I have described here—how it provides, so to speak, practical proof of this in life, which exists to a certain degree, even if we wish to remain modest regarding the results.

[ 27 ] One might now object that only those who have undergone the experiences that enable them to glimpse into the spiritual world can have an interest in such knowledge of human nature. But that is not the case. Although anyone who has followed the path of knowledge described, for example, in the book *How Does One Gain Knowledge of the Higher Worlds?* can verify for themselves what spiritual research says, this is not even necessary for making a judgment—just as anyone who is not a painter themselves can still judge the beauty of a painting. It is true that only the researcher can describe the spiritual world; however, those who have retained sound common sense are perfectly capable of discerning the truth or falsehood of what is discovered through spiritual research. Therefore, one must not portray those who profess this spiritual research as a sect or describe them as blind.

[ 28 ] Anthroposophy does not seek to be that; it seeks to be a continuation of scientific research, which has developed over the centuries, culminating in the nineteenth century, and whose development we are still part of today. Only within these guidelines can it become a true understanding of the human being and thereby the foundation for an education that is in keeping with humanity and human dignity. For we cannot navigate life based on knowledge of the world alone, since neither natural science nor mysticism can lead the human being to a full understanding of their own human nature. For it is like breathing: it must be an interaction—a kind of inhaling and exhaling, so to speak—between knowledge of the world and knowledge of the human being. Such knowledge alone, however, can be the foundation of an education that pursues the spiritual-soul aspect all the way to its transformation into the physical-bodily aspect—a foundation for what requires transformation in the state of human culture. For anyone who observes life today will be able to say to themselves: This state cannot be transformed through external change alone; what we desire for the future of our civilization—which is under threat—cannot be brought about by external change alone, but only through that which comes from the spirit; and only those human deeds and actions that are sustained by the spirit will contribute to social progress.

[ 29 ] Let me briefly summarize: Spiritual insight gives a person, immersed in the Spirit, the ideas that can fill their entire being—ideas that can lead to spirit-filled deeds, spirit-filled actions, and a spirit-filled social life—a human coexistence steeped in love. And that is precisely what we will need most of all in the near future.