The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Fourth Lecture

[ 1 ] The discussions I will present today are intended to be of an educational nature for the people, and in such a way that their underlying principles may serve our times—these times of such gravity. As I believe you will have seen for yourselves, what could only be hinted at in my book *The Key Points of the Social Question in the Necessities of Life in the Present and Future* has many underlying implications and, above all, very many consequences that point toward the realities of the new world order. Consequently, of everything that ought to be discussed today in this vein—and above all, regarding the areas where inspiration is needed—only individual guidelines can be provided for the time being, rather than anything exhaustive.

[ 2 ] When we look at our times today—and we need to do so, because we must understand these times—we cannot help but notice, time and again, the chasm that exists between what must be called a culture in decline and what must be called a culture that, though still operating chaotically, is on the rise. I want to explicitly point out that today I intend to address only a very specific chapter, and I therefore ask you to consider this chapter in the context of the whole that I am now presenting on various occasions.

[ 3 ] What I would like to begin with is this: to draw your attention to the fact that it is indeed clearly evident how a culture, whose bearer was the bourgeois social order, is in rapid decline; and how, on the other hand, another culture is emerging at dawn, whose bearer today—as I said, still from a foundation that is in many ways not yet understood—is precisely the proletariat. If one wants to understand these things—one can certainly sense them without this, but they remain unclear—one must grasp them through their symptoms. Symptoms are always details, and that is what I ask you to bear in mind in my reflections today. Of course, the subject matter itself will force me to extract details from the whole, but I will endeavor to present this symptomatology in such a way that it cannot be interpreted in an agitational or demagogic sense, but rather is truly shaped by the facts of the situation. One can, of course, be misunderstood in many ways today when speaking in this vein, but one must simply expose oneself to these misunderstandings.

[ 4 ] Over the years, I have often pointed out to you that, based on the worldview we hold here, one can first and foremost be a true advocate and defender of the modern scientific worldview. How often have I cited everything that can be said in defense of this scientific worldview. But I have never failed to point out the immense downsides of this scientific worldview. Just recently, I drew attention to the fact that this becomes immediately apparent when one refers to individual specific cases—that is, when one proceeds entirely empirically—using what is known here as the symptomatological approach. I had to commend to you, in other contexts, an outstanding contemporary work by Oscar Hertwig, the distinguished biologist, *The Development of Organisms; A Refutation of Darwin’s Theory of Chance”; and, to avoid any misunderstandings, I had to point out immediately—after Oscar Hertwig published a second little book—that this man has placed, alongside a magnificent scientific work, a treatise on social conditions that is entirely inferior. This is a significant fact of our time. It shows on what ground—on what ground that is itself excellent as a scientific worldview—that which is primarily necessary for understanding the present cannot arise: an understanding of the social impulses that exist in our time.

[ 5 ] Today I would like to present another example to you, through which you will be able to see clearly how, on the one hand, bourgeois education is heading toward decline and can only be saved in a certain way; and how, on the other hand, there is something on the rise that simply needs to be nurtured and cultivated in an understanding and proper manner—then it will be the starting point for the culture of the future.

[ 6 ] I have before me a book that is truly a symptomatic, typical product of the declining bourgeoisie; it was published immediately after the World War and bears the somewhat pretentious title *Der Leuchter, Weltanschauung und Lebensgestaltung* (The Candlestick: Worldview and Way of Life). — This “candlestick” is particularly well-suited to casting as much darkness as possible over everything that is so necessary today—namely, social education and its intellectual foundations. A peculiar group has come together, writing strange things in individual essays about the so-called “reconstruction” of our social organism. Of course, I can only cite a few examples from this rather extensive book. First, there is a naturalist, Jakob von Ueuküll, truly a good, typical natural scientist, who—and this is the significant point—has not only acquired knowledge in the natural sciences—in this regard, he is not merely a well-versed but, as a researcher, a consummate man of the present—but who also feels compelled, as others who have grown out of a natural-scientific background do, to now put his conclusions to use in shaping the social world. He has learned from the so-called “cellular state,” as the organism is often called in scientific circles. Specifically, he has learned to develop his intellectual organism, and with this developed intellectual organism he now observes social life. I would like to cite just a few examples from which you can see how this man—not, as one might say, from the natural sciences themselves, but from a scientific way of thinking—views today’s social structure in a way that is, fundamentally speaking, quite correct, but, in terms of real life, utterly nonsensical. He turns his gaze to the social organism and to the natural organism, and finds that harmony in a natural organism can sometimes be disrupted by disease processes; and he now says the following with regard to the social organism:

[ 7 ] “Any harmony can be disrupted by disease. We call the most terrible disease of the human body ‘cancer.’ Its characteristic is the unchecked activity of the protoplasm, which no longer cares about maintaining the body’s structures but only produces free protoplasmic cells. These displace the body’s structures but cannot perform any work themselves, since they lack structure.

[ 8 ] We recognize the same disease in human society when the people’s motto—Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity—replaces the state’s motto: Coercion, Difference, and Subordination.»

[ 9 ] Well, there you have a typical scientific thinker. He regards it as a cancer afflicting the body of the people when the impulses of liberty, equality, and fraternity arise from within the people. He wants to replace liberty with coercion, equality with diversity, and fraternity with subordination. He has learned to adopt this perspective from the cellular organism, and he consequently applies it to the social organism. Moreover, his arguments are by no means insignificant when viewed correctly from a symptomatic perspective. He comes to identify within the social organism something that corresponds to the blood circulation in the natural organism—not as I have described it in various lectures, but as it appears to him. He comes to regard gold as this blood that rightly circulates within the social organism, and he says: “Gold, however, also possesses the ability to circulate independently of the flow of commodities, and thus finds its way into the major banks as central collection points (the ‘gold heart’).” — So the natural scientist comes to seek something akin to a heart within the social organism, and finds in the major banks central collection points “that can exert a predominant influence on the entire flow of gold and commodities.”

[ 10 ] Now I want to make it very clear to you that I do not wish to ridicule anything, but rather simply to show you how a person who, starting from this foundation, also has the courage to think through the consequences, must actually think. If many people today delude themselves into believing that, over the course of the last three to four centuries, we have achieved a level of development that makes such thinking entirely understandable, then the fact remains that these people are asleep in their souls, that they indulge in cultural narcotics, cultural anesthetics that prevent them from looking with an alert soul at what is actually contained within so-called bourgeois education. You see, I have shed light for you on this “candlestick”—on the foundation of contemporary education—as a symptom, insofar as it understands social life from the perspective of scientific thinking. — I would also like to show you, using another example, how that which confronts us in the spiritual realm takes effect.

[ 11 ] Among those people who are united here in this society is also someone who stands on a more intellectual ground, Friedrich Niebergall. Well, this Friedrich Niebergall is worth mentioning simply because he is quite sympathetic toward certain things that are valuable to us. But I would like to say that this is precisely how one takes a favorable view of certain things from that perspective. If one looks at the “how,” one does not rate this goodwill very highly—provided, of course, that one is not selfish but rather looks to the great social impulses; and it would be good not to delude oneself about such matters. After all, we know—or at least some of us should know: What is cultivated here as so-called spiritual science—as anthroposophically oriented spiritual science—has long been conceived by us as the true spiritual foundation of what is on the rise today. Here, however, the most extreme opposites usually clash. And I have had to experience time and again how those who participate in our spiritual scientific endeavors drift off toward other things they feel are “very closely related,” but which differ from these spiritual scientific endeavors in that they are the worst manifestations of bourgeois decline, whereas spiritual science has always been in the sharpest struggle with this bourgeois, decadent standpoint. And so we find, in a rather motley jumble—as seen by someone who simply cannot distinguish between these two currents, such as Niebergall—a figure who proves to be nothing less than a characteristic outgrowth of our decadent culture: Johannes Müller; and right on the other side—you know that I do not say such things out of some silly conceit—you will then find my name listed. There, all sorts of charming things are even said about what I am trying to accomplish—quite a lot of charming things. But now you will know that my entire endeavor has always been directed toward applying common sense to everything that has been put forward within this so-called “spiritual science,” and toward combating all nebulous mysticism, all so-called mystical-theosophical nonsense, in the most forceful manner possible. This could only be achieved by bringing clear insight and distinct ideas into the highest realms of knowledge—ideas that one will strive for precisely when one has learned true thinking from the natural sciences, rather than the current orientation of the natural sciences.

[ 12 ] After this gentleman has explained how beautiful many aspects of anthroposophy are, he then adds: “This fundamental practical truth is then entwined with a convoluted tangle of supposed insights into the life of the soul, humanity, and the cosmos, just as was once the case in the comprehensive systems of Gnosticism, which offered mysterious wisdom from the East to an era similarly seeking depth and peace of mind. ” Of course, nothing could be further from the truth. For the fact that the author describes this as “bizarre stuff,” as a “bizarre tangle,” is based solely on his unwillingness to engage with the mathematical method of this spiritual science. This is usually the case with those who seek to derive ideas solely from the declining mode of cognition. And so what has been gained precisely through the discipline of inner experience by means of mathematics appears to him as a tangled web. But this “confused tangle,” which brings about such mathematical clarity—perhaps even mathematical sobriety—is precisely what is essential; it is what safeguards what is to be pursued here from all rambling mysticism and all nebulous theosophy. And without this so-called “confused tangle,” it is simply impossible to lay a genuine foundation for future spiritual life. Certainly, we have had to struggle—since, up to the present, this spiritual science could be pursued only within the narrowest circles due to our social circumstances—we have had to struggle with what very often manifests itself in the fact that, for the most part, those people who now have time—and nothing but time—for these spiritual-scientific matters still cling to the old, declining habits of thought and feeling. And so one has to struggle so terribly with the sectarianism that spreads so easily in these circles—which, of course, is in truth the very opposite of what should actually be cultivated—and with all sorts of personal squabbling, which then naturally leads to those systems of slander that have sprung up so profusely precisely on the soil of this spiritual science movement.

[ 13 ] Now, anyone who, based on such symptoms, considers what spiritual life is today will easily come to the conclusion that new creations are particularly necessary in the realm of spiritual striving. You see, the call for social reorganization is being heard at a time when people are, in the broadest sense, actually endowed with antisocial drives and antisocial instincts. These antisocial drives and antisocial instincts manifest themselves particularly in people’s private interactions. They are evident in what people do—or rather, do not do—for one another today. They are evident in the fact that a defining characteristic of our time is that people think past one another, speak past one another, and ultimately walk right past one another. An instinctive ability to truly want to understand the person one encounters is something extraordinarily rare in our time. And the other aspect—the possibility for people today to be convinced by something into which they are not locked into by social status, upbringing, or birth—is merely a corollary of this rarity of social instinct. Even if the most beautiful thoughts were to emanate from people today, there are enormous difficulties in getting people to be inspired by anything at all. People today fail to grasp the very best. That is a fundamental characteristic of our time. And as a direct consequence of this—you know, I recently spoke of factual logic, which is of paramount importance for the present in contrast to mere conceptual logic—there is a longing in people today not to actively work through things internally, but to surrender to authorities and sources of feeling. The people who talk so much today about freedom from authority are, in fact, the ones who believe most strongly in authority; they are people who intensely long for authority. And so we see today—though it goes unnoticed because so many people are spiritually asleep—a troubling trend among those who are caught up in a culture of decline and cannot find a way out of it: the trend of returning to the bosom of the old Catholic Church. If people today knew everything that lies beneath this trend of returning to the bosom of the Catholic Church, they would be very astonished. But if this trend were to spread further, then—especially under today’s circumstances—we would, in the not-too-distant future, be faced with a massive migration of large masses of people into the bosom of the Catholic Church. Anyone capable of observing the peculiarities of our present-day culture even a little knows that this is what threatens us.

[ 14 ] Where did all these things come from? Here I must draw your attention to a fundamental phenomenon of our current social life. There is a particular characteristic of what has spread over the last few centuries and has taken on ever-greater dimensions—and will continue to spread even further in those countries that will emerge from today’s chaos as civilized nations: this is the technical cultural nuance, the particular technical nuance that culture has taken on in modern times. Now, I could speak at great length on this topic—and I will do so at some point, going into all the details of what I can now only mention in passing. This technical culture, you see, has a very specific characteristic: it is, by its very nature, a thoroughly altruistic culture. This means: Technology can only spread in a way that benefits humanity if the people working within the realm of technology develop altruism—the opposite of egoism. Technical culture makes it increasingly necessary—every new surge in technical culture demonstrates this to those capable of observing such things—that work within the technical economy can only be carried out free of egoism. At the same time, however, something has developed in opposition to this: that which has emerged from capitalism, which need not necessarily be linked to technical culture—or at least need not remain linked to it. Capitalism, when it is private capitalism, cannot help but act selfishly, for its very nature consists of selfish action. Thus, in recent times, two currents stand in diametric opposition to one another: modern technology, which demands people free of selfishness, and private capitalism, which has emerged from the past and can thrive only through the assertion of selfish impulses. That, you see, is what has driven us into our present situation, and only a spiritual life that has the courage to break with everything old will lead us out of it.

[ 15 ] There are, after all, many people today who are reflecting on questions such as: What should the future of public education—elementary school education—look like? What should people’s further vocational training be like, and so on? The question that must be raised above all to these people—especially when we consider the chapter on public education—is: Well then, even if you have the best of intentions to involve the entire population in public education, can you really do so if you remain within the confines of today’s educational and intellectual conditions? Do you have the resources for it? What can you actually accomplish? Based on your principles—which may well be soundly socialist—you can establish schools and adult education centers for the broadest masses. You can organize all of that—whatever you set up out of good will. But do you have the resources to truly make what you wish to disseminate in good faith part of the people’s heritage? You tell us: We’re establishing libraries, theater and music performances, exhibitions, lecture series, and adult education centers. But one must ask: What books do you actually put in your libraries? What kind of scholarship do you promote in your lecture series? You put books in your libraries that were written out of the declining bourgeois education system. You have people who emerged from that bourgeois education system promote scholarship in adult education centers. You are reforming the education system in form, but you are pouring into your new forms the very things you have inherited from the old system. For example, you say: We have long strived to make public education democratic. Until now, the states have tended to oppose this, because they wanted to educate people to be good civil servants. — Yes, you reject the idea of training good civil servants, but you allow these civil servants to educate the people, for you have had nothing else to focus on so far but these civil servants—whose books you place in your libraries, whose scientific way of thinking you promote through lecture series, and whose entire habits of thought permeate your universities. — You can see from this: the matter must be addressed much, much more deeply in these serious times—much more deeply than it is being addressed today by one side or the other.

[ 16 ] Let us examine some details to clarify a few points. Let us begin with what we will initially call elementary school. I consider elementary school to encompass everything that can be taught to a person once they have outgrown mere family upbringing, and when school, as an institution of education and instruction, must supplement that family upbringing. For anyone familiar with human nature, it is clear that for no developing human being should this school education intervene in the system of human development any earlier than approximately the time when the process of losing baby teeth is complete. This is just as much a scientific law as any other scientific law. If, instead of following templates, one were to be guided by human nature, then one would adopt as a rule that children’s schooling must begin once the process of losing baby teeth is complete.

[ 17 ] The question, then, is what principles should guide the schooling of children. We must bear in mind that anyone who is truly capable of thinking and striving in step with the advancing cultural development has no choice today but to recognize, as the principles that must govern school education and instruction, what lies inherent in human nature itself. An understanding of human nature—from the change of teeth to sexual maturity—must form the foundation of all principles of so-called elementary school education. From this and many similar points, you will be able to see that, if one proceeds from this foundation, nothing else can result but a unified school system for all people; for it goes without saying: these laws, which play out in human development between approximately the seventh and approximately the fourteenth to fifteenth years, are the same for all people. And nothing else should be considered but answering, through education and instruction, the question: To what extent must I bring a person to maturity as a human being by the time they reach their fourteenth to fifteenth year? That alone is what it means to think in terms of public education. But that alone also means thinking about the educational system in a truly modern sense. It then follows that today we can no longer avoid the necessity of breaking thoroughly and radically with the old school system; we must earnestly set about organizing what is to be imparted to children during the years indicated, in accordance with the development of the growing human being. To this end, a certain foundation will have to be laid—something that, provided there is social goodwill, will not be some nebulous idea of the future, but can be tackled practically right away. Above all, this foundation will have to be laid by completely overhauling the entire examination and school system for teachers themselves. When teachers are examined today, it is often merely a matter of determining whether they know what—if they are somewhat resourceful—they can look up later in an encyclopedia or handbook, even if they do not know it. This can be omitted entirely from teacher examinations. But this would eliminate the bulk of what currently constitutes the content of teacher examinations. For what must be determined in the system that is to replace today’s exams is whether the person responsible for the education and instruction of developing human beings can establish a personally active relationship with these developing human beings—one that is beneficial to them—and whether, with his entire mindset — to use a term that has become very fashionable — can immerse themselves in the souls and the entire being of the developing human being. Then they will not be merely reading teachers, math teachers, art teachers, and so on, but will be able to become the true shapers of developing human beings.

[ 18 ] This will become evident in all future so-called examinations, which will differ from the examinations of today: that the teaching staff can truly be the educators of the developing human being. This means that the teacher will know: I must instill this or that in the person if they are to learn to think; I must instill this or that in the person if they are to develop their emotional world—which, incidentally, is intimately connected to the world of memory, something very few people realize today, because most scholars today are the worst psychologists. The teacher must know what to instill in the human being if the will is to be developed in such a way that the seeds it absorbs between the ages of seven and fifteen can remain powerful throughout the person’s entire life. The development of the will is achieved when all practical physical and artistic exercises are conducted in a way that is adapted to the developing nature of the human being. The human being will become that which must be the focus of the care of the one who is the teacher of developing human beings.

[ 19 ] And so it will become clear how one can make use of everything that constitutes conventional human culture: languages, reading, and writing. These can best be used during these years to develop the thinking of the developing human being. Thinking is the most external aspect of the human being—as strange as that may sound today—and it must be developed precisely through what places us within the social organism. Just consider that human beings are not born with innate abilities for reading and writing; rather, these abilities arise from human coexistence. And so, relatively early on, sensible language instruction must be introduced specifically for the development of thinking—not, of course, the languages spoken in ancient times, but the languages spoken by today’s civilized peoples with whom we live. Language instruction must be conducted in a sensible manner—not based on the grammatical absurdities practiced in secondary schools today—and it must begin at the very lowest grade level.

[ 20 ] The goal will then be to consciously conduct instruction that focuses on feeling and the memory associated with it. While everything related to arithmetic, calculation, and geometry—and children can absorb an extraordinary amount in this regard if it is done correctly—lies right in the middle between the intellectual and the emotional, everything that is to be absorbed through memory acts upon the emotional realm. That is, everything that is taught, for example, in history lessons, or in lessons that convey the world of myths, and so on. I can only hint at these things.

[ 21 ] But then the task is to cultivate a special discipline of the will even during these years. To this end, we must make use of all forms of physical and artistic exercises. In this regard, we will need something entirely new during these years. The first step toward this has been taken in what we call eurythmy. Today you see much of physical culture in a state of decadence, in decline: many people find it appealing. Into this we want to introduce something—for which we have so far had the opportunity here only to demonstrate it to the staff of the Waldorf-Astoria through the understanding way our dear Mr. Mol has handled our questions—into this we want to introduce something that, when taught to the developing human being in place of the merely physical gymnastics of the past, is truly an animated form of physical culture. This alone, however, can generate a will that remains with a person throughout life, whereas all other forms of will training have the characteristic of being gradually weakened over the course of life by its various events and experiences. In this area in particular, however, it will be necessary to proceed rationally. There, connections will be established in the educational system that no one is thinking of today—for example, art classes combined with geography. It would be of immense importance for the developing human being if, on the one hand, they received truly meaningful art instruction, but were also guided within that instruction to, say, draw the globe from a wide variety of perspectives, to depict the Earth’s mountain ranges and river systems, and then, in turn, to draw astronomical subjects such as the planetary system and so on. Of course, this will have to be scheduled for the appropriate age range—it shouldn’t begin with a seven-year-old child; but before the age of fourteen or fifteen, it is not only possible but also has an immensely beneficial effect on the developing human being when done in the right way, perhaps starting at the age of twelve.

[ 22 ] For the development of the emotions and memory, it will therefore be necessary to cultivate a vivid appreciation of nature even in the youngest children. This lively appreciation of nature—as you know, I have spoken about it often, and I have summarized various reflections on the subject in the following words: Unfortunately, there are many people among today’s urban population who, when led out into the fields, cannot tell wheat from rye. It is not the names that matter, but rather a lively relationship with things. For those who can survey human nature, it is an immense loss to humanity when people do not learn such distinctions at the right time—and the development of human abilities must always take place at the right time—when they do not learn at the right time, when they do not learn—as you know, I am speaking only in symptomatic terms—to distinguish a grain of wheat from a grain of rye. Of course, what is meant here encompasses a great, great deal.

[ 23 ] What I have now analyzed from a didactic and pedagogical perspective for elementary school instruction will, according to the logic of facts, have a very specific consequence: namely, that nothing will be included in instruction that is not retained in one form or another for the rest of one’s life, whereas today, as a rule, only that which is condensed into skills is included. What one does when learning to read is condensed into the ability to read; what one does when learning arithmetic is condensed into the ability to do arithmetic. But consider how this applies to things that rely more on feeling and memory: today’s children actually learn an infinite amount, only to forget it, only to have no use for it later in life. This will be what particularly distinguishes education in the future—that all the things presented to the child will remain with the person for the rest of their life.

[ 24 ] Well, we would then come to the question of what to do with a person once they have moved beyond the true unified elementary school and are advancing into the next stage of life. You see, the point is that all the unhealthy aspects of the old spiritual life must be overcome—aspects that, particularly from an educational standpoint, create a terrible chasm between the classes of people.

[ 25 ] Yes, you see, the Greeks and the Romans were able to acquire an education that sprang from their lives and was therefore also connected to their lives. In our time, there is nothing that connects us—with our very different way of life—to those crucial years; rather, many people who go on to assume leadership roles are taught today the very things the Greeks and Romans were taught; this tears them away from life. And on top of that, these are the most intellectually wasteful things imaginable. And we have now reached a point in human development—though people are unaware of this—where it is absolutely unnecessary for our relationship to antiquity that we receive special education in that antiquity; for what humanity as a whole needs from antiquity has long since been incorporated into our education in such a way that we can assimilate it even without being trained to live for many years in an atmosphere foreign to us. What one should take from Greek and Roman culture—and it can indeed still be perfected, as it has been perfected in recent times—is a matter for scholars; it has nothing to do with general social education. But what should be taken from antiquity for general social education—that which has been so thoroughly brought to completion through the intellectual work of past times, and is so firmly established—is such that, if one simply takes what is there correctly, one does not need to learn Greek and Latin today in order to delve into antiquity; one doesn’t need it at all, and it doesn’t help one with important matters. I’ll just remind you of how I felt compelled—to prevent such terrible misunderstandings from arising in this area—to say that Mr. Wilamowitz is certainly a very distinguished scholar of Greek, but that he has translated the Greek dramas in such a way that it is horrifying, horribly dreadful, while, of course, the entire contemporary media and scholarly world admires these translations.

[ 26 ] We will have to learn, in this era, to enable people to participate in life; and you will see that if we structure education in such a way that people can participate in life—while at the same time being able to manage instruction economically—then it may well be that we can truly provide people with a living education. And this will also make it possible for those who are inclined toward manual work to participate in this education for life, which must begin after the age of fourteen. The opportunity must be created so that those who turn to a craft or manual work at an early age can also participate in what leads to a view of life. In the future, before the age of twenty-one, nothing should be presented to young people that is merely the result of research or that stems solely from scientific specialization. For this period, what is incorporated into instruction must be material that has been thoroughly refined. This allows for an immensely economical approach. One must simply have a grasp of what “pedagogical-didactic economy” means in education. Above all, one must not be lazy if one wishes to work in a pedagogically economical manner. I have often drawn your attention to experiences I have had personally. A young person with mild intellectual disabilities was entrusted to my care at the age of eleven. Through pedagogical economy, I succeeded after two years in helping him catch up on what he had missed up to the age of eleven, when he was still unable to do anything at all. But it was only by doing so that I was able, at that time, to take his physical and emotional needs into account in such a way that the instruction proceeded in the most economical manner conceivable. This was often achieved by my spending three hours myself on preparation, so that I could teach him in such a way that I could instill in him, in half an hour or a quarter of an hour, something that would otherwise have taken hours—because that was necessary for his physical condition. From a social perspective, one might add: At that time, I was compelled to apply all of this to a single boy, alongside whom three others were walking who did not need to be treated in this way. But consider this: if we had a sensible social system of education, we would be able to treat a whole group of such people in this way; for whether one must treat one or forty boys in this efficient manner makes no difference. I would not complain about the number of students in school; this lack of complaint, however, is linked to the principle of economy in teaching. One must simply understand this: Until the age of fourteen, a person does not exercise judgment, and if one forces them to judge, one destroys their brain. Today’s calculator, which substitutes judgment for learning to calculate by heart, is a nonsense in pedagogy; it destroys and corrupts the human brain. One can only begin to cultivate people’s judgment from the age of fourteen onward. It is then that those elements of instruction must be introduced that appeal to judgment. Thus, all those subjects that relate, for example, to the logical grasp of reality can be introduced. And you will see that when, in the future, a carpenter’s or machinist’s apprentice sits side by side in educational institutions with someone who may himself become a teacher, something will emerge there as well—a school that, while specialized, is still a unified school. But this unified school will include everything that must be included for life, and if it were not included, we would sink even deeper into social turmoil than we are now. All instruction must impart life skills. Between the ages of fifteen and twenty, everything related to agriculture, crafts, industry, and commerce must be taught—but in a sensible, economical manner. No one should be allowed to pass through this stage of life without gaining some understanding of what happens in agriculture, commerce, industry, and trade. These subjects must be established as disciplines that are infinitely more necessary than much of the material that currently fills the curriculum during these years of life.

[ 27 ] Then, at this stage of life, all those things that I would now like to call “matters of worldview” will come to the fore. These will include, above all, history and geography, everything related to the understanding of nature—but always in relation to human beings—so that human beings will come to know one another from the perspective of the universe.

[ 28 ] Among such educated people, there will be those who, if driven by other social circumstances to become intellectual workers, can be trained in specialized schools for intellectual workers in all kinds of fields. You see, in these institutions, where people are trained professionally today, the approach is incredibly inefficient. I know that many will not admit it, but the approach is incredibly inefficient, and above all, the strangest views—arising from a declining worldview—are being promoted. I witnessed it myself: back then, people in the fields of history and literary history at the universities began to rave about transforming the lecture system into a seminar system, and even today we still hear it said: Lectures should take up as little time as possible, but there should be plenty of seminars. These seminars—we know what they’re like. Loyal followers of the lecturer gather together and, strictly following the lecturer’s instructions, learn—as they say—to work “scientifically.” They do their work there and are, in effect, mentally trained. And the consequences of this mental training are already evident. The trend is always toward mental training.

[ 29 ] It is quite another matter when, during those years of life when one is supposed to be pursuing specialized education, a person listens freely to reasonable lectures and then has the opportunity to engage in free discussion—albeit building on what was presented in the lecture. Practical exercises may certainly follow, but the nonsense of the seminar must come to an end. It is nothing more than a relic of the second half of the nineteenth century, which focused on drill rather than on the free development of the individual.

[ 30 ] Above all, however, when discussing this level of education, it must be stated that a certain foundation of education must be the same for people of all classes. Whether I am to become a doctor, a lawyer, or a teacher at a gymnasium or a Realschule—these institutions will, of course, no longer exist in the future—is one thing; in addition, everyone must acquire what constitutes a general education. Everyone must have the opportunity to acquire this general education, whether they become a physician, a mechanical engineer, an architect, a chemist, or an engineer; they must have the opportunity to acquire the same general education, whether they become intellectual workers or manual laborers. This has been given little consideration to date. Admittedly, some things have improved at certain secondary schools compared to earlier times. When I was at the Technical University in Vienna back then, a professor taught general history. He would begin lecturing on this general history once each semester; after the third or fifth lecture, he would stop—by then, no one was left in the room. There was also a professor of literary history at that technical university. These were the means by which students could acquire a general humanistic education alongside their specialized studies. In this lecture on literary history—which, when it actually took place, was followed by exercises in public speaking and oral presentation, as Uhland, for example, still practiced—I always had to drag someone in, because the lecture would only be held if there were at least two people present. But the only way to keep it going was by dragging someone else in; in fact, it was almost always a different person each time. Furthermore, essentially the only other provision for what a person needs to navigate general life circumstances was through lectures on constitutional law and statistics. As I said, such things have improved; but what should serve as the driving force in our entire social life has not yet improved. But it will improve if we create the possibility—with regard to everything intended to cultivate general human understanding—that it is not presented in a way that is understandable only to those with a specific technical background, but rather in a way that is universally understandable. I have often been surprised that people have disparaged my anthroposophical lectures so much. For if people had focused on the positive, they could have said: Well, we don’t concern ourselves with the anthroposophical aspects of it, but everything he says regarding scientific matters—which are immensely praised when presented by mere natural scientists—is, in essence, sufficient. For you all know that these lectures have actually always been peppered with popular explanations of scientific knowledge in particular. But for many people, it is not a matter of accepting the positive aspects, but rather of disparaging what they did not want. Yet what they did not want was precisely what was suited—through the shaping of thought and the entire approach—to incorporate everything, for example, that is scientifically necessary for a broadly educational human knowledge, so that the craftsman could benefit from it just as much as the scholar; so that it was generally understandable as scientific knowledge. Look at the other worldview movements. Do you believe, for example, that people at monist gatherings can understand anything if they lack a foundation in the natural sciences? No, they’re just chattering along if they don’t have that foundation. What has been pursued here as anthroposophy is something capable of transforming natural knowledge—and historical knowledge as well—in such a way that it becomes understandable to everyone. Just think how understandable it can be to everyone—what I have always described historically as a great leap in the middle of the fifteenth century. I think that becomes clear to everyone. But that is the foundation without which one cannot understand the entire social movement of the present at all. That is why people do not understand it—because they do not know how humanity has developed since the middle of the fifteenth century. When one develops such ideas, people come along and explain: “Nature doesn’t make leaps; so you’re wrong to assume such a developmental leap in the fifteenth century.”—This nonsensical statement, “Nature doesn’t make leaps,” is passed down time and again. Nature is constantly making leaps: the leap from the green leaf to the differently shaped sepals, the leap from the sepals to the petals. The development of human life is the same. Anyone who teaches history not according to the nonsensical conventional historical lie, but according to what actually happened, knows that the entire, more subtle constitution of human beings in the middle of the fifteenth century had changed from what it had been before. And what is taking place today is the full expression of what has gripped humanity at its core since that time. If one wishes to understand what social movement is today, one must recognize such laws in historical development.

[ 31 ] Now, if you just think about the way things are done here, you’ll tell yourself: You don’t need specialized knowledge—or, in the old sense, to be a “cultured” person—to understand them; anyone can understand them. That, precisely, will be the requirement for the future: that we not develop philosophies or worldviews that only those who have undergone a specific class-based education can understand. Just pick up any philosophical work today—say, by Eucken, Paulsen, or something else you’d like to learn from—or one of those university psychology textbooks. When you pick up these dreadful books, you’ll soon put them down again, because those who haven’t been professionally trained in a certain way don’t even understand the language used in them. However, this is something that can only be achieved as part of a general education if we thoroughly reform the entire system of education and instruction in the sense that I have attempted to suggest today.

[ 32 ] You see, even in this area one can say: The great reckoning has come, not a small one. What must happen is that, in teaching and in education, social drives—or rather, social instincts—are developed, so that people do not pass each other by. Then people will truly understand one another—today, teachers pass right by their students, and students pass right by their teachers—so that a viable relationship can develop. But this can only happen if we draw a line under the old ways. And it can be done. It is by no means impossible based on the facts; rather, it is merely rejected because of human prejudices. People cannot even conceive that things might one day be done differently than they have been up to now. People have a tremendous fear that they might lose something of the old ways, especially in the realm of spiritual life. You wouldn’t believe what a hopeless fear people have of this. Of course, they are unable to see the bigger picture. For example, they cannot overlook what can be achieved through economics instruction. I have said it many times: In three to four hours—provided the right age is chosen—in three to four hours, one can guide young people from the basics of geometry—the straight line and the angle—all the way to the Pythagorean theorem—which used to be called a “mnemonic device.” And you should see the immense joy people feel when the Pythagorean theorem suddenly clicks for them after three to four hours of instruction! But just think about all the nonsense that often goes on in today’s classrooms before students even get to this theorem! The point is that we have wasted an enormous amount of mental effort, and this then manifests itself in life; it radiates out into one’s entire life and extends even into the most practical areas of life. Today, it is necessary for people to resolve to rethink these matters right down to their very foundations. Otherwise, we will only sink deeper into decline, but never rise again.

[ 33 ] Well, I hope to be able to speak with you again about these matters in the near future.