The Rudolf Steiner Archive

9. Discussion of Pedagogical and Psychological Issues

[ 1 ] on the occasion of the first Anthroposophical University Course at the Goetheanum

Question: How can you recognize the different temperaments in children and in yourself?

[ 2 ] Rudolf Steiner: I would like to say just a few words about the temperaments, mainly to point out how, under the influence of the kind of pedagogy we wish to cultivate in the Waldorf school, intellectual and other aspects of the soul gradually become the art of education. The point is that what emerges is truly not a skill, not a science of education, but an art of education. This presupposes that one is truly able to observe the essence of the human being from a wide variety of perspectives—that one has, for example, made a great effort to actually grasp these nuances of soul life that are revealed in the temperaments. First, more theoretically; then, once one has grasped what you will find described in various places in our anthroposophical literature as the description of the temperaments, by applying this to life. This is, in fact, often a method of convincing oneself of the truth that anthroposophy can be of help when viewed in the spirit; it is a method of having this confirmed by life itself. Life’s experiences will show us at every turn how what has been perceived in the spirit—or even simply what has been internalized by learning what the seer has perceived—must then be applied to life.

[ 3 ] So it would have to be a more or less lengthy process of personal study into the nature of the human being—and, I would say, into the entirety of human nature. Once this has become part of the teacher, what ultimately emerges is something like a well-rounded approach to life. Let’s assume a teacher has been trained in the way I have just outlined—by having cast certain glances into the essence of the developing human being—and that he begins teaching after such preparation. Then the following might happen: He speaks with a child in the classroom. This child, to whom he asks a question, will set about giving the answer with a certain ease and nonchalance. The teacher has a certain mental image of what the answer should be like. The child readily decides to give the answer and does so without showing any sign that the decision is difficult for him. One will [then] ultimately have the feeling—and one acquires a certain certainty in this feeling only by allowing what I have described to take place—that: Yes, this is an answer that is more or less correct, but this answer came about because this child has forgotten various things I have already covered in class. The answer is such that quite a bit could still be added to it. And I may well be prompted to add quite a bit more. The child accepts this and sits back down. I am dealing with a sanguine child.

[ 4 ] I ask a second child a question. Even as the child stands up, it shows me that it needs a certain amount of resolve to approach the question. So it allows the question to come to it by not moving its face back and forth, but by looking at me quite intently. It allows the question to come to it. Now, after hearing the question, the child is silent for a moment. It takes a special skill to observe and assess such reactions correctly during the question-and-answer exchange in the classroom. Only after a certain pause—one that is, so to speak, entirely neutral—can one see in the child an effort to now make up its mind and formulate the answer. One will find that the answer is difficult for the child, that the child has to struggle somewhat to come up with it. For such situations, one must be able to develop the necessary tact. And one will generally find that this child brings forth everything—it may have forgotten some things, but that is beside the point—that it is somehow able to muster in order to give the answer. And you will notice from the child’s entire demeanor—notably in the fact that he or she probably lowers their gaze slightly—that the child is not entirely satisfied with their own answer. You will thus be able to observe the child’s emotional state and feelings before and after the answer: you are dealing with a melancholic child.

[ 5 ] You ask a third child a question. You may even need to ask the question a second time, because you realize it hasn’t fully sunk in with the child. The child barely takes the question in; you may have to make an effort to rephrase the question more forcefully, and so on. Then the child makes this gesture—not with the hand, but in the soul [Rudolf Steiner demonstrates the gesture]. The child conveys something to you; it lies in the words—and for this one must have a sense of it—sometimes something that has nothing to do with the question: one is dealing with a phlegmatic child.

[ 6 ] Then a fourth child. People have long noticed this: it compels one to answer; it wants to be asked. You ask the child a question and hear the answer bubbling out. You notice how, in some way, the child says something more than the answer you expected. This has nothing to do with the method—that the answer might not be given correctly—but rather with the child’s demeanor, specifically the fact that the child is so eager to respond. One must develop a feel for what is happening in the realm of temperament—for it is by no means the case that the child who is so eager to answer and wants to be asked knows much more than the other. Perhaps it doesn’t even know as much as the phlegmatic child. It is not the method or anything of that sort—which has been learned—that matters here, but rather the emotional disposition, the sensibility. The answer may even be quite poor. Nevertheless, one can recognize the choleric child by the way it behaves. And so, if one observes the essence of a human being in the right, lively way—if one stands before the children in the very first school lesson—one can discern from this corresponding expression—if only one is able to assess it correctly—which temperament one is dealing with.

[ 7 ] Of course, this is just one specific example. It can also be observed in other ways. What matters is that the educational theory derived from anthroposophy becomes an art of education, so that—just as an artist nuances color and sees something in it that others cannot see—one sees and perceives something in the child that others do not see, and thus must first become acquainted with the child’s nature.

Question: How can colors influence the temperaments?

[ 8 ] Rudolf Steiner: I refer here to the booklet *The Education of the Child from the Perspective of Spiritual Science*, which was published many years ago. I will try to explain a few things about it to you.

[ 9 ] So let’s assume that a child presents as a choleric child at an early age. You won’t need to play a question-and-answer game to figure this out; it may already become apparent from the fact that the child kicks wildly at every opportunity, throws itself on the floor, and flails about. All of these behaviors are characteristic of the choleric child.

[ 10 ] Now, if you are a layperson, you will probably believe that you can calm such a child by placing them, as much as possible, in a soothing, colorful environment. But that is not true. If you surround the choleric child with blue or dress him or her in blue clothes, then precisely because he or she has a certain predisposition to it—when surrounded by this soothing blue color that does not repel him or her—he or she will actually act out his or her choleric temperament all the more. It will actually become even more “rebellious” and boisterous. In contrast, in an environment where it is surrounded everywhere by the color red—the stimulating red color—the greenish-blue complementary color is evoked; as you know from other lectures, the complementary color to red is green. There, because the child is constantly surrounded by red, it must make an inner effort to experience the complementary color and will not become outwardly agitated. So this is precisely what has a calming effect on an agitated child.

[ 11 ] On the other hand, you can have a positive effect on a melancholic child by encouraging it to open up—for example, by placing it in a blue or greenish-blue environment; in other words, do not be afraid that providing a soothing environment that inspires reverence will make the child even more melancholic.

[ 12 ] The point here is to truly understand how it follows from human nature that one must combat like with like. You see, it is always a matter of starting from human nature and approaching life with the insight gained from it. But I would like to expressly note that we must not fall into schematization when we regard education as an art, and that when we ask, “How can we influence temperaments through colors and the like?”—that, in turn, becomes yet another form of intellectual systematization. If education becomes an art, then we do not fall into such intellectual schematization. In that case, when it comes to color, one will not focus on the temperaments, but will generally be more concerned with whether the child is excitable or subdued. It may also happen, for example, that under certain circumstances even a phlegmatic child must be treated in the same way with colors as a melancholic child and the like. In short, the aim will be to develop a living art of education from a living science of education.

Question: Is it beneficial for children to have five- to six-year-olds reflect on the past?

[ 13 ] Rudolf Steiner: I don’t know what underlying reasons prompted the question about children’s flashbacks. Nor do I know whether the question stems from experience. It seems so, since it is written here. It actually surprises me that this question is being asked, for I would have thought that such nonsense—having five- or six-year-old children practice “looking back”—doesn’t actually happen. As you know from my writings—particularly from *How Does One Attain Knowledge of the Higher Worlds?*—retrospection is practiced in order to advance spiritually and gradually arrive at true spiritual insight. And you can easily appreciate the profound changes that take place within a person when such a review is practiced, if you consider that the other kind of thinking—which proceeds in tandem with the course of natural phenomena—is precisely the kind of thinking that characterizes ordinary consciousness. When we now, through a certain inner effort, attempt to formulate such a retrospective in such a way that we, as it were, let the events of the day run backward from evening to morning, we tear ourselves away from precisely this ordinary way of thinking, forming mental images, and experiencing things. We break free. And by doing this radically different—indeed, opposite—thing, we gradually come to internally emancipate the soul-spiritual element of the human being as a whole. Such practice serves as a foundation for spiritual progress.

[ 14 ] Now, it might be implied—though this is not clearly stated in the question—that such an exercise, which is appropriate for spiritual development in later life, would be adapted to children through a process of looking back. That would simply be nonsense, for the reason that it would introduce absolute disorder into the relationship between the child’s spiritual-soul aspect and the physical-etheric aspect. One would soon see that one was causing terrible harm. Allowing such exercises in children would mean tearing apart—at a very early stage—that which corresponds to the mental image, feeling, and will; it would mean throwing the child’s entire soul-spirit-physical organization into such disarray that one would literally lead the child—deliberately lead the child—into childhood mental retardation, into a kind of dementia praecox. So when one hears of such things at all, when one becomes acquainted with them, it is essential to truly understand that they must not be applied in a novelistic manner—and, in particular, that they are not only unsuitable for children aged five to six, but that it is sheer nonsense to apply them to anyone before they reach sexual maturity. - If “looking back” is meant in the sense of, for example, having the child recall the events of the day, then such an exercise must at the very least not be taken to any extreme. It may sometimes be necessary for the child to recall some misbehavior or for one to remind the child of a joy the child has experienced for one reason or another, but to foster a certain hypochondria in the child through such reflection is something that is, at its core, also a kind of nonsense—albeit a minor one—compared to, say, the idea that one should have the child engage in exercises in Spiritual Science.

A question about a 23-year-old person with intellectual disabilities: Is the disability related to a previous life, and how should this person be educated?

[ 15 ] Rudolf Steiner: The point with such matters is that every case is truly unique, and that based on the few details provided here on this note, it is absolutely impossible to draw any conclusions whatsoever—least of all regarding how the mental disability in question might be connected to any previous earthly life. - How the person should be treated educationally—well, that really depends entirely on what the person was like before. Above all, one must investigate the educational history of the person: What was done with this person previously? Was no attention paid to whether any abnormalities were already present earlier on? The point is really this: one cannot say that a twenty-three-year-old young person becomes mentally disabled unless it is due to an external necessity; rather, the events that preceded this should already have been addressed in the appropriate manner. But to answer the question of what should be done now that he has reached the age of twenty-three, one would have to know the case—the person as such—in great detail.

[ 16 ] Perhaps I might take this opportunity to return to a few other things that caught my attention over the course of the evening. First, the matter of the ninth year of life. It is indeed true that the main stages of a developing human being’s life extend from birth until the teeth are replaced, and then again from the replacement of the teeth until sexual maturity; however, there is something between the ages of nine and ten that has an extraordinarily significant impact on a child’s life. As you know, self-awareness first emerges in the form of a sense of self. This sense of self does not appear until the second, third, or sometimes even the fourth year of life. It is not yet a true sense of self, and this sense of self is not yet truly present—in a transparent, clear way—even at the time of tooth replacement. Thus, one is not providing the child with something that aligns with the direction of its development when one presents it with things that sharply demand that the child separate itself from its surroundings and develop a strong sense of self. One should expose the child as little as possible, up to the age of nine, to everything that is perceived when one strongly separates oneself from one’s surroundings—that is, when one perceives another being as distinct from oneself—but rather guide the child in such a way that it perceives the outside world, as it were, merely as a continuation of its own being. One should cultivate precisely this feeling of not separating oneself from the outside world. One should raise the child in such a way that it can sense and feel what is outside, how it continues inward into its own being, and vice versa. And it is only around the age of nine that a clear sense of self-consciousness truly awakens—that self-consciousness of which Jean Paul says it lies in the innermost sanctuary of the human being and which actually allows one to inwardly perceive what it means to be human, to be a human being. This self-consciousness awakens in the ninth year. And with this year, between the ages of nine and ten—though these are, of course, approximate—the world, the external world, also enters; the child distinguishes itself from the external world and is able to do so of its own accord. It then becomes possible to approach the child with the simplest mental images and observations drawn from the plant kingdom and the animal kingdom—no longer presenting things to the child merely in the form of fairy tales, legends, or stories, but rather presenting them in such a way that the child acquires certain concepts—I do not mean systematically, as in science. This is what needs to be observed in this process.

[ 17 ] One point that cannot be emphasized strongly enough in the art of education is that we must not fall into the trap of introducing scientific categories into school life. Unfortunately, even today, textbooks for the lower grades of elementary school are often compiled in such a way that their content is derived—in its structure and focus—from scientific texts. But botany, zoology, and so on should not be taught to the child as if one believed the child were destined to become a botanist or zoologist; rather, precisely because one assumes the child will certainly not become a botanist or zoologist, one should not simply present the child with all the “highlights” right away, but rather make use of the specific aptitudes the child already possesses and help them to flourish. This is what will result from a natural approach to education, as practiced in the Waldorf school: that one does not train people toward a specific specialization, but rather that one helps them become fully human. And as they then develop in one direction or another, it will be because their original aptitudes were not suppressed and can now, in a certain sense, develop. That is what makes a human being a human being.

Regarding Rudolf Meyer's presentation, Berlin:

[ 18 ] It would certainly be interesting to explore further, from a psychological perspective as well, the insights so elegantly presented by Mr. Meyer in his paper regarding the relationship between Fichte, Pestalozzi, and Herbart. But let me just share a few thoughts on the matter.

[ 19 ] It is extremely interesting that, upon reflecting on Pestalozzi, one gets a mental image of him as an infinitely kind person—especially toward children—and that, out of a certain love for children, he instinctively applied a highly refined educational approach.

[ 20 ] It is quite another matter, however, when one looks at what has developed specifically around Pestalozzi. One does not exactly get the impression that Pestalozzi was also able to convey to others that which he possessed as the art of education through the inner warmth of his personality. And if one focuses on the actual pedagogical principles—the more fundamental aspects—rather than simply considering the extraordinarily charming descriptions Pestalozzi gave of life with children —which can be immensely inspiring, especially for educators—but rather if one asks others about the guidance he provided, one sees that he was simply not able to bring to conscious awareness what instinctively came across as the art of education in his charming manner, so that he could have passed it on to others. Therefore, the affection shown toward Pestalozzi is actually based more on the fact that this very endearing personality shines through in all his writings, and what one feels when reading these writings triggers certain educational impulses from within a person, whereas—I need only recall, for example, the instructions Pestalozzi gives, that even very young children must be taught the parts of the human body in a manner that is entirely unnatural—when one considers the formulations in Pestalozzi’s *Art of Education*, one must say: this is not suited to inspiring other educators.

[ 21 ] But something else becomes strikingly apparent. It may well be that Pestalozzi did indeed work with young children as he describes, and achieved great success; whereas another person—even a direct student of Pestalozzi’s, as we can prove was the case—who followed the same instructions achieved absolutely nothing. In that case, it was simply not the significant personality of Pestalozzi that was behind it. Ultimately, none of the specific content matters at all in such a pedagogy that strives to become an art of education. The pedagogy practiced in Waldorf school teaching is actually about the fact that, under certain circumstances—even if the content of what is taught is based on false premises (it need not be so, but it can be)—the “art of education” can still have an appropriate effect on the child through the way it is applied. One might say that in Waldorf school pedagogy, it is not so much the content of the lessons that matters as the way the lessons are conducted, and this stems from the fact that Spiritual Science, at its core, is not something that merely seeks to provide a worldview in terms of content—in fact, that is not even the most significant aspect—but rather, Spiritual Science essentially consists in providing a living worldview, in allowing people to truly experience what it offers as a worldview. That is why Spiritual Science is actually so poorly understood. For you see, in the sense of our Spiritual Science here—and I say this specifically with regard to Spiritual Science as the foundation of the art of education—it is certainly a mistake to be a pure materialist or to hold materialistic theories; but one can, after all, formulate materialistic theories in a very witty way. One can have spirit and still be a materialist. And conversely, one can also be a spiritualist, a theosophist, or an anthroposophist—someone who can rattle off the theories of spiritualism, theosophy, or anthroposophy by heart—and yet be terribly spiritless. The point, then, is that in the spirit of true anthroposophy, the spirit of materialism—which, after all, prevails—must be held in higher regard than the spiritlessness of the anthroposophist who mechanically recites all manner of theories or lifeless worldviews. So that one can say: Anthroposophy is directed toward the true life of the spirit. And this true life of the spirit truly permeates the whole human being. The spirit is to be, so to speak, infused into whatever the human being does. And this is what, through Spiritual Science, makes the teacher—right down to the tips of his fingers, if I may put it radically—skilled in the art of education, enabling him to truly transform education into an art.

[ 22 ] This is precisely what Rudolf Meyer so beautifully illustrated in his lecture and by which he measured Herbart’s intellectualism—a concept that has played such a major role in pedagogy, which we hope to leave behind very soon and replace with another approach.

[ 23 ] It has also been explained to you today in a very elegant way how Herbart was able to arrive at his views precisely because of his hereditary background. However, there is another factor that matters in assessing Herbart, namely, how this selection process worked. For the culturally and historically significant phenomenon is that we look to this Herbart, who was purely intellectualistic, yet who founded a comprehensive school of pedagogy that went on to exert an immense influence on educational practice. It must be said: The fact that, from among the philosophers and other thinkers of worldviews, fate in Central Europe singled out precisely this intellectualist, Herbart, as a driving force in education—this is ultimately attributable to the thoroughly intellectualist tendency that characterized the intellectual life of the 19th century.

[ 24 ] This becomes particularly clear in Herbart’s work through the following: One could point out, for example—as Rudolf Meyer has illustrated very well, and as can also be done with other figures—that Schiller’s “Letters on the Aesthetic Education of Man” are also a kind of pedagogical impulse. Schiller—who so magnificently depicts how human beings, on the one hand, tend toward intellectualism and, on the other hand, toward mere sensory-physical instincts—points out how, in logic—that is, in the intellectual realm—human beings follow the necessities of reason, while in ordinary life they follow their sensory needs. And then Schiller presents beauty as the balance between the two—a balance attained by being able not only to pursue the spiritual logically in the intellect, but to already possess it in sensory perception, so that one may also experience the pleasant as thoroughly beautiful. On the other hand, he demands that what one experiences sensually be already imbued with the spiritual, so that it is elevated and one experiences it as something spiritual. Schiller thus actually seeks to create, in the beautiful, a balance between the intellectual and the sensually perceptible or instinctive will. And, fundamentally, he wants to permeate all of life with that which emerges from human beings when they are educated toward such a balance. Here we see, particularly in Schiller, how he seeks to move people to action through the spirit, how he works toward this balance between intellectualism and the instinctive—that is, the dull, volitional element, which is nevertheless to be spiritualized—and how he points out that the whole human being is to be placed within the world.

[ 25 ] This is contrasted by Herbartianism—yes, one could certainly tell a story about it, especially if one has experienced Herbartianism as intensely as did those who spent their youth in Austria during the second half of the 19th century, where Herbartianism was proclaimed as philosophy from every lectern. It was Brentano who first brought about a change in this regard, but it remained an isolated instance. Herbartianism continued to be preached until the turn of the century, or at least until the 1890s, and everything that was accomplished in the field of education rests, as you can see, on Herbartian foundations.

[ 26 ] One of these “Herbartians” was Robert Zimmermann, a man of great wit, a man of significance, and also a person of high moral character; but he was a Herbartian through and through. And he wrote a “Philosophical Propaedeutic” for college students. This “Philosophical Propaedeutic” also included a section on psychology. In this section on psychology, one finds—roughly—the following statement: A person experiences hunger or satiety through food not through anything other than the mental images they form about it. — So it is explained at considerable length that what matters is not at all the real process—which in any case lies behind the phenomenon—of how hunger is transformed into satiety, but rather—and now I am quoting almost verbatim — that if one has a mental image of hunger at a certain moment of the day, this mental image of hunger is pushed below the threshold of consciousness by the opposite mental image of satiety.

[ 27 ] This substitution of nutrition with a purely intellectual process is, in fact, something that has actually found its way into high school psychology textbooks, and one can imagine how the minds of those who absorbed such psychology must have been shaped without their even realizing it.

[ 28 ] But I would like to draw attention to something else. I will briefly touch on how Herbart’s aesthetics stands in contrast to, essentially, all other aesthetic worldviews that have emerged in Central Europe. When one speaks of aesthetics, what matters is that one speaks—to put it generally—of what speaks to one as the beautiful or what repels one as the ugly; in other words, one essentially remains within the realm of aesthetic judgment. Then one distinguishes from this aesthetics—and this is what distinguishes aesthetics from the various ethical systems found in Central Europe—that which, as will, impels moral action, or that which is flawed in the will in the case of immoral action. What other people in Central Europe have developed as aesthetics—what they have extracted from the immediate impulse of the will—does not exist in Herbart’s philosophical considerations. For ethics is merely a special chapter of aesthetics. And just as in art there is harmony—when, for example, two forms share something in common, that which unites them, that which is harmonious—so, for Herbart, this is the case with regard to moral judgment. He speaks of five forms: the relationship of action to action or action to thought and the like, and he says: a strong action is pleasing alongside a weak one. He focuses on the aesthetic impression, not on the impulse of the will, and expresses his judgment of pleasure as “perfection.” Thus, in the case of perfection, the element of will does not act as a volitional impulse within the human being; rather, he says: If at one time I will more strongly and at another time more weakly, I gain the aesthetic impression that the stronger is more pleasing than the weaker. Therefore, it is predominant.

[ 29 ] You see, what ought to be a powerful driving force is reduced to a judgment of approval or disapproval. Then you have, once again, the idea of volition, moral freedom, justice, and retribution. Herbart thus considers these five ethical ideas, not by deriving them from the nature of the will or the ethos, but by paying attention, as it were, to how human action pleases or displeases when it is observed. So here you yourself must at least derive the ethics—which should essentially spring from the will—on the path toward the intellectual. I said that one must look at the selection process to understand why Herbart, in particular, was chosen by the fate of Central Europe. This is based on the fact that the age as such had to undergo intellectualism, that the age as such demanded intellectualism.

[ 30 ] Well, we have indeed gained a great deal through intellectualism. Herbart’s work reveals both the dark and bright sides of this intellectualism. As you can see—and as Rudolf Meyer just pointed out—Herbart’s influence on elementary school pedagogy was, after all, only indirect, not exactly direct, [but] indirect; yet it was all the more pronounced in secondary school pedagogy. Except that, in fact, it remained purely intellectual there as well, and never developed into a true art of education, or indeed into any proper practice of pedagogy. For what, after all, was this high school pedagogy? As you know, it was generally something the philosopher in the philosophy department had to teach as a minor subject—not exactly out of great enthusiasm. And as for how it was practiced—well, let’s not even go there; we’d rather not talk about how pedagogy was actually practiced in high schools. It was simply impossible to bring what draws from purely intellectual sources into the true art of education. But on the other hand, we must not forget—or overlook—that Herbart, who had such a broad influence and whose ideas were so widely disseminated, nevertheless exerted an immensely disciplining effect on thought, teaching that the inner weaving of thoughts must follow not pure arbitrariness but certain underlying laws—which is, of course, correct. And in this regard, things did not exactly improve when Herbartianism—it was not until toward the end of the 19th century—gradually began to wane more or less; on the contrary, one must say that there was something disciplining in Herbart’s philosophy, something that—even if it easily led thoughts into an even greater pedantry—nevertheless made this pedantry less unbearable than when pedantry proceeds without any inner regularity of thought. On the whole, one must say that this impulse of humanity in the 19th century led to an effort to discipline thought internally, which has indeed continued to influence the natural sciences right up to the present day and which has a certain significance. One must say that, in this regard, Herbart certainly had a disciplining effect. But today we face a global challenge in the face of which we must say: Such intellectualism will get us nowhere. We must no longer, so to speak, substitute the mental image of hunger and satiety—which, after all, can only be an illusion—for the real process, and thereby entrench ourselves completely in our minds as if in a fortress. Through what we do, we must embrace the whole human being. In what has been discussed here regarding Herbart’s intellectualism, I have always had the sense that the entire 19th century—especially for Central Europe—was, in fact, shaped by intellectualism. And this once struck me very vividly many years ago. I once had a conversation with the long-deceased Austrian poet Hermann Rollett. He was a remarkable personality. He was completely immersed in intellectualism. He could not conceive of the world any other way. He said that everything else was simply not proper, lacked intellectual discipline; one had to think intellectualistically, atomistically, and so on. But at the same time, he was terribly pessimistic, and he once told me: “As for our development as a civilization—as civilized human beings on Earth—the prospect before us is that we will ultimately wither away in all our limbs and become nothing but a head, a sphere!” This was Rollet’s world; it was what led him to despair of humanity’s progress, because he believed that the limbs would atrophy more and more, that human beings would roll along as nothing but a spherical head, with only tiny bits of arms and feet sticking out. He vividly painted this picture.

[ 31 ] But it is indeed necessary that, at least in spiritual and psychological terms, everything be done from now on to prevent human beings from one day developing into mere intellectual beings. This must be understood to mean that we do not merely speak to them about the Spirit, but that the Spirit must be woven into human life. But when the spirit takes hold of the whole human being to such an extent that this whole human being also radiates the spirit into social life, this is what the times demand of us with all their energy, and what we must fulfill: the education of the human being not merely as an intellectual being or toward any kind of one-sidedness, but the education of the whole human being through Spiritual Science.