The Rudolf Steiner Archive

6. Religious and Moral Education in the Light of Anthroposophy

[ 1 ] Anthroposophical Spiritual Science, about which I had the privilege of speaking here in The Hague last Tuesday and yesterday evening, does not merely pursue goals of knowledge, nor merely the goal of deepening the human being scientifically, morally, and religiously; rather, it essentially pursues practical goals as well. And it was requested that I speak this evening about one of these practical goals—the goal of education.

[ 2 ] Since the Spiritual Science strives above all to attain a true understanding of the whole, complete human being—the human being in terms of his physical, psychological, and spiritual nature—it can also impart an understanding of human nature in practical life, an understanding that applies to all stages of life. And for the art of education, knowledge of human nature—particularly with regard to the child itself—is, after all, essential.

[ 3 ] The question of education is essentially a question of the teacher. It is a matter of teachers insofar as it concerns whether the teacher—whether the educator—is capable of solving the riddle of humanity in practice through the child. Perhaps it is in this riddle of the child that we most clearly see the meaning of that ancient saying, which has been inscribed like a motto over human knowledge: the saying that the solution to the riddle of the world lies within human beings themselves.

[ 4 ] Many people, in fact, harbor a kind of fear that if a solution to the mystery of the universe were pointed out, human understanding would then have nothing left to do. But if one holds the view that, among all the countless mysteries the universe holds, human beings themselves—as, so to speak, the ultimate goal of this world’s development—are the solution, then one knows that the solution to the world’s mysteries must be sought within human beings; but humanity itself, if one wishes to come to know it, in turn demands immeasurable effort and immeasurable work in order to gain insight into its nature.

[ 5 ] If one approaches people in the world with the conviction that, in a sense, something immortal is hidden within them, then one comes to feel toward children that same timid reverence that a teacher and educator must have if one wishes to approach that child in the right way.

[ 6 ] Today, with regard to our understanding of human nature, I will endeavor to refrain from discussing with the children the debates I have had in recent days concerning the understanding of the human spirit and the spirit of the world. I will try to present Spiritual Science in as accessible a form as possible, so that even those among my esteemed audience who were not present in recent days can follow the discussions.

[ 7 ] The main point is this: whoever deepens his outlook on life through what can give him a genuine—not an abstract—understanding of the human soul and the human spirit will, above all, see major turning points in human life; they see that they must divide the entire course of a person’s life into life stages. People do not always view these life stages with the proper interest and the deep insight with which they should actually regard them. But anyone who wishes to have a genuine, deeply human relationship with a child—as an educator or teacher—must have a thorough understanding of precisely these life stages.

[ 8 ] We see this phase of a child’s life come to a close around the age of seven, when the child gets its second set of teeth. Anyone who is a true judge of human nature regards these second teeth as nothing more than the outward symbol of a significant transformation in the child’s physical, emotional, and spiritual development. And anyone who knows how to practice the art of education in a professional and competent manner will observe, along with the change of teeth, a transformation in the child’s emotional characteristics and intellectual abilities. Let us just consider that in the human organism, even in later life, a metabolic turnover takes place—that after every eight or nine years, we no longer have the same composition of substances, the same substances within us that we had before. When we consider this, however, we must still acknowledge that what takes place at the age of seven during the change of teeth is a powerful development of strength—one that the organism does not repeat in later life and that is not merely a one-time event or a process occurring over a short period. Anyone who has an understanding of the development of the human organism knows how, during the first seven years of life, everything is prepared through the most intimate processes of metabolism, which then, in a sense, finds its completion, its culmination, in the permanent teeth.

[ 9 ] And with regard to the soul, we see how—with these second teeth, for example—memory, but also mental images, functions differently—above all in terms of its nature—than it did before. We see how memory previously developed to a high degree unconsciously, as if from the depths of the child’s physical being, and how it later becomes more spiritual. These matters must be hinted at delicately, for they are hardly apparent to a crude way of looking at things.

[ 10 ] But what is particularly important for the educator is that, in the first years of life up until the child’s teeth begin to fall out, the child is entirely devoted to the outside world as an imitative being. The child’s relationship to the outside world is based on the fact —I say this not to state a paradox, but to describe something entirely real—that during the first seven years of life, or roughly during these seven years, the child is almost entirely a sensory being; that the child perceives the environment not only with the eyes and ears, but that the child’s entire organism is devoted to the environment, much like the sensory organs are in later life. And just as images of external things and events are prepared in the sense organs—which are then reproduced internally only in the soul—so it is with the child’s organism: as an imitative being, the child wants to imitate internally everything it sees externally. It wants to surrender itself completely to the external world. It wants to imitate internally everything that presents itself externally. The child is one big sensory organ. And if one were to look into the child’s organism with that clairvoyant sense, with that precise clairvoyance of which I have spoken in recent days, one would perceive how, for example, taste—which for the adult is experienced on the tongue and palate—extends much further into the child’s organism. Thus, one is not mistaken in saying: In the case of an infant, for example, the child experiences the taste of breast milk with its entire body.

[ 11 ] One must address such intimate aspects of human physical life if one truly wishes to gain the subtle insight necessary for the art of education.

[ 12 ] And when one observes how the child is entirely an imitator, one understands—I would say in every single step—how the child learns to speak. One can literally observe how the child is prompted to follow, piece by piece, what is presented as a sound—inwardly, through imitation—and to make its own inner world resemble what is perceived externally. And in this way, one can look into every detail of the child’s being and will see everywhere how the child is entirely a sensory being, entirely an imitator, and entirely devoted to the external sensory world.

[ 13 ] In this regard, one can understand a child when it comes to certain things that should not be judged in the same way as they would be for an older child or, even less so, for an adult. I’ll illustrate this with an example. A father once asked me—and this really happened in real life—“Well, what am I supposed to do with my boy? “He stole money from his mother.” I asked the father, “How old is the child?” The child was not yet six years old. I had to tell the father: “Anyone who truly understands the child cannot speak of theft here; the child—as became clear in my conversation with the father—had seen his mother take money out of the drawer every day.” The child is an imitator; he also took money because he had seen it done. The act is limited to mere imitation, for the child had not attached any value whatsoever to having any of the so-called “stolen” money for himself. Instead, he bought snacks with it and even distributed them to other children. Hundreds of such examples could be cited.

[ 14 ] The child’s inner life presents itself to us quite differently after the teeth have fallen out. There we see how the child begins not merely to surrender to sensory impressions, but to immerse itself, as it were, entirely in these sensory impressions and to make itself inwardly similar to what it sees on the outside. The child now begins to listen to what comes to it in the form of conceptual words. But it needs what it encounters in its surroundings to be carried by the human personality. Therefore, we may say: Until the child’s teeth change, it is an imitative being; from the time the teeth change onward—and this essentially lasts until sexual maturity—it becomes a being that now orients itself not as an imitator but as one who follows what is presented to it through mental images of the personalities in its environment. And the teacher and educator must, above all, ensure that what he says to the child actually becomes a standard and a guiding principle for the child. With the change of teeth, the imitative phase of life gives way to a phase in which the child, by its natural law, seeks to follow self-evident authority.

[ 15 ] All instruction and education during this second stage of life—from the loss of baby teeth to sexual maturity—must be geared toward fostering a natural sense of authority. At this stage of life, the child learns to recognize what is true as true because the beloved, authoritative figure presents it as such. What is beautiful and what is good is perceived by the child with sympathy or followed out of emulation—out of authoritative emulation of the beloved educational figure. And if we wish to teach a child between the ages of seven and fourteen to fifteen something that will bear fruit for the child throughout their entire life, then we must be able to cloak everything we teach the child during this time in this element of authority.

[ 16 ] Ladies and gentlemen, one would not expect someone like myself—who, as I mentioned yesterday, wrote *The Philosophy of Freedom* more than thirty years ago—to place too much emphasis on the principle of authority. Yet it is precisely those who love freedom above all else—those who see in freedom the self-evident law of social life—who, based on a genuine understanding of human nature, must point out that between the ages of seven and fourteen, there is a period in a child’s life during which it flourishes solely by being able to orient itself toward and grow in the presence of a personality it perceives as a self-evident authority. Thus we might say: during the first seven years of life—and these are all approximate figures—the child is an imitative, sentient being; during the second seven years, from the change of teeth to sexual maturity, the child is a being attuned to its human surroundings, which naturally wants to see itself placed under an authority.

[ 17 ] Anyone who, like the anthroposophical Spiritual Science referred to here, traces the development of the human being in terms of body, soul, and spirit, knows what immense significance it has for later life—and perhaps even for old age—if a person was able, during the period of life described, to feel a special sense of reverence—even if only for a short time as part of a specific educational program— for example, if one was often, when eight or nine years old, told about a person deeply revered within the family, and through these stories truly absorbed a sense of shy reverence toward that person. And then the day approaches when one is to see them for the first time—that day when everything is cloaked in timidity and reverence, and the door is opened for one with anticipation to see this person for the first time: if one knows the effect such an experience has—when the soul is so completely surrendered to the outside world in terms of the sense of authority, just as in the early years of childhood the whole person is surrendered as a sensory being—then one knows what a blessing one bestows upon the child during school age by allowing them to experience this timid reverence toward natural authority quite often.

[ 18 ] One must pay attention to such things if one wishes to become an educator or teacher based on an understanding of human nature. Then, above all, one will take into consideration that the human being is not merely a spatial organism, in which individual parts of the body interact spatially with other distant parts, but that the human being is also a temporal organism. An understanding of human nature cannot be acquired without focusing on the human being as a temporal organism. If you take any part of the right hand, it interacts—through an inner, holistic organization—with every other part of this spatial organism within the human being. But if you look at what a human being is first in childhood, then in later childhood, in adolescence, in young adulthood, in middle age, and finally in old age—then everything is intimately connected in a temporal sequence. And anyone who, as an educator or teacher, looks only at the child’s present life—at the eight- to nine-year-old child—does not fulfill their duty in the full sense of the word. Only those who know that what they do for a seven- to eight-year-old child continues to have an effect within the temporal organism—which is a unity comprising the child, the person of middle age, and the person in old age—and that what is kindled in the soul during childhood continues to have an effect, though it changes and undergoes a metamorphosis: only those who can form a mental image of the way in which this changes and transforms can educate in the true sense of the word.

[ 19 ] I would like to illustrate this with an example. You see, so much importance is placed on the child understanding everything one teaches him with his still tender mind. This contradicts the principle of natural authority. But anyone who wishes to pass on to the child only what it can immediately grasp with its tender mind fails to consider the following, for example. It means a great deal when, at the age of eight or nine, one has accepted something on the basis of self-evident authority as true, beautiful, and good—something that a revered authority has designated as beautiful, good, and true—even though one has not yet fully understood it. At the age of thirty-five, or perhaps even later, this rises up from the depths of the soul. By then, one has matured in life. Now one understands it, now one brings it to the surface, now one illuminates it with the light of mature life experience.

[ 20 ] Something like this—when, in later life and with the wisdom of maturity, one comes to understand what one had previously accepted only out of deference to authority; when one feels such a memory resurface in later life and only now understands it—something like this signifies a surge of new vitality, a tremendous force within the soul of which one is not always fully aware.

[ 21 ] I can explain even more clearly what I actually mean by the principle that one should educate in such a way that what one instills has a lasting effect throughout one’s entire life. You know, there are people who enter any setting where others are present and have a truly blessed effect simply through their presence. They do not need to exert much effort by speaking; their words are imbued with and warmed by something that has a blessing-like effect on others. As a rule, these will be people of mature age or in their old age who, in a very special sense, are able to exert such a blessing-like effect through their mere presence.

[ 22 ] Anyone who studies human beings not merely in the present moment, but truly examines the whole of a person’s life—which is a difficult undertaking—it is easier in physiology and in ordinary anthropology to study only the present moments or brief periods—but whoever turns their gaze to the whole of human life knows how, as a rule, such a blessing that emanates from later life is connected to the fact that the person in question, as a child, was able to revere, to look upon, to gaze reverently at another human being. And I would like to express this paradigmatically by saying: No one who has not learned to fold their hands as a child can use them effectively to bless others in old age. Folded hands in children contain the spiritual seeds of blessing hands in old age. The human being is not merely a spatial organism; the human being is a temporal organism, and everything in temporal life is interconnected, just as the individual limbs of a spatial organism are interconnected through mutual interaction.

[ 23 ] Anyone who fully understands this will also avoid teaching children concepts that cannot be changed later in life. As educators and teachers, we are so easily tempted to approach the child with as much certainty as possible, to give them concepts and mental images with sharply defined contours. That would be just like clamping the child’s tender hands—which are still meant to grow and change—into braces, so that they cannot grow. Just as the child’s physical organism must grow, so too must that which the teacher or educator instills in the child’s soul possess the power to grow. We can instill this in the child only if we shape education and instruction artistically, even during the years of compulsory elementary schooling.

[ 24 ] To illustrate this, I would like to point out the way in which we incorporate this artistic principle into our lessons at the Waldorf School—which was founded several years ago by Emil Molt in Stuttgart and which I direct according to principles that I can only briefly outline for you today.

[ 25 ] For example, when reading, we do not assume that we are directly teaching the child what letters are. After all, these letters are something completely foreign to human nature. Just think of how, in earlier times, pictographic writing existed—a form of writing that arose primarily because the image imitated what had been perceived. Back then, writing was very close to what people perceived. Writing had a direct connection to human experience. In the course of civilization’s development, the forms of letters have become detached from human experience. Now, one need not study history to the extent of bringing ancient pictographic writing back to life in the classroom. But it is good for the teacher to let his or her artistic imagination work in such a way that, to begin with, the child is allowed to paint and draw forms that truly reflect what the child feels and experiences.

[ 26 ] At the Stuttgart Waldorf School, we do not begin with learning to read or ordinary writing, but rather, from an artistic perspective, with painting and drawing. We develop the shapes of letters only from this drawing-based approach; in fact, we develop everything first in this way, starting from the artistic. We also let the child experiment with colors—even if this is more difficult and must first be developed out of a messy process. Thus, we begin with the artistic and develop writing from it, and only then reading. And in this way, an artistic approach should permeate the entire curriculum.

[ 27 ] This can extend even into the teaching of arithmetic, provided that the teachers are present—those teachers who, through a genuine deepening of their own inner treasures, have become experts by having absorbed the guiding forces of genuine anthroposophical Spiritual Science into their minds, their understanding, their feelings, and their will. Anyone who has taken Spiritual Science into themselves in this living way can also work from the spirit to transform all instruction into an artistic process. But when the instructor—the teacher for this age group—becomes entirely artistic in their interaction with the child, then they do not so much act through what they know, but rather through the very nature of their personality. They act through their individuality. And through this, the child receives something in its soul that possesses the power of growth, just as the physical organism possesses the power of growth. As a result, later in life—in one’s thirties or forties—one does not merely have to recall from memory the fixed concepts one acquired in school that one is supposed to remember—no, these concepts have grown with one and have changed. This is precisely how we as teachers must work; as educators, we must be able to treat the child in this way.

[ 28 ] In this way, we act with authority, but at the same time, in the truest sense of the word, we act for the sake of the child’s freedom; for we must be clear at every moment that we are true educators only if we can guide in the right way even those people who will one day be more capable than we are as teachers. It could well turn out that, as teachers, we find ourselves in a school—let’s say in a class—where there are two geniuses. And if we, as teachers, are not geniuses ourselves, we must be able to educate the child in question in such a way that we do not present any obstacles to the development of his or her genius. If we educate in the spirit and with the attitude I have just described—that is, by artistically offering the child, through our own personality, what it needs, just as in earlier years it needed to imitate what it perceived through its senses— so now what we ourselves, as teachers, may individually be—then we will be no more of an obstacle to the powers that may not even exist within us than a mother, who must carry the child’s seed within herself, can be an obstacle to genius if she is not a genius herself. We will become guardians of the child’s innate qualities and will not be tempted at all to impose upon the child what we ourselves are. For that is the worst principle of education—to want to make children a reflection of ourselves. We will not be tempted to do so if we acquire knowledge of human nature in the sense of spiritual insight, and if the child remains, at every stage of life, a riddle for us to solve.

[ 29 ] My only regret is that we cannot yet have a kindergarten as well, so that the younger children, too, could be raised according to these educational principles—we are not yet able to do so for financial reasons. But those who are teachers at the Stuttgart Waldorf School sense how that which manifests in the human physical organism as the soul-spiritual—through the gaze, through physiognomy, through speech, through all manner of things—makes use of the body —which is by no means neglected in this form of education—how this has descended from divine-spiritual heights and united with what has been passed on to the child from father and mother through the current of heredity at conception or birth. Whoever approaches the child with the feeling: “This child has descended to you from the spiritual world; you are to unravel its mystery day by day, hour by hour”—such a person possesses within their heart the loving devotion to the child’s development that is necessary to guide this child through all manner of imponderables on the path of life. And such imponderables—that is, those things that cannot be grasped by a coarse mental image—are frequently at play in education and teaching. It is truly not merely what prevails between the educator and the child that a systematizing educational science seeks to validate.

[ 30 ] I would like to illustrate my point once again with an example. Let’s suppose a teacher were tasked with teaching a child, in a childlike and simple way, about the immortality of the human soul. This must be taught to the child—who, between the loss of baby teeth and puberty, is primarily attuned to receiving images (not yet abstract concepts) and is willing to accept everything on the basis of unquestioned authority—precisely through an image.

[ 31 ] Now there are two ways to present this image to the child. One could say: I, the teacher, am incredibly wise. The child is still incredibly foolish. I must teach the child about the immortality of the soul. I will use an image. I will say to the child: “Take a look at the butterfly chrysalis—the butterfly is crawling out of it. It crawls out as a visible being. Just as the butterfly crawls out of the chrysalis as a visible being, so too does your soul, at death, detach itself from the physical body as if from the chrysalis and fly into the spiritual world.”

[ 32 ] Of course, I’m not saying that this is a philosophical proof. It certainly isn’t. But it can be used to teach the child a way of thinking. I can do this—as I said—the way I just described. I say, “I know all this well because I’m smart, and the child is stupid.” I teach this to the child. It’s a foolish comparison, but the child is supposed to believe it.

[ 33 ] Well, ladies and gentlemen, one will achieve nothing by approaching the child in this way, for the child may well remember it; but what one is meant to achieve—the elevation of the soul’s level, the filling of the soul with life-giving content—cannot be accomplished in this manner. But it can be achieved in another way—not by telling yourself, “You are wise as a teacher, and the child is foolish,” but by saying to yourself—forgive me for speaking so paradoxically—“Perhaps the child is, even in the subconscious depths of its soul, much wiser than you are. Perhaps you are the foolish one, and the child is wiser.” - In a certain sense, this is indeed true, for who knows how the child’s still undeveloped inner organs—namely, the brain—are shaped by the child’s still unconscious, dreaming soul, and how an immensely significant wisdom takes form precisely in the earliest years of childhood. Anyone who has an appreciation for such things—anyone who is not a crude philistine incapable of appreciating them—will nevertheless say to themselves: All the wisdom we acquire in life, no matter how beautiful the machines it may produce, is still not as advanced as the unconscious wisdom of the child.

[ 34 ] Any teacher who stands on anthroposophical ground believes, in fact, in the butterfly emerging from the chrysalis, for he tells himself: It is not I who make this comparison, but nature itself that makes it. What, on a higher level, is the release, the detachment of the immortal soul from the body—this is what the Divine itself has prefigured in nature in the butterfly emerging from the chrysalis. If I imbue with my own feelings what I present to the child as an image, then I give the child what is right; then I give the child life force through it. Nothing that I do not myself believe in with all my powers has the right effect on the child. These are the imponderables that are meant to operate between the instructor, the teacher, and the child—the unspoken, that which lies solely in the exchange of feelings, the supersensible aspect of teaching. If this is not present, then—I would say—only the gross and material, not the imponderable, takes effect; then we do not equip the person with what is right for their journey through life.

[ 35 ] My main purpose in mentioning these things was to point out how an artistic element—I would say, a devout attitude toward the human being—belongs in education and in teaching. This becomes particularly evident when we turn our attention to the religious and moral education we wish to provide for the child. And here, anthroposophical Spiritual Science—about which I have had the privilege of speaking to you these past few days here in The Hague—shows us how, precisely with regard to the religious and moral elements present in the human being, this “organism of the times” holds great significance for the whole human being and the course of their earthly life. If one can gain an insight into the state of mind that exists in the very young child—who is an imitative being—toward its entire external world, and if one can put oneself in that state of mind, then one can characterize it only by saying: The child is completely absorbed in the external world; it loses itself in the external world. Just as the eye loses itself in the external world of colors and light, so does the child lose itself in the external world. The inner world dawns only very gradually. From dreams that still live and weave entirely within the external world, more definite mental images gradually emerge.

[ 36 ] Well, my esteemed audience, when this mood in the child is properly appreciated—do you know what it is? It is, in truth, a devout mood; it is, in truth, a religious mood—a religious mood situated right in the midst of the sensory world. No matter how much of a wild child the child may be in other respects: in terms of its relationship to the sensory world, in terms of its devotion to the sensory world, the child is in a religious frame of mind. It wants to be exactly what it sees in its surroundings. The child is not yet part of any religion. But this mood, which is present in the child especially in the early years and gradually fades away entirely by the time the child’s baby teeth are replaced—this mood, which is no longer present once the natural sense of authority sets in with the loss of baby teeth—reappears later in a remarkable way to the perceptive teacher.

[ 37 ] When a child of compulsory elementary school age is between the ages of nine and ten, the truly discerning educator and teacher may be facing his greatest challenge yet. For it is then that he will realize that most of the children entrusted to him turn to him and need him in a very special way—that they have questions to ask him, questions that are not always articulated but often remain unspoken, existing merely as feelings. These questions can take hundreds, even thousands, of forms. What matters far less is giving the child a specific answer. Whether one gives one answer or another, the content of the answer is not so important. What matters most, however, is that one, with the right emotional sensitivity, inspires the right sense of trust in the child; that one, with the right sensitivity, meets the child at precisely the right moment—which for children always occurs between the ages of nine and ten.

[ 38 ] I can describe this moment in a variety of ways. When we teach a child, we notice that before this moment—which occurs roughly between the ages of nine and ten—the child does not yet properly distinguish itself from its surroundings, does not properly experience itself as “I”—even though it has long since been saying “I” to itself. At this moment in life, the child learns to truly distinguish itself from its surroundings. We can no longer simply influence the child through fairy tales and all kinds of instruction, thereby bringing the outside world to life. We can now direct our attention to the fact that the child distinguishes itself from the outside world as “I.”

[ 39 ] But something else, quite different, comes into play that is deeply connected to moral development. This is what happens: In the early stages of that phase of life in which the child is subject to authority, the child accepts this authoritative figure just as they are. Between the ages of nine and ten—the child need not even be conscious of this; it can take place deep within the realm of feeling, in what is called the subconscious, but it is there nonetheless—the child finds itself, as it were, compelled by its development to look beyond the authoritative figure to that which sustains the authoritative figure itself. This authoritative figure says: “That is true, that is good, that is beautiful.” — Now the child wants to feel and sense where, within the authoritative figure, that which constitutes knowledge of the good, the true, and the beautiful—and the will to act in accordance with the true, the good, and the beautiful—comes from. This stems from the fact that what I wish to say has been preserved in the depths of the soul — has been preserved during the change of teeth and even afterward—what in early childhood was, if I may use this curious word, a sensually devout surrender to the external world—because it has vanished into the depths of the soul and now emerges psychically as if from the depths of the human being. What was sensuous in the infant up until the change of teeth—what, as a sensuous experience, is the seed of all later religious feeling toward the world—emerges in the soul between the ages of nine and ten and becomes a spiritual need.

[ 40 ] Knowing this—and counting on the fact that, just as one lovingly cares for a plant seed so that it may grow into a plant, one now has before oneself, in a spiritual sense, that which once took shape as a sensory seed within the child, and must nurture it spiritually—this gives one a special relationship with the child. And in this way, one plants the religious seed within the child.

[ 41 ] Then educators will once again notice that in later life, around the age of seventeen or eighteen, what has emerged as a warm, heartfelt religious feeling will then manifest itself intellectually, pouring into the will, so that the individual develops his or her religious ideals during this period.

[ 42 ] You see, it is extremely important to understand these things at their core if one wants to educate and teach in a meaningful way that is true to reality. Nature has, after all, provided for the human physical organism; otherwise, one might not even be sure whether—especially if the people in question are modern, futuristic painters—it might not even occur to them to place an ear in the wrong spot or something similar. Such things could indeed happen if nature had not provided for the entire corresponding organization of the human being. Thus, as teachers and educators, we must care for the organism of this particular stage of life. Thus, we must not attempt to nurture the child’s religious sensibility in any way other than preparatorily before the specified moment between the ages of nine and ten. We must handle this stage of the child’s development with care. We must tell ourselves: Whatever religious feelings and concepts you instill in the child beforehand remains external to them; they accept it on authority. But between the ages of nine and ten, something awakens within them. If you perceive this and guide the feelings that arise of their own accord from the soul in a religious sense, then you make the child a truly religious human being. There is so little genuine developmental psychology today; otherwise, people would know where the misguided religious sentiments and feelings prevalent in social life today come from: because people believe they can develop anything and everything in a person at any age, and because they do not know what specifically must be drawn out of the child’s soul between the ages of nine and ten.

[ 43 ] If, then, the entire curriculum is structured so that by around the age of twelve the child has absorbed enough natural science—entirely in keeping with elementary school education and instruction—to have a general understanding of certain concepts in physics, botany, and so on, not in a scientific sense but entirely from a child’s perspective, then at this age—around the twelfth year—one may observe the child—and treat the child accordingly—in light of the conflict that arises when, on the one hand, one looks up to the divine governance of the world, toward which the child may have been guided between the ages of nine and ten, and that contrast which arises when we take note only of the external—not of moral, nor of divine-spiritual manifestations of power—natural phenomena that present themselves to us in their outward appearance. These natural phenomena do, after all, present themselves to us without appearing to be imbued with moral principles, without our directly perceiving the divine in them.

[ 44 ] This is what led modern people into that conflict in the first place—a conflict that, on the one hand, directs the mind toward the religious sources of existence and, on the other hand, toward an understanding of nature. Around the age of twelve, based on a genuine understanding of human nature, we realize that we may gently broach these conflicts with the maturing child; but we are also in a position—because the spiritual and religious feelings are now so strong, so fresh, so full of life, so youthful—as they can only be in a twelve-year-old child—to guide the child in the right direction, so that throughout their later life they need not view nature itself as devoid of the divine, but can find harmony between nature and the divine-spiritual essence of the world.

[ 45 ] It is essential—again, taking into account the proper development of the organism of time within the human being—to allow this conflict to arise around the twelfth year, because it can be most effectively bridged by the forces that are present in the human soul at that time.

[ 46 ] Once again, for those who know how to view social life today in truth—not coldly, but with genuine psychological insight—such an art of education reveals how many people are unable to overcome the conflict described above because they were not introduced to this conflict at the right stage of life and guided through it.

[ 47 ] The main thing is that the teacher and educator have a general understanding of human life so that, when confronted with an individual child or young person, they can recognize what is right at the right time and know how to respond appropriately.

[ 48 ] Religious experience, too, lies entirely within the person himself. We cannot impose it on him; we must draw it out from his soul. But just as we cannot eat with our noses—we must eat with our mouths—so too must we recognize that we cannot teach a person about religion at any age, but only at the appropriate age. This is learned above all through a genuine understanding of the spirit: presenting the right things to the child at the right age. Then the child will take in what is appropriate to his or her abilities.

[ 49 ] And when we look at this childlike development and truly understand how, between the loss of baby teeth and sexual maturity, everything depends on the teacher’s personal interaction with the child—and how this personal interaction must involve something thoroughly artistic—then we will also realize that, for the child, there must first be a kind of liking and disliking, sympathy and antipathy—which, in turn, develops from intangible factors in response to the teacher’s natural authority.

[ 50 ] The teacher speaks to the child—whether through stories or parables (there are, after all, hundreds of possible forms)—about what he considers morally good and what he considers morally evil. If the teacher is truly capable of fostering an artistic education, then the artistic element between the educator and the child works in such a way that the child, precisely through this inclination toward the natural authority, learns to view the good with sympathy and and antipathy toward evil—so that, between the ages of seven and fourteen, a moral sensibility, a sense of right and wrong, develops in the child out of pleasure and displeasure.

[ 51 ] It is entirely wrong to try to control a child during these years with rules. In doing so, we either enslave the child or make it spiteful, stubborn, and rebellious against the rules. The child does not understand why it should obey them. But whatever the natural authority deems right or wrong, good or evil—the child may find this pleasing or displeasing, and may learn to regard it with sympathy or antipathy. And this sympathy and antipathy become the natural content of the soul.

[ 52 ] What develops in a structured, school-like manner at this age—the moral sensibility that has taken root in the child between the ages of seven and fourteen in the manner described—that is what comes into play — provided that, later on, there is a personality who, through his or her own enthusiasm for moral ideals and for noble ideals of humanity, shines ahead of the young person as a future guide in life — only then does this emerge as an impulse of the will in the seventeenth or eighteenth year of life.

[ 53 ] Just as the plant seed is not yet the plant, but must first exist for the plant to come into being, so too can moral will, in a healthy way, become the full-fledged fruit of the moral human being by the age of sixteen or seventeen with all its strength, provided that moral sensibility has developed between the ages of seven and fourteen in harmony with natural authority.

[ 54 ] And how can we most reliably develop this moral sense? By directing all instruction and upbringing in such a way that the child, above all else, learns to develop this sense. It may well be that the upbringing of even the very young child—long before the child’s teeth begin to fall out—can ensure this, if we guide the child in such a way that it learns to develop a sense of gratitude toward everything it receives in life. This sense of gratitude is underestimated today. It connects the human being to the world and enables the human being to recognize itself as a part of the world. If we guide the child so that it can develop a clear sense of gratitude even toward the smallest things, then the child will not withdraw into selfishness; instead, the child will become altruistic and connect with its surroundings. Then we can proceed to structure instruction—even during the school-age years—in such a way that the child gradually comes to truly regard its physical existence, that has been given to them—their soul life and their spiritual life—with a sense of gratitude toward the forces of the world—the physical, soul, and spiritual forces of the world—and that this feeling of gratitude expands into a sense of gratitude toward the world from whose bosom they have sprung.

[ 55 ] In this way, one can channel the feeling of gratitude toward one’s parents, teachers, and one’s entire surroundings into a profound sense of gratitude toward the divine guides of the world.

[ 56 ] This sense of gratitude must certainly exist prior to any knowledge a person can ever acquire. Any insight—no matter how logically justified it may be—that does not simultaneously lead, as insight, to a sense of gratitude toward the world is detrimental to a person’s development; it cripples them, so to speak, both emotionally and intellectually.

[ 57 ] This is what Spiritual Science—which I have had the privilege of presenting here these past few days—shows: that every insight, even the highest and most precise, can lead to feelings, and above all to feelings of gratitude. And once one has planted the feeling of gratitude in a child, one will see that one has laid the foundation for moral education. For if one has nurtured this feeling of gratitude and it proves to be compatible with all knowledge, then the child’s feelings will easily develop into a deep sense of love—the kind of love that a person must have for all other human beings and, ultimately, for all creatures in the world. It is from a sense of gratitude that love can most surely be developed.

[ 58 ] And in particular, one will be able—again, starting from that point in time between the ages of nine and ten—to gradually transform authority into an authority imbued with love. The teacher’s entire demeanor must be structured in such a way that this authority—which at first, I would say, is neutral toward love—becomes a natural following, a natural obedience, a free obedience when the child reaches the age of nine or ten, so that the child follows this natural authority out of love—a love that the child has already awakened within itself, a love that the child already understands.

[ 59 ] If one has properly developed a sense of gratitude and love within one’s soul, then one will later be able to guide the moral sensibility of a child or young person to the point where that person truly sees, in their moral life, that which constitutes the very foundation of their human dignity: they see that which transcends the mere sensory world, the mere physical world, and lifts them up to a truly spiritual existence.

[ 60 ] In recent days, I have attempted to describe certain aspects of the spiritual world based on supersensible knowledge. The spiritual researcher can gain insights into this spiritual world. However, through our inner moral experience, we are always immersed in a spiritual realm even in ordinary life, provided we feel moral values with the necessary strength and purity. We achieve this, however, when we teach the child a very specific understanding of human nature. And we should not, in fact, allow any child to leave school—which is the general school of life, the public elementary school—without a certain degree of knowledge of human nature. We should not let the child leave until we have imbued them, to a certain degree—and indeed, it is only possible to this degree—“Know thyself.”

[ 61 ] Of course, it will be possible to take this “Know thyself” to ever higher levels through all manner of science and wisdom. But to a certain extent, every elementary school should send the child on their way having fulfilled the principle of “Know thyself.” To a certain extent, a person should come to know themselves as body, soul, and spirit. This self-knowledge, however, as it follows from true spiritual knowledge, establishes a genuine connection between the good and between human beings.

[ 62 ] Why, then, does today’s accepted science fail to recognize this connection? Because it does not fully understand human beings. But just as one would not be a complete human being if blood circulation were lacking in any organ—the organ would wither away—so, when one truly considers the whole human being in body, soul, and spirit, one comes to recognize that goodness is what makes a human being truly human, and that evil is something that arises from the human being who remains incomplete.

[ 63 ] A child who has truly been shaped by gratitude and love eventually comes to understand that a person is only complete when he or she regards himself or herself as the agent of the divine world order—the embodiment of goodness in the world—during earthly existence. If moral education has been grounded in gratitude and has thereby overcome selfishness in a healthy way—not through mystical-moral declamation or sentimentality—and if gratitude has been transformed into love in a healthy, non-sentimental way, then one will ultimately be able to lead the young person who loves the world to the realization that the person who is not good—as a whole human being in body, soul, and spirit—is just as crippled in the spiritual realm if they do not make themselves a bearer of goodness as anyone is who is missing a leg. One learns to recognize the good in the imagination, in ethereal spiritual knowledge, as the perfected human being.

[ 64 ] And just as, when you find the nervous system or the circulatory system depicted somewhere, it looks, at a glance, like a shadow of the human being itself, so too, when you bring the Good to life as an image for imaginative insight, this image serves as the model for the whole human being.

[ 65 ] Here, however, moral education is united with religious education. For only now does it make sense that God is the source of goodness and that human beings are the image and likeness of God. Here, religious and moral education will lead a person to feel—and to incorporate this feeling into his will—that he is a true human being only as a moral person, and that if he does not desire morality, he is not a truly complete human being. If we learn to educate people in such a way that they can honestly and emotionally believe they are depriving themselves of their very humanity if they do not become good, moral people, then we will be providing them with the proper religious and moral education.

[ 66 ] Do not say that it is easy to speak of these things, but that they must remain an ideal because the external world can never be perfect. Certainly, the external world cannot be perfect. Anyone who speaks from the spirit of Spiritual Science knows this quite certainly and quite precisely. But what can permeate us as a state of mind as we teach or educate—what can inspire us at every moment and, through this inspiration, lead us to be understood with feeling by the child’s soul, to find the path to the child’s will—that lies nonetheless in what I have just indicated: in a true knowledge of human nature, which culminates in the statement: The truly complete human being is only the morally good person, and the morally good person is permeated by religious impulses.

[ 67 ] In this way, all education can culminate in moral and religious education. But even here, one must recognize that human beings possess an inner rhythm of time, and that—through a spiritual understanding of human nature—one must learn to observe this rhythm in every hour, every week, and every year that one is tasked with teaching and raising a child, and that one must lovingly attend to the details.

[ 68 ] I have thus indicated to you how guidelines for a specific aspect of practical life—namely, education—can be derived from spiritual knowledge. I am not merely describing something that exists as abstract theory. I have already indicated to you that the educational principles—which I have been able to describe only in very broad strokes—have been applied for years at the Stuttgart Waldorf School; that from the very beginning, what I have outlined here regarding religious education has permeated the entire curriculum—a curriculum built upon a seminary-style preparatory training for the teaching staff of the Stuttgart Waldorf School. And I may add that, looking back now on several years of the Waldorf School’s development—even though, of course, everything remains imperfect in its outward manifestation—we can say: It is possible to turn these principles into practical ones, so that they manifest themselves in the unfolding of the child’s life.

[ 69 ] And so these impulses of religious and moral education also become evident, just as, on the other hand, the fruitfulness of the impulses of physical education—guided from the spiritual-soul aspect—becomes evident, for example, in the use of eurythmy in school. I mention this only because it has truly been shown how children naturally find their way into this art of eurythmy, just as they find their way into speaking sounds at an earlier age, and to show you that anyone who wishes to see religious and moral education practiced in the manner described today by no means intends to neglect physical education. On the contrary, anyone who, with such lively reverence, but also with spirit-filled activity, does not neglect physical education either, for they know that the spiritual and soul aspects play out in the physical realm, right down to the individual blood vessels, and that those who neglect it, in a sense, push the spirit back out of the sensory world into which it seeks to reveal itself.

[ 70 ] A child is, above all, a unity of body, soul, and spirit, and only those who understand how to educate and teach the child in this totality—as a unity—based on genuine observation of human nature are true teachers and educators.

[ 71 ] This is precisely what the Waldorf School in Stuttgart strives for, and it has already proven itself in practice to a certain extent—at least in relation to what I have tried to hint at today as one aspect of the educational system. But what must always be said in regard to this area and other areas of life—and it is only natural to turn our gaze to social life as a whole, which today finds itself in so many dead ends; indeed, from an educational standpoint, this is particularly obvious—is this: Social conditions today can only be improved in a desirable way by placing people in social life in the right way, not merely by improving external institutions. When one considers all this, one sees precisely the importance of a true, reality-based art of education; and Waldorf school pedagogy, Waldorf school didactics—which I would describe as a prime example of such a reality-based art of education—seeks to bring this into the world.

[ 72 ] It has, after all, already inspired many followers, and anyone who is enthusiastic about an art of education grounded in Spiritual Science and rooted in reality naturally wants, above all, for it to inspire many more followers. For it is built, I would say, on a fundamental truth. Education, too, is something that must be viewed as part of human social life. For this social life is not merely the coexistence of people of the same age; it is the coexistence of the old and the young. And finally, the interaction between the teacher or educator and the child is also part of social life. Only when the teacher already sees the whole, complete human being in the child and can, in a sense, prophetically and clairvoyantly foresee what each individual educational and instructional activity he undertakes will mean for the child’s happiness and destiny throughout their entire life will he educate in the right way. For all of life—and therefore also the life of education and instruction that takes place between people—must rest on the principle that everything that happens between one person and another happens correctly only when the whole person can always give themselves to the whole person in true love.

[ 73 ] But this must also become a reality throughout the entire field of education. Therefore, the art of teaching will be placed on a secure, realistic foundation in the future when the teacher is able to bring the best of their humanity into contact with the best of the child’s humanity, when the relationship between teacher and child develops—in the most beautiful sense—into the free, yet also universally necessary, relationship between human beings.