The Rudolf Steiner Archive

13. Speech at the Ceremony Marking the Start of the Fourth School Year

[ 1 ] My dear children, dear students of the Waldorf School! First, I’d like to speak to the very little ones. My dear children, who haven’t been to school at all until now—for you, things will be different from how they’ve been so far. You see, if you think back a little, you’ll realize that you used to get up in the morning and rub the sleep out of your eyes, then you’d wash up, get dressed, and have something for breakfast. And then you’d see how, for many of you, your father had to leave for work very early, and how your mother had to work and toil all day long. Then you probably spent your morning playing. You could do whatever you wanted until noon. You’d run out onto the street or into the garden or wherever. There, you could do whatever you wanted. Then you’d have your lunch. By then you had already gotten hungry and tired. Your father and mother gave you your lunch. Then they had to go back to work. You could play again or do something else. You didn’t have to work yet. That’s how it went until dinner. Then you got your meal. Afterward, you could go back to sleep. The next day, it was the same all over again.

[ 2 ] Now you’ve grown up. So your parents had to say to themselves: “Now the boy has to go to school!”—Some of you were happy about that. You’ll all be happy about school. But things will be different. You can’t just run around all the time or sit wherever you want. Or when you’re sitting with a friend, you can’t keep tugging on his ear or pulling his hair. Now you have to go into the classroom every morning. There are the desks. It’s a bit cramped in there; you’ll have to learn something. You must take it to heart that you have to learn something. You’ll have to sit down in those narrow desks. You can’t be tugging at your classmates all the time. You’ll have to pay attention to what the teacher says. You’ll have to start being well-behaved and obedient. But I hope you’ll be happy to behave. Why is that? Your parents had to work. They had worries. You didn’t have any worries yet. Your parents had to work; your parents had to provide so that you could live. If your parents hadn’t worked, you wouldn’t have had anything to eat; you would have starved.

[ 3 ] You don’t just have a head; you also have—inside there—a heart. Something dwells in that heart—something you don’t yet know about—a soul dwells in your heart. That is something entirely different from the head. A soul dwells within each of you. If your parents hadn’t spoken to that soul as well, but only to your ears, you wouldn’t have learned to speak. You can speak; speaking comes from the soul. Your parents made sure that you would become human beings. In addition to what you have learned, you will have to learn much more. That is how you will become true human beings. Right now, you are only a little bit human. You only become human by learning. You can only become a human being if you learn to work.

[ 4 ] A kind teacher will teach you all of this. You should love your teacher, too. Only if you love your teacher can you learn anything. So every day when you go into class, think about how you can best show your love for your teacher. If something is bothering you, if you’re unhappy about something, then go to your teacher. Tell yourself, “I really care about them; they’ll help me.” Learn to love your teacher just as you’ve learned to love your parents. Remember that your parents sent you to the Waldorf school. Your parents wanted to do the very best for you. In turn, do your very best by paying close attention to what the teachers do. In this way, show your parents that you love them! They’re the ones who sent you to school.

[ 5 ] So, dear children, if you come into class in the morning with that kind of feeling and create a mental image of yourself as decent people, “We have to become decent people,” then everything will be just right. That’s how you’ll become decent people.

[ 6 ] Now I would like to speak to the children who have already been to school, who have already learned how to begin discovering more and more within their souls, within their inner selves, and how to learn more and more and come to truly love their teachers. That is what we must resolve to do again and again: to truly love our teachers. Then we will be able to gain the very best.

[ 7 ] The teachers are always thinking: How can we go about raising the children to be decent people? — You must learn more and more to be diligent and attentive children; to be children who love school. The school strives to instill in you what can make you capable people and capable contributors to all the work that humanity needs. Here at this school, we are constantly reflecting on what we must instill in people—in students—so that they can navigate life as best as possible. You have learned things that all aimed to make you decent, capable people. If you are diligent and attentive and love your teachers, then life will be different for you than if you are lazy and have never learned to love your teachers. By absorbing precisely what can be absorbed at school, you will become the kind of people who can work for your fellow human beings and be of value to them.

[ 8 ] That is the most terrible thing in life: when a person goes through life without having any value to their fellow human beings. Then people come along and want nothing to do with you because you can’t do anything for them. That is what school teaches us: that we should live our lives in such a way that we can create and work for our fellow human beings, so that they can gain something valuable from us and love us because of what we do for them.

[ 9 ] The fact that one person can do something for another—my dear children—is the foundation of all life. This is what is constantly considered in the Waldorf school: how best to guide children and students into life so that they can do something for their fellow human beings, so that they can find joy in life and not merely suffering.

[ 10 ] Those who are still in the middle grades can rely completely on their teachers; they can look to their teachers for guidance. The teachers have already found their place in life. They have become people you can love and from whom you can learn a great deal. The best way to make progress is to tell yourself: I want to become like my teacher.

[ 11 ] And if I may say a few more words to those of you who are in your very last years of school, I’d like to say this: Something is now coming your way that has a different tone to it. You don’t quite know yet exactly what that entails. That is what people will call “the seriousness of life.” As you enter your fourteenth or fifteenth year, something begins to shine through that can be called the seriousness of life. What sometimes echoes in your soul—that is already the seriousness of life. At school, you are taught what you are supposed to learn there. But once you have left school, you stand there, and it is only then that real life is supposed to begin.

[ 12 ] This is what you should take to heart especially this year: that you should stick to the school’s guidance more than ever. The school knows what the serious side of life is all about, and what must be taught to the children so that they can navigate the serious side of life. When we experience suffering, we must have the strength to endure it. We should also gain this strength through what we have learned in school. We must have the strength to endure life’s suffering. Life also brings joys. These are sometimes even more dangerous. Joys make us thoughtless and numb to our feelings. And here, too, school teaches you to maintain the right balance, to strive to find the middle ground between life’s suffering and joy.

[ 13 ] Life has become quite complicated these days. Young people sometimes cannot fathom what is necessary for their lives and what will be useful to them. Teachers work day and night to figure out what life will be like ten or twenty years from now. You will need love for humanity to properly prepare yourselves for life. You see, my dear children, I will never tell you at the beginning of the school year that you can learn here just by playing. That is not true; it cannot be. What must exist here is genuine seriousness—learning that when life must be taken seriously, you must take it seriously. This seriousness will give you time to feel humanly. This should extend all the way up to our highest grades. You should empathize with what is truly within a human being. You must learn to understand that a person must learn through work, because without this kind of active learning, they cannot be a truly human being.

[ 14 ] Now I, too, would like to extend my warmest greetings to those teachers who have already been with you and who have already shown you their love. I would like to extend a warm welcome to those who will be beginning their work for the first time this school year. If every single student knew how much effort is required on the part of the teaching staff, then it would go without saying that love for the teachers would become the very atmosphere of the Waldorf School.

[ 15 ] We also want to help people establish the right connection with the spiritual world. Our teachers have sought this connection with the spiritual world for themselves. In this way, they will be able to serve as your prophets and missionaries, conveying what can only be brought from the spiritual world into this Earth—but which must be embraced by people and integrated into the Earth as spiritual power. Otherwise, our Earth would become desolate. Through loving, energetic cooperation, that which makes a person a true human being is to be awakened here.

[ 16 ] Now I would like to remind all of you—especially the students in the upper grades—of what one finds in the outside world. In the real world, time is filled with work, but every now and then, people step away from their work to celebrate certain festivals, and during these festivals, they remember the value these celebrations hold for people; they give them a sense of momentum. People must immerse themselves in this enthusiasm so that they can look beyond what everyday life brings. What is taking place today should be a celebration for you. Those who are in school as young people in the making should experience it as a celebration that leaves a particularly deep impression on the soul as they enter a new school year. They should say to themselves: Let us now feel especially keenly how we should be attentive and diligent in school, and how we should be bound to our teachers in love. We should experience it as something akin to a religious service. Let us feel that these are the forces that illuminate and shape our entire lives. Let us feel that this is something profoundly human in the highest sense. Let us experience this as a special celebration of our hearts, our souls, and our spirits.

[ 17 ] Today, let us reflect on what we gain from being able to become fully human at school. Now, as decent, faithful people who love our teachers, we will begin our work at school—work that is preparation for life. Let us resolve today, with all our strength and out of this love that has been given to us—that the human being is a being carried by the Spirit into the earth—to celebrate the joy of schoolwork sustained by love.

[ 18 ] If we are conscious that we are working earnestly, that we are working out of love for our teachers, and that we are working in such a way that whatever comes to us also enters our hearts, then—precisely because we are true students—we will become good, capable people in the world who bring healing to others.