The Rudolf Steiner Archive

16. Speech at the Ceremony Marking the Start of the Fifth School Year

[ 1 ] My dear children, dear students! [Turning to the first-graders, Dr. Steiner says:] Many teachers have spoken. You need to know what a teacher is. A teacher is a good person. But we need to know why a teacher is a good person. You have already learned from your parents what a good person is. A good person has many qualities, but one quality stands out above all others: they love children. Your parents are such good people because they have loved you so much. And because they love you, they are sending you here to school. There you will have teachers who love you.

[ 2 ] What should you do when you know that a teacher is someone who loves children? What should you do? Those who have been there before can tell you. So ask the students: Do you love your teachers? [The children shout loudly: Yes!] See, they love their teachers.

[ 3 ] Your teacher will be your second benefactor. Think about it; you will learn what that means. Just as your parents were and are your benefactors, so too will your teachers be your benefactors. The older children have already noticed that their teachers care for them. And the further you advance into the higher grades, the more certain you will become that one can only become a capable person if one has learned something worthwhile and if one has learned to conduct oneself properly in life.

[ 4 ] Dear children, there will be many among you who do not know what it means to be truly well-behaved. Some of you believe that being bad is better than being well-behaved. The older students will notice for themselves at school how they are getting closer and closer to what is called life, how they must find their way into life, and then they will have to remember especially well that one can never truly stand as a good person in life if one has not truly loved one’s teachers as one’s greatest benefactors.

[ 5 ] You should engrave this in your reason and in your heart. You should engrave it in your conscience. Think about how deeply this will take root in your lives later on, once it is embedded in your reason, your heart, and your conscience; how you will one day be able to truly understand what school has made of you for life, if you can engrave this in your souls in this way.

[ 6 ] Well, you all come from a time when each of you should have remembered that there are benefactors among humankind, that, after all, nature, too, is our benefactor. But these past few days have reminded you of humanity’s greatest benefactor; they have had to remind you of the One who, nearly two thousand years ago, endured suffering and death out of love for humanity, and who, through His resurrection, gave humanity the Spirit. You have been able to remember this great benefactor of the earth and of humanity—Christ. In this season of spring, we come from Christ, the greatest benefactor of humanity.

[ 7 ] But as we look up to Him, as we come to understand who Christ is, we learn what it means to be a benefactor to others. And you see, your teachers will be such good teachers to you because they have strived to get to know the Christ, because they have striven to direct their feelings toward the Christ in the right way during the springtime of Easter. This is what you should keep in mind from the very beginning—that your teachers are filled with the power that emanates from this greatest benefactor of humanity. And this is what I know—that I need not say it in any exhortatory way, but need only state it as a fact: that you, my dear teachers, are raising and instructing these children in such a way that they will truly feel throughout their entire lives that you are the benefactors who can be so yourselves through the power that penetrates your hearts from the Mystery of Golgotha.

[ 8 ] Finally, I would like to address the dear parents and express in a few words that you bring your children to the Waldorf School because you see something special in the very nature of the Waldorf School. That is not the focus here; the specific character of the Waldorf School will also be discussed later. But what I would like to summarize—what we have established here, I would say, as the guiding star for our work—is that, based on an understanding of the human being, this insight should flow into teaching and education, so that it may lead to a deepening of the sense of responsibility among all those who work here at the Waldorf School.

[ 9 ] That is why, dear parents of our students, we must emphasize today—as a solemn pledge—that we are fully aware that the most sacred thing has been brought here. We can offer nothing in return but our deep sense of responsibility. But if, on the one hand, the teachers see in the parents’ decision to entrust their children to the teaching staff—if that stands there—then on the other hand, the teaching staff will demonstrate their willingness to work with dedication, full of the responsibility and strength necessary to shape the children into what they are meant to become at school. From this one senses what it means—when, on the one hand, one sees the decision and feels the sense of responsibility in the true vision of the heart—then one sees how the children, by coming here, are a gift from God to the earth, and how they must become true human citizens of the earth.

[ 10 ] The entire purpose of education is to transform God’s children into citizens of this world. I would like to address parents in particular regarding the need for this awareness to take root among us—out of a sense of responsibility—in the best way possible.

[ 11 ] Let us work in this spirit—let you work in this spirit, my dear teachers. In this spirit, I would like to say to the parents: look into our school with this spirit and see for yourselves whether we are truly capable of doing what you expect of us. That will be the greatest satisfaction—when those who look upon what we do with understanding also find satisfaction in knowing that we are striving to make God’s children into citizens of the world.