The Rudolf Steiner Archive

11. The Rhythmic Element in Education

[ 1 ] If we once again consider the three important stages of elementary school life, they are as follows: from entering elementary school at ages 6 or 7 until age 9; from age 9 until about age 12; and then from age 12 until approximately the onset of puberty. Now, the fact is that what one might call human judgment—the capacity for independent judgment—actually does not emerge in a person until full sexual maturity. A kind of preparation for this capacity for judgment does, however, take place in human nature starting around the age of 12. Therefore, the period beginning at age 12 constitutes a sort of third phase of elementary school, because, in a sense, what will become the central aspect of the human being after reaching sexual maturity—the capacity for independent judgment—is already beginning to emerge.

[ 2 ] Now, as I have already noted, one might find the views that Spiritual Science must uphold regarding certain aspects of the human being to be open to question. One might say: Why distinguish between the physical body, the etheric body, the astral body, and so on? Certainly, if one has merely a theoretical interest in these things, that interest will at best serve a need for sensation; but one will not be able to go very far with such an interest. It is different when practical life demands such an interest. And that is most certainly the case with regard to the art of education. For every time such a phase of life occurs in the overall course of human existence, something truly appropriate is born out of human nature itself. I had to point out how the very same forces that emerge at the age of seven—that is, during elementary school—as powers of memory, powers of thought, and so on, have been at work in the human organism up until the age of seven, so that the strongest expression of this work is the appearance of the second set of teeth. In a sense, the forces that come into play later during elementary school years are at work within the organism as powers of imagination; within the organism, they operate hidden within human nature; then they are liberated, become independent, and these forces that become independent—we call them the forces of the etheric body. In turn, with sexual maturity, other forces become independent, introducing us to the external world in the most diverse ways. But the system of these forces also encompasses the human capacity for independent judgment. Thus we can say: the true bearer of human judgment—that aspect of the human being which contains the forces that give rise to judgment—is, in essence, only born in the human being with sexual maturity and slowly prepares for its emergence from the age of 12 onward.

[ 3 ] If one knows this and can truly appreciate it, then one is also aware of the responsibility one assumes when accustoming people to independent judgment too early. Indeed, in this regard, the most pernicious prejudices prevail, especially in the present day: people want to accustom others to independent judgment as early as possible.

[ 4 ] We have said: Until puberty, a child must be kept under the influence of authority, so that he or she accepts something simply because the authority—which naturally exerts its influence alongside the child—commands it, simply because that is what the authority wants. If we accustom the child to relate to us in the proper way—as teachers and educators—and to accept the truth because we represent it as an authority, then we are preparing the child in the right way to be able to form a free, independent judgment later in life. If we do not wish to stand beside the child as a self-evident authority, if we wish, so to speak, to step back and draw everything out of the child’s own nature, then we are working with this child in such a way that we challenge its capacity for judgment too early, before what we call the astral body emerges as an independent, free entity only with sexual maturity; we influence what we call the astral body while it is still active within the child’s physical nature. In doing so, we imprint upon the child—if I may put it this way—into their very flesh that which we should only be imprinting upon their soul. But in this way, we prepare within the child something that will live within them as a pest throughout their entire life. For it is quite a different matter whether we mature into free judgment—after being well prepared—at the age of 14 or 15, when the astral body, which can be the bearer of judgment, has become free, or whether we are drawn into so-called independent judgment at an earlier age. In the latter case, it is not our astral nature—that is, our soul—that is drawn upon for independent judgment, but rather our physical body. Yet our physical body is drawn upon with all its natural characteristics, with its temperament, with its blood constitution, with everything within it that evokes sympathy and antipathy, with everything that deprives it of objectivity. In other words, if a child is expected to make independent judgments between the ages of 7 and 14, it will judge from that part of human nature that can never be shed later on unless we ensure that it is properly nurtured in a natural way during elementary school—namely, through authority. If we allow them to judge too early, the body will be the one making judgments throughout their entire life. Then we remain a person whose judgment wavers, dependent on our temperament and on all manner of factors within our body. If we are prepared in a way that corresponds to the nature of our body—as the body demands by its very nature—and if we are educated at the right time in accordance with authority, then that which is meant to judge within us will be set free in the proper way; then we will also be able to develop objective judgment later in life. Thus, the best preparation for an independent, free human personality is not to introduce the child to this free personality too early, but at the right age.

[ 5 ] This is one of those things that can cause a great deal of harm if not applied correctly, especially in the art of education. In our time, it is actually quite difficult to draw sufficient attention to all of this. You will find that when you speak about this subject—as I am doing here—to the outside world today, to those who are completely unprepared and lack any goodwill, you will be preaching to deaf ears. We simply live much more in the age of materialism than we realize. And this age of materialism should actually be thoroughly understood, especially by educators. The educator should be fully aware of just how much materialism is bubbling up in our entire contemporary culture, but especially in our contemporary mindset.

[ 6 ] I would like to characterize what I just said from a completely different perspective. There is something peculiar about modern European civilization: around the year 1850, without anyone really noticing it very clearly, the immediate, elemental sense of rhythm was lost on a large scale. That is why now—since people are already a few generations removed from the time when this sense of rhythm was lost—we have absolutely no awareness of what it actually means for the education of children that our age is so sorely lacking in a sense of rhythm. To understand this, one must consider the following:

[ 7 ] Throughout their lives, people alternate daily between sleeping and waking. People believe they know the so-called waking state well, because they are conscious of themselves at that time. Through their sensory perceptions, they gain an awareness of the outside world. In short, people believe they know the waking state. But the state from falling asleep to waking up—that is something people do not know. After all, in our normal life today, they have no self-awareness during this time. Nor do they have many immediate, conscious perceptions of the outside world. This is therefore a state that inserts itself into life as an unconscious state. We can only begin to form a mental image of the interplay of life in these two states if we point out two polar opposites that are also of great significance for the entire art of education in human life. These are the artistic and the musical—two opposites we have already mentioned—which we wish to examine once more today from a particular perspective.

[ 8 ] Let us consider the art of drawing, to which I now also include painting and sculpture. In doing so, let us recall everything we have already regarded as necessary for the child with regard to drawing, starting from the very beginning of elementary school. What does the art of drawing reveal to us? It shows us that human beings shape the forms they encounter in the external world out of their own nature. I have pointed out that adhering to the model is not what matters; rather, we must find within our own nature a feeling, a sense of form. But ultimately we will come to realize that in everything we do in drawing, in painting—in fact, in everything that is formative in space, in everything we bring about as form in space—we are immersed in an element that surrounds us in the external world while we are awake. We draw lines, we paint colors, we reproduce forms. Lines present themselves to us, even though they do not exist as such in nature; but they present themselves to us through nature, as do colors and forms.

[ 9 ] Let us now consider the other element—the musical—which, after all, also permeates and resonates through language. Here we must say: in what is truly musical, we find only an expression of the human soul. Everything that ultimately comes to light in music has, after all, only the most elementary of analogies in external nature—such as sculpture, painting, and drawing. Nor would it be possible, in the same way, to use music merely to imitate the external world naturalistically, just as it is possible in an age when the artistic sensibility for sculpture or drawing is weak to imitate merely the external. And yet, does music have no content? Music does have its content. The content of music is, in essence, the melodic element of music. In truth, the melodic element is the content of music. Melodies must come to mind. If, at present, less value is placed on the melodic element from many quarters, this is nothing other than a characteristic of the materialistic age. People simply do not come up with enough of it. The truly melodic element is the content of music. Where does the melodic element come from? The melodic element can be compared to the sculptural element. After all, the sculptural element is arranged spatially, while the melodic element is arranged temporally. But anyone with a keen sense of this temporal orientation will realize that the melodic element contains a kind of temporal sculpture. In a certain sense, the melodic element corresponds to what sculpture is to the external world.

[ 10 ] Now let’s move on to something else. You are all familiar with that fleeting element of our inner life that comes to light in dreams. Dreams should be given special attention, particularly in the world of children. As teachers, we should, in a certain sense, also be familiar with the nature of our students’ dreaming. We will speak more about this later; but for now I simply want to point out in general that every person is familiar with this fleeting element of the dream. When one properly engages with this element of the dream, one gradually arrives at views of dreams that differ from the popular, layman’s views. Layman’s views of dreams focus on the content of the dream; for the layman is particularly interested in what the content of the dream is. As soon as one properly engages with this wondrous, mysterious world of dreams, the situation changes. Someone might recount the following dream: “Yes, I was climbing a mountainside; just before I was about to reach the summit, there was an obstacle I couldn’t overcome. I couldn’t reach the summit.” I tried to overcome the obstacle, but then evil, hostile animals and demonic-looking figures stood in my way.”—That is the kind of thing a person describes. Another person describes the following: “I was walking along a path when I came to a cave; I went inside the cave. Suddenly it grew dark, and I couldn’t go any further. All sorts of obstacles stood in my way.” I couldn’t go any further; I didn’t reach my destination. — And a third, a fourth kind can still be recounted. The images are quite different. One person dreams of climbing a mountain, another of entering a cave, and a third of something else entirely, for the images themselves are not what matters at all. The images are something purely woven into the dream. What matters is that the person experiences a tension into which they gradually enter and which they cannot initially resolve—a tension that is only resolved, so to speak, upon waking. This encounter with tension, this emergence of tension, this sense of foreboding—that is what can find expression in the most diverse images.

[ 11 ] What matters, then, is that in dreams a person experiences rising and falling tensions, resolutions, expectations, and disappointments—in short, that they experience inner states of mind that can express themselves in the most diverse images. These images similarly rise and fall. The state of mind is what matters most, for it is connected to the soul’s entire disposition. Whether one has experienced this or that image during the night is irrelevant. Whether one has first experienced a build-up of tension followed by a resolution, or first an expectation followed by a disappointment, is not irrelevant, for one’s entire state of mind the next day sometimes depends on it. Or such a dream reveals the general mood of a person’s soul as a result of life’s experiences, and so on. I would say that the rising and falling curve—that is what matters. What appears there, what becomes an image right at the threshold of waking, is merely a garment that the dream weaves around itself. But if we now look into this dream life, if we ask the question: What does a person experience right up until waking? — then we say to ourselves: Yes, right up until waking, they experience this surging and subsiding of feelings, and then, at the moment of waking, these feelings take on the corresponding images. Of course, one can perceive this, I would say, in every characteristic dream. I’d like to tell you about a typical dream:

[ 12 ] A student is standing at the door of the lecture hall. He dreams that another student approaches him, insults him so harshly that—as is customary among students—it turns into a challenge to a duel—he dreams of how the seconds are chosen, how they go out into the forest, how everything is prepared. The first shot—he still hears it, then he wakes up—he has knocked over the chair that was standing next to his bed; that was the shot. That was the only external event. So the entire visual world of the dream has flashed through his mind in that moment. But what clothes these images is a lasting mental state.

[ 13 ] Now, seriously compare what underlies dreaming—this swelling and subsiding of emotions, this tension, perhaps this release, or this inclination toward something that then leads into a calamity, and so on. Compare this very seriously with what underlies the musical elements, and you will find that the dream images contain only something irregular; in music, you have something that represents this swelling, fading, and so on in exactly the same way. And if you pursue this line of inquiry, you will find: sculpture and drawings imitate the form into which we settle from waking to falling asleep in our waking state. Melodies—as that which is connected to music—give us the experiences of what seems to be a completely unconscious state; these enter our waking life as reminiscences. People know so little about the actual origin of musical themes because what unfolds in these themes is experienced during the time between falling asleep and waking up. For people today, this remains an unconscious element that reveals itself only when it takes shape as images in dreams. But this unconscious element, which reigns in dreams and which reigns in the musical element—particularly in the melodic—this unconscious element is precisely what we must incorporate into the art of teaching so that we may transcend materialism through the art of education as well.

[ 14 ] If you now grasp the spirit of what has been presented here, you will see how attempts have been made throughout to incorporate this unconscious element; first, by my describing the artistic element as necessary right at the beginning of elementary school; second, by insisting on such things as taking the dialect and simply deriving the grammar from it, or taking the child’s language as a whole as something already complete and deriving the grammar from it. Just consider what you are doing there. In what stage of life is language actually formed? Try to think back as far as you can remember in your own life—it won’t go back to a time when you were not yet able to speak at all. A person learns to speak at the time when they are still sleeping their way into life. If, from this perspective, you compare the child’s peculiar, dreamlike inner world with dreaming and with the weaving of the musical and the melodious, you will find something similar. Learning to speak arises from the unconscious; it is something like waking up from a night’s sleep—and so is dreaming. And melodies—they are there, though we do not know where they come from. In reality, they arise from the human element of sleep. In reality, we experience the temporal structure from falling asleep to waking up. It is just that, at the present stage of human development, we are not yet capable of experiencing this temporal structure. How one experiences it, how it becomes a reality—you will find this described in my book *How Does One Attain Insights into Higher Worlds?* This does not pertain to pedagogy itself. From it, however, you will see how necessary it is to take full account of this unconscious element, which is rooted in the interplay of the child’s sleep state. It is certainly taken into account when, in music instruction, we give preference to the thematic, so that we attempt to analyze the musical—insofar as it is present in the child—in exactly the same way as we analyze the linguistic in a sentence; in other words, when we guide the child very early on to recognize the thematic in music, to actually perceive the melodic element just as one perceives a sentence; here it begins, here it ends, here it connects, here is a pause, here a new one begins. In this regard, helping a child understand a musical quality that has not yet reached the reality of its content works wonders for the child’s development. For in this way, the child is drawn back to something that is inherent in human nature but is almost never perceived.

[ 15 ] Everyone knows what a melody is; they also know what a sentence is. But very few people realize that a sentence—consisting of a subject, predicate, and object—is, in reality, a melody in the unconscious. Just as one can imagine that what is experienced in sleep as the ebb and flow of feelings—as an emotional curve—rises into consciousness and takes on the form of an image, so too do we experience the sentence musically in the depths of our being. And as we adapt to the external world, we clothe what we perceive musically in the form of a three-dimensional image. “The child is doing the assignment”—subject—predicate—object. At the very core of the human being, a triad is perceived. What is felt most deeply is a triad. This triad is applied by, so to speak, projecting the first note onto the child, the second note onto the act of writing, and the third note onto the assignment. And just as these three are perceived and then clothed in images—which now, however, correspond to reality, unlike what is perceived in a dream—so the sentence lives in our higher consciousness, and in our deepest subconscious, a musical quality, a melody. And if we are aware that, at the very moment we move from the sensory to the supersensory, we must shed the sensory content and, in place of that sensory content, experience precisely what music withholds from us—the thematic element, which is, in fact, experienced in its form during sleep—if we are aware of this, only then do we regard the human being as a whole. Only then do we become aware of what it actually means when we teach language to a child in such a lively way that we leave at least a trace of the melodious element in the sentence, that is, that we do not speak in a dry, prosaic manner, but that we still have something recitative in the sentence, something resonant, something that echoes the inner melodic element and also the rhythmic element.

[ 16 ] Around the year 1850, the deeper sense of rhythm among the European people disappeared. Before that, people still possessed, to a certain extent, what I have just described. If one examines certain treatises published at that time on music—on the structure of musical themes in Beethoven and others—one will realize how, back then, precisely those who were called musical authorities often dissected and tore apart, in the most unbelievable ways, what was alive in these things. One will see how that was a low point for the experience of rhythm.

[ 17 ] As educators, we must draw attention to this, because even in school, the sentence itself must be brought back to the rhythm. If we keep this in mind, we will focus on the continued presence of the artistic element in instruction. The artistic element will not be allowed to disappear so quickly, even if one is compelled to shift toward more content-oriented material.

[ 18 ] This ties in with a question I was asked yesterday, which I can address quite well in this context. The question is this: Why can’t certain children who have tremendous difficulty with spelling be held to spelling standards at all? Indeed, anyone who studies the spelling of Goethe or other great figures will come away with quite surprising impressions, for even these great figures sometimes have rather peculiar shortcomings in their spelling. Now, of course, in education we cannot go so far as to say, for example: “We’ll let them write with spelling errors, because they’ll probably become great figures, and we mustn’t disturb them”; we must, of course, guide the matter in such a way that we do not take this into account. And so the only question we need to answer is: What is actually going on when someone writes with such serious spelling errors? You need only examine the matter comparatively, and you will see that unorthographic writing is generally based on this—or if it is based on something else, that other factor is very closely related to it—namely, that such children, who are doomed to write unorthographically, have little ear for correct musical hearing, that is, for hearing correctly spoken language. Those who write with poor spelling are those who have not learned to hear precisely, who have not learned to hear a word exactly within its full, vivid scope.

[ 19 ] This can be due to various factors. For example, it may be because a child is growing up in a family or environment where people speak unclearly. In that case, the child does not learn to listen, and consequently will not learn to spell correctly—at least not easily. Or the child may be naturally predisposed to have little perception of what is heard. The child needs to be reminded to listen carefully. But sometimes—and I hope you’ll forgive me for such a frank admission—the teacher himself is to blame for the child’s poor spelling. Above all, the teacher should take care to use language that is, first and foremost, clear, but also expressive. After all, the teacher does not need to speak constantly in the manner that some actors must, in order to learn to pronounce final syllables properly—syllables that are usually swallowed up: “Freunderl,” “Mutterl.” But it is necessary for the teacher to get into the habit of truly immersing themselves in each syllable in the proper way, so that the teacher themselves pronounces the syllables clearly and the child is more often encouraged to repeat them exactly in a clear, expressive manner that fully articulates the syllables. If such clear, vivid speech is practiced, then much will also be achieved with regard to the unorthographic writing of certain children. For this, too, is connected to the fact that whatever is to be drawn out of the unconscious, out of the elements of dreams, out of the elements of sleep—and the element of sleep is, after all, simply the unconscious element—should not be artificially instilled in a person.

[ 20 ] And what, then, is the basis of listening? This is not usually addressed in psychology. You see, we fall asleep at night and wake up in the morning. We know that. We can state it afterward by telling ourselves: That is where our consciousness breaks off in our subsequent recollection. What happens to us from the moment we fall asleep until we wake up is not known to external science—to the non-Spiritual Science. But the inner state of the soul is no different when you are listening than when you are asleep. You are simply alternating constantly between being outside yourself and being within yourself. It is extraordinarily significant to become aware of this undulating activity of the soul’s life: when I listen, I am absorbed in the external world; but between moments of listening, I always have instants when I actually awaken within myself; and if I did not have them, listening would be of no help to me at all. Constantly, as we listen and look, we are waking up and falling asleep, even when we are awake. It is a continuous undulation: waking up, falling asleep, waking up, falling asleep. This means, ultimately, that our entire interaction with the outside world rests on this ability to transition into the other—if I may put it paradoxically—to be able to “fall asleep” into the other. After all, what is the difference between listening to a conversation and “falling asleep” into the content of that conversation? And understanding is the “waking up” from that conversation. It is no different. But this means we must try not to seek, from a state of consciousness, that which is actually meant to be drawn out of the unconscious—out of a person’s sleeping or dreaming.

[ 21 ] Therefore, we should not artificially teach people spelling, but rather teach spelling in such a way that we pronounce the word correctly for them, have them repeat it, and thus gradually help them write down what they have heard correctly. We should simply assume that if something is written incorrectly, it was heard incorrectly. And we must support the sense of hearing, not rely on anything that is more fully conscious than the sense of hearing itself.

[ 22 ] We should also take this into account in matters such as those I mentioned yesterday—in music instruction. We must not allow artificial methods into the school where consciousness is mistreated through other means such as controlled breathing and so on, whereas these breathing exercises must arise from the analysis of the subject matter. The child must learn to listen to melodic sequences properly and must be able to adapt. This must be an unconscious process. It must happen naturally. As I said, we can leave these pet projects to the music teachers for later ages, when less damage can be done. The child, however, must be taught from the unconscious, based on the musical analysis of the themes of the melodic element. These characteristic methods are just as harmful as if, when teaching drawing, I were to focus on the position of the arm rather than on developing a feel for the line; I would then say: “You’ll be able to draw an acanthus leaf once you get used to positioning your arm this way and that, and guiding it this way and that.” That would be the equivalent of the methods often used today in music education. All sorts of “adjustments” and similar methods do nothing more than view the human organism—from a purely materialistic standpoint—as a machine that must be adjusted so that it performs this or that correctly. If one proceeds from a spiritual standpoint, one always takes the detour through the soul and allows the organism to align itself with what is truly felt by the soul.

[ 23 ] We can say: When we engage the child in drawing, we give them a relationship to their environment. When we engage them in music, we give them a relationship to that which is not our ordinary environment, but which is nonetheless our environment from the moment we fall asleep until we wake up. These two poles together form what must take effect in the right way through such things as, for example, syntax and the study of grammar, where we should actually always intertwine a sense of sentence structure with an understanding of sentence composition and so on.

[ 24 ] These are things we absolutely must know if we want to properly understand how, around the age of 12, we can gradually prepare the child for what is truly the intellectual aspect of the rational element—namely, free judgment. We must protect the child from this free judgment as much as possible before they approach the age of 12. After all, we try to build judgment on authority, and authority always influences the child in a certain way through the unconscious. But this already places us within this unconscious influence; thus, in the relationship we establish with the child, we ourselves already possess an element that is similar to the musical-dreamlike realm.

[ 25 ] Then, around the age of 12, the time begins when we can move from botany and zoology to mineralogy and physics on the one hand, and to history and geography on the other. Not that these subjects should only be introduced at age 12, but they should be handled beforehand in such a way that the focus is less on judgment and more on feeling and unconscious assimilation. One should, so to speak, take into account that history should be presented to the child before the age of 12 in such a way that, first, it provides complete, vivid images, and second, it also stimulates emotional tension and resolution. Thus, before the age I have just mentioned—before the child approaches the age of 12—one should give primary consideration to how the child’s mind and capacity for visualization are affected by what is presented historically. The child does not become ready for coherent history until around the age of 12, nor for coherent geography.

[ 26 ] Now, as you consider what is to be presented to the child, you will naturally wonder: how does the religious element fit into all of this? Precisely as history and geography come into view, as the physical and mineralogical sciences come into view—all of which are meant to be introduced to the child around the age of 12—the question arises: how does the religious element fit into all this, an element that is meant to provide a vivid picture of the world as a whole and to awaken a sense of the supersensible? You see, in this regard we find ourselves in a rather difficult situation today. And here I must point out that, in the Waldorf school, purely due to external circumstances, we were compelled—precisely in this area—to follow approaches that were by no means limited to purely pedagogical and didactic considerations. Even today, we cannot yet apply what Spiritual Science has to offer for pedagogy and didactics in teaching in any way other than in its logical consequence for the art of teaching. For this is the essence of Spiritual Science: that it contains artistic impulses at the same time; that it permeates the human being in such a way that he is able to do something through it, not merely know something; that he becomes more skilled—if I may put it in extreme terms—better able to engage with life, and therefore, in the highest sense, also better able to practice the art of pedagogy. That is the distinctive feature of Spiritual Science. Today, we must still refrain from incorporating anything more of the Spiritual Science into the art of education than this ability. We have not been able to establish a school based on a particular worldview at the Waldorf School; rather, from the very beginning, I myself made it a condition that Protestant religion be taught by Protestant religion teachers. It is kept separate; we do not concern ourselves with it. So the Protestant religious education teacher goes there and teaches Protestant religious education; the Catholic priest—or whoever is designated for that purpose—teaches Catholic religious education; the rabbi teaches the Jewish students, and so on. So for us, the immediate issue is that the public today no longer permits us to incorporate anything more than Spiritual Science into the art of education. The Waldorf School is not an ideologically based school. However, a curious situation has arisen in which a number of people from the general public have said: “We send our children here because we are actually non-denominational—we do not belong to the Protestant, Catholic, or Jewish faiths. If you do not provide us with a teacher who also teaches religion based on what are today generally accepted human principles, then we will not send our children to any religious education classes.” And so we were compelled, entirely of our own accord, to offer this anthroposophical religious education to those who, in a sense, wanted it—which we did not impose on anyone, for the Waldorf School is not an ideologically based school. It is offered, but not because we are promoting anthroposophy as a worldview. It is one thing to advocate for anthroposophy as a worldview, and quite another to make what anthroposophical Spiritual Science has to offer fruitful for the art of education. We do not campaign for the content itself; we campaign for the skill—if we want to call it “campaigning.” But various things have become apparent in the process. For example, quite a few children have left the other religion teachers in droves and come to ours. We couldn’t help it. It was extremely unpleasant for me, wasn’t it? From the standpoint of maintaining good relations with the outside world, it was even highly detrimental; but that is simply how it is. And on the other hand, isn’t it true that from that side they say: “Well, the other religious instruction classes will eventually come to an end!” That is not our view at all, for the Waldorf School is not meant to be a school based on a particular worldview. Today, nowhere in the civilized world is it yet possible to make instruction into something unified. That will only be possible when the threefold social order establishes spiritual life on its own. As long as that is not the case, it will not be possible to provide unified instruction. So what we have strived for is to enrich pedagogy and didactics through Spiritual Science. Nevertheless, because a request to that effect has been made to me, I will now, in the coming days, also address what Spiritual Science has to say regarding history instruction, geography instruction, religious education, and so on.