The Rudolf Steiner Archive

13. Children's Play

[ 1 ] I will structure these final lectures based on the specific questions that have been posed to me, either in writing or orally; I will also try to add a few supplementary remarks to one or the other of the points I have already raised. First of all, I would like to note that the enrichment that Spiritual Science could bring to the art of education consists, among many other things, in the fact that, through Spiritual Science, the art of education is truly enabled to direct its gaze appropriately toward the entire development of the human being.

[ 2 ] We have seen, after all, that something like the study of history can only truly become fruitful for a growing person around the age of 12. For the study of history already involves a kind of preparation for the stage of life that begins only with sexual maturity—that is, at the age of 14 or 15. It is then, fundamentally, that the human being’s ability to judge from within truly begins. The power of judgment—not merely intellectual judgment, but comprehensive judgment in all directions—can develop only after sexual maturity. It is only with sexual maturity that the supersensible element of the human being—which is the bearer of the power of judgment—is born out of the rest of human nature. Call this element whatever you like. In my books I have called it the astral body, but the name is not important. I said that this is evident not only in intellectual judgment but in every kind of judgment in the broadest sense. You may be somewhat surprised that I also include what I am about to describe within the sphere of judgment. However, if we were to engage in a detailed psychological analysis here, what I am saying could also be demonstrated psychologically. If, for example, we attempt to have a child recite from their own sense of taste before they reach sexual maturity, we are corrupting developmental forces of human nature that are essentially intended to be utilized only later and that are indeed corrupted if they are called upon before sexual maturity. Forming an independent judgment of taste is also only possible after puberty. If a child is to be encouraged to recite before the age of 14 or 15, it should be done by following the example of someone who stands beside the child as a natural authority figure. That is to say, the child should take pleasure in the way the other person recites. The child should not be instructed to emphasize certain elements or omit others based on their own judgment of taste, nor to shape the rhythm in one way or another; rather, the child should allow themselves to be guided by authority, including in matters of aesthetic judgment. Precisely the realm of the child’s inner life should not be removed from the influence of this natural authority before sexual maturity is reached. I always say “natural authority” because I certainly do not mean an imposed or even blind authority; rather, I am proceeding from what emerges from unbiased observation: From the time of losing baby teeth until puberty, the child wants to have that authority by its side. It demands it. It longs for it. And this longing, which stems from the child’s individuality, should be accommodated.

[ 3 ] If you consider such matters in a comprehensive sense, you will see that in the exposition in which I have attempted here to say a few things, in outline form, about the art of education, the overall development of the human being is always taken into account. That is why it is said that between the ages of 7 and 14, one should instill in the child nothing other than what can bear fruit for the rest of their life. One must simply see how one stage of life affects the next. I will give a telling example of this in a moment. The child may have long since left school, may even be an adult by then, and only then does it become clear what we have made of him or her in school—and what we have not. But this becomes evident not only in a general, abstract way; it becomes evident in a very concrete way.

[ 4 ] Let us consider children’s play from this perspective—specifically, the kind of play that occurs in the very youngest children, from birth through the teething period. This play is, of course, based in part on the instinct to imitate. Children imitate what they see adults do; but they do it differently; above all, they do it in a way that is far removed from the purpose and utility that adults must associate with certain actions. Play represents an imitation of adult activity only in form, not in substance. The practicality—the purposeful engagement with life—is absent. The child derives satisfaction from an activity closely related to that of adults. Now one may ask: what is actually at work here? If one wishes to study what emerges in play activity and thereby recognize the true nature of the human being in such a way that one can practically contribute to human development, one must continually take into account the individual activities of the human soul—including those that are then transferred to the physical organs, pouring out into them, so to speak. It is not that simple. However, the study of play to the fullest extent would be extraordinarily important for the art of education. Now, this play is connected to a wide variety of factors. One should recall that a leading Spirit-Man once coined the phrase: “A person is fully human only as long as they play, and a person plays only as long as they are fully human.” Schiller coined this phrase in a letter after reading certain passages of Goethe’s *Wilhelm Meister*. The free play of the soul’s powers, as it unfolds in the artistic creation of *Wilhelm Meister*, appeared to Schiller as something he could only compare to the coming of age of childlike play. And fundamentally, Schiller wrote his letters, “On the Aesthetic Education of Man,” entirely from this perspective. Schiller wrote, after all, from the conviction that as an adult, one is never truly fully human in the activities one must perform in ordinary life. Either, Schiller argues, one follows sensual needs—that which the senses demand—and is thus subject to a certain compulsion; or one follows the logical necessity dictated by reason, in which case one is bound by rational necessity and is, once again, not a free person. One is truly free, Schiller argues, only in artistic creation and in artistic contemplation. This is certainly understandable coming from an artist like Schiller, but it is one-sided, since—when it comes to grasping the freedom of the soul—there is much human experience that unfolds just as inwardly as what Schiller understands as freedom. But the way of life in which Schiller conceives the artist is, in fact, such that one experiences the spiritual as if it were natural and necessary, and, conversely, the sensory as if it were already spiritual. This is certainly the case in artistic enjoyment and also in artistic creation. One creates with sensory material, but one does not create for the sake of utility, nor according to external principles of expediency. One creates as the idea dictates—if one uses the word in its broadest sense—but one also does not create in abstract ideas according to logical necessities; rather, in artistic creation, one is engaged in the process just as one is when experiencing hunger and thirst. It is a wholly personal necessity. Schiller believed that a person can attain something like this in life, but that a child naturally possesses this play, in which it lives, as it were, in the world of adults—yet only in such a way that it satisfies its individuality, that it expresses itself fully in what it creates, without the creation serving any particular purpose.

[ 5 ] Well, this was an observation made by Schiller at the beginning of the 19th century—and even at the end of the 18th century—that may inspire some to explore the matter further. In fact, the psychological significance of play is not all that easy to pinpoint. One must ask oneself: Does the particular kind of play that a child engages in before losing its baby teeth have any significance for the whole of human life? As mentioned, one can analyze it—as Schiller attempted to do, inspired by Goethe—as a kind of “childlikeness in adulthood.” But one can also compare this play activity to another aspect of human existence. One can compare this play activity of the child before the change of teeth to the activity of dreaming. There one will certainly find certain significant analogies. However, these analogies relate solely to the course and the context of what the child does in the course of play. Just as the child combines things in play—whatever it may be combining—so too, in dreams, one combines images—though not with external objects but only with thoughts and images—even if not in all dreams, but in a very significant class of dreams. In a certain sense, one actually remains a child throughout one’s entire life when dreaming. However, in order to bring the matter to a true, real understanding, one cannot stop at comparing play with dreaming; rather, one must ask: When does something occur in a person’s life through which the forces developed in this early childhood play—up until the change of teeth—become fruitful for the entire outer human life? When, in fact, does one reap the fruits of childhood play? People usually think one must look for these fruits of childhood play in the life stage that immediately follows, and this is precisely what Spiritual Science is meant to reveal: how life unfolds in a kind of rhythmic repetition. Just as a plant seed gives rise to leaves in manifold forms—first sepals, then petals, and so on—and then the seed reappears, with something lying in between and the repetition of what came before occurring after an intervening period, so it is indeed in human life as well.

[ 6 ] A wide variety of perspectives has led people to view human life solely as if each subsequent stage were the result of the one that preceded it. That is not the case. If one engages in unbiased observation, one finds that the true fruits of the life activity that first emerges in childhood do not become apparent until one’s twenties. What we acquire through play from birth until the change of teeth—what is lived out there in a dreamlike way by the child—these are the forces of the human spirit that is as yet unborn, the human spirit that has not yet been absorbed into the body, or resorbed, if you will. It is like this: I have explained to you how the very same forces that work organically within the human being up to the time of the change of teeth become independent—once they have brought forth the teeth—as mental images and thinking activity; in a sense, something is drawn out of the physical body. What the child engages in through play—which is not yet connected to life and has no inherent usefulness—is, by contrast, something that has not yet become integrated with the body; thus, the child has a soul activity that works within the body until the change of teeth and then emerges as a force for the formation of concepts that can subsequently be recalled. On the other hand, the child has a spiritual-soul activity that, in a sense, still hovers lightly and ethereally above the child, manifesting itself in play just as dreams manifest themselves throughout life. But this activity in the child is not developed merely in dreams; it is developed through play—that is, through an external reality. What is developed through this external reality recedes, so to speak. Just as the germinative force in a plant recedes into the leaf and the petal and only reappears in the fruit, so too does that which is applied and expended in the child only reappear in humans around the age of 21 or 22 as the intellect, now independently gathering experiences in life. And here I would like to ask you: Try to truly explore this connection; observe children very carefully; try to grasp the individuality of their play—indeed, to grasp the individuality of children’s free, playful activity right up to the time of tooth replacement—and form mental images of the children’s individualities; and first assume, hypothetically: the individual characteristics evident in play up to the time of tooth replacement reappear in some way in the particular character of a person’s independent judgment after the age of 20; that is, human types after the age of 20 differ in terms of their independent judgment, just as children differ in their play before tooth replacement.

[ 7 ] If one considers such things from the perspective of full reality, one actually develops—I would say—an unlimited sense of responsibility toward both child-rearing and teaching; for one comes to say to oneself: What you do with the child now will shape the person well beyond their twenties. It is clear from this that one must understand life as a whole—not just a child’s life—if one wishes to develop a true art of education.

[ 8 ] The child’s play activities from the time of tooth replacement through puberty are somewhat different. Certainly, these phases are not strictly separated from one another; however, if one wishes to identify clear distinctions—especially for practical purposes—one must clearly distinguish between them. Anyone who observes closely will find that a child’s play up to the age of 7 has something of an individual character. As a player, the child is, in a sense, a kind of hermit. The child plays by itself. Of course, the child also wants help, but then it is a terrible egoist—it simply wants that help all to itself. A social life for play begins with the change of teeth. Children then want to play more with one another. This occurs with the change of teeth—at least that is the typical case, although there are, of course, individual exceptions. That is when the child ceases to be a recluse in play; it wants to play with other children and to mean something within the game. This desire to mean something within the game is what occurs in particular between the change of teeth and sexual maturity. In militaristic countries—I don’t know if Switzerland counts among them; I won’t decide that—in militaristic countries, boys in particular play soldier games, which are, after all, social games in which the boys want to “be something.” Most of them want to be at least a general in these games; a social element enters into children’s play. Yet the character of the game is preserved, in that what is practiced in children’s play does not carry over into social life according to the principle of expediency. But what is peculiar is that what appears as sociability in play—from the time of tooth replacement through puberty—is actually found to be the preparatory element for the next stage of life. It is very peculiar how, in the next stage of life with the onset of puberty, independent judgment emerges, where the individual breaks free from authority, forms his own judgment, and confronts others as an individual. As a preparatory stage, this very same element appears in the preceding stage of life—not integrated into external social life, but solely within the activity of play itself. What thus appears in the preceding stage of life through children’s social play is the preliminary breaking away from authority. We must therefore say: Play gives the child, up to the age of 7—until the change of teeth—something that, in embodied form, does not enter human life until the age of 21 or 22, through which the child acquires the independent individuality of judgment based on reason and experience, and so on. However, what is prepared through play from the age of seven until sexual maturity occurs earlier in the course of development; it then manifests from sexual maturity until the age of 21. This is a carryover. It is very interesting to realize that the abilities we possess for our intellect, our life experience, and our social life are owed to our earliest childhood years, provided that play is properly guided. On the other hand, what manifests itself during our rowdy or boisterous years is owed to the period from the change of teeth to sexual maturity. Thus, these phases overlap in the course of human life.

[ 9 ] Such interconnections in the course of human life are of fundamental importance, and this is something that psychology has overlooked. For what we call psychology today has only existed since the 18th century. Before that, people had entirely different conceptual frameworks regarding human beings and the human soul. But this developed precisely during the era when the materialistic spirit and materialistic thinking were already emerging, and therefore, despite all its significant beginnings, psychology could not develop in such a way that a true science of the soul would emerge—one that, in accordance with reality, took the whole of human life into account. I must confess that I have gone to great, great lengths to discover even the very best that can be found in Herbart’s psychology. Herbart’s psychology is astute. Herbart’s psychology does indeed strive to work toward a certain configuration of the soul based on the elementary components of the life of the soul. There is an extraordinary amount of beauty in Herbart’s psychology; yet one must still consider what peculiar views this Herbartian psychology has given rise to among good Herbartians.

[ 10 ] I knew a truly outstanding Herbartian very well—the aesthetician Robert Zimmermann, who also wrote a *Philosophical Propaedeutics* with a section on psychology for college students and referred to Herbart as a “Kantian of 1828” for the 19th century. In his psychological account as a student of Herbart, he actually elaborated on the following: When I am hungry, I do not strive to obtain the food that satisfies my hunger, but rather, in essence, only to have the mental image of hunger cease and be replaced by the mental image of satiety. I am dealing solely with a movement of mental images. There is a mental image that must arise in the face of inhibitions, that must work its way up against inhibitions. And eating is, in fact, merely a means of transitioning from the mental image of hunger to the mental image of satiety.

[ 11 ] Anyone who can view the reality of human nature—not in a materialistic sense, but precisely in a spiritual sense—will see that this way of looking at things contains something one-sidedly rationalistic and intellectualistic, and that it is necessary for us to move beyond this one-sided intellectualism and grasp the whole human being precisely from a psychological perspective. Then, drawing on psychology, we will have to demand quite a few things from the art of education that would otherwise remain hidden from this art. What we nurture and teach in a person must not be viewed merely as something that is “just right” for the child, but rather as something living that can transform itself. For we see, after all, that there are connections such as those I have described. One must expect that what is cultivated in elementary school up to puberty will blossom in a completely different form in the individual from the age of 15 to 21 or 22.

[ 12 ] The elementary school teacher is infinitely important to the high school teacher or the university professor; indeed, he is even more important, because the university professor cannot do anything at all if the elementary school teacher does not send him students who have been properly prepared. It is indeed of great importance that one truly take these interconnected stages of life into account. One will then see that real points of reference can only be derived from Spiritual Science.

[ 13 ] But now consider all that goes on in school because people live in dependence on certain prejudices. Certainly, some things have improved as a result of certain instincts; but things must improve radically—for example, we still define things far too much. We should, as much as possible, avoid giving children any definitions. Definitions always fix the soul, and a defined concept remains throughout life, turning life into something dead. But we should educate in such a way that what we instill in the child’s soul remains alive. Let’s suppose that as a child, at age 9 or 11, someone acquires a concept of this or that—for example, at age 9, let’s say, of a lion, and at age 11 or 12, of Greek culture. Fine, they acquire these concepts. But these concepts should not remain as they are. It should not be possible at all in life for someone to say at the age of 30: “I have this or that concept of a lion; I learned it in school. I have this or that concept of Greek civilization; I learned it in school.” These concepts should actually become something that is transcended. Just as everything else within us grows, so too should what the teacher gives us grow; it should be something living. We should acquire such concepts of the lion, such concepts of Greek civilization, that by the time we are 30 or 40, they are no longer what they were in school, but are so alive that they transform themselves along with life itself. To achieve this, we must characterize rather than define. When forming concepts, we must try to emulate what we can do in painting or photography; there, we can stand on one side and capture one aspect, or stand on the other side and capture another aspect, and so on. Only after we have photographed a tree from multiple angles can we gain a mental image of it. People place too much emphasis on the idea that a definition gives you something. One should try to work with thoughts and concepts just as one does with a camera, and should evoke no other feeling than this: that one is characterizing—not defining—a being or a thing from various angles. Definitions are really only there so that, if one wishes, one can place them at the beginning, in order to reach a common understanding with the teacher on this one point. That is essentially what definitions are for. It is a somewhat radical way of putting it, but in essence, that is the case. Life does not favor definitions. And deep down, one should always be aware of how, through incorrect definition, one turns postulates into dogmas. It is very important that the teacher knows this. Instead of saying: “We call two entities that cannot be in one and the same place at the same time ‘impenetrable’—whereby we consciously establish the concept of impenetrability and then seek the thing that fits this concept”—instead of proceeding in this way, we say: “Bodies are impenetrable because they cannot be in one and the same place at the same time.” We must not turn postulates into dogmas; rather, we are only justified in saying: We call those bodies impenetrable that cannot be in one and the same place at the same time. We must remain aware of the creative power of our soul and must not instill in the child a mental image that, before it has internally recognized the triangle, it can comprehend the essence of the triangle in the external world.

[ 14 ] The idea that one should characterize rather than define stems from the realization that what occurs in one human era may not be fully understood until a very distant era, and that one should therefore convey to the child not dead concepts, but living ones—living sensations. And so one should also try to make geometry, for example, as vivid as possible. A few days ago I spoke about arithmetic—I intend to make a few remarks about arithmetic with fractions and similar topics before the course ends tomorrow—but today I would like to add a few more thoughts on geometry, which tie in quite well, first, with a question that was posed to me, and second, with what I have just said.

[ 15 ] Geometry can truly be perceived in this way by anyone who has had some experience with it—that it should gradually be brought from the static into the dynamic. Actually, we’re talking about something very general when we say: The sum of the angles of a triangle is 180 degrees. That’s true for every triangle, isn’t it? But can we create a mental image of every triangle? We will not always strive, based on today’s educational standards, to teach our children a dynamic concept of the triangle; but it would be good if we taught our children a dynamic concept of the triangle—not a static concept, not merely having them draw a triangle, which is, after all, always a specific, individual triangle—but rather telling them: “Here I have a line.” I then take this so far that, in some way—I cannot, of course, go into all the details in this short lecture series—I divide the 180-degree angle into three parts for the child. I can divide this angle into three parts in an infinite number of ways. Then, every time I have divided this angle into three parts, I can transition to the triangle by showing the child how the angle that is here appears here; thus, by applying this concept, I will obtain such a triangle. By moving from the three angles lying side by side in a fan-like arrangement, I can create a mental image of countless triangles moving there, and these countless triangles naturally have the property that their angle sum is 180 degrees, since they arise from the division of the 180-degree angle sum. Thus, it is good to evoke in the child the mental image of the triangle, which is actually in a state of inner motion, so that one does not at all form the mental image of a stationary triangle, but rather the mental image of a moving triangle, which can just as easily be acute-angled as it can be obtuse-angled or right-angled, because I do not grasp the mental image of the stationary triangle at all, but rather the mental image of the moving triangle.

[ 16 ] Just imagine how clear the entire theory of triangles would become if I were to start from such an internally dynamic concept in order to develop the triangular principle. We could then also make very good use of this as a foundation if we now wish to cultivate in the child a proper sense of space—a concrete, true sense of space. If we have used the concept of movement in this way for the two-dimensional figure, then the child’s entire mental configuration acquires such mobility that I can then easily move on to that element of perspective: one body passes in front of another or passes behind it. This transition—passing by in front, passing by from behind—can be the first element in evoking a corresponding sense of space. Furthermore: Once one has discussed, in a lifelike manner, this passing in front of and behind—specifically of a person—the act of becoming invisible behind a body and of making oneself invisible in front of a body, then one can move on to—for otherwise it remains abstract and lifeless if it is merely a sense of spatial perspective—bringing that sense of space to life internally. But you can only bring this out by saying, for example: Look, I met two people at a certain place at 9 a.m.; they were sitting there on a bench. At 3 p.m. I return, and there are those two people sitting on the bench again—nothing has changed. Certainly, as long as I consider the facts at 9 a.m. and 3 p.m. merely from the outside, nothing has changed. But if I delve into the inner reality, if I strike up a conversation with one person and then with the other, I might discover that, after I left, one remained seated while the other walked away. One person has been away for three hours and has returned, sitting there next to the other, but has gone through something internally and is inwardly somewhat weary after six hours. Yet I cannot recognize this situation in its spatial context if I judge only by outward appearances and do not delve into the inner, essential reality.

[ 17 ] One cannot even judge the spatial aspect—the spatial relationship between beings—without delving into the inner reality. Only by delving into this inner reality can one be spared the most bitter illusions regarding cause and effect. The following once happened: A man is walking along the bank of a river. At one point, there is a rock. The man stumbles over the rock, disappears into the waves, and is pulled out after some time. Let’s assume that nothing else is done except to record the bare facts: So-and-so drowned. But perhaps this is not true at all. Perhaps the man did not drown, but stumbled because he suffered a heart attack right then and there, and had already fallen into the water dead. Falling into the water was a consequence of his death. This is a true story that has been investigated. It shows how necessary it is to move from the external to the internal.

[ 18 ] Thus, if one wishes to assess the relationship between beings in space, it is also necessary to consider the inner nature of those beings. And when this is grasped correctly and vividly, it leads us to develop a sense of space in children by actually using movement games themselves to foster this sense of space—for example, by having the child move figures around or by having the child observe people walking past one another in single file or one in front of the other.

[ 19 ] But then it is of particular importance to move from what is observed in this way to the observer’s perception. In particular, for the development of a sense of space—and this relates to the question that was posed to me—it is of great importance when I cast shadows onto various curved surfaces using objects of varying curvature and then attempt to foster an understanding of the specific configuration of the shadow. One can even go so far as to say: If a child is able to grasp why a sphere casts an elliptical shadow under certain conditions—something a child can already comprehend as early as age 9—then this ability to put oneself in the position of understanding how surfaces emerge in space has an immense effect on the child’s entire inner flexibility of perception and imagination. The development of spatial awareness in school should therefore be regarded as essential. If we ask ourselves: What is the child actually doing—up until the change of teeth, up until the age of 7 or 8—when drawing playfully? The child is in fact developing what will mature as experience and understanding in their twenties. This develops out of the fluctuation of form, so that a child’s drawing is a form of play, but in playing, the child’s drawing tells a story; and we will understand a child’s drawing particularly well if we view it as a representation of what the child wants to tell us. The child wants to express itself.

[ 20 ] Let’s look at these drawings by the child. Children do not yet possess what one might call a true sense of space before the age of 7 or 8—or even just before the age of 9. This develops only later, when another force gradually finds its way into the child’s development. Up to the age of 7, the mental image that later becomes a mental image is at work in the child’s development; up to puberty, the will is at work in the child’s development—a will that, as I have told you, builds up and manifests itself in the boy’s voice change, showing how it has shot into the body. This will is capable of developing a sense of space within itself. So that through everything I have just said—through this development of a sense of space in movement games, through observing what happens when shadow figures emerge, and especially through what arises in movement and is retained—as the will is developed through all of this, a person attains a much better understanding of things than through intellectual means—even if it is the playful, childlike intellect that expresses itself in a two-dimensional way and seeks to narrate.

[ 21 ] Now, at the end of today’s session, and specifically in connection with what has been said, I would like to share here—for those who wish to see them—the childlike drawings of a six-year-old boy whose father, incidentally, is a painter and illustrator. I ask that you take a moment to look at them so that you may become aware of how extraordinarily eloquent this six-year-old boy is in what he creates here—I would say that he is, in fact, creating a completely individual language, a completely individual style for what he wants to tell or retell. Some of these pictures—which, if you will, can truly be called Expressionist—are simple retellings of what has been read aloud to the boy, what he has heard, and the like; some, as you will see, are extraordinarily expressive—truly magnificent in their expressiveness. For example, I draw your attention to what you will see here as a king and a queen. These are things that show how stories are told at this age. If one understands how stories are told at this age—what stands out so characteristically here, precisely because the boy is already drawing with colored pencils—and if one takes this in with all its details, one will find that these drawings are, in fact, the imprint of the child’s nature, as I have described it to you so far, and that one must take this transition—which occurs with the change of teeth—into account if one wants to understand how to evoke a sense of space.