The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Thirteenth Lecture

[ 1 ] When we consider the stage in human life that coincides with the end of the school-age period—a stage that manifests organically as the onset of puberty—we are faced with something that must not only be observed attentively and carefully by educators and teachers once it occurs, but to which attention must have been directed throughout the entire preceding period. We need only form a mental image of what actually happens to a person in this regard beforehand and what takes place at the moment of sexual maturity.

[ 2 ] In the course of our reflections, we have seen how, up until the change of teeth, the human being is an imitative being; how during this time he is absorbed in an inner activity that is still an undifferentiated blend of organic and soul-life; and how a spiritual-soul activity emanates from the head, which is still an organic activity and fills the entire organism. Thus, during this stage of life, the human being lives entirely within, in accordance with both their spiritual-soul content and their physical-bodily content. One could say: What is particularly characteristic of this stage of life is the way the human being lives.

[ 3 ] And not because I believe that this must necessarily be stated in precisely this way in the course of such a consideration, but because this may be the best way for us to understand one another in light of what has gone before, I must once again resort to the method that arises for the observing consciousness if I am to characterize for you very clearly what is actually taking place there.

[ 4 ] When a person sleeps at this stage of life, it is, of course, also the case outwardly that, upon falling asleep, their spiritual-soul aspect leaves the physical body, and upon waking, it returns to it. But there is still no great difference between conscious experience in the body and unconscious experience during sleep. Unconscious experience during sleep—when it proceeds normally, when no reminiscences from daily life intrude—and this is hardly ever the case with a child—this life of sleep takes place entirely in a superworld opposed to the earthly realm, and it is from this higher world that the activity is initially drawn which, originating in the brain, works its way from the child’s waking state into the entire organism.

[ 5 ] As the child goes through the process of losing its baby teeth, certain spiritual-soul forces become so liberated that they no longer merely take on their organic form. They already begin to take on a spiritual-soul character. Between the change of teeth and sexual maturity, the child develops freer thinking, feeling, and willing than before. The child is no longer merely an imitative being; the child develops a degree of consciousness that allows the child to relate to the external world out of a sense of authority. Yet the child still needs this sense of authority in order to relate to the external world. The ordinary circumstances of life are not sufficient. An adult relates to another adult differently than a child does with its sense of authority. The child must add this positive element—which lies in the relationship of authority—to the relationship that an adult maintains with another adult, even when something is communicated, or in some other way—without actual communication—when something is conveyed as a suggestion in the positive sense from one adult to another. This then has the consequence that, even during sleep, more and more of waking life gradually enters into the soul-spiritual life. And precisely to the extent that elements from the earthly world enter the state of sleep—and elements from the spiritual world are no longer present—to that very same degree does the possibility open up for us to approach the child in an instructive and educational manner during the stage of life between the change of teeth and sexual maturity.

[ 6 ] With the onset of sexual maturity, something entirely new begins, and, in essence, after reaching sexual maturity, a person is a different being than before. We can characterize this by building on what I outlined here before you in the last part of my reflection yesterday. It is simply normal for human life that, until the child’s teeth change, he or she lives entirely within his or her physical body. If the child carries over too much of this state—of living entirely within the physical body—into later life—for in later life, this experience of the physical body, as it occurs in early childhood, is no longer the norm—if, that is, too much of it is carried over into later life, then what emerges is precisely what is known as the conspicuously melancholic temperament. It is certainly true that a child, during childhood, should have the same relationship between its spiritual-soul aspects and its physical body as the melancholic does; however, what is good for one stage of life is abnormal for another. This must always be taken into account.

[ 7 ] When the child goes through the process of losing its baby teeth, certain spiritual and soul forces are released for organic activity and flow into what I have called the formative body, the etheric body, or the subtle body. This body belongs to the entire external world, and during this period—between the change of teeth and sexual maturity—the child should, properly speaking, live precisely within this etheric body. If the child has already had too much of this before the change of teeth, if the child has lived too intensely in one way or another within its etheric body before the change of teeth, then this particularly nuanced phlegmatic temperament emerges. But in a certain sense, there is a normal coexistence between the human being and their etheric body. This normal coexistence must occur precisely between the ages of seven and fourteen, that is, between the change of teeth and sexual maturity. If this is then carried over into later life, the abnormally phlegmatic “temperament” arises in the adult.

[ 8 ] In contrast, what can then emerge independently in the normal course of events upon reaching sexual maturity—what I called the astral body yesterday, which no longer actually lives in space and time—is that which manifests itself primarily in the sanguine temperament. And in children, the sanguine temperamental nuance becomes prominent when, during the period from the change of teeth to sexual maturity, too much of what is meant to emerge only with sexual maturity is taken in prematurely. A person does not become ready for sanguine temperament until they reach sexual maturity.

[ 9 ] Everything in life follows its own normal course, and the various abnormalities of life arise when what is normal for one stage of life is, in an abnormal way, forced into another. In this way, one learns to understand human beings thoroughly—that is, when one can take a broad view of life.

[ 10 ] Well, what actually happens when sexual maturity sets in? What happens is what we can deduce from our reflections over the past few days. We have seen that even with the spiritual-soul aspect—which has already been emancipated to a certain degree and is present after the teeth have fallen out—the human being still works with it inwardly. They work their way through the respiratory and circulatory systems all the way to the muscle attachments to the bones. They work their way right up to the human periphery and, with sexual maturity, break out into the outer world. Only then do they stand fully within the outer world.

[ 11 ] This, however, compels us to relate to young men and women who have reached sexual maturity in a completely different way than we were able to relate to boys and girls in the past. For, fundamentally speaking, the entire process that takes place within a person—involving the spiritual and soul forces that have been set free before sexual maturity—has absolutely nothing to do with gender. It is somewhat nuanced, but in reality it has absolutely nothing to do with gender. That which has to do with gender only begins to develop once a person has made their breakthrough into the world—that is, once they have entered into a relationship with the world.

[ 12 ] But then something similar to what happens during tooth replacement occurs again in the child’s psychophysical development. During tooth replacement, the forces associated with thinking, feeling, and willing are set free, and these develop more in the direction of memory. The power of memory becomes free, so to speak. Now, at the onset of sexual maturity, something emerges into free soul activity that had previously been incorporated into the rhythm of breathing—a force that, from there, still strove to bring rhythm into the muscular system and even into the skeletal system. This rhythmic element now becomes free, and it manifests as the young man’s or young woman’s receptivity to ideal forms, to the realm of the imagination. True imagination is, in essence, only born out of the human being with sexual maturity, for true imagination can only be born when the astral body—free from time and space—is born, a body that, just like dreams, can interweave the past, present, and future according to inner perspectives.

[ 13 ] What does a human being bring with them when they, so to speak, break through into the world via the skeletal system? They bring with them what was previously within them—what they brought into their inner being from their pre-existing life. In a sense, upon reaching sexual maturity, they are actually cast out of the spiritual-soul world. One can say this without exaggeration, for it is the pure truth: upon reaching sexual maturity, a human being is cast out of the spiritual-soul life of the world and thrown into the outer world, which they can perceive only with their physical body and their etheric body. And even if this does not come clearly into consciousness, it plays an all the greater, an all the more intense role in the subconscious. It plays such a role in the subconscious that, as I said, the human being—subconsciously or semi-consciously—compares the world he is entering with the world he previously held within himself. He did not perceive it fully consciously within himself before, but he found within himself the ability to work with it. The inner being of the human being provides the ability to work freely with a higher world, to work freely with the spiritual-soul realm. The outer world does not provide this. There are all kinds of inhibitions there, and there are the desires to overcome these inhibitions. There is the whole tumult that arises in the interaction between the human being and the world between the ages of fourteen and fifteen and the early twenties.

[ 14 ] This turmoil must exist, and throughout the entire course of a person’s earlier education, one must be mindful of this turmoil, which is bound to arise. People who may be overly prone to melancholy might believe it is best to spare a person this turmoil. But in doing so, one becomes that person’s greatest enemy. One should not spare a person this turmoil. One should structure the entire education beforehand in such a way that it now aids the inner workings of the spiritual-soul aspect within the person.

[ 15 ] And from the onset of puberty onward, one must realize that the young person is presenting us with a new being that arises from their relationship to the world; that the sense of authority no longer plays a role; and that, above all, whenever something is presented to them, they demand the reasons behind it. We must now get into the habit of responding to the adolescent boy and the adolescent girl with reasons. We must, for example, get used to the fact that when the boy or girl—who has just brought a higher world into this world— now rages that this world is not as it should be, that everything must be so different—when they become rebellious, we must strive, without falling into philistinism, to explain that what exists has, after all, come about from what preceded it, from history. One must play the role of the wise person who fully understands how what exists has come to be. But one will no longer be able to achieve anything through authority alone. One must be so deeply immersed in the matter that one is now able to cite the fully valid reasons for things. If, at this very age, one encounters through other people a world of content that lacks justification, if one encounters situations in the world that feel unreasonable and toward which one feels compelled to say to oneself: “What I have lived so far, before I entered the world, is actually meaningless, for all of this leads me into a world that is, after all, unreasonable”—if one does not find a connection there with people who, in turn, can at least to a certain degree justify the rationality of the world, then the inner storm becomes too great, and the young man or young woman loses their inner footing. For this liberated astral body is simply not of this world. The human being has been cast out of his own world, and he is willing to place himself within this world only if this world can justify its own existence.

[ 16 ] You will thoroughly misunderstand what I am saying if you think that I am describing this as part of a person’s full consciousness. No, that is not why I am describing it; rather, I am describing it precisely as something that takes place within the subconscious while one is awake, surge as emotions, surge as dulling impulses of the will, playing out in disappointed ideals, in disappointed desires, playing out in a certain numbing—perhaps in response to what presents itself in the irrational external world.

[ 17 ] For if education is still to take place at this age—and for anyone who wants to learn, education is indeed necessary—then what is to be learned must be presented to the individual in an appropriate educational form; thus, preparation must be made for the period from the early twenties onward into later life. Preparatory work must be done for this. For what one experiences from the age of fifteen to twenty-one or twenty-two—this period is, of course, not entirely clearly defined, especially in our chaotic times, sometimes it happens much later—what one experiences during that time must lead to one being re-admitted, in one’s twenties, into the world from which one was cast out upon reaching sexual maturity, equipped with everything that has made an impression on one from life and with everything with which one has oneself made an impression on life. One must be readmitted; one must find a connection again, for without this connection, life is impossible. One must find this connection independently. If it is imposed on one by authority, then it is of no value to a person in life.

[ 18 ] We must therefore, up until puberty, use the authority that the child longs for to guide the child to the point where we no longer need to exercise our authority once the child reaches puberty. But we must also place ourselves—especially as teachers and educators—in a position where we can justify everything we wish to impart to the child.

[ 19 ] This illustrates, first and foremost from a more spiritual and psychological perspective, the truly magnificent metamorphosis that takes place in the adolescent as they reach sexual maturity.

[ 20 ] It is of the utmost importance to note that the principle of gender in human beings does not emerge until they enter the world, as I have characterized it. Of course, since everything in life exists in a relative sense, this truth must also be regarded as a relative truth. But it must be recognized that, until reaching sexual maturity, a human being lives as a generally human being, and that what they experience of the world through being a man or a woman is only experienced from the onset of sexual maturity onward. In this regard—which is not very well understood today given our general intellectual-naturalistic civilization—only those who approach the world with an open mind, seeking a true understanding of humanity, can gain a genuine insight into the relationship between the sexes in the world and also into the significance, for example, of the gender issue or the women’s issue in the present and for the near future.

[ 21 ] Of course, if one must say that, in a sense, a person is generally considered human only until reaching sexual maturity, this can only be fully understood if one is clear about the immensely significant metamorphosis that takes place—for example, in males—during sexual maturation, such as the change in the voice and pitch. Similar processes also take place for females; they simply occur in a somewhat different realm. What the human voice generally is—with all its modulations, with everything that enables it to shape sounds and tones—stems from what is universally human; it is born out of the spiritual-soul aspect as it works within the human being up to the point of sexual maturity. What a person brings to bear in terms of changes in their pitch is something imposed on them from the outside, from the world; it is something through which they project their innermost being into the outer world. It is simply that in the larynx, not only do the soft tissues work in accordance with the bones, but there is also a slight ossification of the larynx itself that occurs, and, in essence, this causes the larynx to emerge from mere inner human existence into worldly existence.

[ 22 ] In general, we must view this entry into the world as something much more universal than it is usually regarded. People usually describe a person’s entry into the period in which love plays a role as if love—even in a more general sense—were relevant only to sexual life. This is not the case; as a person passes into sexual maturity, they enter into the capacity to love everything in their surroundings. The love between a man and a woman is merely a particular nuance, a distinction within the general capacity for love. Only when one views it in this specialized context does one truly understand it, and only then does one also truly understand its purpose in the world.

[ 23 ] What actually happens when humans reach sexual maturity? Up to that point, humanity had been presented to him in such a way that he could imitate it and stand under its authority. It acted upon him from the outside, for everything within him essentially came from what he had already brought with him from his pre-existing life. Humanity as a whole acted upon him from the whole. First by his imitating it, then by his standing under its authority. Now that he himself has found the path to humanity, now that humanity no longer needs to influence him in the way it did before, a sense of what is universally human enters his inner being—and this is the counterpart to the fact that human beings become capable of procreation. He is capable of bringing forth human beings from within himself in the physical sense; spiritually and psychologically, he becomes capable of experiencing the whole of humanity within himself.

[ 24 ] In this experience of all humanity, the distinction between man and woman now emerges strongly. This differentiation between man and woman manifests in such a way that only through complete mutual understanding—arising from social life itself, through the reality of exchange, including in the soul-spiritual realm, between man and woman—can full humanity be realized on Earth. Just as the man does, the woman carries the fullness of humanity within herself, but she regards it as a gift from the extra-earthly realm—as something that, in essence, has poured into the world from the heavenly realm. The woman views humanity in such a way that she has, so to speak, an image in the background—even if it is in the unconscious—according to which she shapes humanity. A woman views humanity in such a way that she primarily bases her perspective on value judgments, devaluing and disparaging it. If this is not always acknowledged in contemporary life, it stems solely from the fact that our present-day existence, at least in the external world, bears the distinct character of a male-dominated civilization.

[ 25 ] For quite some time now, the primary driving force of civilization has been a masculine one, emanating from men. As grotesque as this assertion may seem, it is a deeply significant symbol of contemporary life that men retreat into Masonic lodges to engage in something about which women are not supposed to know anything. And when lodges come together where women and men mingle, Freemasonry is, in essence, already completely blunted—it is no longer the same. Anyone who examines the constitution of Freemasonry naturally sees in it a special phenomenon—and rightly so—but at the same time sees in it something that intensely points to how our civilization is a masculine one. And women have, in fact, adopted an immense amount of masculine traits and, as a result, are all the more suppressing what is specifically feminine. That is why certain currents in today’s women’s movement give men the impression: these are programs, these are ideals, but in terms of their inner substance—not even in tone—they do not differ from the ideals and programs of the men’s movement. Certainly, they differ in that in one case the demands are made on behalf of women, and in the other on behalf of men; but I believe that, in terms of their inner substance, they do not actually differ at all.

[ 26 ] In his innermost being, man carries humanity within himself in such a way that he actually always perceives the human condition as a mystery—as something he cannot fully fathom, something that poses unspeakable questions he cannot resolve. This particular masculine nuance—which has found its way into Freemasonry, manifesting in all its ceremonial and mysterious aspects, which have a dry, masculine character—has permeated our general culture to such an extent that women today sigh under its weight, yet at the same time crave it, desire it, and long to immerse themselves in it.

[ 27 ] If, strange as it may sound, one considers modern medicine with its entirely materialistic character and, at the same time, with the fact that nothing is understood about human nature—specifically, physical nature—but that one is, at best, forced to rely on trial and error—if one considers this medicine— it is, to a marked degree, a product of men, so that one could not more clearly characterize what actually comes from the male mind today than by looking at modern medicine.

[ 28 ] When one examines the truth today, people often take one for someone who delves into paradoxes for the sake of it; but what is real today is, in many cases, precisely the paradox. Therefore, when one characterizes the truth—which is uncomfortable—one must inevitably come across as paradoxical.

[ 29 ] Thus, while women experience humanity more as a concrete reality, men experience it more as a desire shrouded in mystery. On another level, one can only truly grasp what is at stake here—and what is of particular importance for educators and teachers—by realizing that in today’s civilization, people generally speak of love. Love—certainly, one can speak of love in general terms, just as one can speak of table ingredients; but when someone introduces those abstract speculations about things into the world and then begins to speak about them, it always strikes me as if someone were talking about: salt, sugar, pepper—these are table ingredients, all food ingredients. That is an abstraction. If he were then to apply this to real life and put salt in his coffee instead of sugar—because everything is a food ingredient, and thus everything falls under the same general category—he would simply be being foolish, wouldn’t he? In modern civilization, people become foolish like this all the time by delving into speculative generalities rather than the concrete realities of life.

[ 30 ] Love is simply something entirely different for men and for women. For women, love definitely springs from the imagination and is always linked to the creation of an image. A woman—forgive me for saying this—never loves entirely and simply the real man who stands before her in life; men, after all, are not at all such that one could love them, as they are today, with a healthy imagination, but there is always something more to it—it is the image within, which comes from that world that is a gift from heaven. A man, on the other hand, loves with desire; a man’s love has a distinctly desirous character. And this distinction must be made, regardless of how it is then expressed in a more ideal, abstract, or concrete sense. The highest ideal can still contain ideal desires; the most instinctively sensual can be a product of the imagination. But this radical difference exists between a man’s love and a woman’s love. A woman’s love is steeped in imagination; a man’s love is steeped in desire. It is precisely through this that they form something that brings harmony to life.

[ 31 ] But this is precisely what the master educator should keep firmly in mind when faced with a sexually mature person. He should realize that certain things that have not been introduced to a person earlier simply cannot be made up for once they have reached sexual maturity. One must provide individuals with enough guidance up to the age of sexual maturity so that it suffices for the rest of their lives, ensuring that men do not become one-sided and women do not either. However, they will inevitably become one-sided if they are not educated in the proper manner up to the age of sexual maturity.

[ 32 ] Today, as we are fortunately entering more and more into an era where, even after reaching sexual maturity, boys and girls participate side by side in educational opportunities designed to prepare them to work together in social life, it is especially important to take full account of what I have just said. For it is precisely through this that something like the women’s movement can be placed on a healthy—a truly healthy—foundation.

[ 33 ] If we consider what I am about to say within a broader worldview, we must take into account that our earthly civilization exhibits a fundamental difference between the West and the East—between Asia on the one hand and Europe and America on the other. Far greater than all other distinctions—far greater, for example, than the distinction between Europe and America—is the distinction between Europe and America on the one hand and Asia on the other. In Asia, after all, there is something that points back to an ancient, wisdom-filled culture. Outwardly, it is in a state of decadence—completely decadent—but it lives on as a memory; it is revered as a memory. It lives in such a way that, fundamentally speaking, Asians still cannot truly understand either Europeans or Americans. And anyone who is mistaken about this is mistaken about the greatest historical mystery of the present world—one that is particularly important today and will become especially important in the near future.

[ 34 ] In the West, despite all the nuances, we have a uniformity in contrast to the East. We are immersed in earthly civilization—the civilization that, above all else, derives its mental images from what lies between birth and death. The East is almost entirely detached from what lies between birth and death—neither in its inner religious life nor in its outer, mechanical, civilized life. The West, however, lives within this life that unfolds between birth and death, including in its religious sentiments. The Eastern person asks: Why was I actually born? Why did I come into this physical, sensory world? — The Westerner takes life in the physical-sensual world more or less for granted. Even if he becomes a suicide, this remains true. He takes life for granted, and only because this physical life would be a great disappointment if it were to end with death does he also develop a certain receptivity to life beyond the earth.

[ 35 ] It is a radical difference, but we do not encounter this radical difference when we characterize the matter in an abstract way, but rather when we enter into concrete life. The farther one travels from the East toward the West, the more one discovers how, despite all her awareness, a longing for the inner essence of the East lives within a woman. It is quite different with the man of the West. He, too, has longings, but not for something; rather, they arise from what he experiences. He is fully immersed in the outer life of civilization that unfolds between birth and death. Yet something within him still yearns to break free from this. And this can be perceived in everything that ultimately surrounds us as external civilization—from the Vistula, through Germany, France, England, and America, all the way to the other side, the Pacific Ocean. In this regard, there is certainly a common thread. And this common thread is noticed today—perhaps to his unconscious despair, but nonetheless consciously—by the educator who confronts the sexually mature individual. One must truly become an educational philistine not to notice this.

[ 36 ] In our previous reflections, we have indeed suggested that all books should actually be thrown away in school, and that only the personal relationship between the educator and the child should be allowed to take effect. But when one approaches people who have reached sexual maturity, then books—indeed, almost the entire external life of civilization—become a torment. I know that many people do not perceive this because they do not immerse themselves to this degree in real, truly concrete life. But our entire external civilization does, in this respect, have something one-sidedly masculine about it. History, cultural history, anthropology—everything has something one-sidedly masculine about it. As a Westerner, the human being wants to escape from the world in which he is actually trapped. Yet he does not really dare to carry out this escape. He cannot find the bridge from the physical-sensual world to the spiritual world. And so, throughout our external civilization, we have characterized the physical-sensual world—in essence—with the longing to escape it, yet at the same time with the inability to do so.

[ 37 ] It is certainly true that one has great difficulty finding concrete educational institutions for children up to the age of sexual maturity, but that one then becomes, in a certain sense, completely helpless when it comes to older children, because what is available to one simply is not enough to make a difference in their lives. And that is why, fundamentally, the educator and teacher should realize, when faced with students of sexual maturity: in order to even begin educating and teaching, you need a genuine understanding of human nature. That is why the longing for a deeper understanding of human nature may already be emerging—perhaps more or less quietly—in educators of those who have not yet reached sexual maturity. But for any healthy pedagogical sensibility, this longing must remain, as it were, an unsealed inner quality when it comes to the education of sexually mature individuals.

[ 38 ] The fact that women long for the East, while men actually want to escape from the West, is a fundamental characteristic of our entire present-day civilization. This is something that, because human beings are generally just “human” until they reach sexual maturity, does not confront us so strongly in the earlier stages of schooling; yet it confronts us immediately and very concretely as soon as we encounter sexually mature individuals.

[ 39 ] Suppose a German teacher wants to recommend a book to an adult that portrays Goethe from a German perspective. He is completely at a loss. There is no such thing within mainstream, accepted civilization. And even if the books written on the subject are used, Germans simply do not come to know Goethe through them. If, say, Lewes’s biography of Goethe is used, Germans do indeed become well acquainted with Goethe’s more outward-facing aspects—better than from any German book—but they do not, in turn, come to know what is specifically German about Goethe. And this is the case everywhere today, simply because we have no literature or the like at all that is suitable for the education and instruction of adults.

[ 40 ] When it comes to something like this, everything depends on our truly entering an era in which women play a shaping role in the life of civilization—an era in which women bring to that life what they, specifically as women, can contribute, but in which they do not carry over what they have learned from the male-dominated culture of the past. — I once had a conversation with a German women’s rights activist in the 1890s; she was quite radical in her views, yet I had to say that these views struck me as if women merely wanted to assimilate into male culture, rather than enrich the world with their womanhood. What is meant here is not intended in a one-sided or philistine way. I had to say even to this very free-thinking, radical woman: Yes, this movement does not yet represent what the world actually needs. The world does not need women to dress—pardon me—in a way that one is not allowed to mention in England, but rather for the qualities that men and women, each in their own way, possess to truly work together.

[ 41 ] In everything we do to approach the developing human being, we must work toward this particular configuration before and after puberty. Let us consider a specific question. There is Milton’s *Paradise Lost*. It would be quite appropriate to make this the subject of our lessons as well. When? Anyone who considers everything I have attempted to explain in these matters will, upon correctly understanding the introduction of the narrative and descriptive elements into life after the age of ten, find that Milton’s *Paradise Lost*—and epic poetry in general—belongs to this age. Homer, too, when introduced between the ages of ten and fourteen, will be best received in a similar manner. On the other hand, it is something that is entirely premature in relation to actual human development to introduce Shakespeare at this age as part of education or instruction; for in order to properly assimilate as a human being what appears in dramatic poetry, one must at least have reached the age of sexual maturity. To engage with drama before that would mean driving something out of one’s humanity that one will later find oneself thoroughly lacking.

[ 42 ] What I was just trying to suggest becomes particularly apparent when one is compelled—to take just one example today—to teach history to both young men and young women after they have reached sexual maturity. In the actual course of human historical development, masculine and feminine forces intertwined, albeit in different forms. Our historical narratives, however—which are available to us solely for those of sexual maturity—are thoroughly masculine in nature, as if they had been presented solely by Epimetheus. Girls who have reached sexual maturity, for example, show no understanding of this at all. Boys find it somewhat boring, but they are still more amenable to the Epimethean approach—that which deals primarily with judgment and with what can be ascertained directly.

[ 43 ] There is also a Promethean interpretation of history, in which not only is what has happened shown, but also how the ideas present in the present have emerged through a metamorphosis from what came before—shown not merely as a static result, but as a process in which impulses existed to carry the present forward, and in which the present, in turn, is carried forward by further impulses. This influence of a Promethean element in history is what particularly attracts the feminine element.

[ 44 ] It would certainly be one-sided to present history in a girls’ school in a Promethean manner, while presenting it to boys in an Epimethean manner. The boys would drift entirely back into the past and become even more rigid there than they are today. The girls in girls’ schools, on the other hand, would—especially when exposed to historical narratives suited to them—want, as it were, to fly straight toward the future. They would sense everywhere the impulses that are particularly close to their understanding. But we will achieve a truly effective impact on social coexistence only if we supplement what we have almost exclusively at our disposal today—the Epimethean-style history—with the history written by Prometheus. Then, when both elements are at work in the presentation of history, we will indeed have historical narratives suitable for adolescence—or, rather, we will be able to create them—if the task falls to us.