The Rudolf Steiner Archive

2. Questions of Education, Teaching, and Practical Life from the Perspective of Anthroposophical Spiritual Science

[ 1 ] Ladies and gentlemen! In my last lecture, I took the liberty of pointing out the true nature of anthroposophically oriented Spiritual Science. I pointed out how, within the Spiritual Science, methods have been sought to penetrate the supersensible world in the same way that we penetrate the external, physical-sensory world through our sense organs and through the intellect, which synthesizes the results of these sense organs. I described these methods last time and drew attention to the fact that, apart from ordinary modern science, there is another science—a science employing spiritual methods—which provides full proof, through intuition and experience, that “a supersensible world surrounds us just as much as a sensory world does.” I would now like to draw attention once more to a conclusion that I already elaborated on in my last lecture, and which, in a certain sense, must form the foundation for what I will have to say today.

[ 2 ] The anthroposophically oriented Spiritual Science referred to here is in no way at odds with what the scientific worldview of the last three to four centuries has become. As I emphasized last time, it stands in contrast only to a worldview—one that does not take these scientific findings into account and has become, in today’s context, more or less amateurish. Spiritual Science aims to be a continuation of scientific thinking. It is only through this continuation in the form of Spiritual Science that one arrives at precisely the kind of insight that meets the most significant spiritual longings of modern human beings. One comes to truly know the human being.

[ 3 ] Modern natural science, which is fully recognized by Spiritual Science, has provided us, through the theory of evolution, with a marvelous overview of the gradual development of organisms up to the human being; yet, in the end, the human being stands merely as the culmination of this development.

[ 4 ] In the natural sciences, we can say: A muscle shaped in a certain way is found in the animal kingdom in one form or another. We know that humans have a certain number of bones; the number of bones corresponds to that of higher animals. We have grown accustomed to explaining the emergence of the entire skeletal structure of higher animals and humans as a development from that of lower forms. But as for what the human being carries within as an essence, one cannot really form any conception of it. Anyone who looks at the matter impartially must acknowledge this. We trace natural phenomena and natural beings all the way up to human beings and say: What is found in the rest of nature is thus structured within the human being. But we cannot look into the actual human essence.

[ 5 ] What we find in scientific knowledge, we also find—truly as a consequence of the very same forces that are at work in that knowledge—in practical life. We see it at work in what pervades modern life with such distress and such mystery; we see it before us in what is commonly called the social question. Millions upon millions of people who belong to the proletarian world—who have abandoned the old, traditional religions and worldviews—devote themselves to the belief that the only reality is not the human being with his inner life, but rather the material life existing within the production processes of the external economy. That which the human soul produces—such as customs, religion, science, and art—is said to be nothing more than, as they say, a superstructure, an ideological superstructure upon a purely material and even economically material foundation; in a sense, a kind of smoke rising from the purely material reality. Here, too, the actual spiritual and psychological aspects of human beings are excluded.

[ 6 ] This is what characterizes modern life: that knowledge does not truly reach the human being, nor can one perceive what is human, feel it, or incorporate it into one’s impulses of will in social life.

[ 7 ] Anthroposophically oriented Spiritual Science fully appreciates what this approach can offer to meet the deepest—yet often unconsciously operating—longings of the finest modern human souls; this can be achieved, first, through true knowledge of the human being, and second, through such human fulfillment that the individual can carry true, social impulses from within their soul into public life. For unless we bring such impulses—which spring from the deepest human essence—into public life, even the best institutions in external life will not lead to what the broadest circles today believe they must do without, yet to which they aspire in social terms: a life worthy of human dignity.

[ 8 ] What I described here a few days ago as a path into the spiritual world is perceived by many people as something that leads away from life rather than toward the two great questions of life that I have once again presented to you today. That is why it was so important that this anthroposophically oriented Spiritual Science finds its home in the Goetheanum in Dornach, Switzerland—which, admittedly, is not yet complete—and that this Spiritual Science also engages directly with practical institutions in order to demonstrate, through these institutions, its understanding of human nature and its ability to intervene in practical human life.

[ 9 ] One of the most important practical areas is undoubtedly education and the school system. In educating children, we are essentially shaping what is to come into the world through the next generation, and that is an extraordinarily significant task. Influencing children through education and schooling is the way to shape the near future. Because anthroposophically oriented Spiritual Science seeks precisely the paths to the human being, it comes to understand the developing human being—the child—in a comprehensive way. And from such a comprehensive understanding of the developing human being—the child—anthroposophically oriented Spiritual Science seeks to develop a true art of education and teaching. For what arises from anthroposophically oriented Spiritual Science and leads to an understanding and penetration of the human being is not limited to abstract concepts or theoretical mental images; rather, it ultimately develops into an artistic grasp—first of the human form, and then also of the human soul and spirit. One might argue at length that true science must work in a sober, dry manner—as it is so often called—using objective concepts alone. Yes, my esteemed audience, but nature and the world do not create in such terms! If the world mocks the desire to confine its creation to such laws as we wish our natural laws to be, if it cannot be grasped in sober, merely external, easily defined, logical concepts! We can set forth our demands, but whether we thereby attain true knowledge depends on whether nature creates in such a way. And the modern scientific mindset has been unable to approach the human being precisely because it fails to take into account that as nature ascends through the mineral kingdom, the plant kingdom, and the animal kingdom up to the human being, its creation becomes, at each stage, such that it can no longer be grasped by mere logical concepts or sober reason, but must instead be apprehended in an ever more artistic manner. What ultimately lives within the human being is ambiguous and multifaceted. And because Spiritual Science, in its own way, seeks the inner harmony between knowledge, religious deepening, and artistic expression, it also succeeds in perceiving this enigmatic yet admirable human being—as it presents itself to the world—in the right way, that is, with the eye of the spirit.

[ 10 ] Last time, I explained how we take a strictly scientific look at the world in which this human being existed before descending into physical existence through conception or birth. I pointed out how, with mathematical clarity, the spiritual-soul aspect—which descends from spiritual worlds and works inwardly on the physical human form, taking only the material elements from the stream of heredity passed down through the generations—presents itself to anthroposophical Spiritual Science.

[ 11 ] When one discusses such matters, one is still often regarded as paradoxical today. Yet Spiritual Science proceeds in no other way than the natural sciences themselves, in fact. The difference is that the natural sciences work in their respective fields—in the laboratory, in the clinic, and at the observatory—in a corresponding manner, whereas Spiritual Science approaches the human being in order to observe this human being in the same way that the natural scientist is accustomed to observing in his own fields; where, however, matters are considerably simpler, where it is easier to observe and to investigate laws.

[ 12 ] I would like to begin by pointing out how we can view human development from a purely scientific perspective. However, Spiritual Science must, based on its own premises, consider the gradual development of the human being through various stages of life. We have one such stage of life, beginning at birth and extending until the change of teeth, around the age of seven. It might easily seem as if some inclination toward mysticism were compelling us to recognize a kind of leap in human development precisely around the age of seven. But that is not the case. Just as recognizing seven shades of color in the rainbow does not stem from any mystical impulse, so too the things I am now about to explain do not stem from any mystical inclination, but rather from an objective, unbiased scientific observation of the human being. First of all, physically speaking—one might say—a tremendous change takes place when, around the age of seven, a person expels something from within that will no longer be expelled later on: the permanent teeth; a kind of completion is thus achieved. But the matter becomes quite clear when we do not limit our observations to the external, physical organism, but rather observe what runs parallel to this stage of development in the physical organism. There we see—if we are able to observe at all—how the child’s entire soul life slowly changes during this time. We see how the child, whereas previously it formed vague, blurred concepts, gradually begins to form concepts with sharper contours; indeed, how the formation of concepts only truly begins at this age. We also see how the child develops a completely different kind of memory. Although the child often already has an excellent memory beforehand, this is purely naturally developed, without the child needing to exert any effort to remember anything. Now the child must exert effort to truly take in the things that come to it, to remember them. In short, it becomes apparent that, starting with the change of teeth—around the age of seven—this child begins to work in the realm of imagination, in the realm of thought, and in the realm of conscious volition. What is actually happening here? You see, this is what is happening: the very same force that is then observable in the child as a spiritual-soul force—as it forms clear, sharply defined mental images and constructs thoughts—where was this force before? Today’s abstract psychologists or researchers of the soul do not ask this question. When a physicist observes, in any process, how heat arises without any deliberate heating having taken place, he says: There was latent heat in the body beforehand, and then the heat is released. He first looks for what is released as heat within the body itself. This way of thinking must also be applied to human life. That which emerges in the child’s soul and spirit after the seventh year—where was it before? It was latent within the child’s organism; it was active in organic growth and in the development of the body’s structure until the moment when, so to speak, the culmination of this period of growth—which occurs particularly in the early childhood years—is reached with the eruption of the second set of teeth.

[ 13 ] Today we have a science of the soul—a psychology—that is entirely abstract. People ponder the relationship between body and soul. They arrive at the strangest, most clichéd hypotheses. No art of education can emerge from these clichéd hypotheses. Spiritual Science shows how what we see emerging in the child’s soul after the age of seven is already at work within the organism before the age of seven, before the teeth begin to change; how the soul is initially an organic force that is then set free.

[ 14 ] And this is how the true researcher of the spirit observes human life in its entirety in a concrete way. I would like to point out something very specific right away so that you may come to recognize the distinctive nature of this methodical approach.

[ 15 ] We can observe children at play. Anyone who can observe a child at play with an open mind and a full appreciation of the developing human nature knows that, although games are typical, each child plays in their own individual way. And if one is an educator or teacher, one can, in a certain way, guide and direct this play. One can guide and direct it based on the child’s nature. One can also, depending on one’s ability, try to give it a sensible direction. If one takes all this into account, then one can clearly distinguish between children who play in one way and those who play in another, and so on. Then comes the stage of life when this particular way of playing is no longer so visible in the child. The child enters school; other interests take hold. It is true that we are then less able to perceive what the actual consequences of this particular nature of play are. Those who do not merely observe superficially, but who know that human life is a unity—and who therefore extend their observations to encompass the whole of human life—can observe how, around the age of twenty-four, around the age of twenty-five—at that time when a person is supposed to find their place in the world, when they are supposed to find their way into the world—one person is more or less skilled at the practicalities of life, while another is less so; just as one becomes a dreamer who cannot skillfully handle anything practical, while another handles every detail with particular dexterity. The way in which one finds one’s way into life—skillfully or clumsily—in one’s twenties is a direct result of the child’s play. There are certain rivers that emerge from their source, then disappear beneath the earth’s surface, and later reemerge in another place. Such are the abilities in human life. The ability that is particularly evident in a child’s play is active during the early years of life; it then disappears into the depths of the soul and reemerges in one’s twenties in the way a person finds their way in life. Consider this: the way we guide a child’s play from an educational perspective influences whether a person will experience happiness or unhappiness—in other words, their fate—during their twenties.

[ 16 ] What one might call a sense of responsibility toward education and teaching is sharpened immensely by engaging closely with such insights. But at the same time, this also inspires a true art of education and teaching. For it is not narrow concepts that can reach people, but only a broad perspective gained through such connections within human nature. There we find that we must indeed distinguish between epochs and stages in human development. The first stage extends from birth to the change of teeth; it bears a very special character.

[ 17 ] Here I would also like to mention that anyone who becomes a teacher or educator based on anthroposophically oriented Spiritual Science is thoroughly imbued with the awareness that: What we encounter as so wondrous, so mysterious in the developing human being—the child—actually contains a message from the spiritual world. We observe the child, how it initially has indeterminate features, yet how these become more defined; how, especially in its movements and vital impulses, it is at first indeterminate, and how, more and more, a sense of definiteness emerges into these vital impulses from the depths of the soul. Anyone who has been prepared to become a teacher or educator through anthroposophically oriented Spiritual Science is aware that: In what, day by day, week by week, year by year, takes on an ever clearer physiognomy in the child’s face; in what works through the activity of the hands; in what is conjured into speech—in all this lives that which descends from the spiritual worlds, And to learn to recognize this activity in the spiritual world—which is of a completely different nature than that in the physical world—and to approach the child as an educator with this attitude, with this feeling—that means seeing a blessing in the teaching profession; it means seeing in the teaching profession something that might be described with the words: “A human being has been entrusted to me from the spiritual worlds; it is my task to help solve its mysteries; I must show it the way into life through a true art of understanding humanity.”

[ 18 ] This art of understanding human nature, however, shows that in the first stage of life, the human being is what I would like to call an imitative being. I have described this particular characteristic of the developing human being in detail in my short treatise *The Education of the Child from the Perspective of Spiritual Science*. As the human being steps out of the spiritual world into the physical world, he or she comes to express in the physical world—as if in an echo—that which he or she most recently experienced in the spiritual world. When we, as anthroposophists, educate the child, we do indeed tell ourselves that it is childishly primitive how the child, following its instincts, imitates what is happening in its surroundings; it imitates in its movements what is demonstrated to it. After all, the child learns language only through imitation, not through anything else. But the child also imitates, during the period up to the change of teeth, what takes place in its surroundings—in moral and other respects—through the parents or other people in its vicinity. Here lies something that can only be understood through Spiritual Science. Before it was conceived or born, the child was, after all, in the spiritual world—the spiritual world which, as I explained last time, is recognized through the cultivation of the special power of memory and through the development of the power of love. In this spiritual world, every being is so deeply immersed that it does not stand apart from other beings, but can objectively and lovingly live itself into every other being. The child brings this way of being in the world with it, as if in an echo, and we then observe how the child becomes an imitative being, how it, as an imitative being, assimilates everything it learns and acquires during the first seven years of life. And in true pedagogical art, we must pay particular attention to this principle of imitation. In this regard, people often fall prey to certain illusions. To begin with, I would like to mention one such illusion as an example—though I could cite hundreds of them. Once, the father of a boy about five years old came to me and said he was having real trouble with his child; his child had stolen something. I said, “Well, let’s first investigate whether the child really did steal anything.” The father said: “Yes, the boy took money from the drawer where his mother keeps her money; he bought snacks with the money and handed them out to other children on the street.” I asked: “What usually happens to the money that’s in the drawer?” The father said: “Every morning, the mother takes out what’s necessary for household expenses.” Then I said to the father: “Then the child didn’t steal anything. The child is five years old, so in the fullest sense, he is still an imitative being. For the child, something is right and good to do if he sees it being done in his surroundings; the mother does it every day, so he does it once as well. That is not stealing, but rather corresponds to the fundamental principle of human development during the first seven years of life.”

[ 19 ] You see, these are the things a true educator must know. During the first seven years of life, one cannot guide and direct a child through admonitions or any kind of commandments; rather, one guides and directs the child through one’s own actions. But there are imponderables in human nature just as there are in the natural world. One guides and directs a child not only through one’s own actions, but also through one’s own feelings and thoughts. If one is a person who does not allow oneself to harbor mean and petty mental images and feelings in one’s presence when near one’s children, then the children, too, will become noble and good. If, in the presence of children—because one thinks, “After all, it’s just human nature, and it won’t have an effect on them”—one allows oneself to have base thoughts and base feelings, they do have an effect on them. There are imponderables in this realm.

[ 20 ] These imponderables also manifest themselves in the second stage of life, which begins after the teeth have fallen out and lasts until sexual maturity, around the age of fourteen. It is during this stage of life that the child starts school. We had to study in particular the transition from one stage of life—the imitative stage—to this second stage, from the change of teeth to sexual maturity, in order to establish a proper Spiritual Science and spiritual-artistic pedagogy for the Waldorf School founded by Emil Molt in Stuttgart and directed by me. At this Waldorf School, teaching and education are to be conducted in a way that arises directly from anthroposophically oriented Spiritual Science. Education and instruction are to be practiced as a true art, based on a genuine understanding of the human being. Therefore, because children enter school at the very time when they are transforming from imitative beings into a different kind of being—which I will characterize in a moment—it was necessary to study this period of transition in particular.

[ 21 ] In this second stage of life, leading up to puberty, it is no longer mere imitation that shapes the child’s abilities and entire being; instead, another impulse emerges from the depths of the child’s soul. It is the impulse: to have a natural authority figure alongside them in their teacher and educator. You see, today, when people want to democratize everything, it is easy to demand that schools be democratized as well. Some even want to abolish the distinction between the teacher and the student in community schools—and whatever other fine names such things may go by. This stems from partisan views; it does not stem from an understanding of human nature and essence. One should not judge these matters based on this or that political orientation, but rather on the basis of the matter itself. And here it becomes clear that, from the time a child’s baby teeth fall out until sexual maturity, human beings have an innate drive not merely to imitate their surroundings, but to hear from a beloved person—one naturally recognized as an authority—what is good and evil, what is right and wrong. Blessed is the person who, throughout their entire life, can recall such natural authorities who stood by their side. Blessed is the person who can say to themselves: I had a mentor; when I went to see him, I was so shy that I hesitated even to turn the doorknob to his room, so self-evident it seemed to me that he was a source of truth and goodness. - It is not at all a matter of discussing these things in social or any other context, but rather of coming to know human nature and saying to oneself: Just as the particular nature of the play instinct in one’s twenties manifests itself in the skillful or unskillful way one positions oneself in life, so too, precisely during the time when the sense of freedom, the sense of freedom must be the fundamental nuance of social coexistence—the true sense of freedom, the true feeling of freedom—arises precisely because the proper belief in authority has fully developed in the child from about the age of seven to fifteen. No one can become free in the true sense of the word later on who has not been shaped in this way by authority figures; just as no one can later be driven to social love for humanity who has not, through the instinct to imitate, once gone through the process of attuning to their surroundings. We do not have this attunement later in life, but we need social feelings. These depend on how the true educator and teacher allows the child to imitate their own nature during the first seven years of life. We need people who can step into life today with a genuine sense of freedom. But these are the very people whom, as educators and teachers, we have faced from the time of their first set of permanent teeth until sexual maturity in such a way that we were a natural authority figure.

[ 22 ] Anyone who, like me, as early as 1892 in my *Philosophy of Freedom*, identified the sense of freedom—the feeling of freedom—as the fundamental social reality will certainly not speak out against freedom and democracy; but precisely because they wish to speak in their favor, they must acknowledge that the art of education requires authority for the period of life that extends from the loss of baby teeth to sexual maturity. — Moreover, this is also the time when the child must gradually transition from pictorial mental images to a more rational, intellectual mode of thinking. This process extends beyond a certain important stage in life.

[ 23 ] You see, such things in life require a true art of education, a true pedagogy, to understand.

[ 24 ] Around the age of nine—though it may last until the age of ten or even the eleventh age—is an extraordinarily important stage in a child’s development. When the child is in school, we, as teachers and educators, guide and support them through this phase. In the early years of childhood, the child learns language; it gradually learns to say “I” to itself. But this distinction between one’s own self and the surrounding world remains somewhat vague until the age of nine. Anyone who can truly observe life knows that the child crosses a Rubicon at this point, that it is only between the ages of nine and approximately eleven that it actually begins to distinguish itself from its surroundings. How one relates to the child at this stage of life—which is experienced earlier for one child and later for another, yet always within the period described—has an immense impact on the child’s entire future life. If one has a sense, a feeling, that this is the moment when the child is making its actual distinction from the external world; it no longer feels as a finger would feel within the organism if it were conscious; it now feels itself as an independent being—if one can adjust one’s attitude correctly at this point, then one creates within the child a wellspring of enduring joy and vitality. Conversely, one fosters a desolation and weariness of life if one does not adopt the right attitude toward the child at this stage. It must be borne in mind that, up to this point, the child proceeds from the image—from that which is akin to its own nature. This nature is not yet distinct from the environment; it is still absorbed into the environment. One must bear in mind that one must proceed from what is grasped pictorially as the connection between the human being and the environment.

[ 25 ] We bring children from their parents’ homes into school. Today we live in an age where our writing and reading have already produced conventional symbols that have no direct, inner connection to human beings. Compare the abstract letters of our writing with what humanity used in earlier times as pictographic writing. Back then, writing still captured exactly the mental image one had. Today, writing has become abstract. If we introduce this abstract writing directly to the child in reading and writing, we are introducing something foreign to the child—something that is certainly not suitable for a child in the sixth, seventh, or eighth year. That is why, at our Waldorf school, instruction takes place in a different way. We do not begin at all with abstract letters in reading and writing, but rather we work from an artistic foundation. We first let the child paint and draw, work with colors, and work with shapes. This does not merely engage the head—which would be highly detrimental to the child—but engages the whole person within the child. From these forms—which are even colorful—we then let the letters emerge. In this way, the child learns to write, and only after writing does the child learn to read, since our reading letters are even more abstract than our writing letters. In this way, we develop the abstract element—which we also need today—out of the artistic, which is close to life. - We do the same with other objects. In this way, we achieve a lively, art-like pedagogy; in this way, we truly reach the child’s soul. What we in ordinary life call an understanding of plants, stones, and the like can only occur in the child after the stage I have just described, in which the child learns to distinguish itself from its surroundings.

[ 26 ] Perhaps some children at our Waldorf school learn to read and write later than at other schools. This is not a disadvantage; on the contrary, it is a great advantage. For one can drill abstract reading and writing into a child, and in doing so, one can not only foster the mere parroting of whatever catches the eye, but one can also stifle something—and what is stifled in childhood is stifled for the entirety of human existence between birth and death. What we allow to remain viable and what we make viable is that which is meant to be present in a person throughout their entire life as something fresh and flourishing, and developing this is the task of a true educator.

[ 27 ] You will surely have “heard that 19th-century pedagogy, too, frequently emphasized that one should build upon the child’s individuality; one should not merely seek to impose ideas on the child, but rather bring out what is inherent in the child. Certainly, educational theory also has its great minds—that should not be denied; much has already been said in the field of scientific pedagogy. But no matter how often one repeats the abstract statement—and all the other abstract ideas that have already been expressed—that the child should be developed as an individual, one only truly benefits from it when one can observe, in concrete terms, day by day, how this childlike individuality unfolds; if one knows how the principle of imitation prevails during the first seven years of life, how in the next phase of life—from the seventh to the fourteenth year—the principle of authority prevails in conjunction with the principle of the transition from pictorial-symbolic, memory-based mental images to mental images arising from the intellect, from concepts, which then begins in the eleventh, twelfth year. If one can observe all of this, if one learns from a spiritual-scientific and artistic observation of the world how to follow this, then more is achieved than can be established through abstract demands—one should develop the child from within its own individuality. - Anthroposophically oriented Spiritual Science does not present abstractions or mere demands; rather, it points to what can develop into art through the spirit and through a sense of observation sharpened in every respect, as I also described last time.

[ 28 ] I have been able to characterize only in broad strokes what emerges from anthroposophically oriented Spiritual Science as an understanding of the human being and what can form the foundation for the practical way of life that finds its expression in education and teaching. The great social demands of our time show us that we need something like this. Spiritual Science leads us everywhere from a mere, unrealistic perception of external life toward concrete reality by adding the supersensible-spiritual to the external material. Through this, however, the human being is placed at the very center of the world’s being, both in real observation and in action. And this is necessary. I would like to illustrate this further with an example from the art of education. Let me cite something characteristic: Imagine we want to teach a child simple religious mental images, for example, the idea of the immortality of the soul. If we wish to teach this to a child before the age of nine or ten, we can work it out through imagery. We must say to the child, for example: “Look at the butterfly chrysalis; the shell breaks open, and the butterfly flutters out into the air. It is the same with human beings. The immortal soul dwells within the physical body. Death breaks open this body. The immortal soul is comparable to the butterfly; only invisibly does it flutter out of the physical body into the supersensible world, just as the butterfly flies out of the chrysalis into the air. You see, when one studies such a thing with a view to the art of living education, one arrives at the imponderables of life. As a teacher or educator, I might say to myself: I am very intelligent; I have grown old; the child is still young and very foolish. So I come up with this comparison between the chrysalis and the butterfly. As a more intelligent person, I present to the child—based on what I myself do not believe, what I myself regard as foolishness—something designed to help the child grasp the immortality of the soul. - One will not achieve much with this. In a materialistic age, this seems paradoxical, but it is nevertheless true: one will not achieve much with this. When the anthroposophically oriented spiritual researcher looks at the matter, it becomes something else. He himself believes in the image he presents. He does not say, “I am the wise one and am pretending something to the child”—rather, he says, “The eternal beings and forces that work as spiritual forces in nature have, quite objectively, placed the image of the immortal human being in the butterfly.” And by believing in this image myself with every fiber of my being, and speaking to the child from this belief of mine, I awaken a truly religious mental image in the child. — What matters is not what I say to the child, but who I am myself, how I myself relate to things. This will become an increasingly important part of the art of education.

[ 29 ] And that is exactly how you must understand it when I say: Some people come to the Waldorf School to look around, to sit in on a few classes, and so on. It is just as if you wanted to cut out a piece from a painting by Rembrandt and believed that this would give you a mental image of the entire painting. That is never possible when something is conceived and structured as a whole, as the Waldorf School is, when something is so intricately woven into the whole of anthroposophically oriented Spiritual Science. — What kind of teachers are needed there? Those who have shaped their entire lives according to that spiritual insight I spoke of here last time. The best way to get to know the Waldorf School, the best way to get to know the Waldorf School’s educational approach, is to first familiarize oneself with anthroposophically oriented Spiritual Science. For simply observing things and wanting to sit in on classes at the Waldorf School will not allow one to learn much about the Waldorf School.

[ 30 ] These things must be spoken of openly, because they reveal the nature of that new spirit which is to find its way—from the spirit of the Dornach School of Spiritual Science—into practical life: into social life, artistic life, educational life, and the whole of daily life.

[ 31 ] Now, if you think this through, you will no longer find it strange that anyone who immerses themselves in the kind of spiritual life that underlies this art of education must, in fact, stand on the ground of a free spiritual life. What we have in our spiritual life today is a certain tendency toward abstraction; it is a certain tendency toward dogmatism—a tendency that has been imposed on spiritual life because, in recent times, spiritual life has become dependent on political life on the one hand and economic life on the other. What must first be demanded by the worldview I am speaking of here is a spiritual life that stands on its own. This spiritual life would be the first link in what I have called the threefold social organism in my book *The Core Points of the Social Question*. What must be demanded of spiritual life—something that is not utopian but can be undertaken every day—is that those who are actively engaged in real spiritual life, that is, specifically in the most important, public aspect of spiritual life—in teaching and education—should at the same time, in the broadest sense, be the stewards of this spiritual life. In the field of teaching and education, those who are actively engaged in this work should have only as many hours devoted to teaching and education as to leave them time to also administer the system of teaching and education together with others, in smaller or larger groups. It is not those who have been removed from the field of education and teaching and placed in government positions, or those who have retired, but rather those who are actively engaged in teaching who alone are called upon to also manage the educational system as such. For what is administered in the educational system—and indeed in intellectual life in general—must be nothing other than the continuation of what is actually taught, of what constitutes the content of every word and every action in the classroom. Regulations must not be imposed from outside, whether by the state or by the economic sphere. Autonomy and self-administration of intellectual life are necessary.

[ 32 ] I am well aware that anyone who merely seeks to formulate simplistic, logical concepts, or who adopts a superficially historical perspective, will have many objections; for one must truly be immersed in the very nature of intellectual life to recognize the necessity of liberating this intellectual life as an independent component of the social organism. Anyone who, like me, has spent years teaching at a proletarian school—the one founded by Wilhelm Liebknecht—and who has come to know proletarian life and the form of the social question embodied in it knows that this social question is not merely a matter of external institutions, nor merely a matter of dissatisfaction with external institutions; such a person knows something entirely different. Such a person knows that a word which is encountered time and again within proletarian life—but which extends far beyond it—is the word “ideology,” in the sense that I explained in the first chapter of my *Key Points of the Social Question*. What lies hidden behind this word “ideology”?

[ 33 ] Well, in the ancient Orient, people spoke of the great illusion, of maya. By this they meant the external sensory world, which, according to ancient Oriental belief—a belief that has now fallen into decline in the Orient and is of no use to us—provides us only with an illusion. For the ancient Eastern sages, the true reality—the reality that fully sustains human beings—was that which develops within the soul, that which lives in the soul; what the external senses perceive was merely maya.

[ 34 ] We live today in an age in which even the most radical worldviews advocate a reversal of this perspective. Today, in the broadest circles, the external, natural, or material—that which is alive in the processes of production—is regarded as the only reality, and maya is that which arises within the human soul as custom, religion, art, and science. If one wishes to translate the Eastern word maya correctly, one must say: ideology. All other translations are inaccurate for modern people. But “ideology” refers precisely to the opposite of what “maya” was for the ancient Orientals. Today, the vast majority of the modern population uses the term “ideology” to describe what the ancient Orientals called the only reality. And this has significant implications for life.

[ 35 ] I have met such people—members of the ruling classes who, under the influence of a worldview, came to embrace such an ideology. I have met people who said to themselves: If we are to trust natural science, it traces the entire origin of the cosmos back to a primordial nebula. That is where the various beings of nature arose. Human beings, too, emerged from it. As they emerged, they developed something in their souls like a great illusion, like soap bubbles. Natural science reveals no reality of that which arises from the human soul as custom, as religion, as science, as art. And if one looks again toward the end of Earth’s evolution, the vast graveyard presents itself to the eye. On Earth, there will be glaciation or heat death—in any case, a vast graveyard for ideals, for that which we regard as true human values, as the most important and essential aspects of humanity. There is only the disappearance of existence if we are to place our trust honestly in natural science.

[ 36 ] I have been able to see all the tragedy, all the pain in the materialistically minded souls of the leading figures of modern times, who could not escape the circumstances that compelled them to take the conclusions of the natural sciences seriously, and who therefore regarded everything that gives human beings their greatest value as an illusion. I have encountered that pessimism—which springs from a truly sincere pursuit of a scientific worldview—in many people.

[ 37 ] This view, however, has taken on a particular form in the materialism of the modern working class. In this view, everything of a spiritual nature is regarded as a superstructure, as smoke, as a haze, as ideology. And what thereby enters into the modern human being as a state of mind—even if people constantly invent and present other things, thereby deceiving themselves—is the true origin of modern antisocial sentiment; that is the true origin of those terrible catastrophes that are still looming, unimagined by most people, throughout the East—catastrophes that are beginning first in Russia and have already assumed very devastating proportions today, but which will assume even greater proportions if people do not resolve to replace ideology with a living grasp of the spirit.

[ 38 ] Anthroposophically oriented Spiritual Science does not merely provide us with ideas and concepts about reality; it also provides us with ideas and concepts through which we know: We do not merely think about something imbued with spirit—Spiritual Science gives us living spirit, not merely a spirit conceived in thought. It reveals to human beings that they are filled with living spirit. Just as the ancient religions gave them living spirit—not by telling them, “You should merely know something,” but by telling them, “You should know something through which divine knowledge lives within you.” Just as your blood pulses within you, so do divine forces pulse within you through true knowledge. - Such knowledge, such a spiritual life is what anthroposophical Spiritual Science, as represented in Dornach, seeks to pass on to humanity.

[ 39 ] But it needs the support of people today. Nothing will be achieved by working on a small scale in this field; what is needed is action on a large scale. Spiritual Science has nothing sectarian about it; it seeks to address the great challenges of our time in practical life as well. But to do so, it needs a living understanding of our shared contemporary reality. It is not enough to establish small schools here and there modeled after the Waldorf School, as some would like. That is not the point, for it does not make our spiritual life any freer.

[ 40 ] To my great sorrow, I have often witnessed how people harbored a certain distrust of conventional, materialistic medicine. Then they come to you and try to lure you into quackery. They want to be healed through back doors, so to speak. I have experienced this to the point of finding it repulsive; I have seen a Prussian minister defend materialistic medicine before his parliament, attributing sole authority to it; yet he himself came in through the back door and sought treatment from all sorts of people whom he had fought most vehemently against in parliament.

[ 41 ] The society that, from a certain perspective, can rightly be described as self-sacrificing—the one that has dedicated itself to the cultivation of anthroposophical Spiritual Science—strives for a far-reaching impulse capable of working its way into the great whole. Today, the issue is nothing less than this: a genuine spiritual life—such as modern humanity needs—can only be created if, first of all, those interested in spiritual life—and that essentially includes all people, some of whom also have children—need a spiritual life that will shape children into free human beings for the future, capable of creating a life worthy of human dignity. Every person is interested in spiritual life and must contribute to what the future is to bring about through spiritual life. What I would like to call a “World School Association”—inspired by ideas such as those I have presented today—should find resonance in the broadest circles. Essentially, people from all nations who recognize today that a free, emancipated spiritual life must underlie the educational and school systems should unite to form an international World School Association, which would bring more genuine, vital forces to the unification of peoples than many other alliances founded today on the basis of old administrative rules and abstract principles. Such a League of Nations—as it would exist spiritually within a World School Association—would bring people across the vast globe together, at least for a time, in a great, a colossal undertaking.

[ 42 ] The point is that, in the course of modern times, the modern state has—and rightly so—taken over the school system from the old denominations. But what was a blessing back then, when the state undertook this task, would no longer be a blessing if things were to remain as they are. The state cannot make the school anything other than its servant. It can have theologians, lawyers, and so on trained as civil servants. But if spiritual life is to stand on its own ground, then every teacher and educator must be solely and exclusively accountable to the spiritual world, to which they can look up from within an anthroposophically oriented Spiritual Science. A World School Association would have to be founded on a truly international basis by all those who, on the one hand, have an understanding of a truly free spiritual life, and on the other hand, have an understanding of what the future of humanity demands in social terms. Such a World School Association will gradually foster the view throughout the entire civilized world that schools must once again be free; that in schools, the free teaching staff must also handle the administration themselves. In such matters, one cannot think in such a petty and philistine way as many do. They say: “Will children even be sent to these free schools?”—One must not think that way. We must be clear: This free school is a necessity for the future. Ways and means must be found to get children into school—even if there are still reluctant parents in the future—without state coercion. It is not a matter of saying, “We must oppose the free school for such and such a reason”; rather, it is a matter of finding ways and means to establish the free school, even though there may be arguments against it from this perspective—arguments that must then be addressed in an appropriate manner. I am convinced that the most important matter for the social development of humanity is the establishment of such a World School Association that awakens, in the widest possible circles, a sense of real, concrete, free spiritual life. When such a spirit prevails throughout the world, it will no longer be necessary to establish Waldorf schools as isolated institutions that exist by the grace of the state; rather, states will be compelled—where free spiritual life truly establishes schools—to fully recognize these schools on their own terms, without the state interfering in any way.

[ 43 ] What I am outlining here regarding the free spiritual life—namely, that it must be shaped from within—also applies to the shaping of public life that anthroposophically oriented Spiritual Science must envision for economic life. Just as spiritual life must be based on the capacity of the individual human personality, so economic life must be based on something else—namely, the fact that, fundamentally speaking, we cannot, as individuals, make judgments in economic life that can be translated into actions, into economic actions. You see, with regard to spiritual life, we must acknowledge that the human soul strives for wholeness and inner harmony. The individuality of the teacher and the educator must strive toward this inner wholeness. One must approach the child in such a way that one strives toward this wholeness. - In economic life, we are situated in such a way that we can be professionally competent only within our narrower fields, and that something fruitful can emerge only when we unite with people from other fields. And so we must recognize that, just as the free spiritual life must develop as a member of the social organism, so too must economic life—built upon the associative principle—develop as another independent member of the threefold social organism. In the future, we will have to shape economic life on a different foundation than the one we have been accustomed to from the past. Today, economic life is shaped solely on the basis of the past; after all, there is no other standard for income or profit; and people today do not even consider transforming this profit-driven economic society into something else. I would like to discuss this using an example that may not yet be drawn directly from economic life itself, but which nonetheless has an economic aspect and demonstrates how the associative principle of economic activity can be applied even in a purely material sphere. I would like to draw attention to the following: We have the Anthroposophical Society. Many people may not particularly like it; they may regard it as something sectarian—which it most certainly is not—or as something nebulous and mystical—which it also most certainly is not. This Society is dedicated to the cultivation of anthroposophically oriented Spiritual Science. Now, many years ago, this Anthroposophical Society founded the Philosophisch-Anthroposophischer Verlag in Berlin; actually, two individuals initially founded it, but they did so in accordance with the Anthroposophical Society’s way of thinking. This publishing house does not operate like a for-profit company, unlike other publishing houses that emerge from the economic mindset of modern times. How do other publishing companies operate? They print books. That means they have to employ a certain number of people involved in paper processing, a certain number of typesetters, printers, bookbinders, and so on. Now, please take a look every year at those peculiar items that are called “dead stock” in the book trade. These are the books that aren’t purchased by retailers but are returned to the publisher at the next Easter trade fair to be pulped. There, goods have been brought to market for which an entire army of people was employed—and employed unnecessarily.

[ 44 ] This is a fundamental aspect of the social question: unnecessary, non-productive work. People today talk far too much about unearned income because they prefer to live by empty phrases rather than by factual knowledge. Instead, one should look at the actual circumstances. For in the realm of all external, material life, such things also exist in many respects. The Philosophical-Anthroposophical Publishing House has not printed a single book in vain to date—at most a few that we printed out of special kindness for members, and of which we knew from the outset that they were printed solely out of kindness, meaning we essentially gave them away. But as for everything else that was printed, there was a market for it from the very beginning; the consumers were there. Our books always sold out quickly; nothing was printed unnecessarily. No worker was unnecessarily burdened, and no unnecessary work was performed in social interactions. Such results can be achieved across the entire broad field of economic life if we bring together, on the one hand, those people who have an understanding of the needs in a particular area, with those who trade in certain products, and with those who produce them. Associations will form among consumers, traders, and producers, and these associations will primarily concern themselves with regulating prices. These associations, which determine their own size—if they are too large, they would become unwieldy; if they are too small, they would become too costly—would in turn unite to form larger associations; they will then be able to expand into what must be called the global economic association. For that is, after all, the defining characteristic of the modern economy: that it has become a global economy.

[ 45 ] I would have much more to say if I were to elaborate on what I have so far presented only in principle. Associative life is not meant to be an organizational one. Although I come from Germany—I have, after all, lived in Germany on many occasions, though my sphere of activity is now in Dornach, Switzerland—the word “organization” still strikes me as something I find dreadful. For to organize means: to dictate something from above, to set things up from above, to establish them from a central point. Economic life cannot tolerate this. By seeking to organize their economic life, the Central European states—precisely those that were hemmed in between the West and the East—worked against a healthy economic life. The associative economic life that must be strived for allows industries—including industrial cooperatives—to exist; it merely brings them together based on production and consumption, which are regulated by the activities of those who administer the associations; they are regulated by free contracts between individuals or between associations.

[ 46 ] What needs to be said here is explained in greater detail in my *Key Points of the Social Question* or in other writings, for example in the book that supplements these *Key Points*: *In Implementation of the Threefold Social Order.*

[ 47 ] Thus, what best meets the most modern needs—as an anthroposophically oriented Spiritual Science rooted in practical life—calls for two independent members of the social organism: the free spiritual life and the associatively structured economic life. This must be demanded precisely by those who take completely seriously and honestly a fundamental force of the entire modern human being—a fundamental longing of the present age: the longing for democracy.

[ 48 ] Ladies and gentlemen, I have spent half my life—thirty years—in Austria, and I have seen what it means when society as a whole fails to take seriously the most modern demand of all: the demand for democracy. In the 1860s, in Austria—a country of experimentation that, precisely because it failed to properly establish social conditions, was the first to be completely swept away by the great world catastrophe—the call for parliamentarism also arose. A parliament was formed. But how was this parliament composed? It consisted of four curiae: the Curia of Large Landowners, the Curia of the Chamber of Commerce, the Curia of Cities, Markets, and Industrial Centers, and the Curia of Rural Communities. In other words, purely economic interests—four groups representing economic interests. These were sent to parliament, where they were supposed to decide on political-legal matters and general state affairs. They always made decisions based on their economic interests, and from these they formed a majority. But such majorities can never contribute anything concretely fruitful to human development or social progress. After all, such majorities do not arise from a sound understanding of the issues. One must be sincere in the call for democracy, in the call for human freedom.

[ 49 ] But one must also be absolutely clear that parliamentarism can apply only to certain matters, that democracy can function only in certain areas—namely, those in which every person who has attained legal age is competent. The democratic sphere remains the third link between the spiritual sphere—which is grounded in free intellectual soil—on the one hand, and the economic sphere—which is grounded in associative structures—on the other. In between lies this third, state-legal element of the social organism, where every person stands before another as an equal. In matters such as working hours, for example—the extent and nature of work—every person who has attained maturity is competent as such.

[ 50 ] Are we moving toward a future in which spiritual life is shaped by free spirituality, in which the goal is a free school that operates from the spirit and therefore also produces skilled and practical people—for even practical schools will develop out of such a spiritual life; are we moving toward a future in which such a spiritual life functions as a free spiritual life, in which public life is limited to what every person who has come of age is competent to do, in which economic life is organized into associations, where a collective judgment arises because one person brings to the association what they are skilled at and enters into agreements with another person who is skilled in their own field—if we are moving toward such a future, then we are moving toward something different from what many people today believe, people who are unable to adapt to something new.

[ 51 ] There will be many people who believe that Dornach is the source of a nebulous spiritual life, a spiritual life detached from reality. No, that is not the case; in Dornach, the spirit prevails that, with a certain paradox—which is, however, justified—says: No one can become a true philosopher who does not also know how to chop wood and peel potatoes, who cannot apply himself to the external, practical world. Spiritual Science cannot produce people who are out of touch with life, but only those who are at the same time skilled in the practicalities of life. For Spiritual Science is not an abstraction; it is a reality. It permeates the human being with a real power. It makes him not only more thoughtful, but also more skilled. It is at the same time connected to what the human being must perceive as his sense of dignity and morality—to morality, to religion, to art. Anyone who looks at the Dornach building can see this for himself. It is far from finished; understanding people have had to make sufficient sacrifices to bring it to its present state. This building did not come into being by commissioning an architect to construct a building that would then have been built in, say, the Gothic style, the Renaissance style, or the like. That would not have been compatible with the vitality of Spiritual Science, as it is understood here. Spiritual Science brings forth its own style in the arts from within itself. Just as the nut forms its shell around itself from the same growth forces that give rise to the kernel, and just as the nut shell cannot be structured any differently than it is, due to the principle at work in the nut kernel, so the outer architectural shell for what is intended in Dornach could arise from nothing other than the same spiritual sources from which research and teaching take place in Dornach. The word that is proclaimed, the findings that are explored, spring from the same sources from which the artistic forms of the columns and the painting of the domes have emerged. Sculpting, architectural work, and painting are all carried out there from the same spiritual impulses—not in hollow symbols or allegories, but in impulses that work through true art, just as teaching and research are conducted. And because all of this is connected to the living spiritual life that is to be awakened in human beings, the third element—the element of religion—is also united with art and science.

[ 52 ] And so what is being pursued here as a Spiritual Science, by entering practically into the world, will—through the threefold structure of the social organism—bring to life those three mottos that resonate from the 18th century in a heart-stirring way that awakens the human spirit. The three great ideals resonate with us: liberty, equality, fraternity. But intelligent people in the 19th century repeatedly objected: In the state, it is not possible to cultivate liberty, equality, and fraternity all at the same time. Intelligent people have said this; they have raised this objection against these three ideals. They were right to do so. But this objection is based on something other than what is commonly thought; it is based on the fact that, while three great and legitimate social ideals from the 18th century do indeed resonate: Liberty, Equality, Fraternity—but that, to this day, we have remained under the spell of the unitary state; that we have not considered that this unitary state must, by its very nature, be structured into three social components: the free intellectual organism, the political and legal organism built on equality, and the economic organism built on the principle of association.

[ 53 ] I was once criticized by a certain group—one that wants to be taken seriously on social issues—for allegedly shattering unity by calling for a trinity. Just as the unity of the human organism is not shattered by the fact that it fulfills what I have expounded in my book *On the Mysteries of the Soul*, by the fact that it is naturally divided into three parts—just as the unity of the human being is not disrupted by the fact that blood is supplied to the body in rhythmic circulation from a different part of the human organism than the one from which the nerves originate, nor is unity destroyed by the fact indeed, as it would be destroyed if the head, in addition to sending out the nerves, also had to produce the blood; just as the unity of the human organism is not disturbed by this trinity, so too the unity of the social organism is not disturbed by this trinity. And I would like to conclude this reflection on Spiritual Science and its social practice by pointing out how the three great ideals of humanity cannot be realized in a unitary state—how their realization there would become an illusion—but how these three ideals can permeate human life in a threefold social organism in which the following will prevail: full freedom in the free spiritual life; equality among human beings in the sphere where each is competent, where, as a person who has attained maturity, each meets the other person who has likewise attained maturity as an equal. Brotherhood will be practically fulfilled in economic life through the principle of association. Unity will not be destroyed, for the human being is present within all three sections and forms the living unity. And, after all, the entire course of world development exists fundamentally so that the individual modes of action and forces of action may ultimately converge at the pinnacle of world organization—in the human being. Just as the forces of nature, just as the entire macrocosm, are reflected in the microcosm of the human being—converging on a small scale—so too must the three great ideals—freedom, equality, and brotherhood—not meet externally and abstractly within the social organism, but in reality, so that they may interact, within the unified human nature. As a free human being, a person belongs to the free spiritual life to which every human being belongs. Because he is equal to every other human being, he belongs to democratic civic life—the life of equality. Because he belongs to economic life, he is immersed in brotherhood.

[ 54 ] Freedom in spiritual life, equality in political and legal life, brotherhood in economic life—their harmonious interplay leads to the salvation and true further development of humanity, and gives rise to forces of ascent that combat the forces of decline.

[ 55 ] A synergy among the three elements of the true social organism—a synergy of freedom, equality, and brotherhood within the unified human nature—seems destined to become the magic word and watchword for the future of humanity.