The Rudolf Steiner Archive

4. The Pedagogical Foundations of the Waldorf School

[ 1 ] When, following Germany’s collapse, a certain kind of social work began in Stuttgart—work that set itself the task of navigating the turmoil to work toward goals that offered some hope for the future—the idea of founding a Waldorf school in Stuttgart emerged from various social considerations and measures among one of the oldest friends of the anthroposophical movement, our friend Mr. Emil Molt. He had the opportunity to actually bring such a school to life immediately after the decision was made, for he headed an industrial enterprise with a large workforce, and thanks to the exceptionally good rapport between the management of that enterprise and the workers, it was possible to enroll nearly all the children of the Stuttgart Waldorf-Astoria Cigarette Factory in this school. And so, more than two years ago now, this Waldorf School was founded, initially with a group of working-class children.

[ 2 ] But over the past two years, the school has grown—one might say, month by month—and today the situation is such that at the school entrusted to my care, we not only have the original number of working-class children, but we also have children from all walks of life and all social classes to teach and educate. Today, however, the number of those who have flocked in from all directions already exceeds the original group of working-class children from the Waldorf-Astoria factory.

[ 3 ] In practice, the Waldorf school thus functions as a truly inclusive school. Children from all social classes sit side by side in this school and can be taught side by side using the methods employed there.

[ 4 ] Conceptually, this Waldorf school in Stuttgart has grown out of the anthroposophical movement—the very movement that is today met with so much hostility from some quarters because it is misunderstood. For the purposes of this discussion, I would like to begin by addressing a single misunderstanding. This is the belief that whenever people speak of anthroposophy and anthroposophical Spiritual Science—and of all the social movements associated with them—they assume it involves something subversive or the like, whereas none of that is the case. I emphasize this here by way of introduction because it is of particular importance for my pedagogical topic today. Just as, for example, with regard to the various sciences that have grown out of modern intellectual life over the course of the last three to four centuries, anthroposophical Spiritual Science seeks to have a fertilizing effect on all these individual sciences—including medicine—and to provide inspiration in every direction; yet it by no means seeks to stand in any opposition to these modern sciences. It certainly does not seek to introduce any kind of dilettantism into modern scientific practice from any quarter; rather, it seeks to take precisely that which follows from the very premises of modern scientific thought itself—but which is not pursued by science on its own—and to deepen these sciences and carry this insight into them.

[ 5 ] Nor does what emerges as a pedagogical consequence of anthroposophical Spiritual Science stand in any opposition to, or maintain an amateurish relationship with, what has been strived for by modern pedagogy and its great representatives. Anthroposophical Spiritual Science, precisely because it values modern natural science, has every reason to acknowledge to the fullest extent the outstanding achievements brought into the world by the great and distinguished educators and educational endeavors of the nineteenth century and the early twentieth century. It does not seek to stand in opposition to all of this, but rather, drawing on what it can explore and discover on anthroposophical ground, it aims to deepen and broaden these efforts; it also seeks to stand firmly on the ground of modern pedagogical thought. However, it finds that it is precisely this modern pedagogical thinking that requires the deepening and broadening that I will endeavor to sketch out in a few brief strokes this evening.

[ 6 ] Although the Waldorf school has its roots in anthroposophical Spiritual Science, it is by no means—and I ask that you please bear this in mind—a school based on a particular worldview. Above all, the Waldorf School is not about bringing anthroposophical dogma—if I may put it that way—or anthroposophical beliefs as such into the school. The Waldorf School does not wish to be an ideological school, nor any kind of sectarian school, for none of this is actually part of the character of anthroposophical Spiritual Science, despite what is commonly believed.

[ 7 ] What, however, the Waldorf School is intended to be—based on anthroposophical principles—is a school of methodology, a school that draws its standard inspiration for pedagogy, methodology, and didactics from anthroposophically oriented Spiritual Science. We were not, after all, in a position to take such a radical stance as many modern educators do when they say: If one truly wants to educate and teach a group of children properly, one must establish rural boarding schools or the like. There are, of course, many such efforts in recent times. Nothing is to be said against any of them; one can certainly understand them from their own point of view, but with the Waldorf School, we were not in that fortunate position. We were faced with given facts. We had only the opportunity to establish, right here within a city and as part of the city’s entire life, what was to become the Waldorf School. It was not a matter of first creating the external environment for this school; rather, it was a matter of achieving what was to be accomplished through pedagogy and didactics themselves, working with the given means and within the given environment.

[ 8 ] But it is also very much in the nature of anthroposophical Spiritual Science that it can adapt to any situation in life, for it seeks to work directly from life itself. It does not seek to pursue utopian ideas in any way, but rather aims to create, out of the immediate reality of existence and the practice of daily life, that which is inherent in the human being, based on the circumstances at hand.

[ 9 ] As I said, dogmas should not be brought into the school; but what a person who is part of the anthroposophical movement gains is a form of knowledge that can encompass them as a whole, as a complete human being, whereas, in essence, modern educational life tends more toward a certain intellectualism. Therefore, one need not at all believe that the Waldorf school is meant to teach children that the human being, as described in the writings on anthroposophy, consists not only of his physical body, but also carries within himself an etheric body that contains the formative forces—the organic formative forces—of the physical body; that they carry within themselves an astral body, which brings into the human physical existence—that which lives on Earth between birth and death—what develops in the human being’s pre-existing existence, in that which precedes birth or, let us say, conception, and so on. These are not the beliefs that are brought into the school. But the person who knows how the human personality—when understood not merely externally, but when truly grasped scientifically in terms of body, soul, and spirit—that person who comprehends how this human personality also presents itself to the soul as a human being in the making, as a child, gains, above all, a deeper understanding of the human being than today’s natural science can provide. Out of this deeper understanding of the human being—out of what anthroposophical Spiritual Science learns to recognize about the human being itself; out of this understanding of the human being that encompasses not merely thinking but the whole human being in terms of feeling and willing; out of this Spiritual Science—what is to emerge for the Waldorf school should not be what one might call a learned methodology, but rather it should become that which, arising from an understanding of the human being, generates in the teacher the will to do for the developing child everything that, so to speak, the human organism itself demands of the teacher, the educator, the instructor. For the greatest teacher for the Waldorf school is, paradoxical as it may sound, the child itself. And because the Waldorf teacher carries within his or her heart the conviction that what meets you week after week, year after year, in the child is the expression of a divine-spiritual being that descends from a purely spiritual-soul existence, that develops just as the physical-bodily aspect develops here between birth and death, and that connects with that what approaches the human being physically and etherically through the currents of heredity from parents and ancestors—this immense, profound reverence one feels for the developing human being, who, from the very first day of his existence in physical life, shows us how the inner soul emerges in the revelations of physiognomy, in the first movements, in babbling and in emerging speech—all that which, through genuine anthroposophical knowledge of human nature, instills a sense of reverence for that which the Divine has sent down into the world; all of this is the very essence with which the Waldorf teacher enters the classroom anew each morning. And from the daily manifestations of this mysterious spiritual-soul being, he learns what he is to do.

[ 10 ] Therefore, the methodology of the Waldorf school cannot be summarized in abstract principles. One cannot simply list “first, second, third”; rather, one can only say: through anthroposophical Spiritual Science, a person becomes acquainted with the developing human being, learns to observe what is reflected in a child’s eyes and what is expressed through their kicking legs. And because one is acquainted with the human being, this anthroposophy will engage not only the intellect, which is capable of systematization, but the whole human being—who perceives, feels, and wills. The teacher is thus placed before the child in such a way that the method takes on a living presence for him—a presence such that, in the face of every child’s individuality, even in larger classes, he can always modify and transform what is specifically necessary for that child. If one hears this in an abstract way, one might say: These twisted anthroposophists assume that the human being does not only have that physical body with which our physiology and biology concern themselves—which they examine so carefully when it lies before them as a corpse—but that the human being also has an etheric body and an astral body; one comes to know this through very special inner spiritual exercises, when one’s thinking becomes so strengthened that the whole human being becomes a kind of supersensible sense organ—if I may use this expression of Goethe’s—so that one sees more than one otherwise sees in ordinary life of the external world and of human existence. One can, as I said, make fun of the eccentric anthroposophists who speak in this way of supersensible beings within the human physical realm. But unless this conviction—based not on mere fantasies but on thorough knowledge—is brought into the school, the person tasked with educating and teaching the child gains the ability to view the developing human being—based on what they learn concretely about the human being in terms of body, soul, and spirit—in the way they must be viewed, so that one can truly approach the innermost being of the other, that is, in our case, the innermost being of the child.

[ 11 ] I have no intention of saying the slightest thing here against what is today referred to as experimental psychology and experimental pedagogy. I am well aware of what these scientific disciplines can achieve, and I can certainly appreciate their value. However, the very existence of these scientific disciplines makes it absolutely necessary, on the other hand, that our educational life undergo a deepening. For alongside all the valuable contributions made by experimental psychology and experimental pedagogy, they are nevertheless proof that, fundamentally speaking, modern education has not brought us closer to the human being in a direct, elementary way, but has actually distanced us from this human being. We conduct external experiments on children to see how thinking, memory, and even the will function. One is then supposed to formulate pedagogical rules and laws based on the various tables one has drawn up regarding this or that. Certainly, such tables are useful precisely to the anthroposophical thinker and the anthroposophical educator. But if one regards them as the be-all and end-all of what we can today take as a foundation in pedagogy and didactics, one merely proves that one is actually far removed from the true, inner nature of the child. Why, then, must one experiment? One must experiment because the direct relationship that once existed in earlier—if I may call it that—patriarchal times, the intangible connection between the teacher’s soul, the educator’s soul, and the child’s soul, has been lost under the influence of modern materialistic education. We experiment externally because we lack a direct perception and feeling of what is actually taking place inwardly within the child. And it is precisely this external experimentation that proves we have lost this inner, fundamental connection and must strive with all our might to regain it.

[ 12 ] If one considers experimental psychology and experimental pedagogy today, it is actually as if someone were, say, observing a rider as he rides along a smooth path, or as he rides along a difficult path, and were now compiling statistical data on this: on the smooth path, he advances this far in a quarter of an hour; on a slippery path, this far; on an uneven path, this far; and so on. The experiments conducted to determine whether a child remembers this or that after a quarter of an hour, omits this or that many words from their memory, and so on, are roughly the same. If one were to make statistical records about the rider, one would be dealing with the external path, but also with what the horse is capable of on that path; yet one does not come any closer to the essence of the rider, although it is, of course, entirely possible to make such statistical records under these circumstances. But what matters is that one does not merely conduct external examinations of the surface of the person being trained, but that one penetrates directly into their inner being.

[ 13 ] In anthroposophical Spiritual Science, we come to understand what is given to us with the birth of a child. It carries within itself not only what is revealed to the senses, but also a spiritual-soul being that has united itself with the physical human embryo. And one comes to understand very precisely how this spiritual-soul being develops, just as one learns in physical science how the physical embryo develops through the process of heredity. One comes to understand how something supersensory—spiritual and soul-related—enters the human organism, independent of inherited characteristics. Without—and I must mention this again and again—introducing such a dogma into the school, one regards it as a guiding principle, as that which provides the proper guidance for observing the child even before school begins.

[ 14 ] In the case of a child who is learning to speak, for example, this premise is useful: you must not only observe what lies within the stream of heredity; you must also observe what develops within the child from spiritual depths, and language is part of that. And now, by truly knowing the human being through anthroposophical Spiritual Science—by learning to distinguish between the more inner astral body and the more outer etheric body—one comes to know in an entirely different way the nature of the will, which is more closely bound to the astral body, and the nature of thinking, for example, which is more closely bound to the etheric body, as they interact in speech. For in observation and experience, it is not a matter of merely observing external facts, but of being able to place these external facts in the proper light.

[ 15 ] Now take such a trained observer of life, such a connoisseur of human nature trained in anthroposophy, and place him next to the child who is gradually learning to speak. More than from all the statistical studies—such as those on child psychology conducted by the outstanding psychologist Wilhelm Preyer—the person who has truly learned to look into the child’s inner life gains insight through the intangible forces that flow from the adult to the child. They come to recognize what an enormous difference it makes whether, for example, I hear the child’s mother or father speaking to the child to calm it down—“Oh, oh”—or whether they are talking with the child about what the room they are in is like, saying, “Hush, hush!” —With every vowel, I speak directly to the child’s sensory and emotional life. I address the innermost core of the soul. Through anthroposophical Spiritual Science, I learn how to stimulate a certain realm of the soul in such a way that a certain connection is established between the educator, the caregiver, and the child—a connection that immediately evokes a flow from the caregiver to the innermost emotional life of the child.

[ 16 ] When I discuss, say, the coldness of the environment and the child gets caught up in the “hush, hush,” I am directly influencing the will. And I see how, at one moment, the child’s sensory and emotional life is stimulated, and at another, how it plays into the child’s motor life, with impulses of the will underlying it.

[ 17 ] With this example, I simply wanted to suggest how, in the most elementary expressions of life, a true understanding of life sheds light on everything. Today we are faced with a magnificent field of linguistics, from which pedagogy can certainly learn a great deal. But this linguistic science regards language as something separate from the human being. The person trained in anthroposophical Spiritual Science does not come to know language as something—I would say—hovering above the human being, which the human being takes in and draws into its entire flow; rather, the person who understands anthroposophical Spiritual Science—which always aims at the fullness of the human being— knows how to truly apply it to life—such a person learns how all vocalization, how the child’s entire process of finding their way into the vocalization of language, is intertwined with an inner warming of the emotional life; whereas all consonant sounds, everything the child learns through consonants, is linked to stirrings of the will.

[ 18 ] That is what it means to learn to observe a child in the most intimate way. And it is precisely this intimate observation, this intimate empathy with the human being, that we have lost. In a sense, we circle around the person in order to educate them, while over time we have lost that direct contact precisely because of modern educational science. We do not know how language is intrinsically and organically connected to all growth processes and to everything else that takes place within the child, for we know, in essence, nothing about how a person becomes warm and sensitive inside when we educate them to be a true imitator. Until their teeth begin to fall out around the age of seven, the child is entirely dependent on imitation. All education is fundamentally based on imitation. Only if we correctly understand the human capacity for imitation in the first years of life—and can concretely track it from year to year—can we truly gain a deeper insight into the essence of the human being and, based on this essence, educate in a way that will enable the individual to enter life later on as a fully developed human being.

[ 19 ] This is true not only of language, but of everything we must teach a child in the early years of life, before the child starts school. Until the child’s teeth begin to fall out, he or she relies essentially on imitation. And this study of imitation—language itself is, after all, formed entirely through imitation—this study of imitation in all areas of life is what makes anthroposophical Spiritual Science possible. But it also allows us to gain a deeper insight into the nature of the human being in other respects as well. And while modern psychology is constantly pondering: What relationship actually exists between the human soul—or, as some say, between the human spirit—and the physical body?—modern psychology is not at all capable of forming mental images about the relationship of the soul-spirit to the physical body, because, after all, it is familiar with the physical body, but only comes to know it properly when it has been abandoned by the soul and spirit as a corpse, and because, on the other hand, precisely that separation from the soul and spirit has occurred, of which I have just spoken. This is best illustrated by a single example.

[ 20 ] Events such as the change of teeth around the age of seven are not given sufficient consideration by modern science. For anyone who possesses the kind of observational acuity that anthroposophical Spiritual Science cultivates in people can see how a person’s—or a child’s—psychic powers undergo a profound transformation when the child goes through this process of losing baby teeth. Memory, a child’s capacity for thought, and even a child’s capacity for feeling—all of these become quite different during these years than they were before. And in fact, it is only around the age of seven—approximately, of course—that a certain configuration of the soul life begins to emerge from the child. Where, then, was that which now emerges from the child—which we actually begin to address in school—where was it before?

[ 21 ] You see, the way of thinking in modern science is certainly on the right track when it comes to the inorganic realm. If I have a body somewhere and heat is released from that body through some process, then as a modern physicist I study how this heat was already contained within the body beforehand as latent, or hidden, heat, and how it emerged from the body as free heat through a certain process. I will not say: “This heat somehow flew into the body,” but rather I will seek the conditions under which it was already present within the body beforehand. The line of thinking that science has already established in this regard can also be applied to more complex circumstances—above all, to the conditions of human life itself.

[ 22 ] Anyone who studies, in the anthroposophical sense, how a child’s memory, thinking, and will take on their distinctive configuration in the seventh year will gradually come to realize that none of this simply fell into the child’s lap, but rather that it developed from within the child itself. Where was it before? It was within the child’s organism. And what I then have to address in school was previously a latent, hidden force within the human being; it has been set free. It remained within the human being as long as the person needed that force, which then reaches its culmination in the eruption of the permanent teeth. Once the second set of teeth has erupted, this process is not repeated in a person’s life. That which initially worked as an organizing force within the person—and which found its conclusion with the eruption of the first set of teeth—is set free, just as heat is released from certain bodies. This then presents itself as soul-spiritual faculties—as the abilities one must address through education and instruction in school. One comes to understand the interplay of soul and body only by delving into the concrete. Philosophically and speculatively, one can ponder at length: how do soul and body relate to one another? One must observe the concrete reality from birth through the seventh year of life; there, the forces—which I will later come to know and, as an educator and teacher, will later have to shape myself—have been set free; they have been at work within the organism, and they have emerged from the organism.

[ 23 ] And so it is throughout human life. All the speculations found today in philosophy or psychology textbooks regarding the relationship between soul and body are useless unless they are based on concrete observation using a genuine scientific method.

[ 24 ] If one then observes this further and realizes that what you, as a teacher, encounter in the child is the very same force that previously acted within the organism, then one says to oneself: now this force must take on a different form; and since I am called upon to teach and educate, I must come to know it in this other form. But I must also come to know it in its original states, as it previously worked within the organism. Well, much could be said about this. I simply want to draw attention to this: this force, which thus works as a life-giving force deep within the organism, is what initially makes the child an imitator until the age of seven, and one must really observe this imitative capacity in the child if one wants to understand the child correctly before school age.

[ 25 ] For example, parents come in and say, “My child has stolen something.” They’re looking for advice. You then ask, “Well, how old is the child?” “Four or five years old.” A four- or five-year-old child—as paradoxical as it may sound—doesn’t actually steal. A four- or five-year-old child is an imitator. And if you ask further, you might be told, for example: “This child saw his mother take money out of a cabinet every day.” He imitates her; he takes money, too. I’ve even encountered a case where such a child took money out of the cabinet and didn’t pocket it for themselves, but instead bought things to give to other children. There was absolutely nothing immoral about it—rather, it was amoral and imitative.

[ 26 ] But this leads one to truly recognize how, in the process of raising children, one is dealing with intangible factors. One must be fully aware—down to the very core of one’s thinking—that, since one is dealing with a child who imitates, one may do, say, and even think in the child’s presence only those things that the child is capable of imitating. Education before school age must be based on imitation. This may sound paradoxical at first, but it is precisely what must underlie a truly healthy upbringing.

[ 27 ] Those forces that primarily turn the whole person into an imitator—that make him an imitator to such an extent that he mimics even the slightest hand movement of those around him—emerge around the age of seven, as they become, so to speak, free, as the very forces that we, as educators and teachers, must shape. And if one expands on this idea further, one realizes: While the child is an imitator until the age of seven, from school age through puberty, the child is dependent on the authority of the teacher and educator as a self-evident, guiding force. This is what matters from the time of the change of teeth until sexual maturity: that one thoroughly understands how only this relationship—based on self-evident authority—between the child and the teacher and educator can guide the child in the right way.

[ 28 ] This relationship of authority is easy to articulate in the abstract. However, one must truly possess an understanding of human nature grounded in anthroposophy if one wishes to keep this relationship of authority on the right track at every moment.

[ 29 ] You see, people today speak—in a certain sense, and rightly so; I say explicitly, “in a certain sense, and rightly so”—of the necessity of visual instruction. Certainly, visual instruction is necessary for certain subjects. But that which is not concrete simply cannot be conveyed to the child through concrete instruction. This applies above all to the moral order of the world, to religious feelings, and to everything in the world that is spiritual. The spiritual is, at first, not perceptible to the external senses, and if one takes so-called visual instruction too far, then one directly educates the child to believe only in what is externally perceptible to the senses—that is, to materialism. What matters, however, during the school-age years is that the child, through the natural relationship with the teacher and educator, has the feeling that: the person standing next to me—though putting it into words is, of course, different from how the child experiences it, the child feels it in a very basic way—the one standing next to me knows what is right, behaves as one ought to behave, and I must follow him. Whereas in the first seven years of life the child directs all its activities imitative toward its surroundings—that is, I would say, primarily toward gestures, including those inner gestures that emerge in speech—the child at school age develops under the influence of what can be conveyed to it through the word of this natural authority. And there one must be thoroughly guided, through a true understanding of human nature, into what this self-evident authority can be.

[ 30 ] You would not expect someone who, like me many years ago, wrote a *Philosophy of Freedom* to advocate, for example, a reactionary belief in authority in social life. It is not out of any such intention, but rather for pedagogical and didactic reasons, that I say: The most essential principle of education, the most essential educational force between the age of seven and sexual maturity, lies in everything that sinks into the child through the belief that authority knows what is right and does what is right. —- And unless we develop in relation to authority, we cannot later enter social life in a wholesome way.

[ 31 ] One need only understand what it means to accept something on the basis of authority. I know that to many this sounds extraordinarily paradoxical, but ultimately it applies only to those who lack the will to view life in its entirety.

[ 32 ] Just think: if, in a person’s second year of life, nature had not, let’s say, shaped our fingers in such a way that they grow and flourish—if nature had shaped our fingers so that they were, as it were, cast into fixed, stencil-like forms—what would become of us! As human beings, we must be growing beings whose organization is in a state of constant metamorphosis. As educators, we must also instill this kind of being into the child’s soul. We must not teach the child anything that awakens in them mental images, feelings, or impulses of will that have, so to speak, sharp contours. Just as our fingers do not remain with the same contours they have in the second year of life but grow through their own power, so too must all the mental images and feelings we instill in the child during their school years carry within them the essence of growth.

[ 33 ] We must be clear about this: what you teach an eight-year-old child today must not have sharply defined contours; it must be an inner capacity for growth; it must be able to have become something entirely different by the age of forty. You must be able to take the whole person into account. Anyone who does not properly appreciate the principle of authority during these childhood years has never experienced what it actually means, for example, to gain an understanding of history, geography, or anything else—or even just a concept from life that one accepted on the authority of a beloved teacher or educator at the age of nine, a concept one didn’t understand at all back then, but simply accepted on authority. When that concept resurfaces and, with a more mature mind, one finally grasps it decades later—that is a life-giving principle that evokes within one the vague feeling that one need not even bring it to conscious awareness: you have something alive within you from your earliest years, even in your inner life. In this regard, we must certainly be able to follow the forces of growth in nature.

[ 34 ] Our educational principles and methods need not be confined to paragraphs; rather, they must, so to speak, stem from a living understanding of human nature and be second nature to the educator; only then will they treat people as people, rather than forcing something upon them. This does not negate what was said by the great educators of the 19th and early 20th centuries; on the contrary, it is only then that their teachings are properly followed.

[ 35 ] Anyone who wants to become a Waldorf teacher knows full well that they cannot simply walk into the school in an amateurish way. They must take in all the insights offered by 19th- and 20th-century pedagogy, but at the same time they must bring into the school this living understanding of human nature that I have just been speaking of. Here one is reminded of Goethe’s words: “Consider the ‘what,’ but consider the ‘how’ even more.” With regard to the “what”—that is, the principles and guidelines for how teaching should be conducted—there is indeed excellent material in our educational theories and didactic textbooks. Sometimes even very brief instructions contain something downright ideal. But that is the “what.” “Consider the what, but consider the how even more.” It is not at all a matter of establishing abstract principles, but rather of being able, as a living human being with inner warmth of soul and strong life impulses, to bring these principles to life.

[ 36 ] I am completely convinced that if three or twelve—or perhaps more or fewer—people of no small intelligence were to get together today and use their intellect to design an ideal school, it would look absolutely excellent on paper, with “first,” “second,” “third,” and so on. One could not conceive of anything better. One can devise the most beautiful ideals and turn them into party-like principles for great movements, reform movements, and so on. But none of that really matters in life; what matters in life is to look at life itself—to have living people who do precisely what is possible and necessary under the given circumstances. Consider the “what,” but consider the “how” even more.

[ 37 ] And so it is essential that love for the child truly underlie everything, that teaching and education be approached from this living experience. Then, naturally, one approaches everything in a different way than is usually the case. And here I would like to state the following, so to speak, as a general principle. I would like to illustrate this once again with an example.

[ 38 ] You see, one should illustrate things to the child: the child can come to understand abstract concepts through perception, but one can also use perception in various ways to address abstract, ethical, and religious matters. Let’s take, for example, the case where I want to teach a child of the appropriate age the concept of the immortality of the human soul. I do this through a comparison. But I can do this in two ways. One is to say to myself: I am the teacher, so I am very smart, incredibly smart; the child is still young, incredibly stupid. So I make a comparison. I say: “Look at this butterfly chrysalis; the butterfly emerges from it.” I demonstrate this process to the child and then tell him: “Just as the butterfly emerges from this chrysalis, so too will the immortal soul one day, when a person approaches the gates of death, enter the spiritual world.” So I can approach the child, come up with this analogy, and seem terribly clever to the child—but I won’t achieve much. That’s where the imponderables come into play. But if I have been trained by anthroposophical Spiritual Science in the nature of the world, so that I know: there is spirit in all that is material—then I don’t say at all: ‘I’m terribly clever and the child is terribly stupid, so I have to come up with something,’ but rather I believe myself that what, on a higher level, is the soul emerging from the body, on a lower level appears, through the laws of nature, as the butterfly crawling out of the chrysalis. I myself believe in my analogy. For me, this is a sacred conviction. These are two different things. When I speak to the child out of sacred conviction, well, then I touch the very core of the child in an imponderable way. Then I evoke within the child that which is a living feeling, a living concept; and one can say that this is true of all things. One must neither underestimate nor overestimate what modern science, focused on the external, can be.

[ 39 ] Let me give a somewhat far-fetched example, just to illustrate my point. As you know, there used to be a lot of talk about so-called “calculating horses.” These calculating horses performed very special feats. Well, I haven’t seen the ones from Elberfeld, but I did see Mr. von Osten’s horse myself, and I saw how this horse actually stamped its foot, its leg: one, two, three, four, five, six, and so on, whenever it was given any simple arithmetic problems. You really have to have an eye for observing such things if you don’t want to fall into nebulous mysticism on the one hand or rationalism on the other—after all, you can explain everything that way. You see, for example, there was a private lecturer in psychology and physiology who also observed Mr. von Osten’s horse. He said: “Yes, this horse stamps its hoof at a certain number because it perceives very specific, subtle movements in the facial expressions that Mr. von Osten makes.” And when Mr. von Osten makes the corresponding facial expression upon saying “three times three is nine,” the horse stops stamping its foot. Now, of course, the scholar in question also had to demonstrate plausibly that such facial expressions exist on the horse owner’s face. But such facial expressions could not be detected in Mr. von Osten. So the scholar stated in a very scholarly treatise: “Yes, the facial expressions are so subtle that a human simply cannot see them; and I myself cannot say,” he said, “what exactly these facial expressions consist of.” - So you see, this scholarship essentially consisted of him saying: “Yes, I’m not clever enough to discern those expressions”; but that’s the horse. So it’s essentially much smarter than I am, or has a much more refined sensibility.

[ 40 ] Anyone who viewed the matter with a more open mind than such a learned man would have observed how the gentleman from the East continually took sugar cubes out of his right coat pocket—which was very large—and, while the horse made these movements, carried out his calculations, continually feeding it sugar cubes, so that the horse kept licking sugar while he was calculating. And this way of treating the horse gives rise to a very special—please don’t misunderstand me—relationship of love, a special inner bond. This then underlies the innermost effects that actually result. One must start from that current of energy that arises through such a stimulation of love—as happens with the sugar cubes—if one wishes to understand the relationship that lies beneath the surface of ordinary observation. And indeed, one cannot speak in the crude sense of hypnotism and suggestion, but must speak of entirely different, subtle relationships if one wishes to get to the heart of these matters. These things cannot be understood through nebulous mysticism or rationalism, but only through a genuine understanding of the soul—in this case, not merely an understanding of the human soul, but also an understanding of the animal’s soul.

[ 41 ] And that is what matters most of all if one wishes to establish a living pedagogy, as opposed to a pedagogy or didactics based on mere principles or on mere external, intellectualistic propositions. This approach to education enables one to truly observe the child from year to year. And what matters is this: the individual treatment of each child, even in a larger class. It can be done. The Waldorf School has certainly demonstrated this, even in the few years since its founding.

[ 42 ] I can only outline the general principles here, but the specifics could be elaborated upon in detail. So we have the situation where a child is sent to school and is first supposed to learn to write and then, little by little, to read—perhaps also arithmetic and so on; but let’s focus on reading for now. Reading is, at first, something that—in today’s world, in modern human life—is actually quite foreign to the child. If we go back to ancient times, to earlier eras, we still had pictographic writing; there was still something in each individual character that visually led the child to the object it was meant to denote. In our alphabetic writing, we no longer have anything that, in a direct way—connecting to the child’s immediate soul forces—would lead the child to what is being denoted. Therefore, when the child enters school at the age of six or seven, we must not begin to teach the written characters in this manner. Here at the Waldorf School, all instruction—including that of writing, which precedes reading—stems from a certain appeal to the child’s artistic sense. From the very beginning, we teach the child a certain ability to engage in drawing and painting with colors—not merely with pencils—so that through drawing, painting, and artistic expression—as we can introduce these to the child in a simple way—we provide a foundation from which we can then develop the shapes of the letters. Certainly, such things are already observed elsewhere; but here, once again, it comes down to the “how.” Above all, it is essential that we introduce to the child that which does not appeal to the intellect—where one must memorize something—but rather that which appeals primarily to the will, and that, through drawing and painting, we gradually guide the child toward what can arise from the will: the intellectual understanding of the subject.

[ 43 ] And so we guide the children from stage to stage by developing everything from within the child’s own nature. Except for the curriculum, everything that is to happen to the child can in fact be read from the child’s developing nature. This is precisely what anthroposophical knowledge of human nature entails.

[ 44 ] I would like to point out here that one can, for example, clearly observe how a child is spoiled: one does not teach the child concepts, feelings, and impulses of the will that develop gradually if one begins too early to draw the child’s attention to the difference between the external world and the child’s own inner life. Up until about the age of nine, the child does not distinguish itself from the world at all. However, one must not apply such abstract concepts as some do today, who say: “Well, when a child bumps into the corner of a table, it hits the table because it considers the table to be something alive.” That is, of course, nonsense. The child does not at all regard the table as something living; it treats the table just as it would another child, because it does not distinguish between itself and the table; the concept of life plays no role at all in this. The concept for that does not yet exist. One must always deal with real, concrete concepts, not with what one imagines. Whatever is introduced to the child up to the age of nine must have a purely human character; it must, so to speak, presuppose throughout that the child places itself within the world and regards everything it sees as part of itself, just as it does its own organism. Certainly, if one wishes to make a rough distinction, one can point to this or that instance where the child differs from its surroundings; but one cannot achieve a more refined education unless one truly brings everything to life, unless one turns everything into a parable—not a dead one, but a living one—in what one teaches the child about life and death between the ages of seven and nine.

[ 45 ] Between the ages of nine and ten, something extraordinarily important occurs for the child. It is only then that the child truly learns to distinguish itself from its surroundings. It is only at this age that we can truly help the child understand the nature of plants and animals, which is independent of human beings. But something very significant is taking place in the child’s nature at this time. And it is essential that the teacher or educator be able to observe how this occurs earlier in one child and somewhat later in another; something is taking place in the deepest recesses of the child’s soul. The child becomes a different being. The child learns to distinguish itself from the world through feeling, not through concepts. If one observes this moment in the right way—by finding the right words and the right behavior precisely between the ages of nine and ten—one can thereby do something that is of immense importance for the child’s entire life. During this phase of a child’s life, one can contribute to a sense of desolation, so that the child goes through life plagued by doubts, inner desolation, and inner dissatisfaction. Or, if one possesses inner vitality oneself, if one has enough empathy to grasp this moment in the right way—to, as it were, immerse oneself in the child’s being and find the right words and actions from within the child itself—then one can do something of immense significance for the child at this most crucial moment. And observing the right moments in a child’s life for this or that—this is what matters most in something like Waldorf school pedagogy and didactics.

[ 46 ] From this point on, it is certainly possible to introduce the child to simple descriptions of plants, simple descriptions of animals, and so on; whereas before, all of this must be treated equally. And between the eleventh and twelfth years—actually, only around the twelfth year—does the opportunity arise to teach the child what then becomes the subject matter of physics and the inorganic world. Only then, after the child has internally absorbed everything that truly grounds them in life, only then can one point to the inanimate through the living.

[ 47 ] And so the child is guided—I am mentioning only a few characteristic examples that I have singled out—until the age at which elementary school generally ends, that is, the age of sexual maturity.

[ 48 ] So much is discussed, philosophized about, and psychoanalyzed today regarding sexual maturity, and so on. But what really matters is this: just as the loss of baby teeth marks an important stage of life, so too does sexual maturity mark an important stage of life. Sexual maturity itself is merely one link in a metamorphosis that encompasses much of what it means to be human at this stage of life. What occurs in the child during the change of teeth is that the child’s inner soul forces—which previously acted within the organism—have been set free. Between the ages of seven and about fourteen, we are dealing with what can truly be developed in the child in the way I have spoken of today. With the onset of puberty, the child enters the stage of life where, in a sense, they first begin to approach the external world with true discernment. Whereas previously they brought their own being to the surface from the depths of their organism, they now become capable of taking in the spiritual aspect of the world as such. This is one of the greatest challenges in education, and also one of the most significant challenges for a truly vital pedagogy: how to educate the child between the ages of seven and fourteen so as to guide it in a completely natural way toward the age when it can actually develop an independent, individual attitude toward the world—an attitude of which sexual love is merely one aspect. What comes to the fore in sexual love—in love for another human being—is merely one link in the whole of human social life.

[ 49 ] We must help people develop their inner selves to the point where they can follow the events of the outer world with interest, so that they do not pass by the things toward which they are meant to feel affection. We must help people develop into social beings as they reach sexual maturity. But we must also, in a certain sense, develop human beings into devout beings—devout not in a sanctimonious sense, but in the sense that they truly develop within themselves that seriousness through which they grow into a life in which the outer, sensory-physical realm is everywhere permeated by the spiritual; a life that is not content with observing merely the outwardly physical and sensory, but is able to perceive the spiritual foundations everywhere.

[ 50 ] At the time when a person presents his true nature to us and believes in our authority, we must offer him, from within ourselves, that which, in a sense, is the world to him. If, by being their teachers and educators, we have helped them find a world within us, then they are properly prepared to face the world as devout and social beings. We release them from our authority—which provided them with the world—into the world itself.

[ 51 ] I will briefly touch on one of the most significant problems of cognition. Anyone who encourages a child to form judgments too early—to judge independently—instills forces of death rather than life-giving forces into the developing child. Only the person who uses his or her authority in such a way as to truly awaken in the child a natural belief that he is doing the right thing and saying the right thing, and that this may be accepted—in other words, whoever is, in this sense, the child’s representative of the world—prepares the child not by controlling its intellect, not by controlling any judgmental abilities, but prepares it through his own living humanity to continue unfolding in the world as a living human being. Life must be developed through life. Not by starting from abstract imagery or abstract intellectual concepts, but by presenting the child with a world embodied in a living human being—that is how we make the child a true citizen of the world.

[ 52 ] All of this can indeed be summarized in a few strokes, but it presupposes that one can look into the details of the child’s developing faculties—I would say—day by day. Then the way in which one brings something into the classroom through the door has the effect that the child truly climbs up from the life of the educator, the teacher, toward a life of their own. Then there is no need to say such amateurish things as: “Learning should be a joy for children.” —Many people say that today. Just try it once and see how far you get with such an abstract principle! In many respects, learning may not be a source of joy for children; but through the vitality one brings to the work of the school, one should nurture the children in such a way that they approach even those things that do not bring them joy with a certain curiosity, with a certain thirst for knowledge—so that the very way the teacher goes about his work serves as a preparation for what they can learn through him.

[ 53 ] This naturally leads to the development of a sense of duty. In doing so, however, we are pointing to something that lies even deeper than the realm of education itself. We are pointing to something where a pedagogy and didactics truly drawn from a spiritual foundation can directly mature into a source of enrichment for our entire cultural life.

[ 54 ] We certainly revere Schiller and Goethe as leading intellectual figures, and you would not expect someone who, like me, has studied Goethe and Schiller for more than forty years and has written extensively about both of them, to fail to regard these figures with the fullest, most heartfelt, and warmest appreciation. However, there is one point I would like to draw attention to in this context.

[ 55 ] When Schiller—after having initially distanced himself from Goethe for all sorts of personal reasons—then drew close to Goethe in a deep friendship during the 1790s, he wrote his famous “Letters on the Aesthetic Education of Man,” which, unfortunately, are far too rarely read and studied today. He wrote them under the influence of how Goethe worked, how Goethe thought, and how Goethe conducted himself in the world. In these letters on aesthetic education there is a remarkable sentence: “Man is only fully human when he plays, and he plays only when he is human in the fullest sense of the word.” - Schiller intends to point out how external life essentially reduces human beings to a kind of slavery, how human beings groan under the necessities of external life, how they must, so to speak, submerge themselves beneath something that forces them into a yoke, whereas they follow their own impulses only as practitioners of the artistic, as creators of the artistic, and as those who take artistic pleasure; when, for example, they behave like a child at play, who does what they do solely out of their innermost life impulse. What Schiller presents in these aesthetic letters is beautiful, wonderfully and genuinely human in its conception.

[ 56 ] On the other hand, however, this merely shows that, as modern scientific and technical culture emerged, such distinguished minds as Goethe and Schiller felt compelled to assert—in order to ensure the proper appreciation of the human being—that people must step away from life, that they must, so to speak, step away from work and into play in order to become fully human. Today, when we consider the social conditions that the 20th century has created for us, we feel quite differently about life. We feel that we bear the infinite burden of gravity, which stems from the fact that we must learn to understand how every human being must engage with the work of life, how life must be worth living in social terms and in terms of individual human relationships—not merely by turning to play, but by finding our place in work in a manner befitting human dignity. That is why, today, the social question begins with the question of education and instruction, because we must teach, because we must educate in the sense that the individual becomes a worker, because we must instill the concept of duty already in school in the correct, self-evident way—not through admonitions and sermons. We can do this only in the manner that has been indicated—based on a proper understanding of human nature grounded in sound principles.

[ 57 ] There we will establish true schools of work—not schools in which, for example, the principle is established that teaching and education should, as far as possible, be turned into a frivolous pastime, but rather schools where, through the life that brings authority into the school, even the most difficult aspects are accepted from the child, and the child is actively drawn toward what must be overcome, not toward what it merely enjoys doing.

[ 58 ] This is precisely the pedagogical foundation upon which the Waldorf School is built: that the child learns to work in the right way, that the child is introduced to the world—with their whole being—a world that, in social terms, demands work, but which also demands that people relate to one another in the right way, and above all, that they relate to themselves in the right way. For this reason, for example, in the Waldorf school we have introduced, alongside ordinary physical education—which has grown out of the physiology of the body and has an extraordinarily beneficial effect in this regard—eurythmy, which develops body, soul, and spirit, and which is a visible language.

[ 59 ] In Dornach, one can learn what is meant by eurythmy—how it actually exists, just as audible languages and singing exist, there is such a form of speech through gestures and signs—not through facial expressions, but through regular movements of the human limbs or movements of groups of people, derived from the body’s structure, through which the same things can be expressed as through audible language or singing. And over the past two years at the Waldorf School, we have certainly been able to see how, from the lowest to the highest grades, when eurythmy is properly cultivated, the children find their way into it with the same natural ease as a younger child finds its way into language.

[ 60 ] I once discussed this in an introduction to a eurythmy performance in Dornach. One of the most famous physiologists of our time was present—if I were to tell you his name, you would be surprised—and he said to me, after I had remarked: “We do not want to underestimate gymnastics, but a future generation will judge more impartially and will recognize the value of the spiritual and soul-oriented gymnastics of eurythmy alongside ordinary gymnastics”—he came up to me and said: “You said that gymnastics fits favorably into modern education, that it is based on physiology.” As a physiologist, I say that gymnastics is barbaric. — That’s not me saying it; it’s one of the most famous physiologists of our time.

[ 61 ] It is precisely this kind of thing that can lead one to conclude that the statement is correct: “Consider not so much the what, but rather the how.” - One can truly feel a sense of joy deep inside at times when reading what is written in our educational and didactic manuals—the achievements of the great educators—but one must find the right “how”; one must discover how what has been correctly conceived can be properly brought to life.

[ 62 ] But this is precisely what the Waldorf teacher must discover anew every day. For whatever is to have life must be grounded in life itself. Spiritual Science itself ultimately leads the human being to perceive truths that, even if they are the same every day, move him anew each day. With our ordinary knowledge, which relates to material things, we rely on memory. What has once been taken in is then remembered; it is drawn forth from the treasure trove of one’s memory. What one has once learned, one possesses; it is then linked to one’s being. Certainly, for ordinary life it is necessary for a person to have this treasure trove of memories. But the living does not correspond to this intellectualistic approach. The intellectualistic approach relies on memory; the living does not—not even in its lowest realms. Just consider this: if you were to say, “I ate as a small child, and that is for my whole life”—just as you say, “I learned as a small child, and that is for my whole life.” —You must eat anew every day, because a living process is at work, and what is taken in by the living organism is truly processed. In the same way, spiritual matters are also taken in in a living way, and it is from this living spirit that work must proceed in an anthroposophically oriented pedagogy.

[ 63 ] That is what I have sought to describe to you in brief strokes, merely pointing to what has been elaborated upon in the anthroposophical books, including those sections that deal with education. This is what I wanted to point out to you as the pedagogical foundation of the Waldorf School—this experimental school founded by our friend Emil Molt, which by no means seeks to position itself in a rebellious manner within the current pedagogical and didactic educational system, but rather aims only to bring to fruition what has, admittedly, been hinted at and called for in a more abstract way on many occasions. However, anyone who objectively observes the life into which modern—and especially European—humanity has gradually fallen will recognize that many things will need to be explored more deeply in our time. In the wake of the terrible catastrophe of the second decade of the 20th century—which crushed the finest fruits of humanity—it will have to be acknowledged that it is important to impart to future generations something different, spiritually, emotionally, and physically, than what our contemporaries received—for which so many of them have had to pay such a high price. And the person who is perhaps most entitled to view life through the lens of pedagogy and the art of education will be able to approach such an endeavor with complete impartiality—namely, the father or mother who is responsible for the care of their sons and daughters. Those who, as parents, have come to know the great, catastrophic realities of contemporary life will undoubtedly welcome any effort that, rooted in deeper social and spiritual foundations, seeks to secure for the coming generation something better than what many can have in the present. That this coming generation might have a better life than is often possible today—this is something parents, above all, have every reason to wish for their children; this is something parents, above all, have the right to demand of teachers and educators. Such a thought, such an ideal, was at the forefront of our minds as we sought to lay the pedagogical foundation for the Waldort School.

[ 64 ] From the discussion

[ 65 ] Question: Dr. Steiner spoke about the importance of authority, and that is something our young people want very little to do with. Every teacher—and not least every pastor—can see this for themselves. There are many different trends among our youth; one can observe a certain turning away from all authority—both the authority of the parental home and the authority of the spiritual world. Parents sometimes feel that they simply have no say in the matter anymore; they have to let them go their own way. On the other hand, of course, one sometimes sees how things turn out, and it pains one to realize that young people do not always reach the goal they are seeking. There is something there that prevents young people from feeling a sense of authority—something that has planted a thorn against it. —Perhaps Dr. Steiner would be so kind as to tell us something about where this comes from: why there is such a peculiar ferment among our youth that they are no longer satisfied at all, are particularly fond of complaining; and why we simply can no longer really reach them—which we regret. I have studied many books on the subject, but I have not yet found in any of them the path that is actually viable. And so I would be grateful if Dr. Steiner could say something that would provide insight into the soul of youth.

[ 66 ] Dr. Steiner: This is, of course, a topic that would require an entire lecture if one were to cover it exhaustively—a lecture that would have to be at least as long as the one I, much to my regret, have just had to deliver at such length—not that I regret the lecture itself, but I am sorry that you had to listen for so long! But I would at least like to say a few words in response to the remarks made by the previous speaker.

[ 67 ] You see, in my life—which is by no means short anymore—I have truly tried to pursue precisely the kinds of things that the previous speaker has just touched upon. On the one hand, I have truly come to understand what it means to have experienced in one’s childhood, for example, hearing talk of a beloved relative whom one had not yet met, you’ve heard so much about him, and you’ve come to understand how the people you grow up with every day—your parents, your guardians—think of this revered relative. I’ve experienced what it means to be taken to such a revered relative for the first time and to have gripped the doorknob with sacred awe. Experiencing something like that is something that remains significant throughout one’s entire life. And there is no sense of freedom in life that truly corresponds to human dignity that is not built on the foundation of such awe and reverence in childhood.

[ 68 ] However, I also saw something else. In Berlin, I met a socialist who had become very famous and who had given many socialist speeches. One day, I also read an article by her in an otherwise quite reputable newspaper, which was titled: “The Children’s Revolution.” And in it, she argues in a thoroughly socialist manner that, since older people have all made revolutions—or at least talk about revolutions—children should now also talk about revolutions—that is, children should make revolutions. And it wasn’t even entirely clear whether she was referring to children who were not yet of school age. This is another example of what we have witnessed in this area over the past few decades.

[ 69 ] A third example is that I read some earnest suggestions from an educator that schools should provide designated books in which, at the end of—I believe—a week or a month, students should write down what they think of their teachers. The whole idea amounted to striving for a future in which it is not the teachers who evaluate the students, but rather the students who evaluate the teachers.

[ 70 ] Well, one cannot properly assess all these things unless one considers them in the context of our entire lives. And perhaps this will seem paradoxical to you as well, but I do believe that the question raised here must be answered within a broader context. You see, through our scientific and technological culture—which is, on the one hand, so magnificent, but which, by its very nature, necessarily tends toward intellectualism—we have gradually lost the true permeation of the human soul with the living spiritual. What people today usually imagine when they think of the spiritual are merely concepts and ideas—in fact, they are really just mental images of some kind of spiritual reality. The most influential philosophers speak of the spiritual in this way, by making conceptual deductions. This is precisely what anthroposophical Spiritual Science seeks to overcome. It does not want people merely to speak of the spirit or to reduce the spiritual to concepts and mental images; rather, it wants people to become imbued with the living spiritual itself. But when a person becomes imbued with this living spiritual reality, they very soon realize that we have gradually lost this living spiritual reality, and that today we have a very great need to return to this living spiritual reality once again, even as adults. After all, as adults, we particularly lack this living spiritual reality when we consider ourselves truly enlightened. At best, we are agnostics; at best, we say: Natural science can go only so far, but there the limits of scientific knowledge lie. That it is precisely at these limits that the struggle for knowledge begins—and that this struggle then leads, through life, into the spiritual world—is something of which today’s education, fundamentally speaking, has little understanding.

[ 71 ] And what has caused this, or how did it come about, that we have lost the spirit in our speech? You can read countless works today and you will find: essentially, we are dealing only with words that actually roll out of human souls more or less automatically. Anyone today who has even a little open-minded understanding of spiritual life often needs only to read the first few lines of an article or the first few pages of a book to know what the author thinks about the issues at hand; for the author thinks precisely what naturally follows from the flow of the words. When life loses its spirit, it turns into a life of empty phrases, and that is what we so often encounter in our cultural life today. We do not have the living spirit that speaks from the whole, full human being; rather, when we speak of spiritual life or seek to be immersed in it, we often resort to empty phrases. But not only in the sense that many people think—above all, empty rhetoric is prevalent in the so-called “glorious” public education we have. Please, just think for a moment about how much life there is in this or that political party, which has the most beautiful party slogans. People get carried away by party slogans. This may indeed bring a certain satisfaction to the intellect, but it does not touch life itself. And so one must say that what is manifesting itself precisely at the height of agnosticism—which has already gradually penetrated even the broadest strata of society—is thoroughly permeated by empty rhetoric. In our lives today, for example, because we live in a world of empty phrases, we no longer seek the vitality of the word, because the word does not spring deeply enough from our soul. Change can only be brought about in this regard if we once again allow ourselves to be permeated by the spiritual. Fourteen days ago, I wrote an essay for our magazine *Das Goetheanum* titled “The Buried Spiritual Life”; I drew attention to the magnificent works one can read by people who, let’s say, were still writing around the middle of the 19th century. Very few people know this. I showed some individuals the books I had referred to, and these books really look as if they had been pored over continuously for a decade and then dusted off afterward. Then people asked me: “Where did you get these books?”—“Well,” I said, “I have a habit of browsing at antiquarian bookstores from time to time, and there I ask for the relevant catalogs and say, ‘Please bring me the books listed under such-and-such a heading.’” And there I found all sorts of things that are simply forgotten today, that won’t be reprinted, but which provide proof that spiritual life has indeed been buried to a certain extent.

[ 72 ] You see, the natural sciences cannot fall into empty rhetoric for one very simple reason: they are bound to experimentation and observation; as experiments, they are purely intellectual facts that conform to laws of nature. But otherwise, we have gradually slipped into a life of empty rhetoric. And this life of empty rhetoric is a side effect of the great one-sidedness of scientific and technological development. It is this life of empty rhetoric that, along with many other unfortunate aspects of our time, must also be held responsible for what the previous speaker mentioned. For the child has, in fact, a thoroughly intangible relationship with adults. Adults may converse in platitudes, particularly at party meetings; but when one offers platitudes to a child, the child cannot follow along. And what happens then, when one offers platitudes to a child—regardless of whether they are religious, scientific, or Enlightenment-era platitudes—what happens? What happens is that the soul receives no substance. For the cliché does not become substance for the soul. And then the instincts rise up from the depths. And just as we see today in external social life in the East, where one sought to establish in Leninism and Trotskyism a realm of clichés—for it is nothing but a realm of clichés— just as—since these phrases are not creative—the wildest instincts emerge from the depths, so too does what constitutes the instincts emerge among the youth. These instincts are not even always pathological; they simply prove to us that the older generation has failed to imbue the phrase with a soul. Basically, our youth problem today is already, in a certain sense, an older generation’s problem, a parents’ problem. We simply confront youth—we confront children—in such a way that we are terribly smart and the children are the terribly stupid ones. Whereas often the wisest person is the one who can learn the most from a child. One relates to a child in a completely different way when one does not approach them with clichés. And so the very youth toward whom we ourselves have shown no soul is growing up to meet us. That we must not seek the errors in youth itself—this, my esteemed audience, is nevertheless shown to us in many respects by the short time during which the Waldorf School has been in operation.

[ 73 ] As you have seen, Waldorf education is based primarily on the role of the teacher. And I must admit, there is something to it: every time I come to Stuttgart—unfortunately not often, since I can really only lead and visit the school very sporadically—in every class, without boring the children, I ask the question in some context: “Children, do you like your teachers?”—You should hear and see how the children enthusiastically answer in unison: “Yes!” —And this appeal to the love that teachers can show the children is precisely what is inherent in the way older generations treat the young. And I can also say: we established the school from the outset as a comprehensive elementary school, so that the children are out of their parents’ homes for the entire school day. Yes, it could sometimes be frightening to walk into the school and observe this discipline, especially during breaks between classes. People quick to pass judgment said: “There you see what a free Waldorf school is like; the children are all becoming undisciplined.” Yes, you see, the children came to us from other schools; they had been raised with what is called “iron discipline.” Now the children are already much calmer, but when they first came to us, still carrying that iron discipline within them, they were really quite rowdy. Actually, the only well-behaved children were the first-graders who came straight from home—though even they weren’t always so. But every time I visit, I notice progress, especially in discipline. And now, after a little more than two years, you can see the great transformation. The children certainly won’t become whiners, but simply because they know they can turn to their teachers with confidence when this or that happens—they’re treated in this or that way, their concerns are addressed—they become trusting; they change as well; they don’t become whiny; they’re loud and all sorts of things; but the kind of discipline one can expect gradually develops. And what I called in the lecture a natural sense of authority also develops.

[ 74 ] It’s truly wonderful when, for example, you hear: a student joined the Waldorf School; he was already fourteen years old, in the highest grade, and actually arrived as a rather dissatisfied boy. He could no longer believe in his old school, but of course, a new school doesn’t offer anything either in just a few days. The school is a whole, and if you cut a piece out of a painting, you certainly can’t judge the whole painting by that one piece. People think, for example, that they know the school after visiting it for just one or two days. That’s nonsense; you don’t get to know the anthroposophical method by taking just a small part of it: you have to understand the whole spirit. So, naturally, it was the case for the boy who arrived there that nothing he encountered in the first few days immediately satisfied him, especially since he had come in feeling dissatisfied. But after some time, it turned out that he had gone to his history teacher—he turned to him because the teacher made a tremendous impression on him—and he confided his troubles to him. Afterward, he was as if transformed. Such a thing is only possible through this relationship of self-evident authority. You see, these are the things that then become quite clearly evident when what I meant here by “natural authority” is truly brought about through the qualities of the teachers. I do not believe it is premature to say that the spirit the previous speaker alluded to will not speak through the young people who pass through the Waldorf School. The point is precisely that it is the teachers who, first and foremost, must guide the misguided impulses of these young people back onto the right path.

[ 75 ] Well, at the Waldorf School, we hold faculty meetings in a different way than is usually customary. In these meetings, every single child is actually discussed, but from a psychological perspective. And we have all learned an extraordinary amount during our two years of Waldorf pedagogy. Teaching, educating, and instructing are, in fact, a living organism.

[ 76 ] We would never have been able to establish our Waldorf school if we hadn’t made certain compromises. Therefore, right at the start of the Waldorf School, I drafted a memorandum for the Ministry in which I stated: We commit to ensuring that by the age of nine, the children are prepared to transfer to any other school; then again at age twelve, and again at age fourteen. But in the meantime, we want complete freedom regarding our teaching methods. That is certainly a compromise, but one must simply make do with the circumstances at hand. Nevertheless, in certain areas we were able to implement what is simply a matter of course for sound pedagogy and didactics: for example, the grading system. You see, I experienced this myself in my youth—the report card would say: “almost commendable,” “barely satisfactory,” and so on. But I never figured out what wisdom led the teachers to distinguish between “barely satisfactory” and “almost satisfactory”; that has still eluded me. Excuse me, but that’s how it is. Instead of such grades, we issue report cards that use the teacher’s own words to address the child—words that contain no numbers and are therefore mere empty phrases to the child. For if something makes no sense, it is simply an empty phrase. As the child gradually grows into life, the teacher writes in the report card what is specifically necessary for that child; so that each child’s report card says something different—a kind of characterization of the child. And then, when the school year is over, we give each child a saying that suits them. Of course, it does take some time for each child to receive their report card in this way. The child takes it in hand and sees a mirror before them. I have yet to find a child who has not taken their report card in hand with interest, even if not everything was particularly praised. And the guiding motto, in particular, is something that can truly mean something to the child. You see, we must use every means possible to instill in the children the feeling that those who guide and educate them issue the report cards in a serious manner—not in a one-sided way, but in a way that shows a genuine interest in the child. So a great deal depends on our culture—our culture of clichés—gradually evolving away from the old ways, and on ensuring that, as young people grow up, they are met with the right understanding. I am also aware, of course, that this is connected to certain forces of the national psyche; however, mastering those is even more difficult.

[ 77 ] At none of the various conventions we’ve had recently has there actually been a lack—you might be surprised—of a certain number of people from one group or another within the youth movement. There were always a certain number of those people who are called “Wandervögel” and so on. They all came to us, and I never minced words. But people saw that I wasn’t spouting empty phrases to them; I spoke to them—even if it was something entirely different from what they had concocted in their dreamy minds—and it came straight from the heart; its truth comes from the heart. And above all at our last congress in Stuttgart, where once again a number of people from this youth movement were present—people who otherwise really aren’t inclined to give any credence to authority, people who say: “Everything must grow from within, grow on its own,” and so on—they wouldn’t be swayed by anyone’s arguments—at the last congress in Stuttgart, it was unanimously decided to even found an anthroposophical youth group after one and a half or two hours of discussion.

[ 78 ] It really comes down to how older people reach out to young people. Based on my own experience—which has been confirmed to me in numerous instances—I cannot help but point out that today’s youth issue is, in many ways, an issue for older people. Perhaps we will best answer the question of the youth movement if we look less at the youth and a little more within ourselves.

[ 79 ] X: Let a young person speak. Please forgive me if I use a strong word: We young people, so to speak, no longer have any authority figures. And why? Because our parents don’t have them either. When we talk to our parents or even to older people, we always gather from their words that they have no reverence for others, that they’re always nitpicking over trifles, and that, so to speak, they’re casting themselves in a bad light. We young people generally get the impression from our educators that they have sometimes become walking compromises and that they cannot bring themselves to take a definite stand and say from the bottom of their hearts: “This is what I believe, and I stand by it.”—You never really know whether they’re leaning one way or the other. And we always get this feeling from our parents or educators that they don’t really want to characterize young people, but rather to judge and criticize them. When I think about how we work together in our youth group and the kinds of things that come our way—I’ll single out two very characteristic examples: once we read Blüchner and Morgenstern together. You just have to create a mental image of those contrasts. And this is how it is every day; things come rushing at us, and there’s nowhere—no center—to hold on to. Nowhere is there—even if it’s not a thought—at least a person, a truly living person, present. How can one teach, after all, if there isn’t, so to speak, a living person behind the material, someone whose presence you can sense when they’re lecturing.... . Then we would be enthusiastic about the subject. But as long as our educators do not face us as human beings who are not afraid to laugh at themselves in front of us, we simply cannot have the necessary trust in them. We young people—I can say this from my own conviction—are searching for an authority figure. We seek a focal point, an anchor, from which we can rise and into which we can grow into a life that is a true inner life. And that is why our youth throws itself at everything new that appears; it hopes that one day it will catch a glimpse of something that could mean something to it. But when they do catch hold of something, it is only a great confusion of opinions, views, and judgments—judgments that are not really judgments at all, but at best mere condemnations.

[ 80 ] If I may say something to the first speaker: He asked about a book in which one could read why things are the way they are among young people. No, I tell you, read our work for yourself! But if you want to talk to young people, you have to stand before them as a living person and reach out to them. Then the young person will also reach out. And then it will become clear to the young person what the older person wants, and to the older person, what the young person wants.

[ 81 ] Y: As a teacher, I would like to ask Dr. Steiner whether he does not believe, as the first speaker in this discussion suggested, that a particular spirit does indeed live among today’s youth—particularly in larger cities—a spirit to which a teacher with a thoroughly human outlook may no longer do justice to the same extent that the same teacher might have been able to fifty years ago. The fault has quite rightly been attributed to the older generation; but the fact cannot be entirely dismissed that today’s youth—the socially conscious youth—is composed of elements in which a spirit of skepticism prevails, that perhaps a teacher with an attitude like Dr. Steiner’s does not have a mental image of how it would be possible for him to imagine how one is met with great arrogance, and that social contradictions are seeping into the youth—that perhaps, in part due to ideas imbued with social democratic thought, false mental images are being fostered among the young regarding a drive for independence and the like, which also make it difficult or impossible even for a teacher who approaches the youth with an open mind to have the kind of impact that might have been possible for him only a short time ago. Dr. Steiner’s response gave the impression that all these actions on the part of the youth were simply reactions to shortcomings on the part of the teachers. Certainly, a larger percentage of us may be subject to these shortcomings, but is this true of all teachers? That is the question. And won’t even those few who are not afflicted by these shortcomings to such a degree have to acknowledge that a different kind of youth exists today, that things are more difficult, that a spirit of disbelief and skepticism prevails among the students and makes the teacher’s work more difficult?

[ 82 ] Dr. Steiner: Yes, if you frame the question that way, you won’t get anywhere. It’s completely unproductive from the start. It certainly cannot be a matter of simply stating that young people have changed and that perhaps it was easier to deal with them fifty years ago; rather, it is really only a matter of finding the means and ways to deal with young people today. And after all, young people are growing up to meet us halfway. Nor is there much to be gained from talking about how they are led to skepticism by social democratic prejudices and the like. That is just as unproductive as criticizing a natural product that grows in a certain way—and that is exactly what youth do; they grow toward us like a natural product—instead of thinking about how best to treat it. So, if one truly wishes to bring this question onto fruitful ground, it can really only be a matter of how we relate to youth today. This question will by no means be answered if one presents—as it were—the fact that youth has now become different from what it was fifty or more years ago as something to be accepted fatalistically. It has become different! And if one has followed the course of life, one will see how this very change also represents a kind of growth, a kind of transformation into something greater. I draw attention to how, for example, things have been stirring in poetry; one should read or look at such works. After all, such works are still sometimes performed—let’s say, dramatic poems from the 1880s—in which the relationship between the younger and older generations is depicted; there one will see that what is portrayed there has existed throughout the centuries and was already perceived as a catastrophe back then. In comparison, what we see today is mere child’s play. But as I said, merely stating this fact gets us nowhere. Everywhere, the question is how to regain the authority that gives individual people the ability, as teachers and educators, to relate to young people in the right way. In my opinion, this does not disprove the fact that, in general, it is indeed true that young people today, on the whole, do not find in their elders a point of reference for genuine authority; rather, young people today find in their elders—more so than was the case in earlier times, including the period just behind us—compromises and the like. We see this even in major world events—that compromises are sought everywhere—and so the question must simply be answered, even on a grand scale: How do we regain authority? I must say, I also know that there are such teachers—capable people—like those you mentioned. But in their cases, the youth are generally different as well. Anyone who can discern the difference will already notice that the youth there are different as well.

[ 83 ] So one should not arrive at conclusions in this direction based on overly hypothetical judgments, but rather be quite clear that, ultimately, the nature of youth is, on the whole, to be found in the older generation. Nor were my remarks intended to hold the teachers of the young—simply because they are older—solely responsible for the mistakes of the young. One is, after all, very tempted to point out how this lack of authority is actually making itself felt in the most terrible way precisely where our historical events are unfolding. Consider certain moments during the catastrophe of the war: people sought replacements for older, leading figures. What kind of people were found? In France, Clemenceau; in Germany, Hertling—all elderly men of the oldest sort, who are regarded as authorities solely because they were once significant, not people who knew how to establish their position directly out of the present. And now? We have seen this recently: three prime ministers in major countries have had their positions shaken. All three remain in their posts today simply because no other authorities could be found—for no other reason! Thus, even in the major aspects of life today, we see that authority is being undermined precisely among those who are supposed to lead our lives. It was not the youth who brought this about in this area; yet the youth’s faith in authority is severely shaken when such things affect them, when they witness such events firsthand.

[ 84 ] So we really need to approach this question more deeply and, above all, more constructively, and realize that we don’t need to complain about the way young people treat us now; rather, we should focus above all on how we, in turn, relate to them. For example, simply mingling with them and starting to complain—“Kids, you’re too bad for me, I can’t get anything done with you, I don’t know what to do with you anymore”—that is unproductive. Productive development must strive, above all, to seek that spiritual life and that life in general which makes it possible to restore young people’s faith in their elders. Anyone who knows young people knows this: young people find happiness when they can believe in their elders. They truly find happiness; skepticism soon ceases when there is something genuine that young people can believe in. In general, it is not yet the case that only what is true governs life. But generally speaking, when people say something that actually has inner substance, young people are nevertheless drawn to it. If one could no longer believe in this—if one spent one’s entire life complaining about people’s shortcomings and talking only about them—then nothing will be achieved.