The Rudolf Steiner Archive

5. Educational and Teaching Methods Based on Anthroposophy

[ 1 ] Ladies and gentlemen! First, I would like to express my heartfelt thanks to the Rector and to all of you here for your kind welcome. I hope that I will be able to make myself understood here, even though I am speaking in a language that is unfamiliar to you. I must apologize that I am unable to address the following remarks to you in your language.

[ 2 ] The topic of discussion for tonight and tomorrow evening is intended to be a presentation of educational and teaching methods based on anthroposophy. I ask you not to assume from the outset that anthroposophy, in the various spheres of life where it seeks to bear fruit, aims for anything radically subversive; it does not seek this either in the realm of science or in the various other spheres of life. On the contrary, it seeks to be a true continuation, a true fulfillment of what has long been prepared in the spiritual culture of modern humanity.

[ 3 ] However, because of its perspectives—and because of what it believes it has gained in terms of knowledge and insights into life and the universe—it is compelled to seek the continuation and fulfillment of scientific thought and practical action by a different path than is often taken today. Therefore, even if anthroposophy encounters opposition from this or that representative of the contemporary spirit, it does not seek to wage a battle against this spirit or against the achievements of modern civilization; rather, it seeks to guide precisely those great and significant foundations contained within modern civilization toward a fruitful goal.

[ 4 ] This applies particularly to the field of education. In the field of education, I had no reason to publish anything more in-depth other than my short treatise on “The Education of the Child from the Perspective of Spiritual Science,” which appeared years ago, until Emil Molt founded the Waldorf School in Stuttgart.

[ 5 ] The founding of this Waldorf school, in a sense, challenged what anthroposophy has to say in terms of pedagogy and didactics. The Free Waldorf School in Stuttgart emerged from the aspirations that existed in various regions of Central Europe following the provisional end of the catastrophe of war.

[ 6 ] Among the many things that were said there was this: Perhaps the most significant of all social issues is the question of education—the question of schooling. And based on purely practical considerations, Emil Molt initially founded this Free Waldorf School with the children of the workers at his company, the Waldorf-Astoria Factory.

[ 7 ] At first, we only had children from the Molt factory. Over the past two years, children from all walks of life have joined them, so that the Free Waldorf School in Stuttgart is now truly a unified school, attended by children from all social classes and backgrounds, and one in which the principles of anthroposophy are to be applied in a pedagogical and didactic manner. Anthroposophy aims to be not subversive, but rather progressive, particularly in this field.

[ 8 ] One need only point out how great educators of the 19th century continued to influence the 20th, and how, especially if one is serious about the education of youth, one can be deeply inspired by the powerful, comprehensive principles and maxims that have emerged in recent times through the work of great educators. But despite all this, there are always pressing educational issues. One might say: Not a year goes by without some desire for reform in the educational system or in teaching arising.

[ 9 ] Why is it that, on the one hand, one feels like cheering inwardly when one embraces the insightful educational principles of the great modern educators, while, on the other hand, a certain sense of dissatisfaction repeatedly surfaces when it comes to, let’s say, educational and teaching practices?

[ 10 ] Let me just draw attention to one specific point: Pestalozzi enjoys a worldwide reputation, and he certainly ranks among the great educators of modern times just mentioned. Nevertheless, thinkers—such as Herbert Spencer—have sharply and explicitly emphasized that while one may agree with Pestalozzi’s grand principles, the practical application of his educational and teaching methods has by no means lived up to the high expectations placed upon them. Herbert Spencer then adds to this by saying: Pestalozzi’s principles are good, they are outstanding, but—as he observed decades ago—we are still not in a position today to apply in specific cases what is generally and abstractly required for education and instruction.

[ 11 ] You see, my esteemed audience, anthroposophy does not seek to establish new maxims or new principles of instruction. What matters to it is precisely the practice of education. And just as the Waldorf school grew out of practical life, so too has what exists today in anthroposophical pedagogy and didactics grown not out of a theory, not out of any abstract principles, but out of the practical treatment of human beings. Anthroposophy believes that, precisely with regard to this practical approach to dealing with people—especially children—it can make a very special contribution. What is the basis of anthroposophy as such?

[ 12 ] It faces a great deal of hostility today; this cannot be said to stem from a deep understanding, but rather from many misunderstandings. Those who are deeply immersed in anthroposophy can fully understand these attacks and this opposition. For modern people believe they have arrived at a kind of unified worldview based on the foundations of the natural sciences and on all manner of cultural-historical findings. Anthroposophy now requires people today to think about themselves in a way that seems entirely different from what can be justified in the light of modern natural science. All of this is only apparent, but at first one believes that anthroposophical insights cannot be justified in the light of modern natural science.

[ 13 ] Today, for good reasons, we are essentially studying the physical, bodily aspects of human beings using the precise, marvelous methods of modern natural science. And as for the soul—it is not denied everywhere; on the contrary, those who deny the soul, who speak of a “psychology without a soul,” as was common for a time, have in fact become quite rare. But this spiritual aspect is viewed solely in such a way that one examines the physical and then attempts to infer the spiritual from this or that manifestation of the physical. Based on such premises, no educational or teaching practice can be derived, no matter how beautiful the maxims and principles may be.

[ 14 ] Herbert Spencer therefore deeply regrets that modern pedagogy lacks a true psychology. But psychology cannot, in all seriousness, emerge from the modern scientific worldview. Anthroposophy, however, believes it can establish a true psychology, a true science of the soul—a science of the soul that must, admittedly, be approached in a completely different way than is often the case in psychological research today.

[ 15 ] It is easy to make fun of the fact that anthroposophists speak not only of the human physical body, but also of all sorts of other, supersensible aspects of the human being. People often have a mental image of an etheric body—which I also call the body of formative forces—being merely a figment of the imagination or based on some kind of phantasm, vision, or illusion. What anthroposophy initially asserts in this regard is that the human being does not merely have a physical body that can be seen with the physical eyes, that can be examined using clinical methods, and whose laws can be recognized by the reasoning intellect, but that the human being has an etheric body, a body of formative forces—a finer body—and, in addition to this etheric body, even higher constituents. In anthroposophy, we speak of an astral body, and we speak of a particular aspect of the human being that, for human consciousness, is summed up in the single point of cognition expressed by the word “I.”

[ 16 ] At first glance, it may not seem particularly justified to speak of these higher aspects of the human being; but today, by way of introduction, I would like to draw attention to the way in which, in the practical living we now also apply to education, anthroposophy speaks, for example, of the etheric body.

[ 17 ] This etheric body is not a cloud of mist that is integrated into the physical body and perhaps protrudes slightly beyond it here and there. One can initially depict this etheric human being in such a figurative way; but in reality, it presents itself in an entirely different manner to those who employ anthroposophical methods. At first, it is merely a kind of regulatory principle that points to that which is not only spatially organic but also temporally organic in the human being.

[ 18 ] If we first study human beings physically and bodily according to today’s scientific methods, we know that any part of the body—for example, the liver, the stomach, or the heart—cannot be studied in isolation, but only in relation to the entire organism. We cannot understand, say, certain areas of the human brain without knowing their relationship—for example, to the liver, the stomach, and so on—through which they receive their regulated nourishment. We regard the spatial organism as something internally coordinated, as something whose individual parts interact with one another.

[ 19 ] From this perspective, anthroposophy regards what it calls the human etheric body—to which it must initially ascribe a temporal existence—not as a spatial entity, as is the case with the human physical body. What is called the human etheric body in this context first manifests itself when a human being is born—or, we might even say, when a human being is conceived, when conception takes place—and it continues to develop until the person’s death.

[ 20 ] Let us set aside for now the fact that a person can now die prematurely; let us focus today on the normal course of human life and acknowledge that this etheric body develops right up until a person’s natural death from old age.

[ 21 ] In what is developing there, the person who views human beings from an anthroposophical perspective certainly sees a whole. And just as the human physical body is divided into parts—the head as the bearer of the brain, the chest organs as the bearers of the speech organs, the respiratory organs, and so on—so too does that which manifests itself in time as the etheric organization break down into successive epochs of life. We do not divide this etheric body of the human being—which, as mentioned, must be observed over the course of time—into a spatially defined, present-moment entity; rather, we view this etheric body in such a way that we first focus on the segment that develops, for example, from birth until the change of teeth. We then see an important phase of this etheric body, just as we see the physical body—the head or the lungs—and we see the second phase of the etheric body, extending from the loss of baby teeth to sexual maturity; and we also see, though less clearly distinguished from one another, further phases of life in the human being’s subsequent existence. For example, at the age of twenty, a completely different kind of soul-body life begins—though not sharply distinct from the earlier one—a kind quite different from what existed before. But just as, for example, certain headaches can be traced to the human stomach or liver, so too can it be established that certain processes in one’s twenties or at much later stages of life are organically connected to what develops in a child from birth through the change of teeth.

[ 22 ] Just as one can see the processes of the digestive organs influencing those of the brain, so too can one see that what develops during childhood—up to the time of tooth replacement around the age of seven—continues to influence a person into the very latest stages of life,

[ 23 ] When we study psychology—the science of the soul—we are actually always observing the present aspect of soul life. We tell ourselves that the child has this or that characteristic with regard to comprehension, memory, and so on. The one who studies anthroposophy does not merely ask—though by no means neglects this—what happens in the child, say at the age of nine, with regard to memory, comprehension, and intellectual faculties? — and so on—but also asks: If, for my sake, the child experiences this or that influence at the age of nine, how does this influence penetrate the depths of the entire etheric-soul life, and how might it reappear later? — I would first like to draw your attention to how this is conceived in detail, using a concrete example.

[ 24 ] Through our pedagogical and didactic approach, we can instill in a child at a tender age a sense of reverence, a sense of respect for that which appears sublime in the world. We can then guide the child, through this feeling, toward a religious sensibility—toward the very sensibility through which the child learns to pray.

[ 25 ] I want to deliberately present a radical example from the moral constitution of a child. Let us assume, then, that we truly lead a child inwardly to the point where it can allow its inner state to flow out into a sincere prayer. This takes hold of the child, which then enters the depths of consciousness. And for those who observe not merely a person’s spiritual presence but the entire spiritual organism as it develops until death, they will find that what emerges in the child’s reverent prayer now subsides, metamorphosing and transforming in the most manifold ways within the spiritual life. But at a certain age—perhaps not until the early thirties or forties—what was once devotion in prayer during tender childhood comes to light as the soul acquires that inner strength through which its words have a blessing for other people, especially for children.

[ 26 ] You see, this is how one studies the whole person in terms of their spiritual development. Just as one relates the physical to the spatial—the stomach to the head—so one relates what is perhaps predisposed in the child around the eighth or ninth year of life as the power of prayer; one studies it throughout the course of life and sees it reappear as the power of blessing, as the power that also has a blessing effect, particularly on young people in later life. One can express the essence of this by saying: No one can have a blessing effect on those around them in their forties or fifties who has not learned to pray in a proper, sincere way during childhood.

[ 27 ] I have chosen this as a radical example, and those who may be more or less irreligious by nature will be able to accept it only in terms of its formal meaning. But what I wanted to draw attention to is this: for anthroposophical pedagogy, it is a matter not merely of focusing on the present state of the soul, but on the whole human being. One can see what effect this has on education. It means that in everything developed with regard to the child—in educational practice and teaching practice—the focus is always on this question: What will become of what we are doing here in the course of a person’s entire life, even in their later years? And through this, we strive for a certain organic pedagogy, a certain living pedagogy.

[ 28 ] There is so often a desire to teach children clearly defined concepts—to teach them concepts that represent definitions as precise as possible, with sharp contours. It is often the case with such concepts that we teach children that it is as if we were shackling their arms or legs—which are meant to grow and develop fully until a certain age. Aside from physical care, we can offer the child nothing else but this: that we care for them in such a way that their limbs can grow as freely as possible, as long as the power of growth remains within them. We must instill in the child’s mind such concepts, such ideas, such feelings, and such impulses of the will—ones that do not have sharp contours, so that they do not, as it were, constrain the inner life in its individual aspects, but rather grow just as the physical limbs of a human being do. Only then can we hope that what we instill in the child’s mind will truly come to light in the right way later in life.

[ 29 ] What is the art of education based on anthroposophy all about? You see, it is about a genuine understanding of the human being. That is precisely what is almost impossible for the modern scientific worldview: to come to know the human being itself. This is not meant to say anything at all against the great merits of experimental psychology or experimental pedagogy. These disciplines are, after all, necessary given the overall spirit of our modern civilization; within certain limits, they are also thoroughly beneficial. Here, too, anthroposophy will not wage a radical struggle, but will seek to carry forward precisely what is beneficial. Yet, from another perspective, what does the desire to experiment on children reveal—to understand their powers of concentration, their sensory receptivity, their memory, and even their will through experimentation?

[ 30 ] It shows that it is precisely through this newer orientation of civilization within the soul that we have become estranged from the souls of other human beings, from the soul of the child. Because the inner relationship—the immediate, elemental relationship from soul to soul—is weaker in modern human beings and less effective than it once was, these very same modern human beings resort to studying experimentally, through physical and bodily cues, what they would otherwise have experienced within themselves through direct empathy with the child. It is precisely to the same extent that we conduct such experimental studies that inner knowledge of the soul must be reestablished for the sake of sound pedagogy.

[ 31 ] To do this, however, it is necessary to truly understand what I have said about the individual life course. And here we have, first of all, the first stage of life of the developing human being, which begins with birth—or, one might also say, as early as conception—and reaches a certain conclusion at the age when the baby teeth are replaced.

[ 32 ] At this stage, for those who truly know how to study impartially, the child actually becomes a completely different being. And only when one observes this in human beings does one arrive at a true understanding of humanity.

[ 33 ] With regard to the higher essence of the world, we have not yet truly met the scientific standards that our natural sciences set in the lower realms. I need only remind you of how we speak, for example, of “bound heat”—heat contained within a certain physical structure without manifesting externally—and how, when the body undergoes certain conditions, we call the heat that was, so to speak, bound within it and now bursts forth from it “free heat.” Just as we speak of forces and relationships between substances in the inorganic world, so today’s science does not yet dare to speak in this way with regard to human beings. Therefore, body, soul, and spirit are abstractions that stand side by side, which cannot be concretely and truly related to one another internally. We watch the child grow until the change of teeth; however, if we have enough open-mindedness, we can then see how certain gifts and thinking abilities begin to develop precisely with the change of teeth, how memory also takes on the form that it functions only through clearly configured concepts, and so on. After the change of teeth, we can perceive the inner psychological structure of the child in a completely different way than before. What, then, has actually happened to the child?

[ 34 ] Well, today I can only outline the individual aspects for you; the rest, however, can already be studied today through the natural sciences. As we watch a child grow from the earliest age through the change of teeth, we notice how an inner essence increasingly comes to the surface of the physical organism. We can know that during these years, the organization of the head in particular undergoes its development. Anyone who observes this development—unbiased by certain claims of conventional science—will be able to observe a veritable current flowing from the bottom up within the human being. As the child progresses from the clumsiness of being completely unable to walk, of having to lie down, having to be carried, develops the ability to walk—what emerges in this part of the human being, in the limb-human, is a revelation of the impulses of the will, something that is not merely expressed in the outward fidgeting, in the later ability to stand, and in walking, but rather something that has a reciprocal effect on the entire human organism. And once we study those things that are already hinted at in science today—and are, in fact, practically within reach in physiological science, though we are simply not pursuing the right paths in this field—once we study how the head undergoes a metamorphosis, from the helpless need to be carried, from having to lie down to standing on one’s own two feet, to using one’s legs for walking—then one will discover how what manifests in the human being as a being of limbs, how, in a sense, this reflection of the configuration of walking is found in those parts of the brain that constitute the brain’s volitional organization. It must certainly be said: As a person learns to walk, he develops his volitional organization in the brain from the bottom up, from his limbs—in a sense, from his periphery flowing inward toward his center.

[ 35 ] If we then follow the human being further, the next important stage is the one he experiences by strengthening his respiratory system—that is, by bringing his respiratory system into a, I might say, more personal constitution, just as his limb system is brought into a certain constitution through walking. And this transformation of breathing, this strengthening of breathing—which can be traced physiologically—is in turn expressed through everything the human being takes in while speaking.

[ 36 ] Once again, it is a flow within the human organism from the bottom up. We can clearly trace what a person now integrates into their nervous system through speech: just as with a child who, as it learns to speak, radiates more and more emotional sensitivity from within. Just as a person integrates the will into their nervous system by learning to walk, so too do they integrate emotion through learning to speak.

[ 37 ] And one final stage is that which is now least apparent on the outside, but which manifests itself in the fact that the human being replaces the first set of teeth with the second. Certain forces that have been at work in the child’s organism up to this point—forces that have been inherent in his constitution—come to an end, for he will grow no more teeth. But what is expressed in the growth of the permanent teeth are the forces that are at work throughout the entire organism, forces that find a kind of culmination only in tooth formation. And just as we see the will being internally constituted through learning to walk, and just as we see feeling being internally constituted through learning to speak, so too do we see, with the change of teeth around the age of seven, the emergence in the child of an imagination that is now more or less individualized and no longer bound to the whole body as it was before.

[ 38 ] These are interesting connections that need to be studied more and more. It is the way in which what I previously called the etheric body affects the physical body; in fact, at this stage of life, the human being projects the rest of his organism onto the head, onto the nervous system.

[ 39 ] These things can be discussed in theory, but that alone is not enough. In recent times, we have become too accustomed to a certain intellectualism, to certain powers of abstraction, when we speak of science. What I have just described to you leads to viewing a person not merely with the intellect, but actually observing them in such a way that—I would say—one sees with an artistic eye: how every impulse of the motor system of the limbs fits into the nervous-volitional system, and how, in turn, speech fits into the emotional system. It is truly wonderful to see, for example, when a mother or nurse is with a child—as the child learns to speak, as the child learns to vocalize—how, in the vowels, precisely that which speaks more deeply from the educator’s inner being to the child’s inner being becomes imprinted on the child’s feelings; while everything intended to guide the child to perform movements on its own—to interact with the outside world, let’s say, with warmth and cold—leads to the formation of consonants. It is wonderful to see how one part of the human organism—let us say, limb movement or speech—has a reciprocal effect on another part of the human organism. And such things are particularly fascinating to observe when, as educators, we encounter children of elementary school age, as the gradual emergence of the second set of teeth, so to speak, draws a force out of the organism’s growth, sets it free—just as heat is released after having been latent or bound—so that once the permanent teeth are present, what initially acted within the organism now acts as a soul force, and this soul force takes hold.

[ 40 ] But these things really do not need to be grasped by the intellect; they must be grasped with the whole human being. Then something of artistic sensibility, of concrete observation of the developing human being, becomes part of our understanding. Anthroposophy provides practical guidance for this by tracing the spirit in its manifestation as material processes everywhere. After all, anthroposophy does not seek to lead people into all sorts of mystical cloud-cuckoo-land, but rather aims precisely to trace the workings of the spirit in all material things. It seeks to stand firmly on realistic ground in order to trace the spirit in its creative work and in its activity. But this anthroposophical perspective encompasses the whole human being. We do not wish to be dogmatic by introducing anthroposophy into pedagogy. The Waldorf school is not meant to be an ideological school; the Waldorf school is meant to be a school where practical pedagogical methods, practical didactics, and skill give expression to what a person can gain in living inner life through anthroposophy.

[ 41 ] The very fact that anthroposophy provides us with a worldview and a perspective on life is something that places the teacher and the educator in the school in a very special way.

[ 42 ] Our modern culture and civilization have indeed retained a certain faith, and at times even a sporadic awareness, of human life continuing beyond death; yet that which constitutes human life continuing beyond death until rebirth has been entirely lost to modern civilization.

[ 43 ] Anthroposophical research shows that we must speak of a pre-existing life of the spiritual-soul human being. Anthroposophy shows how embryology is properly illuminated precisely through the spiritual-soul aspect. Today—and this is entirely understandable; it should not be criticized—today people view things as if what a human being brings into earthly life through birth were entirely the result of hereditary currents, of those forces that descend physically from the father, mother, and so on. Using established methods, researchers investigate how the human embryo develops within the human body. They actively seek, within the mother’s body, the father’s body, and the parents’ bodies, the forces that subsequently manifest in the child. However, that is not the case. What takes place in the parents’ bodies is not a process of building up, but initially one of breaking down. What happens there is, at first, a return of material processes to a kind of chaos. And what builds itself into the person who conceives a child is the entire cosmos.

[ 44 ] Anyone with the necessary insight can see, especially in the first few months, how the human embryo develops—how that which makes a human being is formed not merely from the flow of heredity, but from the entire cosmos. Indeed, the mother’s womb is the cradle for that which transforms the forces becoming chaotic—cosmic forces that act upon the human being.

[ 45 ] These things—and one can certainly study them in this way based on the precedents of modern physiology—will be studied more and more differently than we have been accustomed to doing so far. In physics, it would be considered foolish to say: “Here I have a magnetic needle, with one end pointing north and the other south; I need only look within this magnetic needle, within its spatial boundaries, for the forces that direct the two ends toward one direction or the other.” That would be a physical folly. We turn to the entire Earth when we want to explain this. We say that the entire Earth is a kind of magnet; it attracts one end of the magnetic needle from the North Pole and the other end from the South Pole. We see the direction of the magnetic needle as the expression of a part; we must go far beyond the limits of the magnetic needle. We simply haven’t yet gotten into the habit of doing this in the exact sciences when it comes to human beings. We study such an important human process as embryonic development; yet we approach it in a way that would be no different from the physical folly we might apply to a magnetic needle. We search within the spatial confines of the human being—in the parental organisms—for the forces that shape the embryo, just as if we were searching within the magnetic needle itself for the forces that determine its direction. We must seek throughout the entire cosmos that which shapes the embryo. But what acts here is that which is connected to the human soul-spiritual being as it descends from the spiritual-soul worlds into physical existence.

[ 46 ] And here anthroposophy shows us—as paradoxical as it may sound—that, at first, the human head is least connected to what constitutes the human spirit and soul. This spiritual-soul aspect of the human being is initially—as the child begins its earthly existence—connected precisely with the rest of the organism outside the head. The head is a kind of reflection of the cosmos, but it is the most material. At the beginning of human life, so to speak, it is the least the bearer of the prenatal spiritual-soul life that has descended to begin earthly life.

[ 47 ] And when one sees how, in every facial expression, in the child’s entire physiognomy, and in the look in the eyes, that which is spiritually -soul aspect is hidden within them, the one who views the matter from an anthroposophical perspective sees how the spiritual-soul aspect—which first manifests itself in the development of limb movements, from crawling to walking, and then in the impulses toward the speech and respiratory systems, works within the organism to bring forth the second set of teeth—how, in other words, this spiritual-soul aspect works from the bottom up to take in from the external world that which must first be taken in unconsciously, in order to form it into the most material aspect: the human head organization in thinking, feeling, and willing.

[ 48 ] To view human beings in this way—with a scientific and artistic perspective—defines the educator’s relationship to the developing human being, to the child; a relationship that is, in fact, absolutely necessary if we are to be for the child what we can be for them—if we ourselves, as educators and teachers, are whole, complete human beings. For there is a special feeling one has when one says to oneself: You are conjuring up more and more from the child’s constitution that which the divine-spiritual worlds have sent down to you. This is something that can be revived through anthroposophy.

[ 49 ] In our civilized languages today, we have a word that is an important one, one connected to the hopes and longings of many people: the word “immortality.” However, we will only see human life in its proper light when we have a word just as commonly used for the beginning of life as for the end of life—when we have a word that is just as familiar to us as the word “immortality,” such as “unbornness” or “being unborn”; only then will we grasp the full, eternal essence of the human being.

[ 50 ] Only then do we stand with the proper sacred awe, with the proper reverence, before the spirit that shapes and forms the child from within, flowing from the bottom up. The soul, together with the spirit it receives from prenatal life, shapes the organism during the first seven years of life—that is, from birth until the teeth are replaced. During this time, the human being is in a very elementary, direct connection with its surroundings.

[ 51 ] If one wants a word to describe how a human being, as thinking, feeling, and willing first become integrated into the organs, interacts with their environment at this tender age of childhood, one can only use the word “imitation.” Human beings are, through and through, imitative beings in the first stage of life. Above all else, the great maxim for education is this: Do in the child’s environment what the child can imitate. And this imitation is based on a relationship between the child’s environment and the child itself that, in reality, extends into the spiritual and psychological realms.

[ 52 ] A child cannot really be admonished during the first seven years of life; he cannot do anything out of respect for any authority, but learns everything through imitation. We simply have to understand the child in this regard. Sometimes one experiences quite strange things. Let me give a concrete example. Since I’m often consulted about these matters, there are plenty of such examples. A father comes and explains: “Oh, I’m so unhappy—my son, who was always so well-behaved, has stolen something.”—What are we to make of that? You ask the worried father: “How old is the child? What did he steal?”—And so on. “Oh, he’s five years old. Until now, he’s been such a good boy, but yesterday he took money from his mother’s cabinet and bought some snacks with it. He didn’t even eat them himself—he actually gave them to other boys and girls on the street.”

[ 53 ] Well, what one can say to such a worried father in a case like this is: The boy didn’t steal anything at all; rather, it’s likely that he saw his mother taking money out of the cabinet every morning and buying things with it. Children are predisposed to imitate; they naturally regard what their mother does as the right thing to do and copy her. The concept of stealing does not even come into play here; what does come into play, however, is that—in the strictest sense of the word, right down to the tone of one’s thoughts—one should develop only those actions, words, and thoughts in the child’s environment that the child is capable of imitating.

[ 54 ] Anyone who can observe in this way knows exactly how a child imitates in the most subtle, most intimate ways. Anyone who approaches education in the way I mean here can see, right down to the child’s gaze, how everything is based on imitation.

[ 55 ] Well, this is true until the child’s teeth begin to fall out, because at that stage the child has an extraordinarily real relationship with its surroundings—it relates to them with its whole being. The child is not yet at the stage where it can perceive something through the senses, judge it, or feel about it. No, it’s all one; the child perceives, and that perception is at the same time a judgment; the judgment is a feeling, a volitional impulse. All of that is one. The child is fully immersed in the flow of life. It has not yet broken away.

[ 56 ] The first separation from life occurs precisely during the change of teeth, when those forces that previously acted within the lower parts of the organism—and which are no longer needed after the second set of teeth appears—now emerge in the child as spiritual-soul forces; this is when we are dealing with these forces. This marks the child’s entry into its second phase of life, which begins with the change of teeth and ends with sexual maturity. In this phase of life, the spiritual-soul life is set free, so to speak, just as heat that was previously latent can, under certain circumstances, be released. Previously, we had to seek the spiritual-soul aspect within the organism, in the organic forms of the organism.

[ 57 ] Thus, one must seek the relationship between body and mind on the one hand, and soul and body on the other. Today, in theory, we have all kinds of principles and relationships. There is one view: the soul acts upon the body; the other view states: everything that is in the soul is brought about by the body. Today, the most widespread view is that of psychophysical parallelism, which means that both series of processes—the spiritual-soul and the physical-body—are considered. But one can speculate at length about the relationship between mind and soul, spirit and body; if one merely speculates and does not proceed to observation, one cannot move beyond abstraction. However, one cannot merely observe the present; one must observe the entire course of life—and then one must say to oneself: What you see in the child from the age of seven to fourteen as spiritual-soul life were previously forces that were, so to speak, latent in the organism, hidden and working in secret. You must seek in the soul-spiritual realm what is at work in the organism from birth until the change of teeth, and later, from the change of teeth until sexual maturity; then you will have some understanding of the relationship between soul and spirit on the one hand and the physical-bodily on the other. If you observe the physical processes up to the change of teeth, you are observing the effect of the soul-spiritual; if you wish to observe this soul-spiritual in and of itself, then observe it from the change of teeth to sexual maturity. So do not search in such a way that you say: Here is the body, and there inside is the soul—now I want to look for the effect. No, step out of the spatial realm and move into the temporal realm; then you will be able to find a real, concrete relationship between the spiritual-soul aspect and the physical-bodily aspect; and then you will also be able to find more fruitful ideas for life. Then you will learn a great deal—I can only hint at this in principle for now— then you will learn how, in a certain sense, to care for a child’s physical health before the change of teeth, so that spiritual-soul health in the second stage of life—from the change of teeth to sexual maturity—can manifest itself accordingly, just as the health of the stomach manifests itself in the health of the head within the temporal organism, that is, in the etheric body, the formative-force body of the human being. That is what matters.

[ 58 ] And if we now wish to study how this should be addressed—for this brings us into one of the most important stages of a child’s life, the school-age years—namely, what is, so to speak, released from the organism between the change of teeth and sexual maturity and manifests itself freely in spiritual and soul terms, then we must say that these are, first and foremost, the formative forces—formative forces that have been set free— formative forces that have worked in a plastic and also musical way in the development of the human organism. We must treat them accordingly. Therefore, we must not initially treat them in an intellectualistic manner. This is what now emerges as a fundamental requirement of anthroposophical pedagogy: that we treat what were the first formative forces—as spiritual and psychological—not in an intellectualistic way, but artistically.

[ 59 ] This is the basis for the fact that Waldorf school pedagogy is, in the broadest sense—if I may use the term—an art of education; it is cultivated as an art, as the art of truly working with children. The teacher, the educator, must be an artist, for he must now work with those forces that previously acted plastically in the formation of the organism; they demand to be treated plastically.

[ 60 ] This means that when we bring children into the Waldorf school, everything we introduce to them is initially developed through artistic activities. To be specific: we do not begin with reading, but with writing; however, writing must not be approached in any intellectual way with the child, but rather we begin by letting the child paint and draw shapes that actually emerge of their own accord from their human will. It would seem strange to some who were to see how Waldorf children begin to learn to write!

[ 61 ] Every teacher has complete freedom. It is by no means a matter of establishing any pedagogical dogmas, but rather of introducing teachers to the entire spirit of anthroposophical pedagogy and didactics. For example, when you enter the first grade of elementary school, you can see how the teacher, the educator, has the children move in certain circles and accompanies their movements in space with certain rhythmic arm movements—and how this then naturally gives rise to what the child expresses in a simple drawing. And by drawing from the configuration of the organism—that is, from the will—those artistic forms that arise as if of their own accord, we then gradually transform these artistic forms into letter forms; all without abstraction, but rather in the way that they actually arose of their own accord through the imaginative development of humanity. Humanity first had a pictographic script that arose concretely from external reality and only later transformed into our alphabetic script, which has become entirely abstract. Thus, something is developed from the artistic realm that, like the finished script, speaks solely to the intellect. And only after we have guided the child toward writing through the artistic realm for a while do we introduce the child to reading. It is clear, after all, that when one truly works from the artistic realm—when one approaches the child with genuine artistic intentions—one first influences the development of the will, that very development of the will from which, fundamentally, all emotional and intellectual development must arise. As one transitions from writing to reading, one notices quite clearly: here, the focus shifts from willing to feeling. And thinking develops through arithmetic.

[ 62 ] By truly tracing, through the details, the child’s entire psychological and spiritual makeup as they handle each individual figure—which then becomes a letter, then a word, which in turn is read as a word—if one can follow this process by having acquired an understanding of human nature and the ability to observe people through anthroposophy, then this becomes a genuine educational practice.

[ 63 ] And only then does one see the full significance of applying the artistic principle to a child’s very first years of elementary school. Everything that is reasonably introduced to the child in the realm of music manifests itself throughout their entire life in the person’s initiative of the will. If a child is denied the opportunity to absorb the right kind of music at the right age—namely, around the ages of seven and eight—one stifles the child’s initiative of the will, especially in adulthood. And the true educator always seeks to keep the entire human context in mind today. Various developments—which we will discuss later—can then be observed, not only from year to year but from week to week, during this stage of the child’s life from the change of teeth to sexual maturity.

[ 64 ] But there is one moment that is particularly important here. It occurs roughly between the ages of nine and ten. It lies approximately in the middle of this stage of life. This is the moment to which the educator and the teacher must pay special attention. Anyone who truly observes people—who can observe the temporal, ethereal organism, as I have explained, throughout the entire human life—knows how, in old age, when a person is somewhat inclined to become contemplative, and to look back on their earlier years—how, among the images from their past life, the images of teachers, educators, and other people from their surroundings who had an influence between the ages of nine and ten emerge quite particularly.

[ 65 ] Such intimate aspects of life are, unfortunately, overlooked by today’s scientific research—which is so meticulous about external appearances—that what occurs for one child later, for another earlier, but roughly between the ages of nine and ten, sinks into the unconscious; that what stands before the human soul—often in vivid, imagery-rich form—especially in later years of life, whether joyful or painful, life-giving or life-destroying, is an observation, a genuine observation, not a fantasy, not a theory. And it is of immense importance for the educator. It will become immediately apparent at this age that the child needs the educator in a certain way, such that a specific relationship comes to expression between the child and the educator.

[ 66 ] As an educator, one simply has to pay attention to the child, and one will see how, around this age, an immensely important question—whether expressed more or less explicitly or even implicitly, unspoken—is posed by the child to the educator or teacher. And if the child is perhaps not inclined to ask the question openly, one must create the circumstances so that the child approaches the educator or teacher in the manner appropriate for this age. For what happens there?

[ 67 ] You will not expect the man speaking to you now—who wrote his *Philosophy of Freedom* in the early 1890s—to advocate for authority on the basis of any conservative or reactionary principles. Based solely on the laws of child development, it must be said: just as a child is an imitative being until the teeth are replaced, so too, after the teeth are replaced, the child is such that growing naturally into the authority of its surroundings is a condition of life; so that we, as teachers and educators, must be able to exercise natural authority over the child, such that the reason the child accepts a truth must be that the child, loving us, feels and senses the authority in us—not that it acknowledges it through judgment, but that it feels and senses it. An immense amount depends on this.

[ 68 ] Once again, one must have experience in these matters. One must understand what it means for one’s entire life—in terms of the soul’s formation—if, at this early age, one has heard talk of a family member whom one has not yet seen, but whom everyone else describes as a particularly revered, wise, or good family member—or one who is otherwise rightly revered. Then one is brought before this person; one feels a sacred awe, even at the thought of touching the doorknob, because one looks up with a reverence that has been instilled within one toward this authority figure whom one is now getting to know. One then feels a sacred awe when one is allowed to touch this person’s hand for the first time. Anyone who has experienced something like this, anyone whose soul was once deeply moved in this way as a child, knows that it has left a lasting impression—one that sinks into the depths of consciousness and will likely resurface later in life. But this is also the fundamental tone that must underlie the relationship between the educator or teacher and the child.

[ 69 ] From the time a child’s baby teeth fall out until puberty, the child must accept what it learns through authority—through an authority that is taken for granted. And it is precisely through this that the teacher or educator can become a true artist in relation to the child, in the sense described, because this direct, fundamental relationship between the child and its authority exists.

[ 70 ] But between the ages of nine and ten, a certain realization dawns on the child—it must now sense, though it may sometimes be a very vague feeling, that the person who is its authority figure has, in turn, a connection to something higher. From the child’s immediate, concrete relationship with the educator or teacher, the child begins to observe the teacher’s religiosity—the way in which the teacher relates to the supersensible universe. One must not overlook the intangible aspects of education and instruction. Those with a materialistic mindset usually believe that everything that has an effect there is brought about through words or outward actions. Oh, but there are entirely different influences that flow from the teacher and educator to the child. Let’s suppose—as does indeed sometimes happen—that the teacher or educator thinks: “I am very intelligent; the child is very stupid.” So, I want to instill in the child—let’s take another radical example—a sense of the immortality of the soul. So I come up with something, for example, a butterfly chrysalis. The butterfly flies out of it. I then draw the comparison, using this image: Just as the butterfly flies out of the chrysalis, so does the immortal soul fly out of the human being at death. That’s good for the child—an image.

[ 71 ] Now, however, one can have the following experience. If one thinks: “I am quite clever, the child is stupid, I must create an image for the child”—I may initially evoke a sense of immortality in the child, but it will very soon vanish from the child’s soul because I myself do not believe in my own image.

[ 72 ] Anthroposophy teaches one to believe in such an image, and I can assure you that for me this is not an image I have conjured up in my mind; rather, for me, the butterfly emerging from the chrysalis is simply, on a lower level, what represents—on a higher level—the immortality of the soul. It is not I who create this image with my intellect, but the world itself that presents the processes of nature in the butterfly emerging from its chrysalis. This, then, is how I present the image. I believe with every fiber of my soul that this is the true image, that it is the Divinity itself that sets this before us. I do not imagine that I am very clever and the child is stupid; rather, I believe with the same earnestness in the example that I want to teach the child to believe in. Then the child will retain this for his or her entire life. Here, invisible, supersensory—or, if you prefer, imponderable—forces are at work. And it is not merely a matter of how we address the child with words, but of what we are, of how we are in the child’s presence. This becomes particularly important during the period mentioned—between the ages of nine and ten—when the child perceives, specifically from the way a word is spoken—let me quote Goethe’s phrase: “Consider not so much the What as the How”—from the way the words are spoken, the child senses whether the words come from a mind that is inwardly aware of its connection to the supersensible world, or from a mind that is purely materialistic in its outlook. The words sound different to the child; the child experiences something different in one case versus the other. And between the ages of nine and ten, the child should experience—feel, sense, and experience entirely in the unconscious—that just as the child looks up to the authority of the teacher or educator, so too does the teacher look up to that which can no longer be seen externally. Thus, in the child’s relationship with the teacher, the feeling toward the human being naturally transforms into a religious experience.

[ 73 ] This, in turn, is linked to other things, such as the child’s ability to distinguish between his or her own soul and the surrounding environment, which means that the curriculum must be structured quite differently. We will discuss this tomorrow. But one can see how important it is that certain moods and certain states of mind be considered, in the most intimate sense, as integral to pedagogy and didactics.

[ 74 ] And that is precisely why, in shaping the Waldorf School, it was crucial how the hearts and spiritual dispositions of the teachers were brought into the school—how the teacher steps through the door each morning when he comes to his children. Since I am responsible for leading this school, I attach great importance to ensuring that, on the few occasions when I can be present myself, this is expressed in some way. After everything I have said so far, you will perhaps see nothing insignificant in what I am about to say. Whenever I come to the Waldorf School, I pose the question—not using the exact same words, but time and again in the most varied forms, whether on festive occasions to the entire student body or in individual classes—in the context of the occasion: “Children, do you love your teachers?”—And with a genuine cry of joy that clearly reveals their sincerity right down to the very words, the children answer in unison: “Yes!” And one senses the truth that passes like a breath through every soul—that a relationship of deep love exists between the children and their teachers, that the sense of authority is a matter of course. And it is this authority that is essentially meant to form the very essence of school practice.

[ 75 ] Thus, Waldorf education is not merely based on maxims and principles—which we have in abundance thanks to the great educators—but precisely on what the individual can actually do, on the individual’s direct practice, and on the teacher’s most individual skill. This should flow from what anthroposophy can inspire in the constitution of the human soul and in the human mind. The aim here, when pedagogy and didactics are grounded in anthroposophy, is to demonstrate that pedagogy is a true art.

[ 76 ] Of course, in matters like these, one can really only make compromises these days. I therefore had to organize the Waldorf School in such a way that, in accordance with a memorandum I drafted when the school was founded, I retained the freedom to initially achieve the same educational goal and follow the same curriculum from the time a child enters school until approximately the age of nine; after which the child should be sufficiently prepared by our Waldorf School to transfer to the appropriate grade level at any other public school. Then, in turn, there should be freedom for those children who remain at the Waldorf School until the age of twelve.

[ 77 ] Tomorrow we will see what an important turning point the twelfth year of life also is. By then, we must once again be ready to meet the educational goals of any other school, and once again reach the age of sexual maturity and graduate from elementary school. But what happens in the meantime is structured in the strictest sense so that it arises from an anthroposophical understanding of human nature, just as the curriculum and educational goals flow from the child’s own nature—and do so in a thoroughly individualistic manner—so that even in relatively large classes, the individuality of each child is fully brought to bear.

[ 78 ] It goes without saying that we will only be able to achieve perfection in this regard once we no longer have to make this compromise—once we can truly treat the child, year after year, from the time of tooth replacement until sexual maturity, in the manner I will explain tomorrow. But in any case, an attempt had to be made once the opportunity to do so had arisen out of the practical realities of life. Now, what anthroposophy seeks to demonstrate is precisely not a theory; it is not something that works toward intellectualism, but rather something that seeks to engage with the whole, full life of the human being, that seeks to expand the whole person, and that seeks to bring all human powers to development. Certainly, in principle, this demand has long been made. The “what” has been considered, but: Consider not so much the “what” as the “how.” It is precisely the “how” that is to be found through anthroposophy. And I have been able to offer you a few hints of this today. As for what can be said about the details of the child’s coming years based on anthroposophical principles, I will take the liberty of elaborating further tomorrow.