The Rudolf Steiner Archive

1. Education and Art

[ 1 ] Ladies and gentlemen, a well-known and much-discussed phrase echoes down to humanity from the mists of ancient Greece like an admonition resonating in the depths of the soul: “Man, know thyself.” This places a demand on humanity that is often not perceived as immense, yet is in fact immense; one might say it is the demand that human beings should, through their most valuable psychological and spiritual activities, become acquainted with their true, real being and their true, real significance in the world.

[ 2 ] Well, it is generally the case that when such a demand is made to humanity within an era by a significant authority, it usually does not point to something that can be easily obtained or easily fulfilled, but rather points to the particular deficiency of an era—to something whose fulfillment is difficult. And anyone who looks back on the ancient epochs of humanity not from an external, theoretical historical perspective, but with a sense of history, will already feel that the emergence of this demand in ancient Greece essentially signifies a decline, not an increase, in the power of human self-knowledge—the power of genuine, profound insight into human nature. For when one looks back to those times in human development when religious feeling, artistic perception, and conceptual and ideal cognition still resonated as one, one senses how, in those times of harmonious unity between religion, art, and science, human beings naturally felt themselves to be the image, the likeness, of the divine Spirit living through and weaving through the world. Humanity felt itself to be a divinely given being on Earth. And fundamentally, it was a matter of course in the ancient, bygone days of humanity that human self-knowledge was sought in the knowledge of God—in the recognition of the divine, spiritual source reigning within the human being, which was simultaneously perceived and conceived as the foundation of the world. When, in very ancient times, a human being uttered what in our language would sound something like “I,” he thereby expressed at the same time the sum total of all the central forces of worldly existence, and in that word—which pointed to his own self—he also gave voice to the meaning of that which is the creative force at work in the universe. For in his innermost being, he felt himself to be one with this universe. What was once self-evident—what presented itself to human beings just as the colors of the external natural world appear to the physical eye—became, in later times, something difficult to attain. And if, in ancient times, when the call for self-knowledge might have arisen, one had heard the saying—one could hardly have heard it from an earthly being—if one had heard it from an extraterrestrial being: “Know thyself,” one would have replied: Why go to the trouble of self-knowledge? - We humans are the image of the Divine Spirit that shines, resounds, warms, and blesses throughout the world. If one recognizes what the wind carries through the trees, what the lightning sends through the air, what rolls in the thunder, what transforms within the cloud, what lives in the blade of grass, what blooms in the flower—then one also recognizes the human self.

[ 3 ] When such knowledge of the world—as divine spiritual knowledge—was no longer possible with the progressive development of human autonomy, humanity came to let the call “Know thyself” resound from the depths of its being, pointing to something that had once been a self-evident reality for humanity as it wove its way through the world, but which was becoming more and more of a struggle.

[ 4 ] Between the emergence of this exhortation, “Know thyself,” and another saying that was first uttered in our own era—in the last third of the 19th century—lies an important epoch in human development. This other saying resounds, in a sense, as a response to the Apollonian maxim “Know thyself.” This other saying was uttered by an eminent natural scientist in the last third of the 19th century: “We shall never know—Ignorabimus!” And this “Ignorabimus” must be called a response to the ancient Apollonian saying, for the reason that the one who uttered it, Du Bois-Reymond, indeed meant that modern knowledge of nature—which has made such immense progress—must come to a standstill at certain boundaries: on the one hand, at the boundary of human consciousness; on the other, at the boundary of matter. What lies between consciousness and matter, humanity will come to know—so spoke the naturalist, who understood well what natural science is capable of, especially when it reaches its full potential. But what lives as the world of consciousness within the human physical body, and how that which takes place physically in the human body is transformed into the inner experience of the soul that reigns in consciousness—according to this view, human beings should never be able to comprehend this. But the life of consciousness within human matter—the spiritual permeation of the human physical body through the impulses of consciousness—that is precisely what it means to be human. And anyone who cannot come to an understanding of how consciousness flows through, ripples through, and lives within human physical matter—how matter can be called upon within itself to become that light in which consciousness can appear—cannot even conceive of fulfilling the demand, “Man, know thyself,” no matter what efforts he makes.

[ 5 ] Between these two world-historical sayings—“Man, know thyself” and “As human beings, we will never comprehend the workings of consciousness within matter”—lies a significant period in the development of the human soul. During that period, there was still so much inner human strength from ancient times that people intuitively sensed what had once been taken for granted: seeking the human being within the manifest divine being. Little by little, through inner effort, human beings would acquire self-knowledge. — But this power of self-knowledge grew weaker and weaker. And by the last third of the 19th century, it had become so weak that, just as the sun of self-knowledge had set, the negative counterpart of that Apollonian positive resounded: “Human being, you cannot know yourself.”

[ 6 ] Well, if that is the case—if the study of nature—and the study of nature, as it has been pursued in recent times, does indeed lead us completely into those mysteries of nature that correspond to the needs of modern humanity—if the study of nature must ultimately make the following confession: one cannot recognize the workings of consciousness within matter, then to say that knowledge of humanity is impossible is merely another version of this admission. However, one must now say something else: just as self-knowledge as knowledge of God was already in its twilight when the saying rang out: “Man, know thyself,” so too was the renunciation of self-knowledge—that is, knowledge of humanity—already present in the twilight when the demand was made: “Renounce, O man, all self-knowledge, all knowledge of humanity.” - Again, this maxim does not point to what is contained within it, but rather to the opposite experienced by humanity. For once again—because the power of self-knowledge had grown weaker and weaker—the urge to understand humanity had arisen, not out of theoretical intellectual needs, not out of any scientific impulses, but out of the impulses of the human heart, out of the deepest impulses of the human soul. For people already sensed that no matter how deeply one delves into the brilliant realm of natural science—which has given modern humanity so much—one cannot penetrate the essence of the human being through this natural science alone. Yet there must be a way to penetrate the essence of the human being.

[ 7 ] Alongside other aspects of human life, humanity’s pedagogical impulse—the impulse to develop a proper relationship between the adult and the developing child, the child who is to be educated and instructed—is also fundamentally involved in the emergence of this new demand for knowledge of the human being, a demand expressed through the study of nature by asserting the very opposite of the possibility of such knowledge. Precisely in the age that, in the manner indicated, sought to renounce all knowledge of the human being—if one understands the statement correctly, it indeed implies a renunciation of all knowledge of the human being—precisely in this age, the conviction arose more and more strongly among those concerned with education and instruction: intellectualism—that is, external sensory and intellectual knowledge, which also seeks to approach the human being—is unsuitable for providing people with the means to educate and instruct the developing human being: the child, the growing youth, and the young woman. Hence, in this age, we hear everywhere the conviction: one must move from the training of the intellect—which has achieved so much in terms of the knowledge sought in modern times—to appeal to the human powers of feeling, emotion, and will; one must not, above all else, cultivate the intellectual in the child, but rather make the child not merely a knower, but a doer.

[ 8 ] But there is something peculiar about this very educational demand: it dispenses with a genuine insight into human nature—including the nature of the developing human being, the child—and doubts that, in the same way that nature is understood, anything can be understood about human beings that would then help us to treat them in the right way in education and instruction. And here a particular trend, a particular current, is making itself felt in modern educational practice, within which one actually wants nothing to do with the level-headed, conscious approach based on genuine knowledge of human nature. Rather than relying on conscious impulses, one prefers to rely on educational instincts—on vague, subconscious impulses that are supposed to be at work within the teacher or educator. Anyone capable of judging such matters will find that in the many and varied—and in some cases extraordinarily commendable—efforts in the field of education today, it is precisely this trend that prevails: the desire to establish pedagogical and didactic ideals everywhere based on the elementary aspects of human nature, on what is merely instinctive and impulsive. The prevailing view today is that a fully conscious understanding that penetrates to the depths of human existence is, after all, not possible; therefore, in situations where one, as a practitioner, is supposed to approach the essence of the human being, one must rely on vague, instinctive impulses.

[ 9 ] Only those who look upon this characteristic feature of contemporary intellectual life with deep human empathy will be able to grasp the significance of what is sought by the Spiritual Science referred to here—for the cultivation of the pedagogical sensibility, the creative didactic power in the school, and, in general, in relation to the child. For the Spiritual Science, the spiritual insight, which also underlies all the endeavors that are to find expression in this artistic-pedagogical conference, arises from sources that, while not the ancient ones from which inspiration was drawn in times when knowledge of humanity was still direct knowledge of God, nevertheless continue the laudable scientific drive into the spiritual realm in such a way that a genuine, true Spiritual Science—as an understanding of the human being—becomes possible once again. And such an understanding of human nature is necessary if one wishes to approach the tasks of teaching and education consciously. We have, after all, progressed beyond mere instinctive life in the course of human development. Without losing our instinctiveness or our elemental, primal nature, we must arrive at a conscious penetration into all those entities with which we, as human beings, come into contact in life.

[ 10 ] One might find it appealing when people say that human beings should not place too much importance on what they clearly perceive, but should instead surrender to the wonderfully effective instinctive impulses. But such a sense of beauty is fundamentally unsuitable for our age, because we, as human beings within the current of humanity’s overall development, have simply lost the old security of instinctive experience, of life driven by instincts, and must conquer a new security—one that is no less primal, no less elemental than the earlier experience, but which is capable of immersing itself in the sphere of full consciousness.

[ 11 ] It is precisely the person who, I might say, embraces with the enthusiasm of knowledge the entire way in which nature is justifiably studied today who comes to realize that, with this particular way of using the senses and putting instruments at the service of experimental research, and from the nature of intellectual judgments regarding sensory perception—that from this particular way of understanding nature, knowledge of humanity cannot arise. He comes to realize that there must be a knowledge of humanity that flows from powers entirely different from those by which we penetrate the essence of external natural phenomena in the modern way.

[ 12 ] I have described the forces within one’s own being that a person must tap into in my book *How Does One Attain Knowledge of the Higher Worlds?* and in my *Outline of Esoteric Science*. I have pointed out how a person can awaken within their soul life certain forces through which they can perceive—even through natural phenomena—something that appears to them in pure spiritual light; and how, by allowing the forces slumbering within them to reveal themselves, they can perceive the purely spiritual that permeates all that is material. These are the two things that must be fully understood today within our Spiritual Science: first, that one cannot approach the human being through knowledge of nature; second, that there must be a special spiritual knowledge that penetrates the spiritual realm of the world just as surely as so-called sensory-empirical natural science penetrates the purely natural realm. But I would say that it is only through the practice of knowledge that one can truly grasp the full significance of what has been said.

[ 13 ] Anyone who attempts—and this has been attempted time and again; for many people, it is a natural inclination—to apply the methods of knowledge that we currently consider reliable in experimental and observational research to this particular state of mind in order to understand human beings: they do not penetrate to the very essence of the human being, which one experiences as alive within oneself and feels deeply. One knows that one remains outside of the human being, and I would like to make this paradoxical statement: If someone wants to apply the methods of natural science to human beings and then investigate how, as a human being, one can experience within oneself what one now believes oneself to be—then very soon, especially if one is driven by an enthusiasm for knowledge, the following will present itself to one’s soul: Through this understanding of humanity modeled on the understanding of nature, you perceive yourself just as a human being would have to feel if, through his own senses and through all the cognitive faculties he possesses, he could perceive nothing of himself but his own skeleton. This is, in essence, the devastating, the inwardly devastating experience that wells up as a kind of result—a result of the mind and emotions—precisely from a seriously felt understanding of nature. As a human being, one is reduced to a skeleton through this knowledge of nature. And when one experiences the devastating nature of this inner feeling, then one has also grasped within oneself the impulse that truly drives us toward Spiritual Science today. For Spiritual Science tells us: you must penetrate to the essence of the human being in a different way than the one by which you penetrate lifeless nature.

[ 14 ] And what kind of self-knowledge must this be that truly introduces us to human life? It must not be such that, when we become aware of ourselves, we feel like a spiritual-soul skeleton; it must be comparable to something else. What we are as physical human beings—in our blood circulation and breathing, for example—we feel it; we do not perceive it in detail, but we nevertheless have it within us as our very being. The way we experience our breathing and our blood circulation in everyday life can be summed up—without our having to put it into words, but simply by experiencing it—in the fact that we experience ourselves as healthy human beings. There must also be a way to attain an understanding of the human being—to gain ideas and insights into the human nature—that can be processed in the inner soul in such a way that we experience them as the self-evident human existence, just as we experience our breathing and blood circulation as our health. But this raises the question: What, then, can be the path to such an understanding of humanity—an understanding that will also lead us into the very nature of the child whom we, as educators and teachers, are called upon to guide?

[ 15 ] How, then, do we come into contact with the external, sensory world? Through our senses. It is through our eyes that we gain knowledge of the diverse world of light and color. We must possess the organ in order to gain knowledge—to make any part of the world our inner, spiritual possession. We must have senses for that which is to become our spiritual possession. And anyone who, in pursuing such matters—for the sake of external sensory perception—studies the marvelous structure of the human eye and its connection to the human brain will deeply feel what Goethe felt when he repeated the saying of an ancient mystic:

[ 16 ] If the eye were not like the sun,
How could we behold the light?
If God’s own power did not dwell within us,
How could the divine delight us!

[ 17 ] This solar quality of the eye—that is what acts within as a creative light, enabling it to receive the light from without.

[ 18 ] We must look to the organ if we are to understand what relationship a human being must have to the world in order to make any spiritual possession his own. We must look to the organ that leads us to true knowledge of the human being. Which sense leads to true knowledge of the human being? Our eyes, our ears, and the other senses lead us to knowledge of the external world. The human being, inwardly illuminated by the spirit—as can be attained through the paths I have described in *How Does One Attain Knowledge of the Higher Worlds?*—leads us to knowledge of the spiritual world. There we find, in a sense, the two opposites of the human striving for knowledge: on the one hand, sensory knowledge, mediated through the organs attached to the human body; on the other hand, the knowledge of that Spirit which, as a unified whole, simultaneously permeates and interweaves nature and the human being—that spiritual knowledge which is attained when we, as whole human beings, make ourselves, so to speak, into a spiritual sense organ; when we transform all our powers, our full humanity, into a perceiving organ for the spiritual aspect of the world.

[ 19 ] But it is precisely between these two opposites that our understanding of the human being lies. If we perceive only external nature through our senses, we cannot approach the human being for the reasons already indicated. If we perceive only the spiritual—you can read about this in my book *Esoteric Science* and in other writings in the field of Spiritual Science that I am referring to here—then we must, so to speak, elevate our sense of perception to such spiritual and soulful heights that the immediate reality of the human being, as he stands before us in the world, fades away. We need something that leads us even more intimately into the human being than that through which we are able to regard him as a member of the spirituality that permeates the world. There must be a sense, just as there is the eye for colors, for the immediate perception of human existence. What is this sense for the present age of human development? How do we penetrate to the human being who stands directly before us in the world, just as we penetrate to the diversity of colors through the marvelous mechanism of our eye, and just as we penetrate to the diversity of sounds through our ear? Where is the sense for understanding and knowing human beings?

[ 20 ] Well, this sense is none other than the one bestowed upon us as human beings for the appreciation of art—the artistic sense, the sense that can convey to us that manifestation of the spirit in matter which reveals itself to us as beauty and which we encounter in art. This artistic sense is at the same time the sense that allows us to grasp human beings directly in the present, recognizing their essence, so that this recognition can also become immediate lived practice. I know how paradoxical a statement such as the one I have just made still sounds to contemporary humanity. But whoever truly has the courage to think through to their logical conclusion those ideas and concepts through which we grasp the outward appearance of nature—and, in particular, to empathize with these ideas and concepts of the understanding of nature with their entire human being—will, at the very boundary where they can say to themselves: ‘Here you have come particularly close to nature through your ideas, through your concepts of nature’—that person will feel, at that boundary, something pulling him to leave behind the contours of the concepts and ideas through which we grasp nature, and to soar toward an artistic shaping of these ideas.

[ 21 ] That was the reason why I said in the introduction to *The Philosophy of Freedom*, written in 1894: To understand human beings, one needs an art of ideas, not merely an abstract grasp of ideas. - One must immerse oneself in this impulse to transform the abstract nature of the concepts through which one grasps nature into a living, artistic vision. This is possible. One must allow knowledge to flow into art; then one arrives at the use of the artistic sense. And while, if one relies solely on knowledge of nature, one must say: “One will never understand how consciousness is bound to matter”—it suddenly dawns on one, as if scales were falling from one’s eyes, when one allows the concepts and ideas derived from the knowledge of nature to flow into artistic conception. There, everything transitions from the realm of ideas into inner artistic vision, and what one sees there, in a sense, covers the essence of the human being just as the colors perceived by the eye cover the plants and other natural beings. Just as the physical sense of the eye merges with the essence of colored natural phenomena in the perception of colors, so does the artistic sense merge inwardly with the essence of the human being. And only when we have seen color through the eye can we reflect on color. Only when we have beheld the essence of the human being through the artistic sense—only then—can we follow up with our abstract concepts and ideas.

[ 22 ] And when science becomes art in this way, then all the knowledge we have of human beings—and everything we reflect upon regarding the outward image of the human being, as first perceived artistically—no longer becomes a kind of personal possession of the soul through which one feels oneself as if one were a skeleton; but rather, one can become one with what one acquires through these artistically developed ideas and concepts about human existence, so that it flows into one’s soul just as the flow of blood and breath flows into the body. . And then something will come to life within the human being that is as full of life as that which one develops as an expression of normal breathing and normal blood circulation in the feeling: “I am healthy.” An overall sensation in which human existence is contained just as health is contained in the physical body—this is what is sought by that which is made possible through such an understanding of humanity, an understanding that, through the artistic sense, first acquires an intimate perception of the human being living directly in the present, not yet elevated to the level of the spirit.

[ 23 ] And when one considers in this way that such true knowledge of humanity—which, in each of its perceptions, simultaneously becomes will and activity, just as our breath and blood circulation become will and activity—when one considers what such knowledge of humanity must ultimately yield—well, here, too, comparison helps us move forward. In this case, comparison means more than a mere comparison; it is not taken from abstraction, but from reality. In what, then, does the health that arises from the whole being of the human being find its expression? What, then, becomes of that which finds its way into the fundamental feeling—one that need not be articulated at all, but need only be experienced dimly—what is expressed in this fundamental feeling: “I am organized in such a way that I may regard myself as a healthy human being standing in the world”—what, then, is expressed in this healthy human being?

[ 24 ] It is the crown of human life that is expressed. And this crown of human life is the power of love. Ultimately, health flows—and with it, all healthy spiritual powers—into that sensation, that feeling, which can embrace in love the other person standing beside us, because we recognize the human being within ourselves as healthy. Thus, from this healthy understanding of humanity springs love for the other person, whom we recognize as being the same as we are. We find ourselves reflected in the other person. Such an understanding of humanity does not become a theoretical instruction, as a technician might have, which must then be transformed in an external way—this or that must be done; no, such an understanding of humanity becomes an immediate inner experience, becomes an immediate way of living. For in its transformation, it flows into the power of love. It becomes active understanding of humanity. When I stand before a child as an educator or teacher, the understanding of the child springs forth from my own understanding of humanity within the unfolding soul-spiritual love. I do not need to first introduce instructions or theoretical views of human nature—such as those modeled on the natural sciences—into pedagogy; I need only to feel this understanding of humanity, just as I experience healthy breathing and healthy blood circulation as my overall health. Then true understanding of humanity, properly enlivened, becomes the art of education.

[ 25 ] What must this understanding of humanity become? This already follows from what has been presented. It must be possible for human beings to allow their understanding of humanity to take effect on the wings of love—on their fellow human beings, and above all on the human environment of the child. What is acquired as an understanding of humanity must be able to be transformed into a disposition—into that disposition in which this understanding of humanity lives as love. This is the most important foundation for pedagogy today: that pedagogy be regarded as a matter of the teacher’s and educator’s inner attitude; that one not merely lecture on the fact that one should not develop the child’s intellect alone, and then proceed quite sensibly to ensure that the intellect is not developed at all. The teacher is permitted, quite sensibly and using only the intellect, to go about their work so that they do not merely educate the child in a rational manner! This is what it is all about: that we begin the further development of pedagogy with the teacher, so that mere intellectualism—which is unartistic—does not prevail in the teacher; that we begin with the teacher, moving from an understanding of humanity to an artistic -pedagogical-didactic attitude that lives directly within the child—thereby establishing contact between teacher and child, between educator and child, and thereby making knowledge of human nature become direct, active love for teaching and education.

[ 26 ] Mere scientific understanding of nature cannot grasp how consciousness acts within the body’s material substance. Why not? Because scientific understanding of nature cannot grasp what shapes and forms the artistic. An understanding of humanity leads us to the realization that consciousness is an artist who works artistically upon the physical body. As long as one does not seek an understanding of humanity through the artistic sense, one will have to remain at a standstill with regard to humanity, facing the “ignorabimus.” Only when one begins to recognize that consciousness in human beings is itself an artistic creator within matter—that one must grasp an artistic creator if one wishes to grasp human existence—only then will one move beyond the “ignorabimus.” At the same time, however, one will arrive at an understanding of humanity that, by virtue of possessing it, is not merely theoretical knowledge but something that works inwardly and acts through the will—an understanding of humanity that is a practice of life, one with the practice of life.

[ 27 ] Anyone who approaches the maturing human being—the developing child—in this way looks inward, through this understanding of humanity shaped by artistic sensibility and carried on the wings of love, into what is growing within the child; such a person sees many things. — I want to highlight one thing in particular. They see that remarkable development maturing within the child, which, so to speak, moves from play to work. The child plays; it plays naturally. The adult must work. He is compelled by the necessity of work. When we look around at social life today, we must characterize the contrast between childlike play and the socially necessary work required of most people in such a way that we say: We look at the child; what it accomplishes in play is connected to a liberating joy regarding the development of the activity necessary to the human being. Look at the child at play. One cannot even form a mental image of the child not wanting to do what it does in play. Why? Because play is the liberation from an activity that seeks to emerge from the human being. Liberating joy in the full expression of a human activity inherent in the human being—that is the child’s play.

[ 28 ] And what will become of work in the context of humanity’s current development—often, indeed, one might even say mostly—and this will become increasingly widespread and more and more the case as we look toward the future? Work will become the crushing burden of life. The child grows out of the liberating joy of play into the crushing burden of life’s work. When we truly bring this contrast to mind, we are led to the great question: How do we build a bridge between the liberating joy of play and the crushing burden of life’s work? And whoever observes the developing child with that artistic understanding of human nature I just spoke of will find this bridge in the application of the arts in school. Art, when practiced correctly in school, also leads in the right way from the liberating joy of play into work—work that is accepted as a necessity of life but which, when the right bridge is built, no longer needs to be experienced as an oppressive burden. And unless we relieve work of its oppressive burden, we will never solve the social question. It will always resurface in a different form if the contradiction in life—the contradiction between the liberating joy of play and the oppressive burden of life’s work—is not overcome through education.

[ 29 ] What could be meant by incorporating the artistic into pedagogy, into educational and teaching practice? It is easy to arrive at completely distorted views, particularly regarding the use of the artistic, especially in school. Everyone recognizes that the intellect must be developed in a certain way. For how deeply has the necessity become ingrained in our modern consciousness that human beings must acquire a certain intellectual development in order to sustain life today? And so indifference to the necessity of intellectual development in school is unlikely to set in. Everyone also recognizes that human dignity—that is, the whole human being—cannot be attained without moral education. For everyone has, to a greater or lesser extent, the feeling that a person who lacks morality is not a whole human being, that such a person is something like a spiritual and emotional cripple. And so, on the one hand, attention is focused on the development of intellectual activity; on the other hand, attention is focused on the cultivation of true human dignity, on the sacred concept of duty, and on the sacred concept of virtue. But attention is not directed everywhere in the same way toward that which can only be brought to people in full freedom and with love—namely, the artistic.

[ 30 ] One must have that deep respect for the human being and that unique love for the human being, even as the child matures, just as Schiller did, who made this respect and this love, in such a wonderful way, the foundation of his exposition in the *Letters on the Aesthetic Education of Man*—works that, unfortunately, have been far too little appreciated. Here, then, we have—drawing directly from German intellectual life—a genuine appreciation of the artistic in education. This can serve as a starting point. Schiller’s perspective can then be deepened by what can be gained from Spiritual Science. One need only observe children’s play, how it wells up because human nature cannot help but be active. Observe how the child draws from its own constitution, from its human nature, that which forms the subject of its play. Observe the way in which the content of our work is given to us by the external necessities of life, and how we must approach our work in such a way that what we accomplish there does not arise directly from human nature—at least not in its entirety; for in no human being can it arise entirely from human nature. And one will see how human development in this regard progresses from childhood to adulthood.

[ 31 ] But there is one thing we should never lose sight of. We usually view what a child accomplishes while playing from the perspective of an adult. Yes, it is true: we view children’s play from the perspective of an adult. If that were not the case, we would never hear the amateurish refrain that is constantly repeated—that schools should ensure children “learn through play.” There is nothing worse than making children learn through play. If one really tries artificially to make children learn through play, one will achieve nothing other than that “children, as adults, will ultimately turn life itself into a game.” Anyone who speaks in such an amateurish way—that learning should be nothing but a joy, that learning should take place through play—views a child’s play from an adult’s perspective. They believe that a child plays in the same state of mind as an adult does. For the adult, play is fun, a pleasure that is an addition to life. For the child, play is the serious substance of life. The child takes their play very seriously, and that is the essence of children’s play: that it is sustained by seriousness. Only those who grasp the seriousness of play understand play in the right way. But those who observe children’s play—how human nature pours itself out in all seriousness into the handling of external objects, into the handling of the external world—are capable, when the child enters school, of transferring the strength, the talent, the ability to play—namely, the ability to transition in every possible way to artistic activity, where we still have the freedom of inner activity but, at the same time, must grapple with external material just as we do in work. Then we will see how, precisely in that artistic aspect that we introduce to the child, it is entirely possible to guide education in such a way that cheerfulness in artistic training can be combined with seriousness, so that even what is allowed to bring the child pleasure and joy in school can be combined with strength of character.

[ 32 ] If one is able to engage in art—particularly in the early school years between the start of school and the ages of nine or ten—not merely through the drivel of fairy-tale storytelling, but in such a way that everything one does is drawn from the developing human nature that one recognizes, then one transforms the playful activity that the child has engaged in up to that point into artistic activity—and the child is perfectly capable of such a transition as soon as he or she enters school. Even a child who enters school at the age of six, seventh year of life, may be as clumsy as they are in working with clay, as unskilled as they are at painting with colors on paper, or face as great inner difficulties as they do in becoming familiar with singing, music, poetry, and the arts—if one—accepting all the clumsiness that stems from the child’s natural disposition—understands and approach the artistic in the right way for the child—then one will find that, despite all the clumsiness in the sculptural and painterly elements, the very young child already feels—deeply feels—as a childlike sculptor, as a childlike painter, that a deeper human being does not end at the fingertips, does not stop at the boundary of human skin, but flows out into the world. A person grows even as a child when they grow into working with clay, wood, and colors, in such a way that they grow into the world. They become greater; they learn to sense the intimate, profound interweaving of human existence with the existence of the world. As a human being, one gains from what is received from the world even as a child, when one is guided in the right way toward sculptural and painterly activity—no matter how clumsy it may still be— and if the child is properly introduced to musical and poetic sensibility—if the child experiences the musical and poetic within its own being—then it is as if the child were receiving a heavenly gift to embrace a second human being within its ordinary human self. Through sounds and poetic language, we experience something akin to a being graciously descending to us, drawing our attention—even as children—to the fact that within us lives something that reaches down from spiritual heights to touch our limited human existence.

[ 33 ] If one lives in this way—observing artistically, feeling artistically, and educating and teaching the child artistically—then, when the child, clumsily as it may seem to me, works with clay, wood, and paint, one can discern from the child’s sculptural and painterly activities which talents can be drawn out of this particular disposition of life and soul. One gets to know the child intimately; one learns its limitations, one comes to know their talents by seeing how the artistic essence of the visual arts flows from their hands, and, by living alongside the child, one learns to recognize how strongly the child is capable of directing their entire being and all their strength toward spiritual worlds—and thereby, in turn, to bring forces down from the spiritual worlds into the physical sensory world. One comes to recognize the entire relationship of the human child to a higher, spiritual world. One comes to recognize the power the child will one day possess in life when, as an educator and teacher, one lives together with the child, introducing the child to music and poetry.

[ 34 ] Then, when these arts—sculpture, poetry, and music—are brought directly to the human being and cultivated in the child through eurythmic movements; when what otherwise appears abstract in words is directly brought to life in the human body through eurythmy, then one develops within the human being an inner harmony between the spiritually inspired musical and poetic elements and the material aspects of the sculptural and pictorial arts, which are imbued with spirit. Human consciousness, illuminated by the spirit, weaves itself soulfully and artistically into the physical body. One learns to teach by awakening the spirit and soul in the child; one learns to teach in such a way that the lesson is at the same time health-promoting, growth-promoting, and a source of healthy strength for the whole of life. Reflecting on such things brings to mind a beautiful Greek saying that shows an understanding of the artistic. The ancient Greeks called Phidias’ statue of Zeus a healing magic potion. True art is not merely something that touches a person in such a way that they can grasp it in soul and spirit; true art is something that makes a person grow, become healthy, and flourish. True art has always been a healing magic potion.

[ 35 ] Anyone who, as an educator and teacher, understands how to love art and who has the necessary respect for the human being will be able to incorporate art as a healing magic potion into all of their teaching and education. Then, as if of its own accord, what we must cultivate in school as intellectual development—as well as what we must develop in terms of emotional and religious education—will be infused with that which is sustained, on the one hand, by human freedom and, on the other, by human love. It will radiate from art when the teacher is artistic and appeals to the children’s artistic sensibility, living and teaching artistically in harmony with the children’s artistic sensibility; from the artistic sensibility in teaching and education will radiate the proper pedagogical and human influence for all other aspects of education and all other subjects. One will not want to set aside the artistic for the other subjects, but rather will integrate the artistic into the fabric of the entire curriculum and the entire educational process, so that it does not, as it were, run parallel: there are the main subjects—these are for the intellect, those for the emotions and duty—and then, set apart in the schedule, is what the child is supposed to acquire artistically, as if it were only half-obligatory. No, art has its rightful place in school when all other instruction, all other aspects of education are structured in such a way that, at the right moment, the child’s mind, having been engaged in other lessons, yearns for art; and when art is taught in school in such a way that, through artistic activity, the child comes to understand with the intellect and to internalize through a sense of duty what they have learned to perceive in art as beauty and as that which is purely and freely human. This should indicate how art can truly permeate the entire organism of education and instruction, how art can illuminate and warm the entire pedagogical and didactic essence. Art and the artistic sense are what human cognition places between pure intellectual cognition and natural sensory cognition. Art is also what can lead us into the practice of educational life in the most beautiful way.

[ 36 ] Anyone who loves art and respects human beings will, through the kind of values-based pedagogy that I have attempted to sketch out here, assign art its proper place in school. They will assign art its proper place out of their whole, comprehensive sense of humanity, which then, through their interaction with the student body itself, crystallizes into a pedagogical attitude and a pedagogical way of life. For what they do will not neglect, on the one hand, the kind of education that is more oriented toward the spirit, nor, on the other hand, the kind of education that is more oriented toward the body. By integrating art into the school in the right way, the school also receives the right spirit for the proper physical development of the children. For art, wherever it is placed, has such an effect on life that, on the one hand, it is receptive to the spiritual light that human beings need for their own development and for their own being. Art can permeate itself with the spiritual light through its own essence, and art, permeated with this spiritual light, preserves this light. Wherever its essence radiates outward, it permeates that into which it pours itself with the light it has received from the spiritual sun itself; it also permeates the material with this light, so that the material may express the spiritual, becoming soulfully radiant and luminous on its outer surface. Art is capable of gathering the light of the universe within itself. But art is also capable of bestowing a radiant glow upon all that is earthly and material. Therefore, art is capable of bringing the mysteries of the spiritual world into the school and bestowing upon the child’s soul that spiritual and soulful radiance through which this child’s soul can then enter life in such a way that work no longer needs to be perceived merely as a burdensome burden, but rather that, gradually, within the social interaction of humanity, work can be stripped of its merely burdensome nature. And social life can experience both a deepening and, at the same time, a liberation for humanity precisely because—as paradoxical as it may sound—we are able to introduce art into the school in the right way.

[ 37 ] Further details will become clear when I give my lecture tomorrow on the role of morality, moral perspective, and moral sensibility within the school and educational system. Today I simply wanted to show that the spirit necessary for the school is conjured into the school through art—through that magical means that is art—and that, when art is handled correctly, this art, imbued with the spirit of light, is capable of creating in the souls of children that radiance through which the soul, in turn, can properly orient itself within the body and thus within the entire world for the rest of their lives.