The Rudolf Steiner Archive

4. Why Anthroposophical Education? I

[ 1 ] Ladies and gentlemen, it gives me great pleasure to once again have the opportunity to speak to teachers about an educational topic today and tomorrow, and I would like to extend a particularly warm welcome to the teachers here today, in addition to all the other members present.

[ 2 ] You will understand that, given the fact that the pedagogy that has emerged from anthroposophy is, in essence, neither theoretical nor in any way utopian, but rather a genuine practice, it is precisely for this reason that only a few aspects can be outlined in two short lectures. I took the liberty, when a group of Swiss teachers was here recently for an extended period, of speaking about anthroposophical pedagogy in greater detail—though still in a manner that was too brief. On that occasion, because so much in practice depends on details, it was possible to address the subject more thoroughly than is possible in two short lectures. But I will endeavor, in these short lectures, to at least develop a few points of view specifically in relation to the question with which I framed the topic: “Why an anthroposophical pedagogy?”

[ 3 ] This question is bound to arise for a wide variety of reasons. It must arise, if only because anthroposophy is still very often viewed today as something sectarian, as some kind of worldview born of human caprice. One then asks: Should pedagogy be influenced by a particular worldview? Can one expect anything fruitful to come from a worldview that somehow gives rise to pedagogical implications? If this question were justified, then what we call anthroposophical pedagogy would probably not exist.

[ 4 ] It is true, however, that the various worldviews that exist also shape certain views and make certain demands through the education system. And one can see this or that worldview perspective reflected everywhere.

[ 5 ] This, precisely, is said to be entirely impossible in anthroposophical education, and perhaps I should preface this by saying that for a number of years now we have been attempting in Stuttgart to establish an elementary school and a high school in the spirit of this anthroposophical education, and that, in a sense, our ideal there is for things to proceed so naturally and effortlessly in harmony with the whole human being and its development that no one would even think that any anthroposophical idea is being realized there—that no one would actually notice that any particular worldview is being expressed there. What I have to say in this regard is, of course, connected to the fact that, when it comes to the things one advocates in the world, one is simply compelled to use a name. But I can assure you it would be my greatest wish if what is represented here at the Goetheanum did not need a name, if one could call it one thing one time and another thing another time, because what we have here is not a collection of ideas, as is usually the case with a worldview, but rather a certain kind of research and way of looking at life that can be named in various ways from a wide variety of perspectives. And actually, given the way names are usually adopted, every name is misleading. I’d like to put it in very simple terms, but you will understand me.

[ 6 ] When it comes to things like names for intellectual movements, humanity today hasn’t progressed much further than it did many centuries ago in Europe with regard to naming in general. Today, however, when it comes to naming people, we have forgotten what is essential—and this is something that should not be forgotten. As I said, I want to put it in very simple terms.

[ 7 ] There was a linguist, a famous linguist, named Max Müller. Let’s suppose someone had said, “Müller lives here and there,” meaning the home of the linguist Max Müller, and then, based on the word “Müller,” someone had brought grain to the linguist in question so he could grind it—because they’d been told that’s where Müller lived. Isn’t it true that, when it comes to people, we’ve already become accustomed to not attaching too much importance to the literal meaning of names? With things like spiritual movements, people still do that today. Often, they don’t pay much attention to such matters and analyze, as they say, the name “anthroposophy.” They interpret the name and form a mental image based on it.

[ 8 ] But just as the word “Müller” means to the linguist Max Müller, so does the word “anthroposophy” mean to what is actually intended here as spiritual research and a spiritual view of life. That is why I would prefer, as I said, if the spiritual research and spiritual contemplation of life pursued here could be given a different name every day. For that is precisely how its vitality would be expressed. One can only to some extent characterize what anthroposophy aims to achieve in today’s global civilization; but one cannot really provide a definition of it that is comprehensible from the outset. And today and tomorrow I would like to endeavor to show, particularly with regard to education, how anthroposophy can bear fruit for the upbringing of the developing human being, for the instruction of the developing human being.

[ 9 ] These will be one-sided characterizations, for the full scope of what is meant simply cannot be exhausted in two lectures.

[ 10 ] When we look around today with an interest in the intellectual development of the world, we notice, among the wide variety of demands swirling around us, the so-called educational question. Reform plan after reform plan is put forward by people who are more or less educated, but for the most part by amateurs. All of this, however, indicates that there is, after all, a deep need to gain clarity on the issues of education and instruction.

[ 11 ] On the other hand, however, this is connected to the fact that it is extremely difficult today to arrive at fruitful—or even merely adequate—views, particularly with regard to the treatment of the developing human being. And we will have to take a closer look at a certain aspect of our civilization’s development if we are to understand the reasons why there is so much talk today about educational requirements and ideals.

[ 12 ] When we look today at external life on the one hand and spiritual life on the other, we actually find—despite the immense fruitfulness that science has brought to practical life, technology, and so on—a deep chasm, a deep abyss between what is called science, theory—what one must learn in general if one strives, in a certain sense, for an education—and what is then realized in external life, in the practice of living. Indeed, a peculiar need has become increasingly apparent in today’s civilization with regard to what one acquires through learning, insofar as it is pursued in our educational institutions.

[ 13 ] Just consider a particular field—let’s say medicine. The young medical student completes his studies. He learns the content of modern medical science, and he also learns it through all kinds of laboratory and clinical practices. But once he has taken his final exam, it becomes clear that he must now actually undergo a kind of internship—a clinical internship—and that, in fact, he is not yet ready for practical work even after passing the final exam. And very often—indeed, almost always—it turns out that very little of what was initially studied theoretically actually finds application in real-world practice.

[ 14 ] I have focused only on the field of medical studies, but I could do the same with almost any field of study. Everywhere we would see that today, by acquiring a certain education in this or that area of life, we essentially still have to go out of our way to bridge the gap—the chasm—to practical application, This is true not only for the physician, not only for the technician, not only for those who graduate from a business school—it is true above all today for the teacher as well, who, because we happen to live in the scientific age, is introduced to pedagogy through a kind of scientific approach, but then, after having absorbed a certain amount of theoretical material, must now first find their way into practice.

[ 15 ] What I have said so far will be more or less acknowledged. But there is something else that people will be reluctant to admit, and that is this: that today there is actually such a wide gulf between what we acquire theoretically—which constitutes the very substance of our spiritual life—and what constitutes the practice of life; that this gulf is bridged today only by the technical professions, because these technical professions, I would say, are cruelly relentless. If you build a bridge that is theoretically correct but practically impossible, it will collapse the moment the first train crosses it. Nature reacts immediately to what is wrong. That is why one must acquire real practical experience.

[ 16 ] If we move on to matters that have more to do with human beings, the story takes a different turn. After all, it is impossible to answer the question of how many people are treated correctly by a doctor and how many are treated incorrectly, because that is where any possibility of life itself providing proof comes to an end. And if we move into the field of education, certainly one can hold the view that there is a great deal of criticism in this area, and that educators have quite a bit to endure. But as to whether life somehow decides whether a person has been raised correctly or incorrectly, one cannot answer that with an unconditional “yes.” One can certainly say, however, that while life does not provide answers as definitive as those of inanimate nature, there is nevertheless a certain justified sense that the particular way in which we today appropriate the theoretical—that is, the truly spiritual—in its current form actually prevents us from entering into the practice of life at all.

[ 17 ] Now there is one thing in the world that, I would say, quite vividly illustrates how impossible it is to make progress in a spiritual life that has such a gulf between the theoretical and scientific on the one hand, and life and its practice on the other. And that one thing in the world is, in fact, the human being.

[ 18 ] Over the course of the last few centuries, especially the 19th century, we have developed a certain scientific spirit. Every single person—even those who are today considered completely uneducated—is actually imbued with this scientific spirit. Everyone thinks in accordance with this scientific spirit.

[ 19 ] And just look at how out of touch with reality this scientific mindset is when it comes to applying it to real life. It was truly lamentable, for example, in recent years, when world history was indeed rolling past us in broad strokes and bringing facts of immense significance—that people could be quite clever with their theories, yet were utterly incapable of discerning the course of practical life. We have, after all, seen that astute economists said at the outset of the World War: “Our science teaches us today that commercial and other economic interdependencies in the world are so intertwined that a war today can last, at most, several months.” Reality proved them wrong. The war lasted for years. What people thought based on their science, what they had pondered regarding the course of world events, was completely irrelevant to the course of those world events themselves.

[ 20 ] As a human being grows up, as he steps before us—one might say—in his most wondrous form, as a child, he cannot be grasped in any way by a mode of thought that maintains such a gulf between practice and theory. For one would have to be a rigid materialist to believe that what develops in the child is merely a consequence, a result, of its physical development.

[ 21 ] We gaze with immense devotion, admiration, and reverence upon that revelation of creation that the child presents to us in the first weeks of life, when everything about him is still undefined, yet he already contains within himself what this person will accomplish later in life.

[ 22 ] And we gaze upon the developing child as, week by week, month by month, year by year, it draws forth from within the forces that make its features ever more expressive and its movements ever more orderly and purposeful. In this developing human being, we see the entire mystery of creation unfolding before our eyes in a wondrous way. And when we see how the peculiar, indeterminate gaze of the child’s eye gains activity, inner warmth, and inner fire over the course of the first years of life; when we see how the indeterminate movements of the arms and fingers become movements that, in a more beautiful way, signify something beyond the letters of the alphabet—when we observe all this with complete human devotion, we must say to ourselves: Certainly, it is not merely the physical that is at work here; rather, the spiritual-soul is at work within the physical; every little part of the human being in the physical realm is, at the same time, a revelation of the spiritual-soul. There is no blush on the cheek that is not an expression of the spiritual-psychic; there is no way to understand the blush on the cheek from purely material foundations unless we know how the soul pours itself into the redness of the cheek. Spirit and nature are present as one.

[ 23 ] And when we then approach the child with our outdated view of the spirit—one that creates a divide between what is theoretically directed toward the spirit and what is outwardly and practically directed toward life—we fail to connect with the child. Then, with neither our theory nor our instinct—which cannot grasp the spirit in our present-day civilization—do we know what to do with the child. In life, we have separated spiritual activity from the material. As a result, spiritual activity has become an abstract theory for us.

[ 24 ] And then there have also emerged such abstract theoretical views on education, as found, for example, in Herbart’s pedagogy—views that are ingenious in their own way and theoretically magnificent, but which are powerless to intervene in real life. Or else we become misled by an excessive immersion in the spiritual realm; we want to disregard all scientific pedagogy and rely purely on our instinct for education. This is something that many people are already calling for today.

[ 25 ] We can also see from another phenomenon how we have, in essence, become alienated from humanity by creating a divide between the theoretical grasp of the spiritual and the full comprehension of practical life.

[ 26 ] Our science has made tremendous progress. Of course, pedagogy, too, had to be shaped by science. But science had nothing with which to reach people. Science had much to say about the external natural world; but the more it had to say about the external natural world in modern times, the less it actually had to say about human beings. And so people had to set about experimenting on human beings, following the model of the natural sciences, and an experimental pedagogy emerged.

[ 27 ] What, then, does this drive toward experimental pedagogy mean? Do not misunderstand me; I have nothing against experimental psychology or experimental pedagogy; they can achieve a great deal scientifically and provide magnificent theoretical insights. The point here is not to speak critically against these things. Rather, the point here is to see: what kind of impulse of our time is expressed in such things? People feel compelled to experiment externally—to see how memory works in this or that child, how the will functions, how attention functions; they feel compelled to experiment externally on human beings. Because we have lost the inner relationship to the human being—the truly spiritual relationship to the human being—because we no longer reach, as human beings, from soul to soul, we seek to deduce, through experimentation with physical manifestations, what these soul-related manifestations are. It is precisely this experimental pedagogy and psychology that prove our science is powerless to truly reach the whole human being, who is spirit, soul, and body all at once.

[ 28 ] If one wishes to seriously address issues of education and instruction today, these factors must be fully appreciated, for they gradually lead to the view that a genuine understanding of human nature is essential for progress in the field of education and instruction.

[ 29 ] But one cannot gain a true understanding of human nature unless the chasm between theory and practice—which has opened up so terribly today—is truly bridged. For theory as we know it today only approaches the human body. And even if such a theory seeks to approach the soul and the spirit, it makes desperate attempts but in reality fails to reach them, for the soul and the spirit must be investigated in a different way than that which lies within the so-called scientific method recognized today.

[ 30 ] In order to understand human beings, we must approach them in a completely different way than what is often considered precise and correct today. But this approach to true, real human nature—this search for a genuine understanding of humanity, an understanding that views the spirit, soul, and body in the human being as one—that is the task of anthroposophy. Anthroposophy, in turn, seeks to understand not merely the physical human being, but the whole human being. Yet today, people often fail to recognize the great challenges this poses in relation to life in its fullness.

[ 31 ] I would like to illustrate my point with an example to show you how our attention must be directed toward things quite different from what we are accustomed to today if we are to regain a true understanding of human nature.

[ 32 ] You see, when I was young—and that was a long time ago—among other worldviews, there was also the one established by the physicist Mach. It was a very famous worldview. I am citing what I am about to say merely as an example, and I ask that you accept it as nothing more than an example. The essence of Mach’s viewpoint was that Mach said: It is nonsense to speak of a thing-in-itself, nonsense to speak of a thing-in-itself as an atom in the world. It is also nonsense to speak of a “self” that exists within us like a thing; rather, we can only speak of sensations. Who has ever perceived an atom? People perceive red, blue, and yellow things; they perceive the notes C sharp, G, and A; people perceive sweet, sour, and bitter tastes; people perceive hard and soft things through the sense of touch; people perceive sensations. And when we form a picture of the world, it consists solely of such sensations. And when we look within ourselves, we also have nothing but sensations. There is nothing there but sensations everywhere; sensations that are held together. A certain hardness, a certain—I would say—gentle sensation when touching the blush of a rose, the sensation of being burned, with a reddish appearance when touching a red-hot iron—sensations interconnected everywhere, as Ernst Mach said. It must be said that, compared to the conception of an atomic world that no human being can naturally see, this represented progress at the time. This has since been forgotten. I do not wish to speak about this conception, but rather about an example of human development.

[ 33 ] You see, Ernst Mach once recounted how he arrived at this view. He said that he had arrived at the main points of this view as a seventeen-year-old youth. Once, while he was out for a walk on a particularly hot summer day, it dawned on him that the entire world of things-in-themselves is actually superfluous—the fifth wheel on the wagon in any worldview. Out there, there are only sensations. These merge with the sensations of one’s own physicality, of one’s own human being. Out there, the sensations are somewhat looser; within, they are more firmly connected, and they conjure up an “I” for the person. Everything is sensation.

[ 34 ] That struck the seventeen-year-old youth on a hot summer day, in a single moment. Later, he said, he actually only elaborated on it further in a theoretical sense, but his entire worldview came to him in this way on a hot summer day, as he suddenly felt himself merging with the scent of roses, the rosy glow, and so on.

[ 35 ] Yes, if it had gotten even a little hotter, then this worldview—of the merging of one’s own self with one’s sensations—probably wouldn’t have emerged; instead, the good Mach, as a seventeen-year-old youth, might have fainted, and if it had gotten even hotter, he would have suffered from heatstroke.

[ 36 ] Here we have three stages of what a person can go through. The first stage consists of the person, in a somewhat relaxed state, developing a worldview; the second, of the person losing consciousness; and the third, of the person suffering from sunstroke.

[ 37 ] I believe that if someone today were to reflect superficially on how a person like the highly learned Ernst Mach arrived at his worldview, they would consider everything he had learned, his innate aptitudes, and so on; but the fact that the main point—as he himself recounts—is that he went through the first of the three stages he described will not be emphasized. And yet that is the case.

[ 38 ] What is the basis for that? You see, one simply does not know human nature if one does not understand such a phenomenon. What actually happened when the seventeen-year-old youth Mach went for a walk? He apparently became very, very hot, and he found himself caught between feeling comfortable without feeling the heat and fainting right in the middle of it all. One knows nothing definite about such a state unless one arrives at the conclusion through anthroposophical research that the human being does not merely have a physical body, but also, beyond this physical body, what I have called in my writings the etheric body or body of formative forces—a supersensible, invisible body.

[ 39 ] Of course, I cannot go into detail today about all the research on which the understanding of such a supersensible body of formative forces is based; but you can read about it in anthroposophical literature. It is an established research finding, just like other established research findings.

[ 40 ] But what about this body of formative forces? The situation with this body of imaginative powers is this: otherwise, in the waking state, we are always completely dependent on our physical body. The materialistic view is quite correct when it explains that the thinking a person develops in the physical world is bound to the brain or the nervous system in general, for we need the physical body for ordinary thinking. But when we transition this ordinary thinking somewhat into a certain free inner experience—as is the case, for example, in artistic imagination—then the almost imperceptible activity of the formative body, or etheric body, increases in intensity.

[ 41 ] So if one thinks as one must in ordinary life—and I really mean nothing derogatory by what I am describing here—if one thinks in the ordinary, sober way that one simply must in external, physical life, then one thinks with one’s physical body, and the etheric body is used only very little.

[ 42 ] When a person turns to creative work—let’s say, poetic creation—the physical body recedes somewhat, and the etheric body becomes more active. As a result, mental images become more fluid; one mental image blends more vividly into the next, and so on. The entire inner being takes on a greater inner fluidity than when ordinary, sober, everyday thinking is carried out. All of this lies within the human will. But in addition to everything that lies within human volition, there is something else—something to which a person can be prompted by the external natural world. When we become quite warm, the activity of the physical body—and thus also the thinking activity of the physical body—takes a back seat, and the etheric body becomes more and more active.

[ 43 ] And as the seventeen-year-old Mach was out for a walk and under the influence of the oppressive heat of the sun, his etheric body simply became more active. All other physicists have developed physics using their massive physical bodies. The heat of the sun led the young Mach to think not as the other physicists did, but in more fluid terms: the entire world consists solely of sensations.

[ 44 ] If the heat had become even greater, the connection between his physical body and his etheric body would have been so weakened that poor Mach would no longer have been able to think with his etheric body, nor would he have been able to perform any activity at all. The physical body ceases to think when it is too hot; and if the heat continues to rise, the person becomes ill and suffers from sunstroke.

[ 45 ] I am giving you this as an example because here, in the development of a human being, we see how we must understand how a supersensible element within the human being—the etheric body, or body of formative forces—intervenes in human activity; it is this that gives us form, gives us shape, possesses the forces of growth within us, and so on.

[ 46 ] In addition to this, however, anthroposophy shows us how there are still other supersensible aspects of the human being. — Do not take offense at the terminology. —- Beyond the form-forming body, or etheric body, we have what is the actual carrier of sensation—the astral body—and only then the essence of the “I.” We must not only come to know the human being through his physical body, but we must come to know him practically as a interplay of the various components of his being.

[ 47 ] Anthroposophy follows this path from the sensory realm—to which all contemporary science is devoted—toward the supersensory realm. It does not take this path out of mysticism or fantasy; rather, it proceeds with the same rigorous scientific rigor as modern science applies to the sensory world and to ordinary, sober intellectual activity—which, however, is bound to the physical body. In this way, anthroposophy develops knowledge, insight, and thus a sense of the supersensible.

[ 48 ] But this does not merely mean that, in addition to ordinary science, there is another science. It is not the case in anthroposophy that we simply add another special Spiritual Science—which is, in turn, merely a theory—to what we today consider natural science and historical science. No, when one ascends in this way to the supersensible, science does not remain theory; rather, it becomes practice of its own accord. Science becomes that which flows forth from the whole human being.

[ 49 ] Theory affects only the mind. What anthroposophy offers—an understanding of the whole human being that is, however, more than mere understanding—affects the whole human being as well. And what is it like, then?

[ 50 ] Yes, when one learns through anthroposophy what is contained in the etheric body or body of formative forces, one cannot remain stuck with the sharply defined concepts we have today for the physical world; then all concepts become fluid, and when a person looks at the plant world, for example, they will perceive not merely forms—specific, definable forms of the plant kingdom—but fluid forms. Their entire imaginative life takes on an inner fluidity. A person is compelled to acquire a freshness of spirit, because they no longer merely observe the plant externally, for example, but because, by thinking about the plant, they participate in the plant’s own growth, sprouting, and budding. In spring, a person becomes spring itself through their mental images; in autumn, they become autumn itself through their mental images. A person does not merely see the plant sprouting from the ground, blooming, or, in turn, the leaves turning brownish and falling off; no, a person participates in this entire process. By thinking about and creating a mental image of the sprouting, budding plant in spring that they are looking at, their soul is swept along. His soul inwardly participates in the process of growth and flowering. His soul will have an inner experience, as if all his mental images were directed toward the sun. In a sense, as he immerses himself more and more in the plant world, it is the sunlight toward which he inwardly strives in his soul. Everything comes alive within him.

[ 51 ] There we cease to be dry, conceptual beings; there we become people who are alive in spirit and soul. There we experience a certain sadness as the leaves change color and fall; there, as I said, we ourselves become spring, summer, fall, and winter. There, we freeze inwardly and spiritually along with the snow that covers the earth like a white outer garment. There, everything within us that is otherwise a dry, abstract life of the imagination comes alive.

[ 52 ] And when you even get to the concept of the so-called astral body—well, you see, that’s when people come along and say: “Oh, this astral body—it’s just something a few fanciful fellows have concocted.”

[ 53 ] No, it is observed—observed as something else. But the one who truly understands it begins to understand something else. He begins to understand, for example, what experienced love is. He begins to understand how love weaves and ripples through existence. Just as he gains an inner experience through his body of whether it is warm or cold, so too, through the knowledge of the astral body, he gains an inner perception of whether love weaves and undulates, or whether antipathy weaves and undulates. It is a complete enrichment of life.

[ 54 ] No matter how many theories—as are common today—you study, you will not be able to claim that what you study will permeate your entire being. It remains merely intellectual knowledge. If you wish to apply it, you must do so according to an external principle. If you study anthroposophy, it permeates your entire being, just as blood flows through your body. It is the substance of life—spiritual substance of life—if I may coin that seemingly contradictory term—a spiritual substance of life that permeates us. We become different people when we take in anthroposophy.

[ 55 ] And the fact is: if you take a piece of a human body—say, a finger—that piece can, at most, feel by touch. It must organize itself in an entirely different way if it is to become an eye. The eye also consists of tissues like those of the finger, but the eye has become selfless within, has become transparent within. That is why the eye conveys to us what lies outside the eye.

[ 56 ] Once a person has inwardly grasped the astral body, it conveys to them what lies outside. The astral body becomes a soul eye. The person looks into the soul of another human being, not in a superstitious or magical way, but in a completely natural way. But what otherwise happens only unconsciously in the course of love comes to pass. They see what is in the soul of the other person. Modern science separates theory from practice. Anthroposophy brings true knowledge into immediate life, transforming one person into another.

[ 57 ] When one studies anthroposophy, it is impossible to have to undergo practical training in anthroposophy only afterward. That would be a contradiction in terms. Just as blood enters the body when a human being is formed as an embryo, so does that which is anthroposophy enter the soul and spirit as a reality.

[ 58 ] This, however, does not lead us to experiment on human beings externally, but rather enables us to look into the inner structure of the human soul and truly connect with human beings. But then we also learn something else. We come to recognize, for example, how intimately connected human mental images are with human growth.

[ 59 ] What does modern psychology actually know about the relationship between human imagination and human growth? On the one hand, people talk about the way in which mental images come into being. On the other hand, in physiology, people discuss how human beings grow. But the fact that these two things—growth and mental image—are related to one another, that they are intimately connected—about that, we know absolutely nothing. Consequently, we also do not know what it means when, during the period of life roughly between the ages of seven and fourteen, incorrect mental images are presented to a person—to a child—or how this influences their growth process, or how it affects the proper physical growth process. We do not know how teaching a child too many mental images inhibits its growth process. We do not know how teaching a child too few mental images makes its growth—I would say—overpowering, so that it becomes prone to all sorts of illnesses. We are unaware of this intimate connection between everything psychological and everything physical.

[ 60 ] Without this, however, all education and all teaching is nothing more than groping in the dark when it comes to understanding human beings. Anthroposophy certainly did not set out in the beginning to establish a system of pedagogy. It sought to provide an understanding of the human being—a complete, full understanding. But in providing this complete, full understanding of the human being, the pedagogical aspect arose quite naturally.

[ 61 ] And when we look around at what is emerging here and there today as ideas for reform, it is all exceptionally well-intentioned, and one can have the utmost respect for many of these initiatives, for people are not to blame for the fact that, for the time being, there is no knowledge of the human being—no true, genuine knowledge of the human being. If an understanding of the human being were present in these educational reform plans, anthroposophy would have nothing to say. But if knowledge of the human being were present, then that would, in fact, be anthroposophy. Because a true knowledge of the human being is lacking today in the whole of our civilized life, anthroposophy came along and sought to provide this knowledge of the human being. And because education can only be based on knowledge of the human being—because education can only flourish when there is not merely theory on the one hand, and practice on the other, but rather—as with the true artist—when everything one knows can flow into action and activity; because pedagogy can only flourish when all knowledge is art, when the science of education is not a science but the art of education, such an active understanding of the human being must be the foundation of pedagogical work and practice.

[ 62 ] You see, that is why anthroposophical pedagogy exists. Not because one is simply fanatical about anthroposophy and therefore attributes to it the ability to be such a jack-of-all-trades that it can do everything—including educating children—but rather because pedagogy can only necessarily arise from a genuine understanding of the human being, which is precisely what anthroposophy seeks to provide. That is why, ladies and gentlemen, there is such a thing as anthroposophical pedagogy.

[ 63 ] Now, since I’ve only provided a few introductory remarks today, I’d like to continue discussing this topic tomorrow.