The Rudolf Steiner Archive

7. Anthroposophy and Education

[ 1 ] Ladies and gentlemen! It is widely felt today that certain educational questions require an answer that has not yet been provided. The many efforts in this field demonstrate this with complete clarity. What I am going to present to you today on educational issues, at the request of the local Anthroposophical Society, is not something derived purely from theory. The application of insights from Spiritual Science into human nature to questions of education and teaching—originating from the anthroposophical movement—has, in fact, already proven itself in practice to a certain extent.

[ 2 ] It was in 1919 that Emil Molt took the step of founding an independent school in Stuttgart; he entrusted me with its establishment and organization, and it went without saying that the understanding of humanity and the world as conceived in Spiritual Science that I represent would be applied to this school. This school has been in existence since 1919 and has grown to twelve grades today. The students who entered the twelfth grade this summer will take their final exams next year, after which they will go on to university, technical studies, and the like. The school initially encompasses everything pertaining to the education and instruction of children of school age—that is, from approximately the ages of six or seven until the point at which the boys and girls transition to higher education.

[ 3 ] Now, what has been brought into this school from a Spiritual Science-based worldview is by no means something intended to radically overturn any commendable achievements in the field of practical pedagogy and practical teaching methods. For us, it is not a matter of devising some particularly radical method, such as those attempted, for example, in rural boarding schools and the like, where it was believed necessary to place young people in very special circumstances in order to educate them properly. Rather, our aim is, while fully acknowledging the contributions made in the field of pedagogy at the beginning of the 20th century by numerous enlightened minds, to move forward on the basis of a genuine understanding not only of the human being in his or her existence at a particular age, but also of a human understanding that encompasses the whole person —with human life in time, from birth to death, and with that which, within physical earthly life, lives out and actualizes itself in the human being as the eternal-divine. It is therefore a matter of adding to the proven practitioners of the art of education and teaching that which can be offered from such a perspective. And it is further a matter not of introducing some educational utopia into the world—this is generally much easier than creating anything out of full reality—but rather of achieving as much as possible within the given circumstances. If, then, one is dealing with the social conditions that arise from an urban or rural population, then these conditions, as they actually exist, must first serve as the foundation for what a genuine, authentic, and true art of education can do to shape a person so that he or she can find one’s way in the increasingly complex social, professional, and other circumstances of life in the present and, in particular, in the near future. Therefore, what Waldorf school pedagogy can offer is actually something methodological in the strictest sense—methodological in the sense that, fundamentally, if the external conditions can be created, what this Waldorf school pedagogy proposes can be incorporated into any school. After all, it has already been shown that we have made progress along this path.

[ 4 ] We started the school under relatively favorable circumstances. The industrialist Emil Molt initially founded this school for the children of his factory workers. They were, of course, easy to recruit. In addition, there were a few children whose parents were sympathetic to the anthroposophical worldview. But in any case, we started with only 130 children. Today, four years later, after the school—which at that time had eight classes—has been expanded to twelve classes, we have nearly 800 children and a teaching staff of over forty. Here in the Netherlands, efforts have just begun—more will be reported on this later—to establish a small school of this kind, and it is to be hoped that the methodology just discussed will also be able to prove its worth here through practical application. In Switzerland, preparations are underway to establish such a school, and in England, a committee has been formed with the goal of founding a school modeled after the Waldorf School.

[ 5 ] Now, following these introductory remarks, I would like to focus today solely on the purpose of this Waldorf school pedagogy. It is based, after all, on a profound understanding of human nature—namely, that the teacher—and in this regard, the question of education must first be viewed as a question of teacher training—should, through his or her special training, be able to truly perceive the child’s emerging, unfolding being from week to week, month to month, and year to year. I will attempt to outline, in a sketchy manner, what can form the basis of such an understanding of human nature—I would say, in abstract form. But this abstract form is, after all, merely a description. What matters is that what needs to be said here must become part of the teachers’ very being—if I may express myself paradoxically—their “flesh and blood”—and that this understanding of the human being, this active understanding of the human being, is actually realized in a school through a natural, everyday practice—not through theory.

[ 6 ] When we observe the developing human being, we very often fail to take into account how this person changes through three successive stages of youth. We notice individual changes in this human being, but we usually do not grasp them thoroughly enough. We can identify three stages in human development up to about the age of twenty, at which point education either comes to an end or takes on special forms. The first stage is early childhood, which has a uniform character, begins at birth, and ends with the change of teeth around the age of seven; the second epoch is the one that begins with the change of teeth and ends with sexual maturity; the third epoch is then the one in which we are already dealing with mature youth, who today consider themselves much “more mature” than they should be regarded if one wishes to educate them properly; it is the epoch lasting until about the age of twenty.

[ 7 ] Let us consider the first stage of a child’s life. At this age, when observed impartially, the child is a being who imitates down to the very core of his or her mental, emotional, and physical life—and, indeed, a being of will. At first, one notices how, as the child develops, it gradually becomes receptive to this or that impression from the outside world, becoming ever more and more attentive to this or that. But we are often misled into attributing this attentiveness to the child’s imaginative life. Yet in the child, it does not lie in the imaginative life at all. In fact, there is no stage in human life in which a person, through inner instinct or impulse, would wish to be more independent and free with regard to their imaginative life than precisely as a child during the period leading up to the change of teeth. During this time, the child actually wants to push everything aside with regard to the imaginative life and follow only its inner self. In contrast, the child’s will—to the extent that it manifests physically—is inclined to merge completely with the environment. And we find nothing more natural than for the child to imitate very precisely—in the movement of its limbs and so on—any habits of the adults in its environment that are expressed through physical movements or postures, for the child, with everything that stirs within it—right down to fidgeting—has the impulse to continue in its own expressions of will what it perceives in its surroundings. In this sense, the child is entirely a being of will; yet this extends even into sensory perception. And one can—and indeed must, if one wishes to address the art of education properly—one can even see, in relation to the senses, how this child is a being of will. Allow me to cite a specific example here.

[ 8 ] Among our various perceptions are those of color. Very few people realize that three distinct elements are at work in the perception of a color. We usually speak of “yellow” or “blue” as a single color perception; we generally do not notice that three distinct elements are at work within it. First, the human will is at work in our relationship to color. Let’s stick with the example of yellow and blue. If we have sufficient psychological objectivity, we soon see that yellow does not merely affect people as a perception in the narrow sense, but that it affects the will. It works in such a way that it stimulates the will to act outwardly. The most interesting observations in experimental psychology could be made in this regard. One would see how a person’s will, when immersed in a yellow atmosphere—in a hall, for example—would be inwardly stimulated to express itself outwardly, especially if the yellow has a slight reddish tinge. But if we have a blue background atmosphere, we will find that the will is stimulated inwardly, that it seeks to express itself in a pleasant, comfortable, or even humble feeling, so that it tends inward as a feeling. Interesting observations can be made here as well. One would find, for example, that the impression of blue has something to do with specific glandular secretions; so that in this case, the will is an impulse aroused by the blue that is directed inward. — Secondly, we can observe the feeling itself in the color impression. A yellow or yellowish-red color gives us the impression of warmth; we have the feeling of warmth. A blue or blue-violet color gives us the impression of cold. To the extent that blue becomes more reddish, it also appears warmer. So here we have the emotional impression. The third mental image is the concept, which we designate as the perceptual quality “yellow” or “blue.” But within this final mental image, the elements of will and feeling are present.

[ 9 ] If one approaches a child’s upbringing with an unbiased understanding of human nature, one finds that the impulse of the will first develops in the child through colors. The child adjusts its movements according to whether the color is an outwardly stimulating yellow or an inwardly directed blue. This is a fundamental trait that continues until the child’s teeth are replaced. Of course, feeling and perception are always present as well; but in the first stage of human life, the expression of the will in response to color is predominant.

[ 10 ] In the second stage of life, from the change of teeth to sexual maturity, the inner experience of feeling toward color is added to the impulse of the will. And we shall see: While the change of teeth brings about a certain calming in humans with regard to the stimulating aspect of color—I would say, with regard to the desire to “feel out” color—we now see that a very special emotional understanding of the warming and cooling qualities of color develops during the period between the change of teeth and puberty. And, I would say, the sober, prosaic relationship to the mental image of “yellow” or “blue” essentially begins only with sexual maturity.

[ 11 ] What manifests itself in this way in detail is present in the whole human being. One could say: as a natural being, up until the change of teeth, the human being has a kind of natural-religious relationship to his or her surroundings—the religious relationship of devotion. The human being allows what lives in his or her surroundings to live within him or her. Therefore, for this period—insofar as one can speak of an “art of education and instruction” for these years—we achieve the most by basing all education up until the change of teeth on imitation, that is, on what the will can inwardly experience from the environment. This, however, extends into the most unfathomable impulses of human life. If, for example, the child’s environment includes a short-tempered father who, under the influence of his temper, acts out in various ways, then what he does—in its outward form—is of very special significance for the child growing up in the presence of such a father. It is not the hot temper itself that is significant—for the child does not really understand it—but rather the actions, even the movements, of such a father. For during this time, the child’s entire body behaves as an organ of will and sensation; through its movements and expressions of will, it purely lives out what is expressed in the actions and movements of a hot-tempered person. And everything in a child’s body—which is still malleable and capable of development—unfolds under the influence of such experiences. Blood circulation and the nervous system—which in turn underlie the soul and are influenced by it—align themselves accordingly, develop inner habits, and the person carries what they have acquired through this principle of imitation with them throughout their entire later life as a constitutional disposition. Later in life, our blood circulates in the same way as those external, sensually perceptible impressions—which are transformed into will—were during the earliest childhood. We must understand this in both a physical and a psychological sense.

[ 12 ] I find myself repeatedly citing an example like that of a boy who, at the age of four or five, did what adults call “stealing”: he had taken money from his mother’s drawer. He hadn’t even done anything bad with the money; instead, he bought candy and shared it with his friends. The boy’s father said, “What am I supposed to do with my son now? He stole!” I replied, “Of course, one must take such a thing into account; but he didn’t steal, because at this age he has absolutely no concept yet of what will later be called ‘stealing.’ The boy had, in fact, always seen his mother take money out of that place; he was imitating her, and this is a perfectly ordinary attempt at imitation. The concept of stealing plays no role at all at this age.

[ 13 ] The point, then, is to be careful not to do anything in the child’s presence that the child is not actually allowed to imitate, but also to expect that the child will imitate it; that is, if you want the child to do something specific, you should demonstrate it to the child in such a way that it seems natural. One should therefore not, as is very often the case in kindergartens, have children do tasks that have been specially devised; and if one does have them do such tasks, one should do them oneself as well. And one should arouse the child’s interest in what one does oneself, so that the child will imitate it.

[ 14 ] This is the principle that must guide a healthy upbringing until the child’s teeth begin to fall out. Everything must stimulate the will, for it is still entirely rooted in the physical realm and exhibits an almost physical, religious devotion to the child’s surroundings. This devotion is evident in everything.

[ 15 ] With the change of teeth, this is transformed into an aesthetic, childlike, artistic devotion. I would like to say: The natural, religious impulse that we have as children toward our fellow human beings and toward what we already understand of nature is transformed into something artistic. And this artistic quality must be met with imagination and feeling. Therefore, for the second stage of human life, there is no other way than to approach it artistically. The teacher, the educator, who works with children especially at the elementary school level, must take particular care to ensure that everything that takes place between him and the children bears an artistic character in its execution. I believe that in this regard, some new methodological impulses for education will be necessary—impulses that, however, transition very strongly into the practical and living realm. I certainly do not believe I am saying anything that will be taken amiss, because so many people say it; I have heard it far more often than I have said it myself: that the profession of teaching and educating makes one “pedantic.” Yet, especially for children between the ages of seven and fourteen, nothing in the art of education is more toxic than pedantry; on the other hand, nothing is more beneficial than an artistic sensibility driven by a natural, inner enthusiasm; when every action one takes toward the child, every word one speaks to them, is not driven by pedantry or theoretical reflection, but by artistic enthusiasm—which the child perceives in their own development—and in response to which they experience inner joy and satisfaction as a divinely spiritual, natural sculpture gradually shapes the child from the very center of human life. If a person, guided by such a spirit, knows how to make progress with their children in school, then that is the only possible living methodology. And what I can only sketch here must flow into this enthusiasm.

[ 16 ] It is a kind of assimilation that speaks in part to the teacher’s or educator’s understanding and diligence, but for the most part to their entire disposition. The insight into human nature that must be instilled in the educator is something that must become second nature to him, just as the handling of colors and the brush is for the painter, or the palette knife for the sculptor, and so on. Only this must be taken much more seriously, much more conscientiously, and with greater reverence than in the case of the artist, for in education we are dealing with the greatest work of art that we can encounter in life—in light of which it would actually be sacrilege to speak merely of a work of art at whose creation one can participate. This attitude toward the child is essentially what matters. Then one will discover how to make the relationship between the educator and the child ever more vibrant and alive.

[ 17 ] Just think about it: a child has to grow into something that is initially foreign to him or her. Take, for example, our writing system, which is composed of “letters” whose full aesthetic appeal we no longer truly appreciate, where we string one letter after another to form words and sentences. Today’s writing system has, after all, evolved from something else: pictographic writing. But the pictographic writing of earlier times still had a living connection to what it expressed, just as what was depicted had a living connection to what it signified. Today, we must undertake scholarly studies if we wish to trace that particularly tiny little goblin we call “a” back to the moment when what is to be expressed—and perceived—by the letter “a” at this or that point in a word is to be grasped. And yet: the only thing at work here is that what is to be expressed is something like perplexing wonder. Every single letter springs from an elementary emotional element, which has now, however, been entirely stripped away. Today, the letter is abstract.

[ 18 ] Anyone who is able to look impartially into a child’s mind knows this: it is so terribly foreign to the child what it is supposed to learn at such a tender age—something that was once connected to the things themselves, but which is now practiced by adults and is no longer connected to those things.

[ 19 ] That is why, in Waldorf schools, we have tried to develop the skill of writing—which is actually where we begin; reading comes later for us—out of painting and drawing with a painterly approach. We don’t let the child approach “letters” at all at first. We try, for example, to teach the child to draw a fish on paper in a simple way using any colors. Now the child has drawn the fish. Then the child is encouraged to clearly realize that what is drawn on the paper sounds like “fish” when spoken. And now you will see: it is easy to transform the shape of the fish into an “F,” and if you take the initial sound “F” of the word “Fisch,” the “F” is right there. This is also, historically speaking, the origin of the letter “F.” But that is not the point; rather, the point is that we extract the letter from a drawn image. This is something that is naturally connected to human nature, so that through this process we enable the child to form the letter out of something that can be perceived as real. This certainly requires an artistic sensibility, and it also requires overcoming a certain degree of inconvenience. For if you were to see in a Waldorf school how the children there smear paint around with their brushes, it can be quite inconvenient at times; you have to keep cleaning up, and that requires a certain dedication. But you get over it much faster than you might think. It is remarkable what artistic benefits even young children gain from this: they very quickly learn the difference between “applied” paint—applied as if smearing a substance over the paper—and “luminous” paint, which the painter needs to achieve what he intends. This distinction, which today is even extraordinarily “esoteric” for many adults, becomes clear to the child very soon, and something that has a stimulating effect on the child’s mind emerges in the course of learning to write in this way; it’s just that children learn to write a little later, because they develop their writing skills out of painting. But that is actually beneficial. After all, we all suffer from the fact that we were introduced to the abstract art of writing too early. There is no greater blessing for the whole person than to make the transition to abstract written characters only in the ninth or tenth year, and to derive everything beforehand from the living, pictorial world.

[ 20 ] There is something about learning to write that engages the whole person. A person must exert their arms, but at the same time they feel that what their arms are doing is connected to the whole person. Therefore, it is a beautiful transition from the stage of life where the child lives more through the will to that emotional element which is particularly prominent in the second stage of life—it is a beautiful transition that we carry the process of learning to write over into that emotional realm. When a person reads, they actually engage only that part of themselves that perceives forms, and no longer the whole person. That is why we strive to let the art of reading emerge from the art of writing. And this is then extended to everything that is to be taught to the child.

[ 21 ] The point, then, is to discern from the child’s very nature what should be done in terms of instruction. This sums up what Waldorf education is all about: that the teacher shapes the process of learning to read out of the child’s entire being. It is of no use to say: this or that should be done in such and such a way; rather, what matters is that one actually perceives what is emerging from within the child. And what a person will need later in life always first emerges from within the young child.

[ 22 ] To empathize with what a person truly desires from within, and to feel this empathy—that is what can later set a person on the right path in life. And it is of particular importance that, during the period between the ages of seven and fourteen or fifteen, one develops the child’s capacity for flexible concepts. These concepts—these concepts grasped through feeling—do not develop if one focuses too much on allowing the child to develop within itself only what it already understands. Admittedly—at first glance—it seems so appealing to make the claim that one should not introduce anything to the child that it does not understand. It sounds so plausible. One might, however, become disheartened by the methodological guidebooks that specify what should be presented to the child in visual instruction, so that only what the child already understands is introduced to it! What is presented as visual instruction there is often triviality and banality itself—not to mention that at this age, things that are not outwardly visible also take root in the child’s soul, such as moral and other impulses in life. Anyone who speaks only of visual instruction fails to recognize that education must not be based solely on what one observes in the child, but rather on what passes from childhood into the entirety of human life. And this is how it is: When, in the eighth or ninth year of life, a child stands before the educator with a natural, emotional reverence—which has nothing to do with the imitation that is characteristic of the age up to the change of teeth—and regards the educator, so to speak, as the gateway through which the world approaches us, of course, all in the instinctive way that must be the case with a child—then our own developing childlike life grows upward, not now based on what the teacher demonstrates to us, but on what he exemplifies in his own life, and this, too, is transformed into inner life forces. And there is nothing more meaningful than when, at this age, something is true for the child because it is true for the teacher; for this creates such a natural, authoritative impression that the child regards as true whatever the teacher also regards as true. Truth must reach the child indirectly through the teacher. In the same way, beauty and goodness must also reach the child through this path.

[ 23 ] At this age, the world must approach the child with a natural authority. You surely do not suppose that I, who wrote *The Philosophy of Freedom* thirty years ago, would have anything against human freedom; but it is precisely the freest person who wants to have experienced this infinitely beneficial thing during childhood: to be able to look upon a natural authority in the educator, to be able to sense in this natural authority the gateway through which truth, beauty, and goodness from the world can reach the human being. One follows all of this from week to week, from month to month. The child itself becomes the book from which one reads what one should do with him or her. Through this, one develops an important sense of what should happen with the child, for example, at a particular moment. One such moment lies between the child’s ninth and tenth years of life. Anyone who observes the child’s development in the sense described here and has thus become a natural authority figure for the child will always find that something approaches the young person between the ages of nine and ten; it can manifest itself in very different ways. At this stage, the child needs something very special for their inner life. They do not at all live with conscious clarity regarding what is taking place. But what is taking place is this: up to that point, they have sensed the authority of the teacher and educator out of a deeply unconscious instinct; now they want more, now they also want to be able to acknowledge it. It wants the teacher to prove themselves as the educational authority in the eyes of a mature perspective. And if we manage in this way to become a natural authority figure for the child, then later in life—for example, regarding something absorbed at the age of eight or nine under the authority of a beloved teacher— perhaps at the age of forty-five or fifty—those moments will arise when, from the perspective of a mature life, what was absorbed back in one’s youth resurfaces. It has slumbered deep within the soul for decades; now it surfaces again, and one confronts it with mature experience. And this then brings about something immensely fruitful: it is the stirring of inner life forces.

[ 24 ] What, then, is the secret to staying young at heart? It is not by making all sorts of melancholy gestures when recalling one’s youth—lamenting that things used to be “so beautiful” but are no longer so—that one remains young. Staying young while also remaining valuable to one’s fellow human beings—so that what one acquired in youth can emerge from the soul in a completely new form in old age—the things absorbed earlier are transformed and become something else; this is the fruit of what was planted in the childlike soul at that stage of life. In a remarkable way, the impulses that unite with human life and the human body are transformed. I would like to cite just one example of this. There are people who, when they have grown quite old, can be part of any circle; they do not need to say much at all—they are a source of comfort simply by their presence, and people enjoy having them among them. They have a blessing to offer their surroundings. Where can this blessing come from? When one usually engages in pedagogy, one generally studies only childhood; in that case, pedagogy remains an external study. Its true scope, however, must extend to the whole of human life—from birth to death. If, in the spirit of such a pedagogy, we look at a person such as the one I have just described, we come to the conclusion that this blessing stems from what has been established in the child’s mind through a natural reverence for the educator. And I would like to say that one can go even further: No one can spread their arms in reverence and adoration in old age who has not learned, as a child, to fold their hands in reverence and adoration. The inner experience of reverence transforms itself throughout human life into a blessing for that stage of life where this blessing can have a beneficial effect.

[ 25 ] We must therefore say: Only those who are able to observe the whole of human life can practice a truly vibrant form of education and teaching. But then they will not be concerned with imparting rigidly defined mental images to the child. If we were to constrain a five-year-old child in clothing that were permanent and did not stretch—such a thing does not exist, of course; it is merely a hypothesis—that would be a terrible thing for the child’s physical life. But we do the very same thing to the child’s spiritual life when we teach them definitions that are meant to remain exactly as they are, and which the child is expected to carry with them in their memory. What matters in education is that we impart to the child nothing but flexible mental images and sensations that grow along with the child’s physical, emotional, and spiritual development. So it is not a matter of giving the child fixed, rigid mental images, but rather flexible mental images that can change. We should not even aspire to teach the child something that they are supposed to retain for their entire life; rather, we should impart something flexible to them. Anyone who takes the art of education seriously will understand this.

[ 26 ] You will not hold it against me if I say: Not every educator will be a genius. But anyone may find themselves in a situation where, among the boys and girls sitting before them, there is one who will later become more intelligent than they are. The true master of education must not assume that those sitting before them need only be as intelligent as they are.

[ 27 ] But this must be the foundation of a true art of education: that we make what can come from art itself fruitful for education. Artistic sensibility is already being developed when we draw writing from painting. But we should be clear about the immensely significant role that music, for example, plays in the development of the will. One only learns to appreciate music when education is grounded in a genuine, true understanding of the human being. But then one arrives at something else as well: eurythmy. Eurythmy is an art form that has, so to speak, emerged from Spiritual Science research as a necessity for our age. Of a series of facts fundamental to the understanding of the human being, modern science is aware of only one small detail. This is the fact that we know: in right-handed people—that is, in most people—the speech center is located in the left third frontal gyrus of the brain, whereas in left-handed people it is on the right side. That is a small detail. Spiritual Science shows us, for the sake of pedagogy, that all speech originates from what, in the broadest sense, is the movement of the limbs in childhood. Of course, this has more to do with the way human beings are constituted than with the more or less random reality. If someone injures their foot during adolescence, this has no great influence on what I am now considering. But when we examine what language is actually about, we find that when we assimilate impulses that lie specifically in the rhythmic movement of our limbs as we speak, we are drawing upon the human gait, upon every gesture performed with the legs and feet. What lies in limb movement—what lies, for example, in the feet themselves—is mysteriously transformed through an inner organic metamorphosis into an impulse that is transmitted to the primary speech organs. This is particularly evident in the formation of consonants. Likewise, what the child expresses through the movement of its hands is also alive in the forms of speech. Language is merely gesture put into action. And anyone who understands language—how it arises from consonants and vowels—sees in it the movements of various human limbs put into action. After all, what we utter is a kind of gesture made with air..... [gap]

[ 28 ] In this way, through an artistic-pedagogical method, that which can flow from a genuine understanding of human nature can indeed be incorporated into education. And thus, the one who educates and teaches in the spirit of this pedagogical art will become an artist of education. What is meant here is not based on anything revolutionary, but rather on something inspiring that can be incorporated into any educational system, precisely because it has emerged from the very core of human developmental potential. This naturally makes it necessary to introduce various elements into teaching and education that are still unfamiliar today. I’ll mention just one thing: If one wishes to practice the art of education in this way, one must focus on the child’s life. Therefore, one cannot—as is customary today—teach arithmetic from 8 to 9 a.m., history from 9 to 10, something else from 10 to 11, and so on, with all sorts of subjects jumbled together. Instead, in Waldorf education, we have established a system whereby the same subject is presented to the child daily from 8:00 to 10:00 a.m. for three to four weeks, so that the child remains focused on it. The fact that what has been learned may later be forgotten is not an objection to this method. On the contrary, it is precisely through this approach that the child’s soul is nurtured in a very special way.

[ 29 ] All of this is meant to be merely an example of how, based on an understanding of human nature grounded in Spiritual Science, an art of education can emerge that will once again make it possible for us not to attempt to approach human beings through external means—such as experimental pedagogy or experimental psychology—but rather to immerse ourselves, with the innermost core of our own being, into the innermost being of the child. Such an attitude can then be put to the test by bringing into the school what can flow from an understanding of the human being grounded in the Spiritual Science.

[ 30 ] The fact that when a human being enters earthly life, they do not merely accept what is offered to them by their father and mother, but rather that they descend into this earthly world as a spiritual being from a spiritual world—this can be put into practice in the art of education through a vivid understanding of human nature. For, fundamentally speaking, there are no more wondrous experiences than observing a very young child in the process of becoming, participating in its development, and gaining the impression of how what was at first an inner blur—having descended from the spiritual world into earthly existence—gradually takes shape and form. And one comes to realize that one is dealing with a supersensible-spiritual reality that incarnates and unfolds here in the sensory world. One then feels a sense of responsibility toward one’s own art of education; and if one also feels the necessary conscientiousness, then the art of education becomes, in a sense, the performance of a religious service. In practice, one feels: The gods have sent human beings down into this earthly existence and have entrusted them to us as educators.

[ 31 ] What the gods entrust to us through the child are mysteries that give rise to the most beautiful form of worship. But what is thus incorporated into the art of education and instruction—what should form its foundation—is, above all, something that emanates from the teacher. Today, when discussing educational issues, it is often said that not only should the child’s intellect be developed, but one must also cultivate the child’s religious inclinations and so on. Thus, there is much talk about what should be developed in the child. In Waldorf education, however, the focus is more on what must be present in the teacher, so that for them, the question of education is first and foremost a question of the teacher.

[ 32 ] And once the child has reached sexual maturity, it should feel: Now that your feelings and will have been influenced, you are ready for your imagination to be influenced; now you are mature enough to be sent out into life.

[ 33 ] Thus, what comes to us here is like the innermost demand that arises from the human being himself, once we learn to understand him. And so, the anthroposophical understanding of the human being does not wish to remain a theory for mystical or idle minds, but rather seeks to be translated into life. It is thus the very practice, the very part of real life, that is particularly close to the human being and must be dear to his soul: it is what lies directly within his task toward the developing human being. If we learn to educate and teach in this way, drawing from human nature, then a soothing mental image settles upon our minds: We are carrying something into the future that this future needs! Our life—cultural life—which today imposes so much misery and so many complications on people, draws our attention to how such tasks are present in human development precisely today. It is often said, to the point of tedium: the social question is above all a question of spiritual life. When one says this, one should above all be aware that one must overcome what makes life today so difficult—inwardly difficult. Oh, people pass each other by today—without understanding and without love, and without looking intimately into what the person passing us by might be. But in order for this intimate insight to take root in life, so that human hearts may once again draw near to one another, so that social ideals do not appear as theoretical demands but are born out of love for humanity—for only love for humanity can resolve what needs to be resolved in the social question— the most important thing required for this is that we know how to shape in the right way that social relationship which extends from the educator to the child. For in what develops as the social relationship between teacher and child in school, the most beautiful seed is sown for the solution to the social question. And much of what arises from such an art of education will appear to the educator as if he were nurturing that seed, and through his vision of the future—not utopian, but entirely real—the blossom of what he instills in people comes to life.

[ 34 ] Just as, in the true art of education, we should have the whole of human life before us, so too should we, from this very mindset—from which we practice the art of education—keep the whole of life in its broadest sense before our eyes. To act as an educator means: to work not for the present, but for the future! But just as a human being, when a child, carries the future within, so too will the one who can say to himself at every moment be guided by the most beautiful pedagogical spirit: What you are to shape has been sent down to you by the gods; you are to bring it into life in the right and dignified way. And to actively shape, together with the child, the path from the divine world order to the earthly world order in a living way—this is what must permeate our art of education as an impulse of feeling and will if it is to meet the demands so vital to human life that arise today.

[ 35 ] That is the aim of Waldorf education. And what we have achieved in the few years since then may perhaps justify the conviction that the living understanding of human nature derived from Spiritual Science can prove fruitful not only for human existence but also for the field of education and teaching—that is to say, for the most important branch of practical life.