The Rudolf Steiner Archive

9. About Parenting Issues I

[ 1 ] Distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen! First of all, I would like to express my heartfelt thanks for the kind words of welcome just spoken by Professor Mackenzie, and for the fact that Professor Mackenzie—and those who have worked alongside her—have made it possible for you, my esteemed guests, to gather here once again today to discuss educational issues.

[ 2 ] What can be said about the anthroposophically based educational method in the short time available to us here cannot, in fact, be very much. For what is at stake here is actually an educational practice—something that, fundamentally, has no program and no general concepts with which it can be encompassed, but rather consists in the fact that, within all education and teaching, the teacher and educator, with a true, genuine understanding of human nature, look deeply into the child’s essence and sense that every single human being who enters the realm of earthly life is a wondrous mystery that the educator can solve to a certain extent, but which the world never can.

[ 3 ] How, then, should the educator approach the solution to this riddle—which one might say has been entrusted by the Divine to other human beings—presented by every human being entering the human world? This is precisely what must be put into practice by the teacher and educator through the application of education and instruction, beginning at the elementary school age, that is, roughly from the age when a child loses its baby teeth—around the age of seven—until the age of eighteen or nineteen, when the young man or young woman either steps out into the world or enters college.

[ 4 ] A number of years ago, when the devastating war had given rise in Germany to all manner of ideals—and certainly all manner of illusions, both small and large—it was an industrialist from Stuttgart, Emil Molt, who was the first to want to do something for his workers. His initial idea was to help his industrial workers come to terms, in a certain way, with their entire fate—and above all with what were then regarded as the social demands of the day—by founding a school for their children, a school in which these children, despite being the children of workers, would receive the very best education imaginable.

[ 5 ] As you can see, what I am advocating here as an educational task is not something I have invented; it did not arise from a reform movement, but comes directly from practical life. Emil Molt said: “My workers have one hundred and fifty children; they should be raised in the best possible way.”

[ 6 ] The fact that such things happen specifically in connection with the anthroposophical movement stems from the fact that we anthroposophists—as strange as it may sound to you—are neither theorists nor dreamers, but thoroughly practical people who take practical life seriously; indeed, we even believe that practicality is preserved most of all within the anthroposophical movement. Thus, an educational idea arose directly from a practical need.

[ 7 ] In Stuttgart, where this took place, the conditions were soon in place. There was not yet a democratic school law in Stuttgart, but rather an old, conservative school law that remained in effect until the constituent democratic assembly. We managed just in time to establish the school before the quite good “free” school law was enacted—a law that subsequently imposed a kind of standardization on the entire educational system in Germany, and which venerates freedom by turning it into compulsion. So we entered the period just in time to establish such a school. However, once the school was established, the authorities always treated us with extraordinary understanding. And the school, which was then founded as the “Waldorf School”—because it was initially established, so to speak, in connection with the Waldorf-Astoria factory—was able to be established in a completely free manner.

[ 8 ] I’m not exactly claiming that everyone who has passed a state examination must necessarily be a bad person—and, above all, a bad teacher— but I was not required to consider whether or not teachers had passed a state examination when hiring them; rather, I could only assess whether or not they could be proper, competent educators and teachers in the sense that I have in my mental image. In fact, most of the teachers at the Waldorf School—which is based on the educational method I am discussing here—are not state-certified teachers.

[ 9 ] But it didn’t stop there. You see, the school was founded with 150 children. Soon, the anthroposophists in Stuttgart wanted to send their children there as well, because the education was supposed to be so good! And since that time—it’s been a few years now—the school has grown to more than eight hundred children. We have some grades, such as fifth and sixth, divided into three parallel classes: a, b, c; since then, we’ve had children from all walks of life, from the lowest to the highest social classes; so the Waldorf School has truly become a school for everyone.

[ 10 ] Another point—and perhaps this was less practical, though I do not wish to judge that myself—is that Emil Molt, after he had decided to found this school, came to me and said that I should provide the spirit and the method for this school. This could only happen in the spirit of that spiritual research, that study of human beings, and that understanding of human nature which underlies the spiritual science that I represent. Above all, this involves truly understanding the whole human being—body, soul, and spirit—as they grow from childhood onward, reading into the child’s own soul, and, based on what one perceives in the child’s soul week by week, month by month, year by year, nurturing in teaching and upbringing that which is, so to speak, demanded by the child’s very nature. Thus, we can call our educational method: an education and instruction based purely on an understanding of the human being.

[ 11 ] Of course, I can only outline in very general terms what is meant here by “understanding of the human being.” There is a great deal of discussion today about how physical education should be conducted and how one should not neglect physical education in favor of intellectual or emotional education. When it comes to children, we are laboring under an illusion from the very beginning if we separate the physical from the emotional and spiritual. For in a child, spirit, soul, and body are truly one; nothing can be separated from one another! Let’s suppose we have a child sitting in school: the child is growing paler and paler. Let’s take this as an example: it is a physical peculiarity that the child is growing paler and paler. The teacher, the educator, must pay attention to this physical peculiarity. If an adult were to grow paler and paler, one would go to the doctor, and the doctor, depending on his or her current understanding, would consider this or that therapy. The teacher, the educator, must first and foremost ask themselves: Did this child come to my school looking as pale as they do now? Or did they perhaps have a different complexion when they first arrived? And lo and behold, the teacher, the educator—if they possess even a modicum of insight into human nature—may come to realize: “You yourself have made this child pale, because you have expected too much memorization from them; you must reduce the amount of memorization.” — The point here is to see directly within the child’s physical being what has gone wrong in their soul; for the child becomes pale from being overfed with material to memorize.

[ 12 ] Or the teacher has another child sitting in front of him: the child does not turn pale; on the contrary, he turns a noticeably redder color than before, and he becomes sullen, restless—he becomes what we today call a “nervous” child; it shows no discipline, jumps up at the wrong moment, and thus cannot easily remain seated in its place; it constantly wants to run in and out. Now the point is to reflect on what has brought about these moral qualities in this child. And lo and behold, one will be able to discover—not in all cases, for these cases are highly individual; they must be based on an individual understanding of the person if one is to recognize them, and what one seeks to understand about them must be grounded in an individual understanding of the person—one will be convinced, upon reflecting on what has happened: one has expected too little of the child in terms of material to be memorized; that may well be the case, for one child needs this much, while another needs only that much.

[ 13 ] Now we also have school inspections. The authorities make sure they know what goes on in our school. Back when socialism was flourishing, there was a local school superintendent who wanted to inspect the schools, and I spent three days walking around with him in the various classrooms. I made statements to him that were meant to show him that here, physical education is conducted in such a way that the spirit flourishes alongside it, and intellectual education in such a way that the body flourishes alongside it; this forms a unity. Then he said: “Well, that would mean all your teachers would have to know medicine! That’s simply not possible!”—That was his view. I said: “I don’t believe it’s necessary, but if it were, then it would simply have to be done; for teacher training must be such that the teacher can truly gain a complete insight into the spiritual and physical nature of the growing child.”

[ 14 ] And furthermore: If one has a child like the one mentioned last—one who becomes restless, who does not turn pale but, on the contrary, becomes somewhat redder—one can consider all sorts of measures, but if one wants to help the child, one must find the right approach. And the right approach is very much hidden here. For whoever wishes to gain insight into human nature must not limit that insight to children between the ages of seven and fourteen, while they are attending elementary school; rather, much of what takes place between the ages of seven and fourteen only comes to fruition much later in life. And anyone who does not practice experimental psychology in such a convenient way—focusing only on how the child is now and what to do with the child because it is like that now—but who strives to survey the entire life of a human being from birth to death, knows this: This child, whom you are raising in such a way that you give them too little material for memory, you are preparing them to suffer tremendously difficult health conditions around the age of forty-five due to a layer of fat lying over the heart. And one must also be aware of what spiritual and psychological upbringing can, under certain circumstances, bring about in a person only after decades. Understanding human nature does not mean experimenting on people in the present and observing how they express themselves; rather, it means knowing the whole human being—body, soul, and spirit—and, furthermore, understanding people according to the different stages of their lives.

[ 15 ] If one takes these things as a basis, one also realizes what significance such a thing has in moral terms. Perhaps you will also agree with me: there are people who, in their advanced years, when they appear somewhere in society, can have a certain blessing about them; they don’t even need to speak much; simply by being there, by looking in a certain way, by moving in a certain way—moving their arms, saying just a few words—but saying those few words with a certain emphasis and at a certain pace, and imbuing everything they say with love—in this way they become a blessing to those around them. What kind of people are these? Anyone with insight into human nature must, to explain this, go back to childhood: these are the people who, as children, learned to revere the spiritual world in the right way and to pray to the spiritual world in the right way. For no one can raise their hands in blessing in old age who did not learn to fold them in the right way for prayer between the ages of seven and fourteen. Folding one’s hands during elementary school age penetrates deeply into the inner organization of the human being and becomes a gesture of blessing in old age. Thus, the various stages of human life are interconnected. Whoever seeks to educate the child is at the same time educating the elderly person; that is to say, they make this or that morally possible for the elderly person.

[ 16 ] This does not impair human freedom. Human freedom is most severely impaired when there are any forces that oppose the free expression of will. These things are simply related to removing the barriers and obstacles that stand in people’s way.

[ 17 ] This serves as a brief introduction.

---

[ 18 ] If one endeavors to gain a deeper understanding of the nature of the growing human being in this sense—examining this nature not only through external observation but also with a gaze oriented toward the spiritual—then one finds clearly distinct stages of life within the child.

[ 19 ] First, we will consider the first three stages of life in relation to education. The first stage is fairly uniform in structure, extending from birth to the age of seven, up to the time of tooth replacement. The second stage of life extends from tooth replacement to sexual maturity, around the age of fourteen. The third stage of life begins with sexual maturity and extends into the twenties. The outward physical changes are, of course, easy to notice. But the fact that each stage of life actually reveals the human being in a distinctly different way from how he is in the other stages becomes clear only through a trained observation of the development of the human being. It becomes evident that in the first seven years of life—that is, roughly from birth until the teeth begin to fall out—a person’s spirit, soul, and body are indivisibly intertwined. What appears so strange about the child when it enters the world—the child is, after all, the greatest wonder of the world that one can behold—is that it enters the world with unformed facial features, disoriented movements, and an inability to produce the most purely human expressions, such as laughter and crying; The child can cry, but it is not yet true crying, for the crying does not yet well up from the depths of the soul—from which it will later well up—because those depths have not yet emerged independently.

[ 20 ] This is how we observe the child from week to week, from month to month: from the child’s indeterminate physiognomy, something gradually emerges—as if arising from an inner center—in the physical configuration of the form; the soul finds expression in the child’s facial expression, gaze, hand movements, and arm movements. And wonderful is that moment when the child transitions from moving on all fours to an upright posture. For anyone capable of observing such a thing, this is the most wondrous phenomenon. Observing all of this as it can be perceived by the spiritual gaze reveals to us: That within this body, despite the clumsy, disoriented movement, the spirit is present—precisely the spirit that cannot yet control the limbs. It controls them clumsily for now, but it is the spirit that may later develop into genius within the human being, present in the movement of the arms, in the movement of the legs, in the searching gaze, and in the searching sense of taste.

[ 21 ] And it turns out that from birth until the child’s teeth begin to fall out, the child is almost entirely a sensory organ. What is the nature of a sensory organ? It is devoted to the world. Consider the eye. The entire visible world is reflected in the eye. It is right there inside. The eye is entirely devoted to the world. So is the child—albeit in a different way—but entirely devoted to its surroundings. Yes, we adults taste the sweet, the bitter, and the sour on our tongues and on our palates; it does not extend down into the entire organism. People usually don’t realize it, but it’s true: as the child drinks milk, the taste of the milk permeates its entire organism—it tastes with its whole being. It lives, in a sense, like an eye, like a sensory organ. The differentiation between internal and external senses only occurs later. And what is peculiar is that when the child perceives something—let’s say, when there is a quick-tempered father standing next to the child, performing the corresponding actions, gestures, and attitudes that express that quick temper—then the child, in a dreamlike state of consciousness, perceives the quick temper simultaneously with the father’s movements, gestures, and all his actions. The child does not simultaneously think to itself, “He is quick-tempered,” but perceives the essence of that quick temper in such a way that this perception affects even the finest vascular currents, the blood circulation, and the respiratory life. And the impression received directly on a spiritual level continues into the child’s physical life. We may admonish the child, we may say this or that to the child, but this is of no significance to the child until the age of seven. What we do in its presence, how we behave in its presence—that is what matters. Until the child’s teeth begin to fall out, it is an imitative being, and education can take place solely through setting an example and through imitation. This also extends to the moral realm.

[ 22 ] One can have some unique experiences in this regard. Once, the father of a boy came to see me. He was beside himself, for he said: “My boy, who until now had always been a very decent boy, has stolen something!” He was completely confused, for he already thought there was some very particular moral depravity in the child. I said: “Well, let’s first find out whether the boy really stole anything. What did he do, exactly?”—“Yes, he took money; from the cabinet where his mother always takes money to pay for things, he also took money and used it to buy all sorts of snacks and candy, which he then handed out to other children.” - I was able to tell the father: “Your son didn’t steal; he merely imitated what he sees his mother do so many times every day.” The mother is the person he instinctively imitates. He takes money from the cabinet, too, because his mother does. Only if we base all upbringing and all instruction up until the child’s teeth fall out on pure imitation—through imitation the child learns to speak, through imitation the child learns everything up until the child’s teeth fall out— we need no other method than this: to be a person whom the child can imitate—then we teach the child, then we raise the child, whether in kindergarten or at home, in the very best way. But this extends right into our thoughts, and the child senses it if we merely have a thought that is immoral! People don’t believe in these intangible factors, but they are there; they exist. And when we are in the child’s presence, we should not allow ourselves to have any thoughts that the child cannot absorb.

[ 23 ] These are the things that are primarily related to the fact that, until the child’s teeth begin to fall out, the child is an imitative being. The possibility of teaching and educating the child in a fruitful way until the teeth begin to fall out rests entirely on the recognition of this aspect of the child’s nature. We don’t need to even consider whether we should introduce this or that Fröbel activity to the child; all of that was devised during the materialistic era. Even when we do Fröbel activities, it is not the content of the activities that affects the child, but rather how we do them—how we demonstrate them to the child! And anything we let the child do without first demonstrating it to them is simply dead weight that we are burdening the child with.

[ 24 ] The situation changes once the child begins to lose their baby teeth. At the age typically associated with elementary school, the child begins to internalize the principle of authority, which comes entirely naturally to them. During the first seven years of life, the child does what we model for them. During the second seven years of life—from the change of teeth to puberty—the child models their behavior on what I, as an authority figure, demonstrate through my speech and my entire demeanor.

[ 25 ] Nothing is to be said here about the greater or lesser significance of freedom in human life—whether social or individual—but merely about the significance of that which lies at the core of human nature between the loss of baby teeth and sexual maturity. And it is simply part of human development that the child can look up with natural devotion to a beloved authority figure who represents the source of truth for the child and is a valid guide. Between the ages of seven and fourteen, the child cannot yet discern what is true, good, or beautiful through intellect alone, but can only come to understand these things through experience mediated by a naturally beloved authority figure. Anyone who seeks to eliminate belief in authority from the school setting for this age group is driving out all genuine and true education, all genuine and true instruction.

[ 26 ] Why is something true for a child at this age? Because the authority of the teacher and educator standing beside the child reveals it to be true. That is the source of truth. Why is something beautiful to a child at this age? Because the authority of the teacher and educator considers it beautiful. And the same applies to goodness. We must move from the abstract concept of truth, goodness, and beauty to the concrete authority of the teacher and educator. And everything depends on what kind of person the teacher or educator is—whether they are a natural authority figure for the child between the ages of seven and fourteen.

[ 27 ] For the child is no longer merely a sensory organ, but has a soul that desires everything in the form of images; in images, not in abstract concepts; in perception, not in thought. And it is essential that we open ourselves to the possibility of incorporating everything into the child’s education and instruction at this age in the form of images—that is, artistically. To do this, we as teachers need precisely the ability to reveal things to the child in a pictorial, vivid way.

[ 28 ] The point here is that we ourselves can live in images. This goes so far—I can only give examples—that suppose we are teaching a child to read, showing the child how to read. Consider what that means: the child is to learn to read. The child is supposed to learn to decipher symbols written on paper. These are completely foreign to the child. Sounds, tones—the letters felt and experienced inwardly—these are not foreign to the child. The child knows the sense of wonder when the sun rises: A. The sound of wonder: A—the sound is there. But what does the symbol we draw on paper have to do with this sound? The child knows the fear of something that is scary: U. But what does the symbol we have on paper—the one meant for reading—have to do with this sound? The child has no connection to the way writing is today.

[ 29 ] If we look back at earlier cultures, we find that writing was not like that. People themselves drew what they wanted to express. Look at Egyptian hieroglyphs: they have a connection to human beings. We must return to this approach: first helping the child express what they want to convey through pictures. We can only do this if we do not begin with writing, nor with reading, but rather with drawing.

[ 30 ] And so we teach in such a way that when the child enters elementary school, we first introduce them to colors. It’s messy—the children get everything smudged—but one has to accept that. The child learns to work with colors, and one can guide them from color to shapes. If the teacher has the ability, the shapes representing objects gradually give way to the shapes of the letters. Then the child develops a relationship with them. One can develop the “A” and the “U” in such a way that, by first drawing a look of wonder, it eventually becomes an “A”! Just as the “A” slowly emerged from the first pictorial representation of wonder.

[ 31 ] Instruction must be artistic, starting from the image. First, a person must engage the whole self in painting, which then transitions into writing; only then should one develop the ability that is connected solely to the mind as a part of the human being. Reading comes later. First comes drawing as painting, painting as drawing. Writing is derived from drawing as painting and painting as drawing; reading comes only from writing.

[ 32 ] One can discern from the nature of the child what needs to be done. And so the task is to find the method based on an understanding of human nature. Our Waldorf school is a school of method. In everything it does, it seeks to unravel the child, to solve this wonderful mystery, and to bring to the child what the child’s own nature brings forth.

[ 33 ] There one will find that, precisely between the loss of baby teeth and sexual maturity, instruction must be kept entirely within the framework of the image. And one can keep everything within that framework. But as a teacher, in order to establish one’s natural authority, one must be able to position oneself correctly within that framework. One can—I am not solving a philosophical problem for you here, but rather speaking of pedagogical practice—one can, for example, speak to a child relatively early on about the immortality of the human soul by saying: “Look at the butterfly chrysalis: there you have the chrysalis in a specific form.”—Show it to the child, in whatever way you are able to show it. You see, the chrysalis opens up, and the butterfly flies out! That’s how it is when a person dies: a person is like a butterfly chrysalis; the soul flies out, but you just can’t see it. But just as the butterfly flies out of the chrysalis, so the soul flies out when a person dies, into the spiritual world. - There are two ways to explain this to a child: one way is like this; the other is when, as a teacher, you say to yourself: “My goodness, how clever you are—and how foolish the child is!” - But that’s not how you teach the immortality of the soul! That’s why you have to create such an image for the child, and you come up with an image. In doing so, one tells oneself: for the child, one is simply illustrating the concept that it does not yet understand, but of course one does not personally believe in the image. Yes, you see, the child will gain nothing from it—these are precisely the intangible forces at work here—the child will gain nothing from it if the teacher does not approach the matter with the same inner, I might say, piety as the child itself is expected to have. But the one who spiritually penetrates the world truly believes in his own image, for he knows that the divine-spiritual powers of the world have truly placed an image of immortality in the world through the emerging butterfly. That is the truth. It is not something you make up. If you yourself are immersed in all of this, if you yourself believe in everything you are bringing into the picture, if you identify with your own image, then you stand before the child as a natural authority. Then the child accepts many things that will only bear fruit later in life.

[ 34 ] These days, people want to make everything concrete so that even a child can “understand” it. This results in terrible trivialities. But above all, they fail to take one thing into account. Let’s suppose a child, at the age of eight or nine—when the teacher, the educator, is the very source of truth, beauty, and goodness for the child—has taken in something because the teacher believes in it, because the teacher has revealed it, and accepted it on authority. The child cannot yet understand the matter because the life experience is not yet there. At the age of thirty-five, long afterward, life brings something to one’s attention; then one says to oneself: “Ah, that’s what the teacher told me back then; now that I’ve gone through it, I understand it!”

[ 35 ] What a revitalizing force this represents when one brings to the surface, at the age of eight or nine, something that was once accepted on authority during childhood, now, at the age of thirty-five or forty, brings it up from the depths of the soul—so that a bridge is created between this thirty-fifth year and the eighth or ninth year of life—what this means in terms of revitalization and an increase in life force is something that anyone seeking insight into human nature will understand. And all pedagogy must be built upon insight into human nature.

[ 36 ] And so, in our Waldorf educational approach, we strive to guide physical, emotional, and intellectual education and instruction from the child’s innermost being. Here we have a phlegmatic child. We pay very close attention to the temperaments that children bring with them into the world. We even arrange the seating in the classroom according to these temperaments: we seat the phlegmatic children together. This is not only a guide for the teacher, so that he or she knows where the little phlegmatics are, but it is also very beneficial for the children themselves to sit next to one another. When they sit next to each other like that and bore each other to death with their phlegmatic nature, it becomes a wonderful corrective. They balance each other out and shed their phlegmatic tendencies in the process. And as for the choleric children—when they bicker and, by sitting together, allow their choleric tendencies to balance each other out—oh, there is such a wonderful clarification of that choleric nature! And so on, and so on. So, if you’ve mastered the art, you can certainly treat the phlegmatic child in such a way that you yourself become a phlegmatic person alongside them, and that you lead the child to feel disgust for their own phlegmatic nature.

[ 37 ] These things must, of course, become part of one’s entire life, becoming art and the artistic. This is particularly important at this stage of life. For example, you might have a child in the class who is a bit melancholic; he sits there, and if you don’t see the spiritual background—as is meant here—you might be tempted to make up explanations. Education, as it is meant here, is based on the realization that there is spirit in everything physical and bodily—that spirit is present everywhere. One does not overlook the material, but rather comes to know the material only by seeing the spirit everywhere within it, and thereby discovering matter. Materialism, unfortunately, suffers precisely because it does not know matter, since it fails to perceive the spirit within it.

[ 38 ] So we have, for example, a little melancholic child sitting there. This melancholic child is a cause for concern. Now, we might want to devise the most ingenious methods to cure the child of his melancholy; but that often fails to achieve the desired result. The individual case may be assessed quite correctly, but it often fails to achieve the desired result. On the other hand, it does lead to the desired result if I see that this little melancholic child has liver degeneration; the liver is on the path to degeneration, so I must do something. I go to the mother to find out how the child is being fed, and I discuss this with her to get to the bottom of it. I might discover that the child needs a little more added sugar in their diet. And lo and behold, if I can reach an understanding with the mother in this way—if I know, through spiritual physiology, that adding sugar can counteract liver degeneration in its nascent stage, in its early stages of development—then I am raising a melancholic child correctly. But I must first know, through spiritual insight, that sugar intake counteracts liver ailments.

[ 39 ] Thus, one must be able to correctly assess the developing human being down to the level of the individual organ. This is the very foundation upon which these educational principles are based. We do not seek out special places, such as forests or heaths, to take certain considerations into account here and there, because we believe that what truly needs to be achieved in education can be achieved by working within our social order—provided we truly understand the nature of the human being and how the human being develops.

[ 40 ] These are just a few examples I can offer today to illustrate the nature of this educational system, which is grounded in Spiritual Science and spirituality, and whose methodology is derived from this foundation.

[ 41 ] If one is able to relate to the child in this way, one actually gains the strength to develop the child physically and morally in such a way that, for example, the child’s fundamental moral powers come to the fore. It will then become clear of its own accord that there is no need to punish the child in any barbaric way; rather, natural authority will assert itself through maintaining the right inner connection with the child.

[ 42 ] That’s how one then experiences what we experience every moment in our Waldorf school—things of this kind: There was once a teacher who brought with him all sorts of affectations from conventional pedagogy. He thought that because a few children had been misbehaving, he would make them stay after school. He said, “You must stay after class and do math problems!”—Then all the children came and said, “We want to stay too, and do math problems too!” Because that’s the best thing you can do. What could be better? We want to do math problems too; we want to stay there! — Yes, you see, because one knows how to approach them in the right way, the children develop the right attitude toward what happens at school, and as a teacher, one learns this lesson: one should not use as punishment what is actually meant to be a reward. That is just one example among many. And in this way, it is indeed possible to build a true art of education upon an understanding of human nature.

[ 43 ] I am extremely grateful to Mrs. Mackenzie for giving me the opportunity, even if only briefly and in a few strokes, to touch upon the principles underlying a methodology of pedagogical art based on anthroposophical Spiritual Science. For our task is to be solely about methodology—methodology, not some social ideal born of mere fantasy or the like, but rather that which human nature itself demands; this is what we wish to make the object of education. We do not want to create a mental image of ourselves as human beings—thinking that a person must become this way or that way out of our own need—but rather we want to be able to look correctly at the developing child and let the child, whom the divine spiritual powers have sent down into the world, tell us: “This is how I want to become.” — Thus speaks the God within the child: “This is how I want to become.”

[ 44 ] We want to resolve this issue through our method of educating children—in the best way possible for their age—using the art of pedagogy. We want to be able to answer this question through our pedagogical art.