The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Third Lecture

[ 1 ] When I tried yesterday to present the Greek educational ideal to you, it was done solely with the intention of setting forth an ideal—one that might inspire the principles that must guide our current system of education and instruction. For it is impossible, at this present stage in the life of humanity, to employ the same educational methods as the Greeks did. Nevertheless, above all else, a fundamental truth regarding education and instruction can be learned precisely from the Greek educational ideal; and let us first set this fundamental truth before our minds, already affirmed by ancient Greek civilization.

[ 2 ] Greek children were raised at home until the age of seven. The public education system did not take charge of the child until the age of seven. Children were raised at home, where women also lived, secluded from the general social activities of men.

[ 3 ] This, however, reaffirms from the outset a fundamental truth about education—one without which it is impossible to educate or teach at all: namely, that the age of seven is regarded as a particularly important milestone in a child’s development.

[ 4 ] If we first consider the general characteristic of this seventh year of human life, it is revealed to us in the process of tooth replacement. We are thereby pointing to a fact that is currently not given enough recognition in human life. One need only consider that the human organism is such that, through heredity, it brings with it, so to speak, its first teeth—or, more accurately, the power to produce from within the organism these first teeth, which are worn out by the seventh year of life.

[ 5 ] Of course, one is completely mistaken in believing that the force that brings forth the second set of teeth around the age of seven only develops at that age. It develops slowly from birth and only reaches its peak around the age of seven, at which point it drives the second set of teeth out of the totality of the human organism’s organizing power.

[ 6 ] This is such an extraordinarily important event in the entire course of human life precisely because it does not recur; the forces that are present between birth and the age of seven—and whose culmination is marked by the emergence of the second set of teeth—are no longer active throughout the rest of a person’s earthly life until death.

[ 7 ] This fact must be understood. And one can only understand it by maintaining an unbiased view of what otherwise takes place in a person’s life around the age of seven. Up until the age of seven, a person grows and flourishes—one might say—naturally. Throughout their entire organism, the natural forces of growth, the soul, and the spiritual realm are not yet separated from one another. Everything is a unity until the age of seven. As a person develops their organic vessels, their nervous system, and their blood circulation, this development of the vessels, the nervous system, and the blood circulation simultaneously constitutes their soul and spiritual development.

[ 8 ] Because everything is still intact during this stage of life, a person is, so to speak, endowed with that strong inner driving force that brings forth the permanent teeth. Then this driving force weakens. It lags somewhat behind. It no longer exerts such a strong influence from within the organism. Why? Let’s suppose we got new teeth every seven years. I want to look at the matter from the opposite perspective so that it can stand clearly before our souls. Let’s suppose we retained the same organic forces we have up to the age of seven—that unity of body, soul, and spirit—throughout our entire lives; then we would get new teeth roughly every seven years; the old ones would fall out, we would get new teeth, but we would also remain, throughout our entire lives, the same children we are up to the age of seven. We would not develop a life of soul and spirit separate from natural life. The fact that physical momentum diminishes in the seventh year—that the body, so to speak, no longer drives or exerts itself as strongly, but instead brings forth finer, weaker forces from within—allows the finer power of the soul life to develop. One might say: The body grows weaker; the soul grows stronger.

[ 9 ] A similar process also takes place when a person reaches sexual maturity at the age of fourteen or fifteen. At that point, the soul aspect becomes weaker once again, and the spiritual aspect comes to the fore. Thus, over the course of the first three stages of life, up to the age of seven, a person is primarily a physical-spiritual-soul being; from the age of seven to fourteen, a physical-soul being, and separately from that, a soul-spiritual being; and from the onset of puberty onward, a being composed of three parts: a physical being, a soul being, and a spiritual being.

[ 10 ] This is a truth that offers a profound insight into the entire process of human development. One should not even attempt to raise children without fully appreciating this truth. For unless one is thoroughly imbued with all the implications of this truth, virtually any approach to child-rearing is bound to be amateurish.

[ 11 ] The Greeks—and this is what is so astonishing—knew this truth. For they regarded it as an unshakable law: a boy must be removed from his parents’ home, from the purely natural, elementary, and self-evident aspects of upbringing, once he passes the age of seven. And this insight was so deeply rooted that we would do well to remember it, especially today. Later, in the Middle Ages, there were still clear traces of this important educational truth.

[ 12 ] Today’s rationalistic, intellectualistic age has, in fact, forgotten all such things, and it even seeks to demonstrate outwardly that it attaches no value to such human truths; consequently, it demands that children enter school as early as possible—a year before they turn seven, or even earlier. One might say: This failure to follow the eternal truths of human development is precisely what characterizes the chaos of our current educational system, from which we must work our way out. The Greeks held this truth in such high regard that they actually structured all education around it; for everything I described to you yesterday was, in fact, done to place education in the light of the truth just expressed.

[ 13 ] And what did the Greek see in the little child, from birth until the child’s teeth began to fall out? He saw in the child a being who had been sent down to Earth from spiritual heights. He saw in the human being a being who had lived a life prior to earthly life in a spiritual world. And as he looked at the child, he sought to discern in the body whether it properly expressed the divine life of pre-earthly existence.

[ 14 ] It was important to the Greeks to recognize in a child, up to the age of seven, that a physical body encloses a spiritual being that has descended. There was a terribly barbaric custom in certain regions of Greece: to abandon—and thereby kill—those children whom people instinctively believed to be mere shells, incapable of expressing a true spiritual being within their physical form. But this is connected to a rigid focus on the idea that this physical human being, during its first seven years of life, is a shell for a divine-spiritual being.

[ 15 ] And when the child then passes the age of seven, it actually descends from a second level. In a sense, the child is sent down from heaven during the first seven years of life, still bearing its own inherited physical form, which it sheds at the age of seven; and it is not only the first set of teeth but the entire body that is shed every seven years, beginning for the first time at the age of seven. For the Greeks, during these first seven years of life, the child, in this physical shell, reveals what the forces of pre-earthly life have made of it. And its actual, first earthly shell, it wears only from about the seventh year until the fourteenth year of life.

[ 16 ] Let us revere—and I would like to express this now in terms roughly similar to those with which the greatest Greeks viewed this—the divine in the small child. We need not concern ourselves with the small child during the first seven years of life, the Greeks believed; during this time, the child can grow up within the family into which the gods have placed it. For during this period, the supernatural forces from its pre-earthly life are still at work within the child. By the age of seven, humanity itself must take charge of the development of these forces.

[ 17 ] What, then, must humanity do as educators if it knows how to revere the divine in human beings in the proper way? It must, as far as possible, continue what has been accomplished in the child through human initiative up to the age of seven. Let us therefore continue, as far as possible, the divine working—that is, the way the spiritual expresses itself in the physical. Thus, the gymnast had to be taught to understand God’s workings in the human body and to continue them there. The same healing, life-sustaining forces that the child had inherited from its pre-earthly life and nurtured in a purely elemental way until the change of teeth should be preserved in the child from the age of seven to fourteen or fifteen through human insight and human art. Education was then to continue entirely in keeping with natural existence. Therefore, all education was gymnastic in nature, because one regarded the divine education of the human being as a form of gymnastics. Through his education, the human being must continue the divine gymnastics.

[ 18 ] The Greek viewed the child in much the same way, telling himself: If I can preserve as fresh and as healthy as possible the growth forces the child has developed up to the age of seven, if I can preserve them fresh and healthy through my insight, if I can raise the child in such a way that the forces present naturally up to the age of seven remain throughout the entire earthly life until death, then I am raising the child in the very best way.

[ 19 ] That was the great, powerful principle of Greek education, this immensely far-reaching maxim: to ensure that the child within a person is not lost until death. Let us see to it—so thought the Greek educator, for example—that a person can preserve the powers of childhood throughout their entire earthly life until death. Let us ensure, between the ages of seven and fourteen, that these powers remain alive! An immensely far-reaching, significant educational principle. For now all physical exercises were designed, so to speak, to recognize: these powers, which were present up to the age of seven, have not gone away at all; they merely lie dormant within the human being. They must be awakened day by day. The awakening of dormant powers between the ages of seven and fourteen—that was the physical education of the Greeks: to draw out of the child in the second phase of life only what is already present of its own accord in the first phase.

[ 20 ] The fact that the Greeks strove to preserve the child within the human being “until death” by instilling the proper upbringing was precisely what constituted the greatness of Greek culture and Greek civilization. And when we stand in awe before this greatness, we must ask ourselves: Can we emulate such an ideal? We cannot. For it is based on three prerequisites, without which it is simply inconceivable.

[ 21 ] These three prerequisites, in turn, must be met by today’s educator when looking to Greece. The first is this: These educational principles were intended only for a small portion of humanity—the upper class—and they presupposed the existence of slavery. Without the existence of slavery, it would not have been possible to educate even a small segment of humanity in this manner using the Greek method. For in order to educate in this way, a portion of what human beings must accomplish on earth had to be carried out by those who were left to their basic human fate, without actually being educated in the manner deemed proper in Greece. Just as Greek civilization as a whole cannot be conceived without slavery, neither can Greek education be conceived without slavery.

[ 22 ] And so, especially for those who look with deep satisfaction and delight upon what Greece has achieved in the history of human development, this delight has the terribly tragic aftertaste that it had to be purchased at the cost of slavery. That was one prerequisite.

[ 23 ] The second prerequisite was the overall status of women in Greek social life. Women lived in seclusion from what actually constituted Greek culture in its most direct form. And it was this secluded life that made it possible, and possible alone, for the child to be left to pure instinct at home until the age of seven. For this instinct was thus nurtured without any conscious knowledge. Guided by human instinct and the elemental forces of its growth, the child was led through this process until the change of teeth.

[ 24 ] One might say: It was necessary that, just as the child’s embryonic life unfolds unconsciously through the forces of nature, so too—albeit to a slightly different degree—life should develop unconsciously until the child’s teeth fell out within the broader embrace of the family, which took the place of the mother’s womb. That was the second necessity.

[ 25 ] And the third condition is even somewhat paradoxical for modern people; but modern people will have to come to terms with it and recognize this third condition as well. The second condition—namely, the status of women in ancient Greece—is easier to understand, for even a very superficial observation of modern life reveals that, precisely because of what transpired during the Middle Ages, women in the modern era have sought their rightful place in social life. And if we still wanted to be like the Greeks were—with men’s exclusive interest in this deliberate system of education—then I’d like to see just how small this auditorium would be if it were attended only by the men who are allowed to take an interest in education!

[ 26 ] But the third condition runs even deeper, and it is one that modern civilization is least willing to acknowledge. It is this: We attain what we have as spiritual life through human effort. We must earn it through active work. And anyone who truly understands the active intellectual work of civilized life will have to admit: In fact, when it comes to the most important areas of civilized life, we must first and foremost count on what we will achieve in the future through human labor.

[ 27 ] When we consider all the human effort we must expend to attain a spiritual life in today’s civilization, we look back with some astonishment at the spiritual life of the ancient Greeks, and especially that of the ancient peoples of the East. For that spiritual life did indeed exist. Such a truth—one that people today do not yet comprehend at all: the role that the seventh year of life plays in human existence—one can infer from external symptoms what this means, but modern civilization is still very far from truly grasping it—such a truth was deeply ingrained in Greece; it was one of the great truths that flow through the ancient spiritual life and which we regard with admiration when we come to know what humanity once possessed in ancient times as primordial wisdom, as spiritual knowledge.

[ 28 ] Precisely when we, undeterred by modern materialistic and naturalistic prejudices, look back at the earliest human civilizations, we find everywhere, at the dawn of historical life, a profound wisdom from which humankind has structured its existence.

[ 29 ] This wisdom was not acquired by humanity, but was bestowed upon humanity through revelation, through a kind of inspiration. This is precisely what modern civilization refuses to acknowledge. It refuses to admit that a primordial wisdom was given to humankind in a spiritual way, and that humankind actually developed in such a way that even in ancient Greece, the aim was to preserve the child within the human being until death.

[ 30 ] This revelation of primordial wisdom—and this is connected to the entire evolution of humanity—no longer exists. Human progress consists, in part, in the fact that human beings no longer receive primordial wisdom revealed to them without their own effort, but must attain it through their own work. This is intimately connected with the development of the impulse toward human freedom, which is currently at its highest stage of development. Humanity’s progress is not, as one might easily imagine, a continuous, straight ascent from one stage to the next; rather, what human beings must achieve from within themselves in modern times, they must achieve precisely because they have lost that which was revealed from without and which contained within itself the deepest wisdom.

[ 31 ] The loss of primordial wisdom, the necessity of attaining wisdom through one’s own human labor—this is what is connected with the third prerequisite for Greek education.

[ 32 ] So we can say: We can admire Greek education, but it is tied to three preconditions: ancient slavery, the ancient status of women, and the ancient status of spiritual wisdom and spiritual life. All three no longer exist today and would no longer be considered compatible with human dignity. We live in an age in which the question arises: How should we educate when we are aware that these three prerequisites have been eliminated precisely by the progress of humanity? We must therefore look to the signs of the times if we wish to gain the right impulse for a modern education from within.

---

[ 33 ] Essentially, the entire so-called medieval development of humanity—which followed on the heels of Greek civilization and continues to this very day—served as proof, provided by the very fact of this human development itself, that humanity must take different paths in education and instruction than the Greek paths that had been so firmly established in earlier times. Human nature had simply changed. The effectiveness and reliability of Greek education rested on the fact that it was built upon human habit—upon that which can be ingrained in the human body.

[ 34 ] Until the age of seven, until the teeth are replaced, the human being develops in close connection with the body. The body, however, develops in such a way that its functions are carried out almost unconsciously. Indeed, these actions only become true, reliable skills when they occur unconsciously—when I have mastered what I am to do to such an extent that I no longer need any intellectual deliberation for the movement, but it carries itself out of its own accord. When I have turned the practice into a habit, then I have truly mastered what I am meant to achieve through the body.

[ 35 ] But Greek life essentially sought to shape the entire course of human existence on earth through habits. Whatever a person was supposed to do from the time of their upbringing until their death was actually meant to be done out of habit—so ingrained a habit that one could not really fail to do it. Then, if one structures education in this way, orienting it toward such a goal, one can preserve what comes naturally to a person until their teeth fall out—that is, until the age of seven; then one can preserve these childlike powers until the person completes their earthly existence through death.

[ 36 ] But what actually came about as a result of those historical events, when entirely different peoples flooded in from the East to the West during the Middle Ages, settling particularly in Central Europe and the West, extending as far as America, and establishing a new civilization—when what was natural to the South was adopted from that direction, thereby introducing entirely different ways of life into humanity? This also led to a completely different kind of individual human development. For example, a person emerged with the awareness that slavery must not exist and that women must be respected; at the same time, the awareness arose in individual human development that the young person between the ages of seven and fourteen—when development is no longer solely physical, but the soul is, so to speak, emancipated from the body—no longer tolerates the continuation of childhood in the manner that had been customary up to that point.

[ 37 ] Between the ages of seven and fourteen, this is the most important historical event of the Middle Ages and well into modern times. And only today do we see the great forces at work where human nature rebels most strongly—when it has outgrown the ages of fourteen and fifteen and still carries within itself that which rebels.

[ 38 ] How did this rebellion manifest itself in human nature? The primordial spiritual wisdom that, so to speak, still flowed naturally among the Greeks became, under the Roman-Medieval tradition, something preserved solely through the book, solely through scripture, and in fact believed only on the authority of tradition. The concept of faith, as it developed during the Middle Ages, did not exist at all in antiquity or even among the Greeks. That would have been nonsense to the ancient world and to the Greeks. The concept of faith only developed once primordial wisdom no longer flowed directly but was merely preserved and conserved.

[ 39 ] And so, essentially, for the vast majority of humanity, everything related to the spiritual and the supersensible is still, even today, tradition; it is believed in, but it is no longer directly present. Nature and the perception of nature are directly present; that which relates to the supersensible and its life has been handed down; it is tradition. Humanity has devoted itself to this tradition all the way back to the Middle Ages and beyond, sometimes believing that it is actually experiencing these things. But the truth is this: an immediate spiritual knowledge—a revelation that came to be preserved in writing—was passed down from generation to generation as a legacy and lived on solely by virtue of the authority of tradition. That was the outer aspect. And what was the inner aspect? Well, let us look back once more to Greece.

[ 40 ] Through the habitual assimilation of the entire human being—by which the child was preserved within the earthly human being until death—the soul’s faculties developed as if of their own accord; for the artistic faculties, as I described yesterday, from breathing and blood circulation, and for the intellect, as I described, from gymnastics. Among the Greeks, without any deliberate cultivation—because they developed their physical habits—a marvelous memory arose from this sum of physical habits. In our time, we no longer have any concept of what developed as memory among the Greeks without having been cultivated—and in the ancient Orient, this was even more significant. The body was cared for, the habits were cultivated, and from this the body itself produced memory. Through its proper care, the body produced a marvelous memory.

[ 41 ] The fact that we have no real concept of the kind of memory the Greeks possessed—which, in a marvelous way, allowed their intellectual treasures to be passed down so easily and become common property—is vividly demonstrated by the fact that, during lectures that people want to attend so they can remember them, we have to bring along stenographers—a fact that would have been completely absurd to Greek civilization. For what use would there be for something that one would, at most, have thrown away! Memory faithfully preserved it all because it was sustained by physical vigor. The soul developed out of physical vigor itself. As it developed, it stood in contrast to that which existed of its own accord, as if by revelation: primordial spiritual wisdom.

[ 42 ] This primordial spiritual wisdom was now gone; it had become tradition. It had to be outwardly upheld from generation to generation by a priesthood dedicated to preserving tradition. And inwardly, people had to begin cultivating that which the Greeks would never have considered necessary to cultivate. In the medieval educational system, there was an increasing emphasis on the need to cultivate memory. What had been preserved through tradition was incorporated into memory.

[ 43 ] Thus, externally, there was the historical tradition, while internally, memory and recollection were cultivated through education; the first aspect of the soul that was nurtured once the soul had emancipated itself: memory. And anyone who knows what value was placed on memory in the school system until recently can also appreciate how tenaciously this cultivation of memory—which arose out of a historical necessity—has persisted.

[ 44 ] And so, throughout the entire Middle Ages, the educational system drifts like a ship in a storm, unable to stay on course; for the human soul is the hardest to reach. One can reach the body; one can communicate with the mind; but the soul is so deeply rooted in the individuality of the human being that it is the most difficult to reach.

[ 45 ] But all of this was a matter of the soul. Whether people found the inner spiritual path to those authorities who preserved tradition for them; whether piety could grow to such an extent that the word proclaimed by the medieval priest-teacher—intended to strengthen tradition among humanity—was strong enough; whether this piety could become great enough: all of this was a matter of the soul. And to nurture remembrance, to nurture memory, and in this nurturing of memory not to coerce people, so that one does not suggestively impress upon them certain things that one wishes them to believe: this requires spiritual tact.

[ 46 ] What was necessary to properly address the spiritual civilization of the Middle Ages was just as often observed by tactful people as it was overlooked by tactless ones. And medieval education existed in this oscillation between what was good for the human soul and what deeply offended it. Much, very much, of this medieval education has been preserved to the present day without people even realizing it.

[ 47 ] This form of education in the Middle Ages came about, however, because the soul no longer wished to preserve the “child”—since the soul itself was to be educated. And it could only be educated, given the circumstances of the time, through tradition and memory. - When a person is between the ages of seven and fourteen, their human nature is in a sort of unstable state. Until the age of seven, the soul does not act with the same firmness in a person as the body does, and guidance through the spirit is not yet present. Everything takes on an intimate character that necessitates reverence and tenderness.

[ 48 ] All of this caused the educational system, over a long period in the course of human development, to drift into uncertain, unclear waters, making the era in which tradition and memory had to be cultivated appear extraordinarily difficult for the educational system. Today we live in an age in which human beings, through their natural development, now seek a different kind of security than that which was based on such unstable foundations as those of the Middle Ages. And this search for different foundations is expressed in the numerous efforts toward educational reform in our time.

[ 49 ] Waldorf education emerged from the recognition of this fact. It is based on the question: How can education take place when, between the ages of seven and fourteen, the soul continues to rebel against the preservation of childhood? But how can education take place when human beings have, moreover, lost that old, medieval relationship to tradition and memory—just as they have lost it in modern times? Externally, human beings have lost their trust in tradition; internally, they want to become free beings who wish to face life with an open mind at every moment. They do not want to spend their entire lives standing on a foundation of memory.

[ 50 ] This is modern man, who now wishes to free himself inwardly from tradition and memory once again. And no matter how much certain segments of humanity today might still wish to preserve the old ways—it is impossible. The very fact that there are so many efforts to reform education indicates that we face a major question: How should we proceed with education now that—just as it became impossible for the Middle Ages to educate in the Greek sense — today we face the necessity not merely of being able to educate based on tradition and memory, but of having to educate in relation to the immediate moment of life through which human beings are placed into existence on earth, where they must make decisions as free human beings based on the facts presented to them in that moment? How must we educate free human beings? — That is the question that is actually being posed to humanity today for the first time with such intensity.

---

[ 51 ] Given how late it already is, I would like to wrap up this line of thought in just a few sentences and save what constitutes a necessary educational method for the present day for tomorrow’s lecture.

[ 52 ] When considering Greek education, one must acknowledge the gymnast as the guardian of childhood into the second stage of a child’s life—the period between the ages of seven and fourteen or fifteen. The “child” is to be preserved. The forces of childhood are to remain with the human being until his or her earthly death; he or she may preserve these forces. The Greek educator, the gymnast, must, on the whole, nurture that which he must point to when he has a child between the ages of seven and fourteen before him: the natural foundation. He must be able to assess the child’s inherited natural foundation through his spiritual wisdom, and he must become its guardian.

[ 53 ] As medieval human development moved beyond these things, our present era emerged. What modern human beings actually are within the social order is only now becoming a fact of consciousness. This fact of consciousness cannot take place in an individual’s life until after sexual maturity, after the age of fourteen or fifteen. It is then that what I will repeatedly characterize in the following lectures as the consciousness of the true essence of inner human freedom emerges in the human being. It is then that the human being truly comes into his own. And when, as sometimes happens today, people under the age of fourteen or fifteen—before reaching sexual maturity—believe they have attained this consciousness, it is merely an imitation of what occurs at a later age. It is not an original fact. The Greeks sought to avoid this original fact—which occurs after puberty—for human beings; for the force with which they summoned nature, the child, into human existence obscured and darkened the full experience of this moment of consciousness after puberty. Humanity passed through this fact as if in a dull state of consciousness, held back by nature.

[ 54 ] Human development throughout history has progressed to the point where people are no longer capable of this. This fact of consciousness would erupt with elemental, volcanic Powers upon reaching sexual maturity if one were to try to suppress it.

[ 55 ] Therefore, the Greeks considered the period we call “elementary school age”—between the ages of seven and fourteen—to be the child’s first natural stage of life.

[ 56 ] We must reckon with what follows sexual maturity—what the boy or girl we have guided for seven years will experience as full human consciousness after reaching sexual maturity. We must no longer plunge this into a dreamlike darkness, as was the case with the Greeks—even the most outstanding among them, including Plato and Aristotle—who, because this was their reality, accepted slavery as a matter of course. Because education was such that it obscured this most important human reality after sexual maturity, the Greeks were able to serve as guardians of early childhood between the ages of seven and fourteen.

[ 57 ] We must become prophets of the humanity of the future if we wish to educate in the right way. The Greeks could rely on instinct, for they had to preserve the natural foundation. As educators, we must be able to develop intuition. We must be able to anticipate everything human if we wish to be educators and teachers. For this will be the essence of our education: that we instill in the child between the ages of seven and fourteen that which the child can later recall—when it attains a fully formed consciousness of humanity—in such a way that it looks back with inner satisfaction on what we have planted within it, so that it says “Yes” when we have been their teachers and educators. We are educating poorly today if, later, after the child has entered life, that child looks back on us in such a way that it can no longer say “Yes” to us.

[ 58 ] We therefore need intuitive educators who, in turn, are open to the ways in which one can attain the spiritual world and the spiritual life, and who, between the ages of seven and fourteen, can instill in the child something to which it can later look up with satisfaction.

[ 59 ] The Greek educator was a conservator. He said: “In a child after the age of seven, what was once present within him lies dormant; it is my task to awaken it.” — How can all education be structured so that we instill in childhood what may later awaken of its own accord in the free individual?

[ 60 ] We must guide education into the future. This is why, in our present age, the whole concept of education must become something different from what it was. In Greece, it was a reality that arose for people through their devotion to nature. One might say: Education was a natural fact that played a role in human life. Throughout the course of human history thus far, it has developed from this natural foundation.

[ 61 ] And when we stand in the classroom today as educators, we must be aware of this: just as we approach the child, we must offer the child something to which it can later say “yes” when it awakens to independent consciousness. The child must not only love us during their school years, but also, after leaving school, find in their mature judgment that their love for us as teachers and educators is justified; otherwise, the education is only half-baked, and therefore very weak.

[ 62 ] When we become aware of this, we realize to what a high degree education and the school system must transform a natural fact that influences human nature into a moral act.

[ 63 ] This is the deepest inner struggle faced today by those who, from the very core of their being, understand something of the necessary form that education and instruction must take. This is what one feels. It boils down to this question: How do we, in the highest sense, make education and instruction for the free human being a free act in and of itself—that is, an act of the highest moral order? How does education become, in its entirety, a moral matter for humanity?

[ 64 ] This is the central question we face today—the great mystery that must be resolved if the efforts toward educational reform, which are so commendable, are to be properly oriented toward the future.

---

[ 65 ] The questions concerned the education of very young children, kindergarten, school laws, etc., following the lecture by Dr. C. von Heydebrand.

[ 66 ] Dr. Steiner: I would like to begin by saying just a few words regarding the question of the education of very young children. There is, of course, no need for me to say very much about this today, since the subject will naturally be touched upon in the course of the lectures, and it is better to address these essentially pedagogical and methodological questions in context. I would just like to say this much: The education of very young children up to the age of seven is, of course, something that is of extraordinary concern to anyone who takes on a task such as that of the Waldorf School. Due to external circumstances, we began with the age that is referred to in Germany as the “school-age,” that is, with a school for children aged six or seven and up. And I must admit that when one attempts, building on such foundations, to contribute to the advancement of pedagogy—as has been the case with the Waldorf School—it entails an extraordinarily extensive undertaking. We began with eight classes, with children between the ages of six and fourteen, and have added one class each year since 1919, so that we now have twelve classes. So we have children between the ages of six and seventeen or eighteen; we want to bring these children—well, we no longer refer to them as “children” at this age—so let’s say we want to bring these young ladies and gentlemen to the point where they can attend a university or other institution of higher education. We have had to set this task for ourselves over the past four to five years. It was truly a task that took up a great deal of time. For what one can convey in a speech on these matters are, after all, more or less general principles. What really matters is the daily, hourly practice of teaching and educating, and there is sometimes an extraordinary amount to do. The question of a kindergarten has also come up several times. Up until now, with a new class being established every year, I’ve simply had to put the question of a kindergarten on hold for the simple reason that it would have been impossible to master the pedagogical challenge of properly organizing each new class—that is, a ninth, tenth, eleventh, and twelfth grade—from a pedagogical standpoint, while also moving forward. One must not form a mental image of one being able to accomplish anything with general, amateurish principles; on the contrary, the younger the children are, the more difficult the educational tasks become. Managing the first four grades is far more difficult than managing the ninth through twelfth grades. And if one goes all the way back to the education of the youngest children, one must consider the following: If one wishes to establish anything school-like for this purpose, it presents an immense pedagogical difficulty, for one can really only create something that is not organic. One must create a kind of surrogate. For in reality, the education of a child up to the age of six or seven belongs entirely within the family home. In this regard, the remarks the gentleman made earlier are extraordinarily accurate. They represent, in the most eminent sense, what today links the educational question to a major social issue. This immediately leads us into an exceedingly broad social issue regarding the education of young children, for there the question begins to concern the social circumstances of the parents and so on. Thus, this problem cannot be solved solely through educational means; rather, it undoubtedly leads to a social problem.

[ 67 ] But as for the other, related question—namely, that of course we do not have only model students, but also children who, depending on the circumstances and one’s judgment, may possess quite bad traits—I would like to make the following observation. Certainly, children with these “bad” traits do enter school, but that is precisely when one must put one’s knowledge of human nature—one’s genuine, methodical understanding of human nature—into practice. You need only consider that a so-called “bad” trait in a child, one that has developed, say, by the age of seven, is not always a “bad” trait in the absolute sense. Quite a few abilities—some of which may even reach the level of genius in later life—can be traced back quite naturally to a so-called “bad trait” that the child had at the age of two, three, or four. Take one trait—I’ll name one of the worst right away: cruelty, which can manifest in a child. This cruelty, which one notices when the child starts school, can in fact be channeled in one direction or another between the ages of seven and fourteen, provided one is pedagogically competent enough to do so. Those human impulses that lie in cruelty can, under certain circumstances, be redirected so that they become the driving forces behind something truly good. This is precisely where the ability to practice that art comes into play—the art of shaping the traits that a child develops from birth to the age of seven in one way or another. One can, if I may put it that way, redirect so-called “bad” traits so that they provide energy—specifically directed energy—and so on.

[ 68 ] That is all I wish to note at the moment, for, as I said, I intend to discuss what is actually relevant for the child from birth to the age of seven in the context of my lectures.

[ 69 ] The other point I would like to touch on is the question of our relationship with the authorities, specifically the school supervisory board. It is fair to say that there is actually a deeper significance to the fact that the Waldorf School is located in Württemberg; because before the new regulations were enacted—which were, after all, only enacted by the National Assembly following the founding of the Waldorf School—Württemberg had a school law that granted an exceptionally high degree of freedom, something that was still possible in very few regions that, viewed from the outside, otherwise appeared much more liberal. It was the case, for example, that I personally could simply hire teachers based on my own judgment, regardless of whether they had passed any state examination or not. That was only possible because of the free school law in Württemberg. In fact, I would say that Württemberg represented a unique exception in the world, where it was possible to establish a school that was free in the most eminent sense of the word. For as far as general state oversight was concerned, the following could be done, and in this regard the Württemberg authorities indeed met us with deep understanding: the foundation had to be an understanding of the human being. My lectures over the next few days will show how a genuine understanding of the human being allows one to derive the curriculum from the human being itself. One simply knows, depending on how the human being develops—in the seventh, eighth year, and so on—I would say not only from year to year, but from month to month—what one can offer the human being.

[ 70 ] Well, the official curriculum usually doesn’t align with that; but I was able to seize the opportunity to submit a memorandum to the Württemberg school authorities right at the founding meeting of the Waldorf School. In this memorandum, I explained that one must, of course, have a certain degree of leeway within which one can guide oneself entirely by what one methodically considers to be right based on human nature. And so I said: From the time a child enters school until the age of nine, I would like to have the freedom, for the first three grades, to organize the curriculum and use the methods as we see fit; but that by the age of nine, the child should be in a position to transfer to the fourth grade of any other school. Then, again, a degree of flexibility is necessary between the ages of nine and twelve; during this period, classes can be organized as we deem appropriate. At age twelve, the child can again transfer to the corresponding grade in a conventional school. And the same applies upon reaching the age of fourteen. From that point on, there is no longer any state supervision, but only the external requirement that, if the students in question enter higher education, they must pass their exams. Thus, from the very beginning, a solution could certainly be found—admittedly a compromise, but where today is there anything other than compromises? We will only be able to work with compromises once a general understanding of the Waldorf School has been established. So it has certainly been possible to gain as much leeway as possible with the authorities.

[ 71 ] Incidentally, I can only say that I am actually extremely satisfied with the way the authorities—through their inspections and so on—have accommodated us. I really couldn’t ask for anything better in this regard. The Waldorf School has so far been able to develop with extraordinary freedom in relation to the existing school authorities.

[ 72 ] There will be difficulties when young people are to transition to college; they simply have to pass their exams, and we all know how exams can be—how much can depend on so-called luck and so on. But the Waldorf School was certainly able to develop as a free school along these lines, and it can be said that the school authorities actually showed a great deal of interest in it. So we really have no reason to complain in this regard. That must be emphasized. Of course, there is a danger that, the further humanity advances—in the manner that has now become customary amid the chaos—the more we will find ourselves sailing into less free conditions. So it is certainly possible that, under the upcoming new elementary school law, we may one day face difficulties. Until now, that has certainly not been the case.

[ 73 ] That is precisely what I would like to say regarding our relationship with the legal authorities, which is, for the time being, the best possible.