The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Seventh Lecture

[ 1 ] From the reflections presented here on an art of education founded on an understanding of human nature, it will surely have become clear just how much depends on the way in which the teacher, the educator, actually relates to those he is to educate and instruct. What lies within the teacher’s soul—within the teacher’s entire personality—radiates, one might say, through a hundred different invisible paths from the educator to the children, to the pupils. But this influence only takes effect if the educator truly carries within his or her soul a profound, genuine understanding of human nature—an understanding that is on the threshold of an experience in the spiritual realm. And I must preface this by noting a few things today regarding what is actually meant in the anthroposophical sense by “experience in the spiritual realm,” for it is precisely on this point that the most erroneous views often prevail.

[ 2 ] It is all too easy to assume that spiritual contemplation must, above all else, rise above everything material. Certainly, a person can attain a deep—though always somewhat self-centered—spiritual satisfaction when, rising above the material, they soar into the spiritual. One must do so. For one comes to know the spiritual only when one encounters it in its own realm as spiritual, and anthroposophy must frequently deal with spiritual realms and spiritual beings that have nothing to do with the physical-sensory world. And when it comes to what is so necessary for people today—to understand human life between death and rebirth, the actual supersensible life of the human being before birth or conception, and life after death—then one must indeed rise to a bodyless, supersensible, superphysical perspective. But we must also act and work within the physical world; we must stand firmly within it. After all, as educators, we are not initially dealing with disembodied souls. If we wish to become educators, we cannot ask ourselves: How do we relate to souls who have passed through death and live in the spiritual world? — but rather, if we wish to work as educators between birth and death, we must ask ourselves: How does a soul dwell within the physical body? And we must indeed do this; at the very least, we must do so for the years following birth. What is truly at stake here is the ability to look into the material world with the spirit. And anthroposophy, the Spiritual Science, involves, in this regard, looking into the material world with the spirit in many ways.

[ 3 ] But the opposite is also true: one must look so deeply into the spiritual realm itself that it appears as vivid and rich as any sensory experience; one must be able to speak of the spiritual as if it shone with colors, made itself audible through sounds, as if it stood before one in the flesh as a sensory being. This is precisely what so terribly annoys abstract philosophers about anthroposophy. It annoys them terribly that the spiritual researcher describes the spiritual world and spiritual beings as if he could encounter them every hour just as he would another human being, as if he could shake their hands and speak with them. He describes these spiritual beings just as he would earthly beings; and in his description, they even look almost like earthly beings. That is to say, he depicts the spiritual using sensory images. He does this with full awareness, because for him it is an absolute reality. There is some truth to the idea that genuine knowledge of the whole world leads precisely to “shaking hands” with the spirits, to standing face to face with them, and to speaking with them. To philosophers who wish to comprehend the spiritual world solely in abstract terms, this may at first seem paradoxical, but such a description is necessary. — On the other hand, it is necessary to see through a human being to such an extent that the physical aspect of him completely disappears, so that the human being stands there entirely as spirit. But if the non-anthroposophist wishes to view a human being as spirit, then this person is not merely a ghost, but far less than a ghost; he is merely a conceptual coat rack on which the most diverse concepts hang, upon which the imagination acts, and so on. A ghost, by contrast, is still decently clothed, but such a human being as described by philosophers is truly indecently naked in relation to the spiritual. In anthroposophy, the physical human being is indeed viewed entirely spiritually, but he still has a brain, liver, lungs, and so on; he is concrete, he has everything that is found within him when one dissects the corpse. Everything that is spiritual extends effectively into the physical realm. One views the physical from a spiritual perspective, yet one possesses everything. A human being even “blows his nose” as a spirit; that is how far spiritual activity extends. Only by being aware that, when one observes the physical, it can become entirely spiritual, and that, when one observes the spiritual, one can bring it back down so that it becomes almost physical—only through this do the two come together. One looks at the physical human being, observing them in their healthy and sick states; but the grossly material aspect fades away—it becomes spiritual. And one looks toward the spiritual realm as it exists between death and new birth, and it becomes physical in images. Thus the two come together.

[ 4 ] It is through this dual ability—to perceive the spiritual in sensory images and the sensory in spiritual entities—that one learns to look into the human being. So when one asks: What does spiritual perception mean in the genuine, true sense? — one must answer: It means seeing the physical in a spiritual way and the spiritual in a physical way. — This seems paradoxical, but it is so. And only when one is thoroughly convinced of the truth of what I have said does one come to view the child in the right way.

[ 5 ] Here’s an example. A child in my class is getting paler and paler. I notice this paleness; it is a manifestation in the child’s physical life. But simply going to the doctor and having him prescribe something to restore the child’s color accomplishes absolutely nothing. For the following situation may well be the case: The child is turning pale; you can see it. Then the school doctor comes, prescribes something intended to restore the child’s color. Even if the doctor acted entirely correctly and prescribed the absolutely right remedy—as one must in such cases—you will still notice something peculiar about the child who has now been cured. After all, the child has been cured, and anyone who is the doctor’s superior and would have to issue a certificate to the authorities could also say that the doctor did just that. But the child cured in this way later shows signs at school: he or she can no longer grasp things properly, becomes fidgety and restless, and skims over things without paying attention. And whereas before it used to sit there pale and was a reasonably well-behaved child, it now begins to nudge its neighbors; whereas before it would gently dip its pen into the inkwell, it now thrusts it in with force, so that the ink splatters upward and covers the notebook. The doctor has done his duty; but now we’re stuck with the consequences, for people who have been cured sometimes behave quite strangely in life.

[ 6 ] In such a case, the question once again arises: What is actually underlying this? If one can look beyond the external physical aspect—which manifests as paleness—to the spiritual-psychic realm, one notices the following. The power of memory, which operates in the spiritual-soul realm, is nothing other than transformed, metamorphosed growth force; and growing—developing nourishing forces—is, on one level, exactly the same as forming memory and creating recollections on a higher level. It is the same force, merely in a different state of metamorphosis. In a mental image, one can say: In the first years of a child’s life, both forces are still intermingled; they have not yet been separated. Later, memory emerges as a distinct faculty from this undifferentiated state, and so do the forces of growth and nutrition. Because the child still needs its memory powers in the early years to nourish its stomach and digest milk, it cannot remember anything; when, later on, it no longer needs its memory power to serve the stomach—when the stomach makes fewer demands and retains only a small amount of energy—then a portion of the growth forces becomes mental memory, the power of recollection. If, at school—perhaps because the other children are more robust and thus possess a more balanced distribution of memory and growth forces within themselves—one has perhaps not taken sufficient account of a child who lacks such reserves in this regard, then it can very easily happen that the child’s memory is overburdened; in that case, the emancipated memory force in this child is overcommitted. Consequently, too much is drawn from the growth energy, which is of the same nature as memory. The child turns pale, and I must say to myself in my soul: I have strained you too much with memory; as a result, you have turned pale before me. One can then very easily observe that if one relieves this child of the burden on their memory and recall capacity, they will regain their color on their own. But one must understand how the paleness is connected to what one has done oneself by overburdening the child with memories. It is very important to be able to look into the physical realm and see that when the child becomes too pale, I have overburdened it with regard to memory.

[ 7 ] But if I have another child in the class who sometimes develops a peculiar flush on his face—and about whom one might also become concerned when such a feverish flush appears—I will be able to notice psychological symptoms accompanying this feverish flush very easily. For at the most unexpected moments, when one least expects it, these children suddenly become irascible and frenzied; they become emotionally agitated. Of course, one might say again: “Blood rushing to the head”—and have something prescribed to counteract it. The doctor has then, of course, done his duty. But there is something else one must know, namely that this child—unlike the other—has been neglected in terms of memory development; too much of his energy has been directed toward growth and nutrition. In this case, one must try to specifically challenge the child’s memory, to give his mind something to do; then these symptoms will cease.

[ 8 ] Some things that one must organize in school can only be understood by truly viewing the physical and the spiritual as a unified whole. One gradually trains oneself to recognize this connection between the physical and the spiritual when one can look at what is already present within the entire human organism between the physical and the spiritual: the temperamental. Children come to school and, naturally with all the transitions and mixtures, they exhibit the four temperaments: the melancholic, the phlegmatic, the sanguine, and the choleric. In our Waldorf school pedagogy, great importance is placed on discerning these temperaments in the child, starting with the seating arrangement we have in the classroom. We try to identify, for example, which children are choleric; we seat them together so they are all in one group, and this allows the teacher to know: in that corner are the choleric children; in another corner, for example, sit the phlegmatic children; somewhere in the middle sit the sanguine children; and in yet another area, the melancholic children sit together. This seating arrangement has its great advantages. For through it, one learns that the phlegmatic children, by sitting together like this, eventually become so bored that they try to dispel this boredom by rubbing off on one another. And the choleric children, in turn, push and shove each other so much that after some time, things improve considerably. The same is true of the sanguine types with their restless nature. And the melancholic types, in turn, see how melancholy manifests itself in others. So treating children in such a way that one sees: like influences like favorably—this is already a very good thing in terms of this outward aspect, aside from the fact that one now also has the opportunity to keep an eye on the entire class; for it is much easier to keep track of them when children of the same type are grouped together.

[ 9 ] But what matters now is to gain such insight into human nature that one is truly able to deal practically with the choleric, sanguine, and melancholic temperaments. This naturally leads to situations where it is necessary to actually build that bridge between school and home—the one I spoke of—in a deeply personal way. For example, I have a melancholic child in my class; I find it difficult to connect with him. I can’t quite get through to him—he’s brooding, withdrawn, preoccupied with himself, and not engaged with what’s being discussed in class. If one’s pedagogy is not based on an understanding of human nature, one might think one must try every possible thing with the child to arouse its attention, to draw it out of its shell. But this will generally make the child even more withdrawn; it will become even more brooding. All these remedies, devised in such an amateurish way, are of little help; at best, what helps is a natural love for the child: for the child knows that one cares about it, and this stimulates the more subconscious aspects within it. All attempts at coaxing, of course, are not only futile but actually harmful, and the child becomes even more melancholic than before. But in the classroom, it helps immensely to try to respond to the child’s melancholy, to draw out from the child what their mental images are focused on; then to show interest in these mental images, to engage with them, and, in a sense, to become melancholic alongside the melancholic child through one’s own actions. As a teacher, one must embody all four temperaments in harmonious interaction. And the way one then behaves toward the child counteracts the child’s melancholy; and if one continues to do this, the child will see who one is reflected in what one says. And in this way, what lies behind the mask of melancholy that one assumes—namely, a loving responsiveness to the child—stealthily finds its way into the child. This will help in the classroom.

[ 10 ] But now we will go further and come to understand that all melancholy in a person—as unlikely as this may seem to today’s physiologists—is connected to irregular liver function. One can know that all melancholy—especially when it drives a child into a pathological state—is based on irregular liver function. Therefore, I now turn to the parents of such a child and tell them: You must add more sugar than usual to this child’s food; the child’s food must be sweeter than you are accustomed to, for sugar helps normalize liver function. And by giving the mother this advice—“Give the child more sugar”—I will have the school and the home work together to bring back what has slipped into the pathological realm within the melancholy and to create the opportunity for the child to then receive the appropriate treatment. — Or I have a sanguine child, a child who goes from one impression to the next, who always wants the next thing the moment they have the previous one, who begins to take a strong interest in everything but whose interest also soon wanes. So I have such a child who displays these various characteristics to me. As a rule, the child will not have dark hair but will be blond. Here again, the key is for me to first find a way to address this at school. In what I do myself, I will try to become even more sanguine than the child; I will present the child with rapidly changing impressions, so that the child cannot be left to its own devices in rushing from one impression to the next, but must follow along with me. Then the child will grow to dislike the story, and eventually refuse to go along with it. But between what I do over and over again—behaving in a sanguine manner myself in what I want to teach the child—and the way the child, by nature of its temperament, wants to rush from one impression to the next, a harmony now develops within the child as a counteraction. So I can guide the child by making its impressions quite varied, constantly devising new things, so that the child must see things as black one moment and white the next, constantly rushing from one thing to another. But now I get in touch with this child’s mother. There I learn from her with certainty that the child has a sweet tooth or something similar—that the child receives many candies or steals them, or lives in a home where meals are heavily sweetened, or—even if that were not the case—the mother’s milk was too sweet, containing too much sugar. And then I explain to the mother that she should put the child on a diet for a while that is lower in sugar than before, and in this way I work together with the school through the low-sugar diet provided at home. And the reduction in sugar will gradually counteract the abnormality resulting from the fact that, in this child as well, liver function in bile secretion is not quite normal—that abnormal bile secretion, which is very subtle and hardly noticeable. And I will notice that, in this way, the home environment is coming to my aid.

[ 11 ] So one must indeed recognize everywhere where, so to speak, the physical is directly embedded within the spiritual, where it is one with the spiritual.

[ 12 ] We can go into even greater detail and say: A child shows me a quick grasp of things; he understands everything quite easily; but when, a few days later, I return to what he had grasped—and about which I was so happy that he had understood it so quickly—it has vanished; it’s no longer there. So there are things I can do about this in school as well. I will try to present the child with material that requires them to pay closer attention than they are used to. They grasp things too quickly; they don’t need to exert enough mental effort to internalize the material. So I’ll give the child a challenge, something that’s harder to grasp and demands more attention. I can do that at school. But now I’ll sit down with the parents again and see what I can find out from them. — What I’m saying now doesn’t necessarily have to correspond to the facts in exactly this way; I’m just trying to point the way. — I’ll approach the mother tactfully; I won’t lecture her from on high, but I’ll find out what the family’s diet is actually like, and I’ll discover that this child eats far too many potatoes. The matter is difficult because now the mother might say: “Yes, you’re telling me that my child eats too many potatoes; but the neighbor’s little girl eats even more potatoes, and she doesn’t have the same problem at all; so it can’t possibly be caused by eating potatoes.” — That’s what the mother will say. And yet, it is caused by eating too many potatoes, because a child’s constitution is such that one child can tolerate more potatoes than another. And curiously enough: in this particular child, it becomes apparent that he has been given too many potatoes for his constitution; this is evident from the fact that his memory isn’t functioning properly. Now, the cure in this case does not lie in giving the child fewer potatoes. It may even be that if you give the child fewer potatoes, an improvement may occur; but after some time, everything returns to the way it was. It is not the absolute reduction in the amount of potatoes that works, but the gradual weaning off—the very act of weaning. And one must tell the mother: Give the child just a tiny bit less potatoes in the first week, another tiny bit less in the second week, and so on, so that the child is actively involved in gradually reducing the amount of potato intake. So, in this case, it is a matter of weaning the child off potatoes, and one will see that this approach can have a truly healing effect.

[ 13 ] Now, so-called idealists will very easily accuse anthroposophy of materialism. And they do. For example, when anthroposophy says: If you have a child who understands things easily but does not retain them, then you must gradually reduce the potato ration—then people say: “You’re a complete materialist.” — But there is such an intimate interplay between matter and spirit that one can only act effectively if one sees through matter and can also master it through measures recognized by the spirit. — Now, I probably don’t need to tell you how much our social life today falls short in these areas. But when new worldview perspectives open up to the teacher, then he really does come to these things. He just needs to broaden his perspective a little. For example, it has an immensely beneficial effect on the teacher’s understanding of children when he learns how little sugar is consumed in Russia and how much in England. And when they then compare the Russian temperament with the English temperament, they will see what an influence sugar has on temperament. One must learn to understand the world so that this process of understanding helps one in what one has to do. — But I want to say something else: There is a place in Germany, in Baden, where one finds a curious monument, the Drake Monument. I once wanted to know what the significance of this Drake was. So I looked it up in the encyclopedia and read: A monument was erected to Drake in Offenburg because he was mistakenly believed to be the person who introduced the potato to Europe. — That’s what it says there. So the man received a monument because he was mistaken for the person who introduced the potato to Europe. He didn’t introduce it, even though he received a monument in Offenburg.

[ 14 ] The potato, however, was introduced to Europe relatively late. And now I’m going to tell you something that you may laugh at as much as you like, but it is nonetheless the truth. One can study how human intellectual abilities evolved from the pre-potato era to the period following the potato’s introduction. And the potato is, after all, also used in distilling spirits. It began to play a very specific role in the development of European civilization. If you compare the increasing use of the potato with the curve of intellectual development, you’ll find that, compared to today, people in the pre-potato era grasped things less intensely but held on to what they had grasped with tenacity; they were more conservative by nature, deep down. When the potato was introduced, people became quicker in their intellectual handling of concepts, but what they took in does not stick; it does not penetrate into their inner being. The history of the development of intelligence runs parallel to the history of potato consumption. This is yet another example of how anthroposophy explains things in materialistic terms, but it is true. And we would learn a great deal about cultural history if we understood everywhere how human beings, in their subconscious—especially in the spiritual realm—are influenced by external material conditions. This is evident in their desires.

[ 15 ] Take, for example, someone who has a lot to write—an article for the newspaper every day and the like—so that he is forced to chew on his pen to get out what he has to write. If you’ve been through that yourself, you can certainly talk about it; but one shouldn’t criticize others for it—one must discuss it based on one’s own experience. In such situations, one feels the need to drink coffee while chewing on one’s pen; for drinking coffee is something that helps focus one’s thoughts. Thus, one’s thoughts flow more logically when drinking coffee than without it. As a journalist, then, one really must love coffee; it’s harder if one doesn’t drink it. Take a diplomat, on the other hand. Think of everything that was associated with the diplomat before the World War: he had to learn to carry himself in a particular way; in the social circles where the diplomat must move, one must learn to place the soles of one’s feet more glidingly than is usual in civilian life. But one must also be able to let one’s thoughts flow somewhat freely and fluidly. If one is logical as a diplomat, one will certainly not do good business, nor will one advance the cause of nations. When diplomats are together—one doesn’t say of them, “They’re having coffee together,” but rather, “They’re having tea together”—one feels the need to drink one cup of tea after another, so that thoughts do not merely flow logically from one to the next, but leap about as much as possible. Hence the diplomats’ craving for tea: it detaches one thought from another, makes it fluid and fleeting, and destroys logic. So one can say: writers = coffee lovers, diplomats = tea lovers—based on a perfectly sound instinct.

[ 16 ] Once one knows this, one does not regard it as a restriction on human freedom. For, of course, logic is not a byproduct of coffee; rather, it is merely an unconscious, subconscious support that comes afterward. The soul remains free for that very reason.

[ 17 ] But it is precisely when you have the child right in front of you that you must look into such connections—the kind you come to understand when you can say: tea—a diplomat’s drink, coffee—a writer’s drink, and so on. Then you gradually gain insight into what something like the potato is really all about. The potato poses extraordinary difficulties for digestion. And very little of it—in almost homeopathic doses—reaches the brain. But this homeopathic dose is precisely what is very effective; it stimulates the abstract powers of the intellect. —Perhaps I may reveal something here. When you examine potato matter under a microscope, you see those familiar carbohydrate structures within it. If you look at the astral body of a person who has eaten quite a lot of potatoes, you’ll notice how, in the brain—3 centimeters behind the forehead—the potato substance also begins to be active in such eccentric circles. The movements of the astral body take on the character of potato substance, and the person becomes extraordinarily intelligent. They are brimming with intelligence. But this doesn’t last; it passes right away. If one admits—assuming one admits at all—that a human being has a spirit and a soul, must one not also admit that it is not entirely foolish or fanciful to speak of the spirit, and to speak of it in sensory images? Whoever insists on speaking of the spirit only in abstract terms reveals nothing of it to us; but the one who can bring the spirit down to the level of a sensory image certainly does. He can say that in such a bubblingly intelligent person, potato-like substance—albeit spiritual—literally forms in the brain. And then one learns once again to recognize the subtle differences and transitions. One learns to recognize that, in terms of logic, tea breaks thoughts apart, but it does not stimulate the generation of thoughts. The fact that diplomats love tea does not necessarily mean they have the ability to produce thoughts. But the potato stimulates thoughts to shoot up in a flash and then disappear again. Yet this flash-like surging of thoughts—which can also occur in children—is always accompanied by a weakening of the digestive system. And one can clearly see that when children’s digestive systems are compromised—so that they complain of constipation—it is simultaneously evident in the fact that all sorts of useless and clever thoughts shoot through their minds; though they lose them again, they are still there.

[ 18 ] I am citing these things in detail so that you can see how the spiritual-soul and physical aspects must be viewed as a unified whole, and how, in turn, a state must truly be brought about in human development that holds together the most diverse currents of culture, even though we live in an age in which they have drifted completely apart. But this, again, can only be understood if one is able to gain some insight into the history of human development.

[ 19 ] Today we distinguish between religion, art, and science. And the guardians of religion sometimes go to great lengths to ensure that absolutely nothing scientific finds its way into religion. One must believe in religion, and science belongs elsewhere. Science must apply itself to a realm where knowledge is possible; it must not believe anything—it must know everything. But in order to make this distinction work, we exclude the spiritual from science and the material world from religion; then religion becomes abstract, existing only for the supernatural, and science becomes spiritless. And art emancipates itself completely. In our time, there are people who, when you try to tell them about supernatural things, put on a wise face and regard you as superstitious: inferior! We know that it’s all nonsense. — But then someone, a Björnson or someone else, writes something in which such things play a part; it finds its way into art, and then everyone rushes to enjoy in art what they reject in reason. It’s such a strange thing with superstition. I once had an acquaintance—such real-life experiences must absolutely be incorporated into the art of education everywhere, for true educational art can only be learned from life—an acquaintance who was a playwright. I ran into him once on the street; he was walking extremely fast, sweating. It was three minutes before 8:00 p.m. I asked him where he was going in such a hurry. But he was in a great rush and only said he had to get to the post office quickly, because it closed at 8:00. I let him go, but I was still psychologically curious to find out the reason for his haste. So I waited until he came back. Finally, he returned, quite flustered, and was now in a talkative mood. I wanted to know why he’d run to the post office so quickly. And then he told me: “Yes, I just mailed my play.”—But up until then, he’d always said he wasn’t finished with that play yet. And he said now as well: “I’m not quite finished with it yet, but I just wanted to send it off today so the director would get it tomorrow; however, I also wrote to him right away, asking him to just send it back to me one more time. Because if you send a play off before the last day of the month, it will still be accepted for performance; otherwise, it won’t!” — Well, this man was the most enlightened person there was. He believed that if you submit a play on a certain day, it will be accepted—even if he has to have it sent back to him so he can actually finish it then. From this you can see how the things that people sometimes despise crawl into some corner, only to emerge again at the next opportunity.

[ 20 ] This is especially true with children. One may think one has eradicated something in them, but it immediately reappears somewhere else. One must have an eye for this. And so one must have a broad-minded approach when observing people in order to build a true pedagogical art upon an understanding of human nature. Only by paying attention to the details will one be able to see through all of this.

[ 21 ] Today, I say, people speak of religion, art, and science as separate entities. This was not the case in the earliest days of humanity. Back then, everything was one. At that time, there were mystery temples that were also centers of learning—places of religion, art, and science all at once. For people received as knowledge the imaginative images, the ideal images of the spiritual world. But they received them so vividly that they could also give them form in external images and develop a cult around them. Science became a cult, but it also became art. For whatever was given external form from this knowledge, people wanted it to be beautiful. Thus, in those times, the mystery temples embodied a divine truth, a moral goodness, and a sensuous beauty as a unity of religion, art, and science. It was only later that this unity split apart, and then there was science on its own, religion on its own, and art on its own. And in our time, this process has reached its culmination. Things that can actually be only one have become separated in the course of cultural development. Human beings, however, are predisposed to experience them within themselves as a unity, and not as separate entities. They can experience religious science, scientific religion, and artistic ideality within themselves only as a unity; otherwise, they are torn apart internally. Therefore, where this separation, this differentiation, has reached its peak, it has once again become essential to rediscover the connection between these three realms. And we will see how, in our lessons, we can once again shape art, religion, and science into a unity for the child. We will see how the child is naturally predisposed toward such a bringing together of religion, art, and science, in a way that corresponds to his or her inner nature. Hence this strict demand, which I have asserted time and again: Educate the child with the awareness that it is, in fact, an aesthetically inclined being; and strive to point out how, in the very earliest years of life, it lives out its innate religious nature.

[ 22 ] We must now properly understand and apply all these elements—religion, art, and science, harmonized as a whole—in the appropriate manner in the courses we are yet to discuss.