The Rudolf Steiner Archive

First Lecture

[ 1 ] My dear friends! It truly gives me the deepest satisfaction that you here in England have now reached the point where you can consider establishing a school based on anthroposophical principles. In reality, this represents an extraordinary and profound turning point in the history of education. When one utters such a statement, it is, of course, very easy to be accused of immodesty for saying it. But there is truly something unique underlying everything that is to emerge from anthroposophical foundations for the art of education and teaching, even today. And it is with the greatest joy that I welcome the fact that the first group of teachers here has truly found itself ready to acknowledge, from the very depths of the soul, that there is something special at the foundation of what we call anthroposophical pedagogy. When we speak of anthroposophical pedagogy, we are truly not speaking out of some fanatical desire for reform or the need to renew the educational system, but rather out of a deep sense and experience of the cultural development of humanity.

[ 2 ] We speak in this way because we are aware that much—indeed, a great deal—has been accomplished in the field of education by outstanding individuals throughout the 19th century, and particularly in its final decades. Yet even what arose from the best—indeed, the very best—intentions has unfolded in such a way that one must say: Every conceivable approach has been tried in the field of education, but without a true understanding of human nature. Reflection on human education fell into an era in which, simply because of the materialism that prevailed in all fields—and has in fact prevailed since the 15th century—there could be no true understanding of human nature. And so, whenever ideas for educational reform were expressed, they were essentially built on sand—or on something even more unstable; educational principles were established out of all sorts of emotions and judgments formed about how life ought to be. Yet there was absolutely no possibility of knowing the human being in their entirety and asking oneself: How can one bring to manifestation in the human being that which is divinely given within the human being, after the human being has descended from his pre-earthly life into earthly life? This is, in essence, the question that can initially be posed in the abstract, but which can only be answered concretely if one bases one’s approach on a true understanding of the human being in body, soul, and spirit.

[ 3 ] Now, for humanity today, the situation is this: our knowledge of the physical body is extraordinarily well developed. Through biology, physiology, and anatomy, we have a very, very advanced understanding of the human body. But as soon as we try to turn to an understanding of the soul, we are faced with a complete impasse given current views; for everything that relates to the soul is today merely a name, a word. Even when it comes to such things as thinking, feeling, and willing—if one looks at the conventional psychology of our time—one is no longer dealing with reality. The words remain: thinking, feeling, willing; but there is no conception of what actually governs the soul—of what is meant by thinking, feeling, and willing. For, you see, what so-called psychologists today say about thinking, feeling, and willing is, in reality, all quite amateurish. They speak in much the same way as if a physiologist were to speak of human beings in general—of the human lung, the human liver—and never distinguish between a child’s liver and an elderly person’s liver. In the physical sciences, we have come a long way in this regard. No physiologist would fail to take into account the difference between a child’s lungs and an elderly person’s lungs, or even between a child’s hair and that of an old person. All these distinctions are made. But when it comes to thinking, feeling, and willing, people merely utter words; they do not grasp anything in reality. For example, one does not know that volition is young, as it appears in the soul, while thinking is old—that is, that thinking is an old volition and volition is a young thinking within the soul—so that in everything one possesses in the soul, one finds both youth and old age simultaneously in human beings.

[ 4 ] Certainly, even in children, we find the old way of thinking coexisting in the soul alongside the new will. They exist simultaneously. Yes, such things are realities. But no one today knows how to say anything about this reality of the soul in the same sense as we speak of the realities of the body. That is why, as educators, we stand completely helpless before the child. Just imagine, if as a doctor you could not distinguish between a child and an old person—you would naturally be helpless. But because there is no such thing as a science of the soul, the teacher is not at all in a position to speak about the human soul in the same way that a doctor today can speak about the human body. And spirit—well, there is nothing there at all; one cannot speak of it; there aren’t even words for it anymore. A single word, “spirit,” but it no longer means much; there really aren’t any other words for it.

[ 5 ] So, strictly speaking, there can’t really be any talk of an understanding of human nature in the sense we understand it today. It’s easy to get the feeling that not everything is as it should be in education. We need to improve this or that. Yes, but how can one improve anything when one knows absolutely nothing about human beings? That is why the ideas for educational reform that have emerged are all inspired by the very best of intentions, but there is no understanding of human nature.

[ 6 ] You can see this even within our own circles. For what can help people today to gain an understanding of human nature? Anthroposophy! This is not said from some sectarian, fanatical standpoint. If anyone today wants to gain an understanding of human nature, they must simply take anthroposophy into themselves. But if one is to teach based on an understanding of human nature—and that is only natural—one must acquire this understanding. What is the natural way? To acquire it through anthroposophy. So if someone today asks about the foundation of a new pedagogy, what must one tell them? Anthroposophy—that is the foundation of a new pedagogy! Yes, but now many people among us are striving to deny anthroposophy as much as possible and to promote pedagogy without anthroposophy; they do not want to let on that anthroposophy is behind it.

[ 7 ] There is a German proverb that goes: “Wash my fur, but don’t get it wet.” This is true of so many efforts undertaken in this field. Above all, one must speak and think truthfully. That is why today, if someone asks, “How can I become a good educator?” one should say: “You must start from anthroposophy. You must not deny it; you must acquire knowledge of human nature through anthroposophy.”

[ 8 ] In today’s civilized life, we lack a true understanding of human nature. We have theories, but we lack a living insight—neither into the world, nor into life, nor into human beings. True insight leads to a way of living. But today we have no such way of living. Do you know who the most impractical people are today? The most impractical people are not the scientists—they are clumsy and out of touch with life, but you notice that about them; rather, it is those who are the strongest theorists—the ones who are the most impractical in life—that you don’t actually notice this about. These are the so-called practitioners—the business and industrial people, the bankers; these are the people who today control the practical aspects of life based on theoretical ideas. A bank today is structured entirely on the basis of theoretical ideas. There is nothing practical about it at all. But people don’t notice this because they say: “That’s how it has to be; that’s how practical people do it.” So they just go along with it. People don’t realize the damage this actually causes in life, because it seems completely impractical. Practical life today is completely impractical; in every field, practical life itself is completely impractical.

[ 9 ] And people will only take notice when more and more destructive elements enter civilization and dissolve it. If things continue this way, the World War will have been only the beginning, a prelude. The World War actually arose from this lack of action, but it was merely a prelude. The point is that we must not remain asleep. And above all, we must not remain asleep in the realm of teaching and education. What is truly at stake here is that we embrace an education that addresses the whole human being—body, soul, and spirit—and that, therefore, body, soul, and spirit must first be truly recognized.

[ 10 ] Now, in a short course such as the one to be held here, the aim can only be to present the most important aspects relating to body, soul, and spirit in such a way that they directly pertain to the fields of teaching and education. That is what we intend to do. However, the first requirement—which must be recognized right from the start—is that we truly strive, even outwardly, to direct our attention to the whole person.

[ 11 ] How do we formulate educational principles today? We look at the child, tell ourselves, “This child is such-and-such; this child should learn something.” We think about how best to teach the child so that it quickly learns this and that. Yes, but what exactly is a child? A child is a child only up to the age of twelve—or twenty, for all I care; that’s not the point right now—but eventually they will become something else; eventually they will become an adult. Life as a whole is a single entity, and we must look not merely at the child, but at life as a whole; we must look at the whole person.

[ 12 ] Let’s suppose I have a pale child in my class. A pale child must be a mystery to me—one that I have to solve. There could be many reasons, but it might be the case that the child arrived at school with a slightly rosy complexion and became pale under my care. I admit that to myself. Yes, I must now be able to determine why the child has become pale. I may come to the conclusion that I have given this child too much material to memorize. I have overtaxed the child’s memory. If I do not correct this, I am pedagogically short-sighted and delude myself into thinking that a method must be carried out, regardless of whether the child turns pale or rosy in the process—and then the child remains pale.

[ 13 ] But if I were now able to observe this child when he or she is fifty years old, then this person would likely suffer from a terrible form of sclerosis and have arteriosclerosis, the cause of which would remain unknown. It stems from the fact that I overloaded the child’s memory when he was eight or nine years old. Yes, you see, the fifty-year-old and the eight- or nine-year-old belong together—they are, after all, one and the same person. We must know what will become of something we do to a child forty or fifty years later, for life is a unity; life is a whole. It is not enough merely to know the child; we must know the person.

[ 14 ] And again, do you think I go to all this trouble to teach a class the best possible definitions, so that the concepts are firmly established, so that the child knows that this is a lion, that is a cat, and so on? Yes, but is the child supposed to retain these concepts until the day they die? After all, we have no idea today that the soul, too, must grow. If I teach a child a concept that is supposed to be correct once and for all—what isn’t correct, after all?—and the child is supposed to retain it throughout their entire life, it’s just like if I bought them shoes at age three and then wanted all subsequent shoes to be exactly the same size as the ones I bought them at age three. The child outgrows them. That’s when you realize the problem, and it would be considered barbaric if I wanted to buy the child such small shoes and keep its foot so small that it would always fit into a three-year-old’s shoe! But that is exactly what we do to the soul. We give the child concepts that do not grow with the child. We give him concepts that are meant to remain fixed, torment him with certain concepts that are meant to remain fixed, whereas we should be giving the child concepts that can grow. We constantly force the soul into the concepts the child has been given.

[ 15 ] These are things that are connected, in the most superficial way, to the demand that education should focus on the whole person—the growing, living person—rather than on some abstract concept of the human being.

[ 16 ] Only when one has the correct perspective—that the entire human life is a coherent whole—does one realize just how different the individual stages of life actually are. A child before losing its baby teeth is, after all, a completely different being than a child after losing them. Of course, one must not base this on crude judgments or simplistic views. If one has a mental image of a human being as merely a two-legged creature with a head on top and a nose in the middle of it, one might say that even before losing their baby teeth, a child has two legs and a nose in the middle of its face, and so on. But if one has the ability to observe finer distinctions in life, then one will find a completely different being in the child before and after losing their baby teeth.

[ 17 ] Before a child’s teeth begin to fall out, it is still clearly evident how the child is influenced—truly influenced—by the habits of life the child had in the spiritual world before birth, or rather before conception, during its pre-earthly life. The child’s body behaves almost as if it were a spirit; for the spirit that has descended from the spiritual world is still fully active within the child during the first seven years of life. You might say: “What a beautiful spirit!” But it has become completely unruly, for the child is wild, behaves clumsily, and can’t do anything. Is all of that supposed to be the spirit from pre-earthly life? Yes, just think about it: if you were fully developed, skilled people and were suddenly condemned to live continuously in a room, say, at 62 degrees Celsius, you wouldn’t be able to do it. You would be even less able to do so than the child’s spirit, which has descended from the spiritual worlds and must now learn to behave in earthly circumstances, to know how to conduct itself there. Because it has been transported into a completely different world—because the spirit suddenly has to carry a body, something it did not have before earthly life—it behaves just as the child does. And yet, anyone who knows how to observe how, day by day, week by week, month by month, the child’s vague facial features gradually give way to more defined ones; how clumsy movements gradually become skillful; and how the child fully adapts to its surroundings—such a person knows that this is the spirit that has descended from the pre-earthly world, which is gradually trying to make the body resemble itself. We will understand why the child is the way it is if we observe it in this way. But we will also understand that it is truly the descended spirit that acts within the child’s body in the way we see it at work in the child.

[ 18 ] Therefore, for those initiated into the spiritual mysteries, there is actually nothing more fascinating than observing a child. For when one observes a child, one does not come to know the earth; one comes to know heaven. And not merely in the so-called well-behaved children. With well-behaved children, it is usually the case that their bodies become a burden to them. Even in childhood, their bodies become a burden. The spirit cannot quite come to terms with it; the children are quiet; they do not cry out. The children sit a lot; they do not run around. The spirit is inactive within them because the body offers such resistance. With so-called well-behaved children, it is often the case that the body offers resistance to the spirit.

[ 19 ] In children who aren’t so well-behaved—but who really let loose, really scream their hearts out, who give you a hard time—the spirit stirs, naturally in a clumsy way, for it has been transferred from heaven to earth, but it stirs nonetheless. It needs the body. One can indeed find a child’s wild screaming terribly enchanting at times, for the simple reason that in it one experiences the ordeal the spirit initially undergoes when it descends into a child’s body.

[ 20 ] Yes, being an adult is easy—for the mind, that is. By then, one has already thoroughly prepared the body. The body no longer offers much resistance. Being an adult is quite easy. Being a child, on the other hand, is extraordinarily difficult. The child simply doesn’t realize it because consciousness has not yet awakened—it is still asleep. But with the consciousness that existed before the descent to Earth, the child would already be aware of it. If the child were in that state of consciousness, then the child’s life would be a terrible tragedy—a truly terrible tragedy. For you see, one descends to Earth; one is accustomed to a spiritual substance from which one derived one’s spiritual life before descending to Earth. One is accustomed to handling this spiritual substance. One has prepared it entirely for oneself according to one’s karma, according to the results of previous earthly lives. One is immersed in it, so to speak, in one’s own spiritual garment. Now one is to descend to Earth. — I would like to speak quite simply about such things, and you must forgive me if I describe them as they appear to someone who speaks of them just as one speaks of ordinary earthly matters; one can speak this way because that is how they are. — Now one is to descend; one is to choose a body on Earth.

[ 21 ] Yes, this body has been prepared for one by generations. A father and mother had a son or a daughter, who in turn had a son or a daughter, and so on. This results in a body through heredity. One should take possession of it. One should enter into it. There, one suddenly finds oneself in entirely different circumstances. One takes on such a body, which has been prepared for one through the succession of generations.

[ 22 ] Certainly, influences from the spiritual world do act to prevent us from receiving a completely unsuitable body, but for the most part we end up with a body that is quite unsuitable. Most of the time, you don’t fit into such a body at all. If a glove were even just a tiny bit as ill-fitting on a hand as a body usually is on a soul, you would throw that glove to the far corners of the heavens. It wouldn’t even occur to you to put on that glove. But when you descend from the spiritual world and want a body, you simply have to take one. And you now have this body until your teeth fall out. For the fact is that, every seven to eight years, our outer physical matter is completely replaced—at least in essence, though not entirely. The teeth we get first are replaced; then they remain with us. This is not the case with all parts of the human organism. Parts even more important than the teeth are replaced every seven years, as long as a person is on Earth. If the teeth behaved the same way, then we would get new teeth again at age 7, then at 14, at 21, and so on, and there would be no dentists on Earth.

[ 23 ] Certain organs, which are hard, remain. But it is precisely the softer organs that are constantly being renewed. In the first seven years of life, one has a body that is, after all, handed down by the external nature of one’s parents and so on. It is a model. With one’s soul, one relates to this body as an artist relates to a model that he is to imitate. The second body—which one draws out of the first as one’s teeth change—gradually, of course, over the course of all seven years—is one that one has first fashioned for oneself based on the model given by one’s parents. The body that one creates for oneself is not fully formed until after seven years. Everything that modern science says today about heredity and so on is, after all, amateurish compared to reality. In reality, we receive a model body that we have for seven years. Of course, it begins to die off and be shed as early as the first years of life. But this process continues, and when we go through the change of teeth, we receive the second body.

[ 24 ] Now there are weak individualities; they come down weakly and form their second body—the one they carry after their teeth have fallen out—exactly like the first. We say that they form it exactly like their parents. That is not true at all. They form their second body according to the model. Only during the first seven years of life do we carry inherited traits within us. Of course, we are all weak individualities and imitate a great deal. But there are also strong individualities who come down and have inherited a great deal during the first seven years of life. You can see this in their teeth. The first teeth are still such that you can see their gentleness in their heredity. The second set of teeth, on the other hand, are already quite robust; they have their corresponding cusps. These are strong individualities that develop quite well. Then there are children who, at age ten, are still like others at age four—mere copies. Other children are completely transformed by age ten. The strong individuality is stirring. The model is used, but afterward one develops an independent body.

[ 25 ] One must pay attention to such things. All this talk of heredity gets you nowhere unless you look into how things really are. Heredity in the true sense—as science understands it today—applies only to the first seven years of a person’s life. If a person inherits something later on, one could say they do so voluntarily; for they are, in fact, following the model. In reality, what is inherited is shed along with the first body, during the change of teeth.

[ 26 ] We are exceptionally strongly drawn to the soul, which has descended from the spiritual world and is still clumsy because it must first find its way into the outer natural world. But in truth, everything—yes, even the child’s most unruly behavior—is so delightful. Of course, we have to be a little bit philistine not to let all misbehavior slide. How the spirit is tormented by the demons in the world that have gone astray—this is most evident in the child. The child must enter a world into which it often does not fit at all. This is a terrible tragedy when one carries it out consciously. If one were to carry this out consciously—if one knows anything about initiation and consciously sees what takes hold of this body in the child—one must say: This is, after all, something truly terrible—to have to find one’s way into all this bone structure, all this tendon structure, which must first be shaped; this is something terribly tragic. The child simply knows nothing of this, and that is good, because the Guardian of the Threshold ensures that it remains unaware of it.

[ 27 ] But the teacher must be aware of this. He must stand before the child with profound reverence and know: Here, something divine and spiritual has descended to Earth. What matters is that we know this, let it penetrate our hearts, and from that point on become educators.

[ 28 ] There are great differences between the way a human being is in spiritual-soul-pre-earthly life, before descending to Earth, and how he or she must then continue to develop. The teacher should be able to assess this, because he or she sees before them in the child the aftereffects of the spiritual world. Now there is something that the child finds difficult to acquire, because the soul does not possess it at all in spiritual life.

[ 29 ] You see, on Earth, people rarely get around to paying attention to the inner workings of their own bodies. Only natural scientists and doctors do that. They know exactly what the human body is like on the inside, beneath the skin. Most people don’t even know exactly where the heart is. They usually point to the wrong spot. And if one were to ask a person on Earth, in the course of social life, to explain how the right lung differs from the left, or to describe the duodenum, one would receive some strange answers. In contrast, before descending into earthly life, a person has extraordinarily little interest in the external world; but all the more interest in what might be called their spiritual inner life. In the life between death and a new birth, one’s interest is almost exclusively focused on the spiritual inner life. One forms one’s karma based on experiences from previous earthly lives. And this is formed, of course, according to one’s inner spiritual life. The interest one has there is extraordinarily far removed from an earthly quality—the thirst for knowledge—which, in its one-sided form, can be called curiosity. A thirst for knowledge, curiosity, and a longing for insight into external life are not present before birth, before descending to Earth; one is completely unfamiliar with them. That is why the child also has very little of this.

[ 30 ] In contrast, the child possesses something that is life in the environment. If one has not yet descended to Earth, one actually lives entirely in the outer world. The whole world is the inner world. There is no such distinction between the external and the internal. Therefore, one is not curious about the external. Everything is internal. But one is not curious about it. One carries it within oneself; it is a matter of course in which one lives.

[ 31 ] Essentially, during the first seven years of life, a child learns to walk, speak, and think in much the same way as one behaved before descending to Earth. And if you then try to make the child curious about a particular word, you will see that you completely drive away the child’s desire to learn that word. If you rely on the child’s thirst for knowledge and curiosity, you drive away precisely what the child is meant to have. You must not rely on curiosity at all, but rather on something else: that the child naturally merges with you, that you live within the child. Everything the child enjoys and experiences must be as if it were the child’s own inner self. You must make an impression on the child just as the child’s arm makes an impression on the child. You must simply be an extension of the child’s own body. Then, as the child goes through the change of teeth and gradually enters the age between 7 and 14, you must pay attention to how curiosity and a thirst for knowledge gradually emerge, and how you must be tactful and cautious, paying close attention to how that curiosity gradually stirs.

[ 32 ] The small child is still a sack of flour—a sack that is not curious, one that must be impressed by the fact that you yourself are someone. Just as a sack of flour is not curious about its surroundings, so too is the small child not curious. But just as everything you imprint on the flour sack is retained—especially if the flour is finely ground—so too is everything retained by the small child, not because it is curious, but just as when you make an impression on the flour sack with your finger, because you form a unity with it.

[ 33 ] That doesn't change until the child's teeth start coming in. That's when you have to pay attention to the questions the child asks: “What is that?” “What do the stars use to see?” “Why are the stars in the sky?” “Why do you have a crooked nose, Grandma?” The child will ask about everything. They become curious about their surroundings. But you have to have a keen sense of how curiosity and attention gradually emerge. And they emerge along with the teeth. These are the years of life when they emerge. And then you have to respond to that. You have to let the child decide what you should do with them; that is, you must take the liveliest interest in what is now awakening in the child as their teeth change.

[ 34 ] And an extraordinary amount awakens. This curiosity does not stem from reason—a seven-year-old child does not yet possess reason; anyone who relies on reason is completely mistaken when dealing with a seven-year-old—but the child does have imagination, and one must rely on that imagination. It really comes down to being able to develop the concept of “spiritual milk.” For you see, after birth, you must give the child physical milk. This is a food that contains everything else the child needs in a single mixture. The child takes in the milk and thereby receives all the nourishment it needs. Now you must not give the child anything separate; everything must be spiritual milk. Once the child has gone through the change of teeth and enters school, everything you offer it must be a unity: spiritual milk. Teaching the child to read one way and to write another is just like chemically splitting the milk into two parts and then giving it one part and then the other. Reading, writing—everything must form a unity. “Spiritual milk”—this concept must be introduced to the children when they enter elementary school.

[ 35 ] This can only happen if instruction and education are organized artistically from the age when children begin to lose their baby teeth. Artistry should permeate everything. Artistic structuring of writing instruction so that it emerges from drawing—I will describe this in greater detail tomorrow—artistic structuring in the transition from writing, which emerges from drawing, to reading, and artistic structuring of reading and writing using what the child is to calculate in a simple way—all of this must form a unified whole. Such things must first be developed like “spiritual milk.” We need these for the child when he or she enters elementary school.

[ 36 ] And when a child reaches puberty, it needs “spiritual milk.” We find it particularly difficult to teach this to people today, because we no longer have any spirit at all in this materialistic age. If we are now also expected to produce milk—spiritual milk—that is particularly difficult, and then we would have to leave the boys and girls to their own devices during their so-called “rebellious years,” since we ourselves lack spiritual milk.

[ 37 ] My intention today was simply to provide you with an introduction to get you started. We will then continue our discussion tomorrow and delve into the details.