The Rudolf Steiner Archive

6. Education and Instruction in Light of the Current World Situation

[ 1 ] Ladies and gentlemen! When, after a long absence, I was able to visit our Waldorf School again the day before yesterday—at least for a few short hours—I was first able to observe a lesson in the eighth-grade class there, in which world history was being taught. And I may say this quite openly: I have the impression that if we truly succeed in continuing—in the realm of education and instruction—what that lesson demonstrated—at least the main points—then we may hope to shape, through our school, people who will be able to rise to the increasingly difficult challenges of life in the near future, people who will hold their own in life. There was undoubtedly an aspiration toward this, and it seems to me that, through what was accomplished, what I would like to call “history as an expression of human development” was indeed achieved to a certain degree. As a result, history has already become so vivid for the children here—who are now in their 13th, 14th, 15 years of age, has already become so vivid that what they will gain from this history—the powerful ideas they will absorb—will be something that can provide strength for their entire future lives, not merely for an understanding of history, but for an understanding of life’s situations and circumstances in general.

[ 2 ] And when I ask myself: How could—since I had, after all, spent nearly a year ago working on the pedagogical and didactic foundations for the Waldorf School of our friend Molt, who has just spoken here— how could the interest I naturally had to take in how the impulses given at that time would actually play out in reality—how could this interest be satisfied in the way I have just indicated? And then I could see: The vitality that had entered into the history was due to the fact that the teacher, Dr. Stein, had found the inner courage to incorporate into his historical perspective that which constitutes the power of that Spiritual Science which I have taken the liberty of presenting here in Stuttgart for many years now. This Spiritual Science is by no means intended to be a mere source of inner comfort for souls turned away from the world, but rather it is meant to be something that can truly permeate and enrich all human knowledge, all human action, and all human creativity. It is meant to be something that not only makes people more perceptive, but also provides ideas that—I would say—flow like the lifeblood of the soul into the human limbs, both spiritual and physical, to make people more skilled, more capable, and better equipped for life in every respect.

[ 3 ] However, in order to overcome the many prejudices that still stand in the way of such an integration of the fields of education, teaching, and daily life with the impulses of the Spiritual Science, one must, in order to overcome these prejudices held by the broadest circles, have inner courage—that courage which can flow only from being inwardly connected in one’s soul with the compelling force that springs from that knowledge of reality which arises from the contemplation of spiritual life, as I have often indicated here. From what I have taken the liberty of speaking about so directly today, one’s thoughts are then easily drawn to a phenomenon that is, after all, all too well-founded in today’s general world situation and all too understandable in light of it.

[ 4 ] We live—and I already hinted at this from a different perspective in my lecture the day before yesterday—we live today in an age in which the social question can no longer be a matter of institutions and organizations, but rather is a major question of human worth, of human dignity, a question of humanity itself. The issue today is not to figure out what the best institutions we can establish based on this or that idea about social life, but rather: How can we win over the broad masses of the people who have appeared on the stage of life to work together with those who, in a certain sense—through their intelligence, their intellectual orientation, and what they have absorbed—must nevertheless, in a certain sense, take a leading role in all the forces that are incorporated into contemporary social life? It is, of course, extraordinarily difficult to articulate certain truths that today may no longer sound quite so paradoxical, but still ring somewhat harsh. Yet time and again, we must point to a truth that has been taught all too clearly by the events of recent years. It must be pointed out that in recent centuries, but especially in recent decades, the bearers of contemporary education—the bearers of what is essentially civilizational life, apart from the survival of traditions—have fallen into a certain materialistic view of life, and that from this perspective they have not found their way toward what has since emerged among the broad masses as theories and ways of life.

[ 5 ] What had developed among the ruling classes—whether as religion, science, or art—lacked the inner power to capture the broad masses of humanity. In particular, it lacked the power to draw those broad masses of humanity—who, as a result of the upsurge in our industrial life, had to be placed at the machines, in the factories, and so on—toward what was now the substance of education, religion, science, and art among the ruling classes. The broad masses of the proletariat were, so to speak, left to their own devices. The members of the proletariat were left to whatever they could perceive in what was merely a mechanical apparatus—what was merely a lifeless, heartless, soulless machine and machinery. And from the sight of such a life bound up with the mechanical and the machine-like, a worldview could develop within the broad masses that today finds expression as more or less radical Marxism and now, unfortunately, seeks to shape reality, as I also hinted at the day before yesterday. But there is no bridge today between what the educated class, drawing on old traditions, recognizes as its civilization, and what has entered the sphere of modern human life among the broad masses. And we now face the great problems of life with uncertainty, utter uncertainty: How is a bridge to be built between those who, based on an understanding of human nature, can form mental images about how our social life should proceed, and those who, understandably, can only make demands based on a sphere of life that actually has to do only with the inanimate, and who therefore believe that all life, all religion, all science, and all art could, as it were, develop as a superstructure out of these relations of production, which themselves stand far removed from all spiritual life?

[ 6 ] That, my esteemed audience, is indeed the terrible enigma of our time: How will we manage to bring these two segments of humanity together—which, after all, despite everything that is said, must come together—how will we manage to fulfill this demand? - This burden weighs on many, more or less unconsciously and as a matter of course. And out of this burden, various well-intentioned efforts have arisen in the present. And here it becomes difficult once again to say something that I must now say in the face of these—as I fully acknowledge—well-intentioned efforts. But, my esteemed audience, it serves no purpose today to hold back—simply to avoid hurting people’s feelings or offending them—from speaking what must be said based on a deeper understanding of the laws governing humanity’s development, so that we may move forward toward a rebuilding of our social life. Many people sense, after all, how we have failed to establish a spiritual foundation for humanity and to allow that spiritual content to flow into science, religion, and art—a content that could have had the power to convince the great masses—those masses who, up to now, have been willing to accept only what their own limited perspective on life tells them about coexisting with machines, mechanistic processes, and so on. And so many have already come to realize: It is necessary for us to bring a certain level of education to the broad masses, for ultimately our social question is, at its very core, a question of education. —Education capable of spreading mental images of the possibilities of human coexistence, of the possibilities of social reciprocity—that is the aspiration, the well-intentioned aspiration of many. And so, in many circles, people initially think—entirely with the best of intentions—of adult education centers and all sorts of other, similarly oriented educational institutions.

[ 7 ] You see, that is precisely the difficulty: that even when speaking of well-intentioned things, one must speak of them as I must do now. The issue is that those who today, out of sincere desire, speak of the dissemination of education and the dissemination of science take it for granted that science—as it exists today, as it has been learned and is taught at our schools and universities—will simply be adapted accordingly and carried over into adult education centers and similar institutions. This is taken for granted by many today. Why? — Because these many people are simply not yet willing to ask, with sufficient consistency, the questions about the current state of humanity’s existence. Today we see how many destructive forces there are in our public life. We see the extent to which the effects of decline have grown, but over the last three to four centuries we have become accustomed to treating what has emerged as conventional science and conventional art with an unconditional, absolute sense of authority. And so people tell themselves: Yes, if we bring what must be absolutely correct and absolutely in keeping with the truth to the broad masses, then it must prove to be a blessing. — What could be more natural, after all, than for such an opinion to arise where people are not yet willing to raise the questions of contemporary life with sufficient consistency? But might we not also raise the other question, my esteemed audience, namely: Were it not the ruling classes of humanity up to now, were it not the possessors of this science and this mindset—which one now wishes to introduce into universities and similar institutions—were it not precisely those who held the reins of humanity who have led humanity into its present state? Did this very science—which people now want to give to the broad masses of the people—prevent the ruling classes from leading humanity into the absurdity of life? No, it did not!—Can we now hope for anything other than signs of decline when the ruling classes, despite being steeped in this science, this art, and so on, have plunged headlong into the current absurdity of life and were not protected by this science from that plunge? Do we now also want to popularize what clearly contributes to these signs of decline? Do we want to spread this even further among the broad masses, so that these broad masses are led even more vigorously toward the very absurdities to which the ruling circles have been drawn by this science?

[ 8 ] This question is a cruel one in the present day. But it is the kind of question that must be raised, even if one suffers from raising it, because one knows from the outset how little one can be understood for doing so. One is understood so little precisely because most people today still believe: Well, there is, after all, something solid like the science of the past centuries; we can rely on it—it just hasn’t yet reached the masses sufficiently; once it reaches the masses, it will surely provide them with solid ground. — One can understand that people want something they call solid ground beneath their feet. But today, the gravity of our current world situation is so great that it is impossible to continue to conceal certain things—which one believes one can discern from the course of human development—simply because, in a certain sense, they radically contradict the prejudices held by the broadest circles. Yet what is, in essence, an answer to the fateful question just posed has always been clear to that Spiritual Science about which I have been speaking in Stuttgart for years now; and this Spiritual Science has always sought something entirely different from what has been desired in the broadest circles [out of prejudice]; it has always sought not only that which it believed could broaden ordinary scientific education, but it has always sought a thorough permeation of the entire life of civilization with a new spiritual insight. And it could only pin its hopes for this permeation of the entire life of civilization on a new spiritual vision. And so we do not intend to direct our efforts toward placing conventional science on as broad a foundation as possible, but rather toward a renewal of the entire scientific and worldview spirit of the present, extending into the near future.

[ 9 ] You see, it is out of this fundamental attitude that what permeates the Waldorf School here—as pedagogy and didactics, as the foundations of education and instruction—has emerged. And it was also from this fundamental attitude that what was spoken—during the time between my previous and current stays in Stuttgart, over in Switzerland, in Dornach, to a number of doctors and medical students—came into being. The aim there was to examine the current state of medicine, particularly in a therapeutic context, and to show how everything that can serve as a foundation for this medicine—and what can then form its further development—can in fact be examined from the perspective of the Spiritual Science. The aim was not to look at what already exists as science in order to bring it into adult education centers, but rather to gain a new foundation of knowledge in order to enrich science with it and only then bring it into these institutions, because what is to become part of the common heritage must not be taken from the old science. A science of the human being—of the healthy and the sick human being—was attempted [through Spiritual Science]. It is still in its infancy. Naturally, when one is in the midst of these great problems of the present, one thinks very modestly about everything connected with them. But this understanding of healthy and sick human beings has been attempted because of the conviction that only a science illuminated by the spirit will be able to have an impact even in the broadest circles of humanity—to have an impact with such vital force that it can stand up to what the broad masses have derived from a purely mechanical worldview. This can never be achieved by the very science that has so misled the ruling classes; it can only be accomplished by a worldview that truly taps into sources of knowledge entirely different from those toward which the intellectual and artistic conscience of humanity in recent centuries—and especially in recent decades—has tended to gravitate.

[ 10 ] I must take the liberty, my esteemed audience—even though there is such a large gathering here today—to begin by speaking in a seemingly unpopular manner and to point out, by name, certain things about which most people still say today: “Oh, we don’t need that at all when we’re talking about reshaping the living conditions of humanity today. That’s far too high up in certain spiritual realms; the broad masses can’t understand that yet.” — Yes, my esteemed audience, I am nevertheless speaking from the perspectives I have just indicated. When I am often told today that what emanates from here is not understood at all by the majority of people, I am repeatedly reminded of what I have often heard from theater directors, whose entire effort has actually always been directed toward presenting the most trashy plays possible to the audience; they have always justified themselves by saying that the audience wants that, because it would not understand better material. It was always clear to me that the theater directors in question, who make such judgments, simply do not understand the value of better plays. And so I pay no heed when, today, one or the other complains about incomprehensibility; rather, I believe that we—perhaps partly due to the hardships of the times—are very much ready to embrace much of what the past decades, steeped in philistinism, have conveniently labeled “incomprehensible.” Indeed, many things have happened to me that I can cite as evidence of this so-called “incomprehensibility.” For example, about twenty years ago, I was once invited to give lectures on Goethe’s *Faust* to a circle of educated people in a city in Germany. There were, however, a number of people in attendance who did not even think to say that what I was saying was incomprehensible. Nevertheless, enthusiastic advocates of Oskar Blumenthal’s muse were also present, and they said: “Yes, *Faust*—it’s not a play at all; it’s a science.”—Gradually, from certain underlying currents that I do not wish to characterize here, an educational ideal has emerged that has always been readily at hand: one must speak in a more popular and generally understandable manner. But it is precisely this complacency that has placed us in the situation in which we now find ourselves. And we will not emerge from it, my esteemed audience, until a sufficiently large number of people resolve to have the conscience to understand that which simply cannot be conveyed in that completely general, crystal-clear manner—the kind that puts one to sleep.

[ 11 ] When we speak today about the significance of education and teaching in light of the current state of the world, the most important thing is to recognize that: Today’s teacher and educator can only truly fulfill their role in a fruitful way through a genuine understanding of the developing human being—through a genuine gift for looking into what reveals itself as the mystery of the human being, from the very first day the child is born until the days when it becomes an adult. But we lack a general worldview that could lead us to truly look into the human being—especially the developing human being—in an intimate way. Our worldview of recent years, decades, and centuries has not actually led us toward the human being; rather, it has led us away from the human being. It has indeed shown us a very astute way of recognizing how human beings stand at the pinnacle of the animal kingdom, how they have evolved from lower animal forms, and today we believe we recognize what the relationship between human beings and the non-human world actually is. When we raise the great questions of humanity in the conventional sense, we are not actually asking: What is a human being? What is the inner nature of human beings?—but rather we ask: What is the inner nature of the animal, what is the inner nature of animality?—We study the development of animality, and once we have studied how animality develops up to its highest stage, we stop there, so that we then arrive at an understanding of human beings solely through the development of animality.

[ 12 ] It was certainly a great and significant path that was embarked upon from a certain point of view, but it is characteristic of the foundations of the development of worldview in recent times. For through this, human beings do not stand before themselves as human beings in their true essence, but they stand before themselves only insofar as they are the pinnacle of animality, insofar as they are something other than true human essence. To what extent is a human being an animal? — We ask this question today in all its forms. And as a result, we have lost sight of the question: To what extent is a human being a human being in the true sense of the word? — And so it becomes a veritable fact that people—I might say—are gnawing their way through the logical difficulties of the question: What relationship exists between what we call the soul, what we call the human spirit, and what we call the body, what we call the human physical form? — This is raised in all sorts of ways within contemporary philosophy, but people merely struggle in vain with it. And it is remarkable how sometimes, when such a rare exception is included among those observers who today, from the perspective of the current worldview, are truly engaged with such questions, that person then speaks from a certain common sense. Here is an example. Such an example illustrates many things.

[ 13 ] Rudolf Hildebrand, that brilliant philologist who was a student of Jakob Grimm’s linguistic research, worked for many years at the University of Leipzig; he also edited a large portion of the famous dictionary, specifically the sections that Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm had left unfinished. This Rudolf Hildebrand also wrote a number of diary entries, which were published by Diederichs in 1910. In them, he already expresses himself as someone deeply immersed in contemporary life, teaching, and education, with a mindset that—I would say—suddenly pauses and seeks to assert common sense in everything around him, particularly in those people around him who discuss questions of worldview in today’s academic and didactic manner. An interesting sequence of sentences can be found in Rudolf Hildebrand’s work, specifically in the chapter where he discusses education, upbringing, and teaching in his diary entries “Thoughts on God, the World, and the Self,” which were published only after his death. There he says: When I consider how my colleagues at the university discuss the actual questions of worldview, I often find myself wishing that, while the lecturer is speaking up front and the audience is sitting below out of a sense of duty—or perhaps for some other reason—and listening to him, I would like—so Hildebrand says, not I—for a man of the people to come forward and tug a little at the lecturer’s earlobe, but not too gently, rather hard enough to hurt, and say to him: “Hey, look me in the face, and look your students in the face—person to person—and try to accept this empirical fact, and then ask yourself whether you aren’t saying all this simply because you’re so self-absorbed that you’re completely unaware that, in social life, you’re facing one human being as a human being.” - It would be particularly interesting, says Rudolf Hildebrand, if the lecturer’s wife were to accompany him and draw his attention to this by tugging on his earlobe—not too gently, but hard enough to hurt—and say: “Hey, would you really dare to say to me at home, face to face, what you’re saying here under the influence of your authority, and do you think I’d attach any value to it at all?”

[ 14 ] Well, ladies and gentlemen, I have said this not merely to present you with my own judgment, but rather the judgment of a person who has worked for decades at a prestigious university, who has observed, and for whom the issue at hand has become a genuine matter of conscience. What is at stake, however, when we teach today—given the current state of the world—and when we seek to educate, is a genuine understanding of humanity—an understanding of humanity that we must demand inspire in us a way of treating people that is thoroughly imbued with love for humanity. For only such an understanding of human nature—one imbued with skill in dealing with people and permeated by love for humanity—can guide teaching and education in such a way that future generations are properly integrated into the fabric of social life.

[ 15 ] But, my esteemed audience, this is precisely the difficulty: that our current science oscillates in abstract realms, believing that it grasps reality through its atoms and atomic groupings, when in fact it merely wanders through abstract realms of thought, through abstract concepts. So if one first forms a concept of the soul and then a concept of the body, without carefully examining the actual configuration of the human body or the true nature of the human soul through direct spiritual perception, one can come to nothing other than a fruitless logical struggle in the face of this great mystery of life, which must underlie all human knowledge. This is the point where what is meant here by “Spiritual Science” begins—and it begins in such a way that it does not seek abstract philosophical formulas regarding the relationship between body and soul, which are almost exclusively sought today; rather, an attempt is made to truly to observe human soul activity as self-education and self-discipline in the sense of spiritual research, which I have often described here, and likewise an attempt is made to observe the physical, the bodily, in the sense of this spiritual research.

[ 16 ] And this, however, leads us to concepts, a few of which I would like to characterize today. Through these few, however, I will be able to show how a living understanding of humanity springs forth from such a renewal, from such a revitalization of the human worldview. We see the human being growing up from birth, when he enters the physical world from the spiritual world. We see something emerging that works its way out from the deepest inner core of the human being—week by week, month by month, year by year—becoming ever more mysterious and yet ever more magnificent and meaningful in the outer structure, in the outer physical body of the human being. And as this person grows up, we see how significant life events impact this human existence. These life events are generally not given sufficient consideration by what is today regarded as mainstream science. I would like to mention two of these life events first; I have also characterized them from this perspective on other occasions.

[ 17 ] I would like to mention that around the age of seven, children begin to lose their original baby teeth and replace them with permanent teeth. I have already pointed out here that a person’s entire psychological constitution changes at this age. It is also the age at which children leave the parental home and enter elementary school. It is the age we must focus on if we are to establish the methodological, didactic, and pedagogical foundation for elementary school instruction and education. I have pointed out how, in the years leading up to the change of teeth, a person is primarily an imitator; how their soul is shaped in such a way that, driven by instinct, they experience firsthand what is happening in their immediate surroundings; and how, in a sense, they do not detach themselves from their surroundings at all. The child imitates the hand movements that father and mother make and the speech sounds that father and mother utter because, in a sense—though not so visibly—the child is connected to father and mother and the entire environment just as the mother’s arm and the father’s arm are connected to the bodies of the mother and father, only to a greater degree. But today I do not wish to draw attention to what I have already pointed out here, but rather to something else that is, in turn, intimately connected with it. What appears as the change of teeth is, in a sense, the conclusion of an entire organic process; what culminates, so to speak, in the eruption of the permanent teeth are the results of forces that flow through the entire human organism during the preceding stage of life. For now, we need not distinguish between what is spiritual-psychic and what is physical-bodily. After all, when we observe the child’s facial expressions, when we observe the changes in the child’s face from year to year, we see how the soul works upon the physical body. And, in a sense, we see even more deeply into this spiritual-soul activity when we observe how this spiritual-soul aspect works organically within the child, how it penetrates the external world, ultimately finding its culmination in the eruption of the permanent teeth. What is it, actually, that is at work here? Well—I can only sketch out the matter, but what I sketch can be established down to the smallest details with the utmost scientific precision—what is it, then, that is actually happening within the human being? Let us observe what is happening psychologically and spiritually within the human being as he or she undergoes the process of tooth replacement. During this same period, those human mental images that were previously so fleeting—that one no longer remembers them in later life—become [clearly defined concepts]. Think how far back you must go if you want to recall the first clearly defined concepts you formed in your childhood; at this stage of life, up until the change of teeth, concepts are still vague, fluctuating, not sharply defined, and not yet firm enough to become woven into the soul-spiritual life in such a way that they can be retained—so that all these memories shape one’s entire life. This connection between the soul-spiritual realm and sharply defined concepts and mental images—which can be incorporated into memory—begins at the same age at which the change of teeth takes place. And if we now investigate what is actually taking place here, it turns out that the very same forces that then come to the fore in our memory—in what we carry within us as the power of thinking, the power of our remembering thought—that these forces, which around the age of seven have, so to speak, emancipated themselves from the physical-bodily realm, had been at work within the physical-bodily realm right up until the change of teeth: these were the very forces that drove the teeth out. Thus, up until the change of teeth, we are intimately connected to the physicality of the human being through these same forces, which then become powers of thought; they work on the bone formation that reaches its conclusion with the change of teeth.

[ 18 ] Ladies and gentlemen, here we see a very real, a truly tangible relationship between the soul and the body. For in later life we have our sharply defined concepts of memory; we know what our power of thought is; we look within ourselves and observe this power of thought, and we say to ourselves: This power of thought has been at work within us as a free power of thought only since the age of seven. Before that, it was submerged within our organism, directing those forces that pushed through our permanent teeth. We have an intimate relationship between the soul and the body; we look specifically at this relationship. We do not speculate about it: What is the relationship between body and soul? We turn our attention to the soul and examine where, so to speak, we can observe the emergence of free memory images. And we see how these forces, before they became free as memory, were at work within the organism, how they were organically formative.

[ 19 ] You see, this is the progression of the Spiritual Science worldview from the abstract to the concrete—from the merely conceptual, which imagines itself penetrating reality, to what is truly in accordance with reality. This is the advance toward the true essence of the human being, for now we know how to answer the question: What is at work in the human body before the age of seven?—This cannot be described in abstract terms; one must point to something factual, one must point out what is at work within the human being. What is at work there is our power of thinking that involves memory. This is one example intended to illustrate the radical shift that must take place in our scientific way of thinking and in our worldview. You can imagine, my esteemed audience: Because such things lie entirely outside the consciousness of so-called educated humanity today, because no one—least of all science—wants to know anything about the concrete nature of the human soul, spirit, and physical body, that is why the human being is alien to us, and why we cannot see into the human being. But how can one establish a theory of education, an art of teaching, if one cannot look into the human being?

[ 20 ] A second life event I would like to draw attention to is sexual maturity. And just as much happens from birth through the years leading up to the change of teeth as happens from the change of teeth to sexual maturity. And if we now look again, from the same standpoint of Spiritual Science, at what works toward sexual maturity and, in turn, reaches its culmination in sexual maturity, we must ask ourselves: What is that, actually? — Just as the power of thought works within the body and, if I may put it simply, pushes out the teeth, so—as Spiritual Science shows, though I can only sketch this out here—the will works within the human being until the age of fifteen. The will works to shape the body organically. It works in such a way that it governs the conditions of growth, the inner organic conditions. Then this inner, organic activity of the will reaches a certain conclusion, just as the activity of thought does with the onset of tooth replacement. And what comes to an end there manifests in the outer physical development of the human being at sexual maturity. The forces of the will are rooted not in the human head, but in the entire being of the human being. It is the forces of the will that regulate a person’s growth forces up to sexual maturity. Then they become concentrated. They have, so to speak, a tendency to draw inward into the formation of the head. These forces of the will had already begun to flow inward even before sexual maturity; they were inwardly and organically active throughout the entire human being; with sexual maturity, they become concentrated. They become concentrated—finding their culmination—in the human vocal organ, which is initially the most intimate expression of the human will, just as the other forces become concentrated in tooth formation. They become concentrated below the head—the head, the organ of the actual intellectual human being, is excluded. The forces of the will become concentrated, and in males this concentration is even expressed in the transformation of the voice through the larynx, while in females it manifests somewhat differently. In this lies the liberation of those forces of the will that are now to engage with the external world through experience and life—those forces of the will that until then had been working internally within the human body as soul-spiritual forces. It is just as with the powers of thought, which ultimately brought about the change of teeth and then appear, emancipated, in their true form as powers of thought.

[ 21 ] As scholars of Spiritual Science, we thus look, on the one hand, at the thinking human being—the human being with the power of thought—and, on the other hand, at the human being with the power of will. We do not speak in abstract terms about some sort of soul, but rather about the soul that we observe. We trace its activity as a thinking soul up to the time of tooth replacement, then observe its liberation, its becoming self-reliant, and its independence from certain inner aspects of the organic process. And we observe the will in the same way. That is to say, we no longer formulate theories about the relationship of the soul and the spirit to the body; rather, we observe—we engage with reality. You see, the approach taken here is—in my view—far better suited to permeate general human education than the approach that once occurred to an honest mind: the idea that one should tug at the lecturer’s earlobe—but not too gently.

[ 22 ] But this is actually about something entirely different. The point is that one need not only attach importance to the results, to the insights gained in this way, but that one should also attach importance to how, through Spiritual Science methods—as I have described them in my *Secret Science* and in *How Does One Gain Insights into the Higher Worlds?* or in *A Path to Self-Knowledge for the Human Being*—how, through such paths of thought, one comes to recognize such things and, indeed, much, much more about the healthy and sick human being—knowledge that is simply hidden in the depths of what we might today call “authoritative” science. Here one must train the spirit in a certain way; here one must orient the spirit in a certain way. The mind must take a different direction than we are accustomed to today. And that is what matters far more. For after all, the results are just results; they may be more or less important or unimportant, interesting or uninteresting. But what we accomplish by taking the path to such insights—what we make of ourselves by cultivating our very being, what we make of ourselves as human beings by paving the way to such insights—that is the essential point that matters. What always matters is what we, as human beings, make of ourselves by developing, from within, a very specific way of viewing the world in a very specific state of mind. Through this, we also come to view life free from all illusions and yet in all its wondrous grandeur.

[ 23 ] We see, for example, that children are absorbed in play during their early years and even later in life. Guiding and directing play is essentially one of the tasks of a sensible, humanely sound approach to education and instruction. The child plays. Anyone who has sharpened their perception of the world and of human life through such issues as I have just described will notice a great difference between the way one child plays and the way another child plays. To the superficial observer, almost all children play the same way. To the one who has sharpened their perception, all children play differently from one another. Each has its own unique way of playing. It is indeed very remarkable when one considers what play means for childhood: an activity of the soul and spirit, as it exists when the actual power of thought is still at work within the organic body until the teeth are replaced. It is truly remarkable how this childlike soul-spiritual realm—which has not yet absorbed the power of thought—moves within free play—that play whose form lies apart from the utility and purpose of life, that play in which the child follows only what flows from his or her own soul. On the surface, this appears to be a departure from the principle of imitation, for the way the child immerses itself in play seems to be something that arises from the freedom of the child’s soul—but this is only an illusion. For anyone who observes more closely will see how the child incorporates into its play what it experiences through its surroundings, through everything that is happening around it. But once one has sharpened one’s gaze, one no longer views this play merely as something interesting happening in the life of a single child at a specific time, but rather places this play, with its entire character, within the context of the whole of human life.

[ 24 ] And by observing this, one learns to compare what happens at the various stages of human life. Just as one can compare zinc and copper in inanimate objects, or a cockchafer with a sun beetle in the living world, and so on, so too can one compare the various stages of human life with one another. And here something most peculiar becomes apparent. Once one has gained a true mental image of children’s play through the sharpened gaze described above, one must then look for something in the various stages of human life into which the special character of this children’s play flows. And through a search based entirely on experience, one finds that when a person reaches the age of approximately 20 to 28, 29, when a person must truly find their place in the world, truly grapple with what the world is meant to provide as experience and guidance for an independent life—and when one observes how a person engages with life, allows themselves to be moved by life— one truly finds, at a certain stage, a metamorphosis, a transformation of the distinctive character of childlike play. Before the teeth begin to fall out, the child has freely shaped—out of the activity of its soul—things that do not belong to life itself, such as dolls and other play materials; it has engaged in a certain configuration, in a certain structure. If one learns to recognize and understand this, and then observes a person in their twenties as they now engage with the seriousness of life—with what is useful and purposeful in life, with what one must navigate through experience— then one finds that the person now engages with the usefulness and practicality of the world—with what life demands—with the very character they first freely displayed in childhood play. Consider what this means. One seeks to influence a child’s upbringing, and one knows: whatever you observe as a particular character trait in children’s play, however you then understand and guide that play—you do so in such a way that it bears fruit when the person, in their twenties, has come to terms with the world that is meant to be useful and appropriate to their life. Imagine what feelings arise in the educator’s soul when he knows: What I am accomplishing here with the child, I am accomplishing for the adult in his twenties. What matters here is not what one knows in abstract terms as educational principles, nor what one can draw upon from intellectual foundations in the form of didactic and methodological rules; rather, what matters is that through such insights—as we come to understand life in this way—we develop a deep sense of responsibility in our hearts. A true understanding of human nature speaks not only to our intellect; it speaks to our feelings, to our sensibilities, and to our entire outlook on life. It surges through us and weaves itself into our very being, imbuing us with a sense of responsibility in the role we play. We are not seeking an art of education that merely states, out of speculation or justified cleverness, that one should educate in this or that way; rather, in light of humanity’s current circumstances, we are seeking an art of education that—based on a thorough understanding of human nature—instills in the educator a sense of responsibility, a social sense of responsibility toward all of humanity. The art of education arises from a sense of responsibility that can only develop within us on the basis of a sound worldview.

[ 25 ] I am not speaking to you here about a renewal of science simply because I am particularly interested in or eager to tell you that there will be different scientific findings and that these findings will form a different worldview than the one commonly held today. No, I am speaking to you this way because I believe that the entire direction, the entire course of worldview and scientific life, will change. I say this because I believe there will be a science and a way of life based on a worldview that will penetrate the entire human being, that will permeate the human being in body, soul, and spirit, and that is particularly important—given humanity’s current situation—for all aspects of education and teaching.

[ 26 ] But there is something else connected with what is based on such a new view of humanity. What, then, are we striving for today when we speak of science, of a scientifically grounded foundation for a worldview? We speak of what presents itself to us, largely in abstract terms, and we are satisfied when we can say to ourselves: We must demand what only very sharply defined concepts can give us; we must demand such concepts precisely out of our prejudice. — Yes, but if nature, the world, is not such that it can be fitted into the concepts we demand, if the world takes shape according to entirely different forms of organization, if nature, for example, does not take shape according to what our laws of nature are, if these laws of nature encompass only a small part of actual reality and the very essence of nature does not take shape according to abstract laws of nature and ideas, but rather according to images—then no matter how long we discuss the logical justification of sharply defined laws of nature, we will not penetrate nature, because nature does not lend itself to such laws, because it demands to be grasped in images. Human nature, in particular, demands to be grasped in images. And one is guided to everything I have outlined today only through a pictorial, imaginative mode of conception.

[ 27 ] I would like to say: If one looks at a human being in such a way that one observes how the power of thought operates within his organism until his teeth come in, how the power of will operates, how it draws into the larynx and brings about the transformation of the voice—if one observes all of this, one cannot stop at formulating those abstract laws of nature that are so popular today, but rather one comes to make the soul active and vivid by seeking to understand human beings. One comes to realize that one must not remain stuck at abstract concepts or mental images, but must move on to images. In other words, one comes to elevate abstract, logical, scientific concepts into an artistic grasp of the world, into an aesthetic grasp of the world. One arrives at an understanding of what Goethe so profoundly expressed from the foundations of his worldview: Art is based on a perception of deeper laws of nature that would never reveal themselves to human beings without art. — Goethe believes that they would never reveal themselves through abstract laws of nature, but would reveal themselves only through the contemplation of nature in pictorial forms. In this way, one embarks on a path from a logical-abstract view—from a mechanistic view of external nature—toward an artistic apprehension, and such artistic apprehension imparts to our entire personality a different kind of spiritual suppleness than abstract concepts do.

[ 28 ] And let us now imagine the person who has risen from a scientific understanding of humanity to an artistic grasp of the world and humanity—let us imagine this person filled to the brim with, permeated by, this artistic, pictorial vision of humanity, and then practicing the art of education and teaching. There, life flows directly from him into the life of the developing human being; there, it is not a philistine, abstract science of education at work, but rather the living art of education—that which can unfold in the most beautiful way as a social interaction between human beings. Here, finally, based on a deeper foundation of knowledge, that which Schiller sought to portray—out of more humanistic sentiments—in his letters “On the Aesthetic Education of Man” is fulfilled. Here it is truly made clear that, even in true knowledge, the human being maintains a balance between the merely abstract necessity of reason and the merely sensuous natural instinct; it is made clear that human beings stand between these drives and that they act out of a disposition that asserts itself in the same way as the disposition in artistic creation or artistic contemplation. It asserts itself in such a way that what we pursue as spirit is simultaneously represented as the sensuous; it brings about that what presents itself as the sensuous is at the same time spiritual.

[ 29 ] It is from this mindset that we begin to educate and teach here at the Waldorf School. We no longer give the developing human being something that has been prescribed to us; rather, as educators and teachers, we devote ourselves entirely to the developing human being, and in this way we raise people who are capable of fully engaging with life. I have, of course, cited only a few examples. Just as we can give a child the best possible foundation for finding their way in life in their twenties by guiding their play, we can observe other qualities in the developing human being upon which we base our education, thereby equipping them with the very best for their future life. Thus we establish a form of instruction and education that takes into account the whole person and the entirety of human life. One might well say: The gravity of the current world situation demands that we cast our gaze a little deeper into that which can bring about improvement—that from which we can overcome the suffering and hardship of the present. But this cannot be achieved with indifferent or superficial means; it can only be achieved with deeper, more profound means. Only in this way will we raise people who, in the most profound sense, will possess what they must have—for it is precisely this that people lack in the current state of the world.

[ 30 ] When we look at people as they are today, when we look at what comes to the surface of life—what even seeks to dictate life—at what plays out, for example, in public affairs as they have taken shape again in recent days—we see everywhere that two things are lacking in people today, things one can only wish for them in the most intense degree: People today are sorely lacking what one might call self-confidence, but also what one might call trust in humanity. Consider, my esteemed audience, why people today look so little within themselves to actively engage in the social life of the present, which so desperately needs their energy and initiative. We find that people lack self-confidence. But self-confidence is justified—and can exist—only when it is sustained by trust in other people. Just as the North Pole and the South Pole belong together and cannot exist without one another, so self-confidence cannot exist without trust in other people. Never will educational science or the science of teaching instill in people what self-confidence is, or what trust in humanity is, unless it is born of a love for humanity that stems from an understanding of human nature, as I have characterized it today. For this is what one experiences, my esteemed audience.

[ 31 ] If one comes to know human beings as I have described—if one learns to recognize how the spiritual and soul aspects function within their organism, and how the various stages of human life interact—as I have illustrated using the example of children’s play and its effects on one’s twenties—then one comes to know the human being’s spiritual -soul-physical nature of the human being, then one cannot help but, along with this insight, cultivate within oneself genuine love for humanity, for one force of the soul is connected to another force of the soul, just as the stamens are connected to the pistil in a flower; if the stamens are perfect, they demand a perfect pistil. Thus, true knowledge—arising from love of humanity—does not develop into the kind of abstractness that is so often and rightly despised today, but rather into that which, in turn, fosters true love of humanity.

[ 32 ] And what prevails in education and instruction that stems from such an understanding of human nature and such love for humanity—what pedagogy and didactics can shape into a curriculum and schedule based on such an understanding of human nature—that is what we have attempted here at the Waldorf School, to the extent that it is already possible today. The effect of this, my esteemed audience, is that a love for other human beings begins to dawn within the child. Trust in humanity—which is kindled in the child through the power born within us from a genuine understanding of human nature, leading to an artistic grasp of the natural human being—this forms within us the very power that can kindle in the child that enduring, inexhaustible self-confidence. And two other qualities that humanity so sorely lacks today—and which can be imparted to the human spirit only through such an art of education—are what I would like to call, on the one hand, prudence, and on the other, a zest for action and a readiness to act. People today think about these things in a vague way—very, very vague—because they do not think from reality, specifically not from social reality.

[ 33 ] Earlier, I spoke very highly of the amiable scholar Rudolf Hildebrand. So you will not believe that I intend to misjudge this man. But he, too, was a man who—even though he was sometimes driven by his instincts to make the kinds of observations I have mentioned—was a man steeped in all the prejudices that have brought us our present misfortune. And so, even in his diary entries, he wrote a curious sentence: “Compare a onlooker standing in front of a target that is to be shot at with a marksman aiming at the target. The onlooker can hit the target with his gaze; the marksman hits it every time.” The marksman must first learn to hit the target; only then does he actually hit it. Thus, Hildebrand argues, there is a difference between one who is merely a spectator of life—that is, one who views life philosophically, scientifically, mystically, theosophically, or in any other way—and one who actively takes charge of life.

[ 34 ] There is a great deal of truth in such a statement, but nevertheless a great, great deal that is one-sided. For let us not think just of Hildebrand’s example, but of a “life-observer”—one who has merely observed life—for example, Leibniz, who discovered differential and integral calculus. Let us imagine how this “life-observer,” who discovered differential and integral calculus, has now become the catalyst for everything that is accomplished today in technology through differential and integral calculus—for everything that is achieved today in life by the “shooter,” by the one who takes action. If one views human beings in this way—in antisocial isolation—one may find the parable of the “life-gawker” and the “shooter” aiming at the target to be apt. But if one views life in its social breadth, then one must say to oneself: If the one who is the “life-gawker” has, out of his life-gawking, a fruitful thought leading to countless practical effects, then—with regard to human cooperation, with regard to social life—perhaps the “life-gawker” is far more active than the one who is compared to the “shooter.”

[ 35 ] The issue is that we have gradually come to view life one-sidedly, focusing on isolated events, and that today we lack the ability to see the broader social context. To address this, we need level-headedness and reflection. Today, it is often the case that people avoid this self-reflection, this turning inward, this “gazing” at life—because they are too complacent to turn thoughts and ideas into action, because they do not want to engage with the real conditions of life, because even when hardship is already banging at the window, when it reaches up to their mouths, when the hardship is infinitely great, they are fatalists and say: “Things will get better tomorrow, somehow.” — We need prudence and a way of life guided by the principle of action and effect. And on the other hand, we need a new readiness for action; it will arise from such thoughts in people in whom we can kindle what is human through that love we gain from true knowledge of spirit, soul, and body—as the foundation of a future worldview, as we have described today. And the best, the highest thing that education and upbringing can offer us in light of the current state of the world is that we gain an open and free sense of life when what is human is unlocked through such an understanding of humanity as is meant here. We are witnessing in our time that people misunderstand life in a strange way. They imagine themselves to be spirits of reality, yet when it comes down to reality, they are truly, truly far removed from it. Here is an example:

[ 36 ] You see, a certain judgment was reached at one point during the 19th century. Please consult the parliamentary records, read the finest speeches by the greatest minds, and look up what the most respected practitioners said in newspaper reports. Time and again, in the parliamentary records, in the speeches of the finest economists, and among the most accomplished practitioners, you will find that they reached a certain conclusion which has become of the utmost importance for modern developments—in political and governmental matters, as well as in economic affairs. At one point, certain states set out to introduce the gold standard. Read what was said about it. The most experienced practitioners and the most distinguished economists predicted that this gold standard would lead to the abolition of customs barriers; that the gold standard, in particular, would bring about free world trade. - And if one looks at what these practical people, these businesspeople, these industrialists, and these parliamentarians—who had emerged from the understanding prevalent in the 19th century—said, one finds—I do not mean to mock, I only wish to speak the truth—one finds that they said something very sensible; but reality turned out quite differently. They said: Customs barriers, protective tariffs—all of that will be eliminated once the gold standard is introduced. —The opposite has happened. After the introduction of the gold standard, it was precisely customs barriers and protective tariffs that were erected everywhere. So, the opposite of what the wisest people said has come to pass. I say explicitly, “the wisest people”; I am far from saying that the people who so radically missed the mark were fools; they were the opposite of fools. Based on the understanding of their time, they said the wisest things, but no one can arrive at the truth when the truth is not predetermined by anything, when the circumstances around us are such that one cannot fathom reality even with the sharpest intellect. That is why even the wisest people speak nonsense in such a field. This is because economic conditions, in their interconnection with state and political conditions, were so tangled—because the threads were so intertwined that one could not see through them, no matter how intelligent one was—that one could not gain insight; naturally, one spoke nonsense because one could learn nothing from reality. It was not possible to shape reality in advance in such a way that one could have learned from it.

[ 37 ] What we call the idea of the threefold social order means that economic life, just like spiritual life and political life, should be grounded in its own foundation, so that these three spheres of life stand as three interrelated and mutually influencing members of the entire social organism. This requires that the individual economic sectors—whether they be areas of production or consumption, professional groups, or the like—develop in the way they must form from the economic foundations themselves, uninfluenced by state or other organizations. It is required that they form themselves independently, based on the professional competence and expertise of those working within them, so that one organization—which, under such conditions, can only be of a certain size—then links itself to another, to a third, to a fourth, in a certain way; depending on how such associations form, they will in turn associate with one another. In this way, a network of economic associations will emerge. Then the person who is part of one association will know: In the other association with which I have dealings—in trade, in the exchange of goods—there is someone I know; one can grasp the relationships between the two associations. The mutual relationship is governed by contract. In this way, one can gain a concrete insight into what constitutes the economic sphere. The associative principle creates a framework for understanding; life is thus structured in such a way that one can learn from it. The current situation itself demands that the unmanageable complexity of economic life be replaced by the associative principle—that it be replaced by something transparent, the nature of which you can read about in my book *The Key Points of the Social Question* and, in particular, in our newspaper *The Threefold Social Order*, which has already published fifty issues.

[ 38 ] One could not learn from that which was obscure. Life is meant to be shaped in such a way that, if one is placed in life in the right way, one can learn from it. People who have been educated in such a way that this education is grounded in genuine, true knowledge of human nature—from which love for humanity will follow as a natural law—such people will sense how economic life, in its independence, seeks to organize itself associatively. For such people will have learned in their childhood in such a way that this learning served as a school for them, enabling them to continue learning from life at all times. But this is the greatest experiential science of school: that we emerge from it in such a way that life remains for us a continuous, great school. Through this, we are always assured throughout our entire lives: we continue to develop; we do not stand still; we carry the world forward. Until the end of our lives, until we pass through the gate of death into the spiritual world, we can live here in such a way that we expand our soul-spiritual nature, that we make our physical being more skillful, and that we can regard the whole of life as a school. The current situation of human life demands this. And we can best express what it demands when we say: Everything that must arise from such a renewal of the foundations of our worldview—as intended here from the perspective of Spiritual Science—must lead to the emergence of an art of education, an art of teaching, which, born of true and genuine knowledge of human nature, gives rise to that love of humanity that educates people who are sent forth from the school of childhood in the right way into the school of life, for it is only through this learning in the school of life that true social action will become possible.

[ 39 ] I plan to address this topic next week in a lecture titled “Questions of the Soul and Questions of Life.” Today I simply wanted to show that, particularly with regard to education and instruction in the present day, we are compelled—in light of all that is pressing and striving in our time—to affirm the following: Give to education, give to instruction that which, arising from a deeper worldview, forms the foundation of education and instruction. For in this way you create the true, genuine, and solid foundation for a solution to those social and human questions that have now so urgently intruded into all of human life.