The Rudolf Steiner Archive

In connection with the Congress held by the “Federation of European Sections of the Theosophical Society” in Budapest in the year 1909, Dr. Steiner gave a Lecture-Course entitled: “Theosophy and Occultism of the Rosicrucians.” The Mystery of Golgotha is there indicated as the great turning-point between the old, now already fading Mystery-wisdom and the wisdom in its new form of revelation wherein account is taken of the faculty of thought possessed by a maturer humanity and of the advance of culture and civilisation. Theosophia, the Divine Wisdom, could not, as in earlier times, flow as inner illumination into the hardened constitution of man. Intellect, the more recent faculty of the soul, was directed to the world of sense and its phenomena. Theosophy was rejected by the scholars with a shrug of the shoulders and the very word brought a supercilious smile from the monists. Dr. Steiner, however, was trying to restore to this word its whole weight and spiritual significance and to show how the roots of all later knowledge lie in Theosophy, how it unites East and West, how in it all the creeds are integral parts of one great harmony.

This had also been the fundamental conception of the Founder of the Theosophical Society but she understood nothing of the essence of Christianity and disputed its unique significance. Her tendency to place too much reliance upon spiritualistic communications drew her into the net of an oriental stream only too ready to use this instrument for its own ends—to begin with under the cloak of Neo-Buddhism then represented in the person of Charles Leadbeater, a former priest of the Anglican Church. Annie Besant, a pupil of Charles Bradlaugh, a free-thinker and the most brilliant orator of the day in the field of political and social reform, had also been so deeply influenced by spiritualistic communications that on the advice of William Stead she went to Madame Blavatsky towards the end of the latter's life and became her ardent follower. Stead's spiritualistic circle was influential and the Theosophical Society, with its much purer spiritual foundations, had here a dangerous rival.

Dr. Steiner brought light to bear upon all these developments, upon their aims and aberrations, and raised Theosophy to heights far transcending the narrow sphere of the Theosophical Society. Alarmed by this, the Indian inspirers behind the Adyar Society, with their nationalistic aims, took their own measures.—The imminence of a return of Christ was announced and the assertion made that he would incarnate in an Indian boy. A newly founded Order, the “Star in the East,” using the widespread organisation of the Theosophical Society, was expected to achieve the aim that had met with failure in Palestine.

Not very long after the Budapest Congress, these developments began to be felt in the sphere of Dr. Steiner's lecturing activities. Disquieted by the beginnings of the propaganda for the Star in the East, Groups begged Dr. Steiner to speak about these matters. This caused alarm to the organisers of the Genoa Congress, who thought that the scientific as well as the esoteric discussions with Dr. Steiner would be too dangerous a ground, and for extremely threadbare reasons the Congress was cancelled at the last moment. Many of those taking part were already on their way—we too. A number of Groups in Switzerland took advantage of this opportunity to ask Dr. Steiner for lectures. They wanted to understand the meaning and significance of the Michael Impulse which denotes the turning-point in the historic evolution of the Mystery-wisdom. The Intelligence ruled over in the spiritual world by the hierarchy of Michael had now come down to humanity. It was for men to receive this Intelligence consciously into their impulses of will and thenceforward to play their part in shaping a future wherein the human “I” will achieve union with the Divine “I.” For this goal of the future men must be prepared, a transformation wrought in their souls; they must “change their hearts and minds.” To bring this about was the task of Rudolf Steiner. The moment had arrived for treading the path which liberates the Spirit from the grip of the material powers. The first healthy step to be taken along this path by the pupil of spiritual knowledge, is study.

As the theme chosen for Genoa had been “From Buddha to Christ,” it was natural that the lectures now given in Switzerland should shed the light of Spiritual Science not only upon the earlier connections between the Buddha and Christ Jesus but also upon the lasting connections indicated by the Essene wisdom contained in the Gospels. This is the theme which gives these studies their special character—which could only be brought out by outlining the historical development of the Mystery-wisdom. The ancient revelations of the Mysteries had shed light into many forms of culture, but were now spent; symptoms of decay and increasing sterility of thought were everywhere in evidence. Then, from heights of Spirit, the Michael Impulse came down to the Earth—in order gradually to stir and flame through the hearts of men. The intellect was pervaded by spiritual fire, the lower human “I” lifted nearer to the ideal of times to come: union with the Divine “I.” To awaken understanding of these goals, to establish them firmly on the ground of their spiritual origins and to place them in living pictures before the souls of men—such was the task of Rudolf Steiner.

This brought the inevitable counterblow from the opposing powers; into this they knew they must drive their wedge. The development of the human being in freedom, this gift bestowed by Michael, must be checked and the hearts and minds of men incited to resistance. In his Four Mystery Plays, Rudolf Steiner has given us living pictures of this: the human being between Lucifer and Ahriman—now succumbing to their promptings, now overcoming them, but nevertheless bearing them in the soul like a poison that may at any time begin to work. We too shall continue to bear this picture and its substance in our souls.

The full content of the lectures, however, has not been preserved, for we possess no good transcriptions. The fact that no really reliable and expert stenographist was available at the time seems like a counterblow from the opposing powers. Besides the abbreviated reports of the Cassel lectures, we have in some cases only fragments, in others, scattered notes strung together. But the essential threads have been preserved and an attempt at compilation has been made. The attempt does not always succeed from the point of view of convincing style, but the impetus for effort in thought and study will be all the stronger.

The activities of the Star in the East led, finally, to the exclusion of the German section from the Theosophical Society; this, however, had been preceded by the forming of a Union which included people in other countries who opposed this piece of Adyar sectarianism and led to the foundation of the Anthroposophical Society. For a time, care was necessary to prevent confusion as between the two Societies and so for the Movement associated with him, Rudolf Steiner chose the name Anthroposophy—the Divine Wisdom finding its fulfilment in man. Theosophy and Anthroposophy are one, provided the soul has cast away its dress. And Rudolf Steiner showed us how this can be done.

The new Indian Messiah soon cast off the shackles of the renown that had been forced upon him and retired to private life in California. Annie Besant was obliged to renounce her cherished dream and died at a very great age. It is rumoured that the question of the dissolution of the Adyar Society was considered but that this proved impossible owing to the extensive material possessions. Jinarajadasa, my good friend from the days of the founding of the Italian Section, succeeded Annie Besant as President. The branch of the Theosophical Society which had seceded at the time of the Judge conflict and to which Madame Blavatsky's niece belonged, had found in Mrs. Catharine Tingley a leader of energy and initiative, but she too had died.

The old conditions have now faded away. Those grotesque edifices of phantasy can no longer be associated with the Anthroposophical, formerly Theosophical, Movement, for they have crumbled to pieces. We can allow the word Theosophy again to come to its own, as did Rudolf Steiner when he was trying to restore to this word its primary and true significance.

Besides laying emphasis on the essential character of Spiritual Science in the post-Christian era, the aim of the lectures given in 1911 and 1912 was to explain karma as the flow of destiny and to point to its intimate workings. The lines of development running through the lectures have survived only as pictures of memory; the transcriptions often failed to catch the threads of the logical sequence and the notes or headings jotted down and collected here and there are really no more than indications. But the direction of the spiritual impulses given by Dr. Steiner has been preserved, and justifies, maybe, the attempt at compilation. Through meditative study these impulses will be able to work in us and deepen our souls.

My dear friends,

Allow me in the first place to express my deep satisfaction that this Experimental Circle has been created as suggested by Count Keyserlingk, and extended to include all those concerned with agriculture who are now present for the first time at such a meeting. In point of time, the foundation has come about as follows. To begin with, Herr Stegemann, in response to several requests, communicated some of the things which he and I had discussed together in recent years concerning the various guiding lines in agriculture, which he himself has tested in one way or another in his very praiseworthy endeavours on his own farm. Thence there arose a discussion between him and our good friend Count Keyserlingk, leading in the first place to a consultation during which the resolution which has to-day been read out was drafted.

As a result of this we have come together here to-day. It is deeply satisfying that a number of persons have now found themselves together who will be the bearers, so to speak, of the experiments which will follow the guiding lines (for to begin with they can only be guiding lines) which I have given you in these lectures. These persons will now make experiments in confirmation of these guiding lines, and demonstrate how well they can be used in practice.

At such a moment, however, when so good a beginning has been made, we should also be careful to turn to good account the experiences we have had in the past with our attempts in other domains in the Anthroposophical Movement. Above all, we should avoid the mistakes which only became evident during the years when from the central anthroposophical work—if I may so describe it—we went on to other work which lay more at the periphery. I mean when we began to introduce what Anthroposophical Science must and can be for the several domains of life.

For the work which this Agricultural Circle has before it, it will not be without interest to hear the kind of experiences we have had in introducing Anthroposophical Science, for example, into the scientific life in general. As a general rule, when it came to this point, those who had hitherto administered the central anthroposophical life with real inner faithfulness and devotion in their own way, and those who stood more at the periphery and wanted to apply it to a particular domain of life, did not as a rule confront one another with full mutual understanding.

We experienced it only too well, especially in working with our scientific Research Institutes. There on the one side are the anthroposophists who find their full life in the heart of Anthroposophia itself—in Anthroposophical Science as a world-conception, a content of life which they may even have carried through the world with strong and deep feeling, every moment of their lives. There are the anthroposophists who live Anthroposophia and love it, making it the content of their lives. Generally, though not always, they have the idea that something important has been done when one has gained, here or there, one more adherent, or perhaps several more adherents, for the anthroposophical movement. When they work outwardly at all, their idea seems to be—you will forgive the expression—that people must somehow be able to be won over “by the scruff of the neck.” Imagine, for example, a University professor in some branch of Natural Science. Placed as he is in the very centre of the scientific work on which he is engaged, he ought none the less to be able to be won over there and then—so they imagine.

Such anthroposophists, with all their love and good-will, naturally imagine that we should also be able to get hold of the farmer there and then—to get him too “by the scruff of the neck,” so to speak, from one day to another, into the anthroposophical life—to get him in “lock, stock and barrel” with the land and all that is comprised with it, with all the products which his farm sends out into the world. So do the “central anthroposophists” imagine. They are of course in error. And although many of them say that they are faithful followers of mine, often, alas! though it is true enough that they are faithful in their inner feeling, they none the less turn a deaf ear to what I have to say in decisive moments. They do not hear it when I say, for instance, that it is utterly naive to imagine that you can win over to Anthroposophical Science some professor or scientist or scholar from one day to the next and without more ado. Of course you cannot. Such a man would have to break with twenty or thirty years of his past life and work, and to do so, he would have to leave an abyss behind him. These things must be faced as they exist in real life. Anthroposophists often imagine that life consists merely in thought. It does not consist in mere thought. I am obliged to say these things, hoping that they may fall upon the right soil.

On the other hand, there are those who out of good and faithful hearts want to unite some special sphere of life with Anthroposophia—some branch of science, for example. They also did not make things quite clear to themselves when they became workers in Spiritual Science. Again and again they set out with the mistaken opinion that we must do these things as they have hitherto been done in Science; that we must proceed precisely in the same way. For instance, there are a number of very good and devoted anthroposophists working with us in Medicine (with regard to what I shall now say, Dr. Wegman is an absolute exception; she always saw quite clearly the necessity prevailing in our Society). But a number of them always seemed to believe that the doctor must now apply what proceeds from anthroposophical therapy in the same medical style and manner to which he has hitherto been accustomed.

What do we then experience? Here it is not so much a question of spreading the central teachings of Spiritual Science; here it is more a question of spreading the anthroposophical life into the world. What did we experience? The other people said “Well, we have done that kind of thing before; we are the experts in that line. That is a thing we can thoroughly grasp with our own methods; we can judge of it without any doubt or difficulty. And yet, what these anthroposophists are bringing forward is quite contrary to what we have hitherto found by our methods.” Then they declared that the things we say and do are wrong.

We had this experience: If our friends tried to imitate the outer scientists, the latter replied that they could do far better. And in such cases it was undeniable; they can in fact apply their methods better, if only for the reason that in the science of the last few years the methods have been swallowing up the science! The sciences of to-day seem to have nothing left but methods. They no longer set out on the objective problems; they have been eaten up by their own methods. To-day therefore, you can have scientific researches without any substance to them whatever.

And we have had this experience: Scientists who had the most excellent command of their own methods became violently angry when anthroposophists came forward and did nothing else but make use of these methods. What does this prove? In spite of all the pretty things that we could do in this way, in spite of the splendid researches that are being done in the Biological Institute, the one thing that emerged was that the other scientists grew wild with anger when our scientists spoke in their lectures on the basis of the very same methods. They were wild with anger, because they only heard again the things they were accustomed to in their own grooves of thought.

But we also had another important experience, namely this: A few of our scientists at last bestirred themselves, and departed to some extent from their old custom of imitating the others. But they only did it half and half. They did it in this way: In the first part of their lectures they would be thoroughly scientific; in the first part of their explanations they would apply all the methods of science, “comme il faut.” Then the audience grew very angry. “Why do they come, clumsily meddling in our affairs? Impertinent fellows, these anthroposophists, meddling in their dilettante way with our science!”

Then, in the second part of their lectures, our speakers would pass on to the essential life—no longer elaborated in the old way, but derived as anthroposophical content from realms beyond the Earth. And the same people who had previously been angry became exceedingly attentive, hungry to hear more. Then they began to catch fire! They liked the Spiritual Science well enough, but they could not abide (and what is more, as I myself admitted, rightly not), what had been patched together as a confused “mixtum compositum” of Spiritual Science and Science. We cannot make progress on such lines.

I therefore welcome with joy what has now arisen out of Count Keyserlingk's initiative, namely that the professional circle of farmers will now unite on the basis of what we have founded in Dornach—the Natural Science Section. This Section, like all the other things that are now coming before us, is a result of the Christmas Foundation Meeting. From Dornach, in good time, will go out what is intended. There we shall find, out of the heart of Anthroposophia itself, scientific researches and methods of the greatest exactitude.

Only, of course, I cannot agree with Count Keyserlingk's remark that the professional farmers' circle should only be an executive organ. From Dornach, you will soon be convinced, guiding lines and indications will go out which will call for everyone at his post to be a fully independent fellow-worker, provided only that he wishes to work with us. Nay more, as will emerge at the end of my lectures (for I shall have to give the first guiding lines for this work at the close of the present lectures) the foundation for the beginning of our work at Dornach will in the first place have to come from you. The guiding lines we shall have to give will be such that we can only begin on the basis of the answers we receive from you.

From the beginning, therefore, we shall need most active fellow-workers—no mere executive organs. To mention only one thing, which has been a subject of frequent discussions in these days between Count Keyserlingk and myself—an agricultural estate is always an individuality, in the sense that it is never the same as any other. The climate, the conditions of the soil, provide the very first basis for the individuality of a farm. A farming estate in Silesia is not like one in Thuringia, or in South Germany. They are real individualities.

Now, above all in Spiritual Science, vague generalities and abstractions are of no value, least of all when we wish to take a hand in practical life. What is the value of speaking only in vague and general terms of such a practical matter as a farm is? We must always bear in mind the concrete things; then we can understand what has to be applied. Just as the most varied expressions are composed of the twenty-six letters of the alphabet, so you will have to deal with what has been given in these lectures. What you are seeking will first have to be composed from the indications given in these lectures—as words are composed from the letters of the alphabet. If on the basis of our sixty members we wish to speak of practical questions, our task, after all, will be to find the practical indications and foundations of work for those sixty individual farmers.

The first thing will be to gather up what we already know. Then our first series of experiments will follow, and we shall work in a really practical way. We therefore need the most active members. That is what we need in the Anthroposophical Society as a whole—good, practical people who will not depart from the principle that practical life, after all, calls forth something that cannot be made real from one day to the next. If those whom I have called the “central anthroposophists” believe that a professor, farmer or doctor—who has been immersed for decades past in a certain milieu and atmosphere—can accept anthroposophical convictions from one day to the next, they are greatly mistaken.

The fact will emerge quickly enough in agriculture! The farming anthroposophist no doubt, if he is idealistic enough, can go over entirely to the anthrospophical way of working—say, between his twenty-ninth and his thirtieth year—even with the work on his farm. But will his fields do likewise? Will the whole Organisation of the farm do likewise? Will those who have to mediate between him and the consumer do likewise—and so on and so on? You cannot make them all anthroposophists at once—from your twenty-ninth to your thirtieth year. And when you begin to see that you cannot do so, it is then that you lose heart. That is the point, my dear friends—do not lose heart; know that it is not the momentary success that matters; it is the working on and on with iron perseverance.

One man can do more, another less. In the last resort, paradoxical as it may sound, you will be able to do more, the more you restrict yourself in regard to the area of land which you begin to cultivate in our ways. After all, if you go wrong on a small area of land, you will not be spoiling so much as you would on a larger area. Moreover, such improvements as result from our anthroposophical methods will then be able to appear very rapidly, for you will not have much to alter. The inherent efficiency of the methods will be proved more easily than on a large estate. In so practical a sphere as farming these things must come about by mutual agreement if our Circle is to be successful. Indeed, it is very strange—with all good humour and without irony, for one enjoyed it—there has been much talk in these days as to the differences that arose in the first meeting between the Count and Herr Stegemann. Such things bring with them a certain colouring; indeed, I almost thought I should have to consider whether the anthroposophical “Vorstand,” or some one else, should not be asked to be present every evening to bring the warring elements together.

By and by however, I came to quite a different conclusion; namely, that what is here making itself felt is the foundation of a rather intimate mutual tolerance among farmers—an intimate “live and let live” among fellow-farmers. They only have a rough exterior. As a matter of fact the farmer, more than many other people, needs
to protect his own skin. It can easily happen that people start interfering with things which he alone understands. And at rock bottom you will discover in him a certain sweet tolerance. All these things must be truly felt, and I only make these observations now because I think it necessary to begin on a right basis from the outset.

Therefore I think I may once again express my deep satisfaction at what has been done by you here. I believe we have truly taken into account the experiences of the Anthroposophical Society. What has now been begun will be a thing of great blessing, and Dornach will not fail to work vigorously with those who wish to be with us as active fellow-workers in this cause.

We can only be glad, that what is now being done in Koberwitz has been thus introduced. And if Count Keyserlingk so frequently refers to the burden I took upon myself in coming here, I for my part would answer—though not in order to call up any more discussion:– What trouble have I had? I had only to travel here, and am here under the best and most beautiful conditions. All the unpleasant talks are undertaken by others; I only have to speak every day, though I confess I stood before these lectures with a certain awe—for they enter into a new domain. My trouble after all, was not so great. But when I see all the trouble to which Count Keyserlingk and his whole household have been put—when I see those who have come here—then I must say, for so it seems to me, that all the countless things that had to be done by those who have helped to enable us to be together here, tower above what I have had to do, who have simply sat down in the middle of it all when all was ready.

In this, then, I cannot agree with the Count. Whatever appreciation or gratitude you feel for the fact that this Agricultural Course has been achieved, I must ask you to direct your gratitude to him, remembering above all that if he had not thought and pondered with such iron strength, and sent his representative to Dornach, never relinquishing his purpose—then, considering the many things that have to be done from Dornach, it is scarcely likely that this Course in the farthest Eastern corner of the country could have been given.

Hence I do not at all agree that your feelings of gratitude should be expended on me, for they belong in the fullest sense to Count Keyserlingk and to his House.

That is what I wished to interpolate in the discussion.

For the Moment, there is not much more to be said—only this. We in Dornach shall need, from everyone who wishes to work with us in the Circle, a description of what he has beneath his soil, and what he has above it, and how the two are working together. If our indications are to be of use to you, we must know exactly what the things are like, to which these indications refer. You from your practical work will know far better than we can know in Dornach, what is the nature of your soil, what kind of woodland there is and how much, and so on; what has been grown on the farm in the last few years, and what the yield has been. We must know all these things, which, after all, every farmer must know for himself if he wants to run his farm in an intelligent way—with “peasant wit.”

These are the first indications we shall need: what is there on your farm, and what your experiences have been. That is quickly told. As to how these things are to be put together, that will emerge during the further course of the conference. Fresh points of view will be given which may help some of you to grasp the real connections between what the soil yields and what the soil itself is, with all that surrounds it. With these words I think I have adequately characterised the form which Count Keyserlingk wished the members of the Circle to fill in. As to the kind and friendly words which the Count has once again spoken to us all, with his fine-feeling distinction between “farmers” and “scientists,” as though all the farmers were in the Circle and all the scientists at Dornach—this also cannot and must not remain so. We shall have to grow far more together; in Dornach itself, as much as possible of the peasant-farmer must prevail, in spite of our being “scientific.” Moreover, the science that shall come from Dornach must be such as will seem good and evident to the most conservative, “thick-headed” farmer.

I hope it was only a kind of friendliness when Count Keyserlingk said that he did not understand me—a special kind of friendliness. For I am sure we shall soon grow together like twins—Dornach and the Circle. In the end he called me a “Grossbauer,” that is, a yeoman farmer—thereby already showing that he too has a feeling that we can grow together. All the same, I cannot be addressed as such merely on the strength of the little initial attempt I made in stirring the manure—a tack to which I had to give myself just before I came here. (Indeed it had to be continued, for I could not go on stirring long enough. You have to stir for a long time; I could only begin to stir, then someone else had to continue).

These are small matters, but it was not out of this that I originally came. I grew up entirely out of the peasant folk, and in my spirit I have always remained there—I indicated this in my autobiography. Though it was not on a large farming estate such as you have here; in a smaller domain I myself planted potatoes, and though I did not breed horses, at any rate I helped to breed pigs. And in the farmyard of our immediate neighbourhood I lent a hand with the cattle. These things were absolutely near my life for a long time; I took part in them most actively. Thus I am at any rate lovingly devoted to farming, for I grew up in the midst of it myself, and there is far more of that in me than the little bit of “stirring the manure“” just now.

Perhaps I may also declare myself not quite in agreement with another matter at this point. As I look back on my own life, I must say that the most valuable farmer is not the large farmer, but the small peasant farmer who himself as a little boy worked on the farm. And if this is to be realised on a larger scale—translated into scientific terms—then it will truly have to grow “out of the skull of a peasant,” as they say in Lower Austria. In my life this will serve me far more than anything I have subsequently undertaken.

Therefore, I beg you to regard me as the small peasant farmer who has conceived a real love for farming; one who remembers his small peasant farm and who thereby, perhaps, can understand what lives in the peasantry, in the farmers and yeomen of our agricultural life. They will be well understood at Dornach; of that you may rest assured. For I have always had the opinion (this was not meant ironically, though it seems to have been misunderstood) I have always had the opinion that their alleged stupidity or foolishness is “wisdom before God,” that is to say, before the Spirit. I have always considered what the peasants and farmers thought about their things far wiser than what the scientists were thinking. I have invariably found it wiser, and I do so to-day. Far rather would I listen to what is said of his own experiences in a chance conversation, by one who works directly on the soil, than to all the Ahrimanic statistics that issue from our learned science. I have always been glad when I could listen to such things, for I have always found them extremely wise, while, as to science—in its practical effects and conduct I have found it very stupid. This is what we at Dornach are striving for, and this will make our science wise—will make it wise precisely through the so-called “peasant stupidity.” We shall take pains at Dornach to carry a little of this peasant stupidity into our science. Then this stupidity will become—“wisdom before God.”

Let us then work together in this way; it will be a genuinely conservative, yet at the same time a most radical and progressive beginning. And it will always be a beautiful memory to me if this Course becomes the starting point for carrying some of the real and genuine “peasant wit” into the methods of science. I must not say that these methods have become stupid, for that would not be courteous, but they have certainly become dead.

Dr. Wachsmuth has also set aside this deadened science, and has called for a living science which must first be fertilised by true “peasant wisdom.” Let us then grow together thus like good Siamese Twins—Dornach and the Circle. It is said of twins that they have a common feeling and a common thinking. Let us then have this common feeling and thinking; then we shall go forward in the best way in our domain.

Address by Rudolf Steiner regarding point 4 of the agenda [Election of the Supervisory Board]:

I myself will have something to say regarding this point, ladies and gentlemen. It concerns the fact that the affairs of the Anthroposophical Movement have recently taken on such a form that In the future, it will be impossible for me to take on other activities of this kind, such as the position of chairman of the supervisory board of “Kommenden Tages”, in addition to my work for the Anthroposophical Movement in the narrower sense. The esteemed attendees – and they are, of course, the more numerous – who are members of the Anthroposophical Society, know that the circumstances of the Anthroposophical Movement have changed a great deal, especially in recent years. On the one hand, it is absolutely clear that a spiritual movement such as anthroposophy – and I do not want to say specifically anthroposophical, but a spiritual movement such as anthroposophy – lies at the lies at the very bottom of the innermost needs of an ever-greater number of people, and that therefore the Anthroposophical Movement, which has existed for more than 20 years now as a partial movement, so to speak, in this great stream, that the Anthroposophical Movement makes, one might say, more demands on those who have already been destined by fate to care for it and it has been clear for some time that, in addition to everything that is incumbent upon me for the anthroposophical movement, it is no longer possible to engage fruitfully in other activities without the tasks that I already have for the anthroposophical movement being disturbed or compromised. The latter must not happen under any circumstances, on the one hand because of the increasing demands on the Anthroposophical Movement and because of the ever-widening interest, which demands an expansion of my work precisely in this regard, in this direction. On the other hand, this Anthroposophical Movement, through countless things that can only be described as misleading, has to reckon with an opposition today that, well, I would say, if it is to be countered in the right way, will cause work and, above all, worry and the like.

So, taking all these things into account, I had no choice, esteemed attendees, but to recently decide to resign from my position as chairman of the supervisory board of “The Coming Day” and from the supervisory board in general, which I hereby do in a very official manner. The situation is such that, in practical terms, I have recently had to limit my work for the “Coming Day” to that which - precisely because of the other demands - will have to remain so in the coming period. If I am to do the work for the “Day to Come” that is to flow into its various institutions, and if I am to do the work for the Waldorf School, in which the “Day to Come” is also extremely interested in a certain respect, if I am to do this work , which will have to be provided in a positive and substantial way in the form of my advice to 'Der Kommende Tag', then I will have to admit to myself that I will withdraw all the more from the activity, which will be able to take place in the future without me and perhaps better without me than with me.

The supervisory board and the board of directors of “Tomorrow” are, after all, an absolutely sure guarantee for all those who, as shareholders and otherwise, have an interest in “Tomorrow” , that this Coming Day will continue to work in this direction even after my resignation, in the fruitful way it has set itself, and in the way it is in the interest of the shareholders and the world in general. I must say that the situation of the “Kommende Tag” is such that today I can only ask those shareholders whose trust in the “Kommende Tag” is perhaps somewhat connected with the fact that I took over the position of chairman of the supervisory board years ago, I can only urgently ask those whose trust is connected with this fact not to lose an ounce of that trust, but on the contrary to continue to place it in a greatly increased measure in the excellent management of “The Coming Day”. I would like to say that it was clear to me from the very beginning, when I took over the position of Chairman of the Supervisory Board three years ago, that this could only be for a relatively short time.

For the situation that now exists was entirely foreseeable, and although it was of course clear to me at the time that a large part of my work for the Anthroposophical Movement would be affected, ... I did it anyway.

Isn't it true that “Der Kommende Tag” came about because a number of personalities who had emerged from the Anthroposophical Movement wanted to support an undertaking that was designed to be socially sustainable in the future. The “Kommende Tag” was to be founded as a kind of model example of what should be done by combining enterprises, in particular combining personalities who are interested in social issues in economic life. Through this union, the “Kommende Tag” was to be established as a kind of model example. The personalities who founded it turned to me for advice at the time. We hammered out the preliminary details, the intentions and the principles together, and in the early days we tried to steer the “Coming Day” in the direction in which it should be steered.

The actual initiative did not come from me. From the very beginning, I was, so to speak, in the role of an advisor. At the time, I found it quite natural that friends approached me and wanted me to take over the position of Chairman of the Supervisory Board, and for me to be on the Supervisory Board at all. But what made it desirable for the first period of time, even if it was entirely decisive for the decisions at the time, cannot be decisive for continued membership of the Supervisory Board. And all this together with the fact that I am quite certain of the excellent management - I can tell you that I would not resign if “Der Kommende Tag” did not stand on absolutely secure feet and was in a future-proof situation - since that is the case is the case, because you can have full confidence in the “Day to Come”, even if I withdraw, perhaps even more so, as I have already mentioned, then, my dear attendees, you will not withdraw your confidence in the “Day to Come”. So you will understand that the reasons for my resignation are decisive, and I ask you to accept this resignation in the sense in which it has just been characterized.

Above all, it is my duty at this moment to express my heartfelt thanks to the other members of the supervisory board for their dedicated work, for the extraordinarily difficult work that had to be done in the early years, for the work that, I would say, suffered from ever-increasing opposition and caused serious concern.

I would also like to thank these members of the supervisory board in a special way for the warm way in which this collaboration has taken place; both those members of the supervisory board who are the originators of the original ideas of “The Day to Come” and those who, as members of the works council, have joined the supervisory board in accordance with the law. Those who have worked on the organization and further implementation of the ideas and affairs of “The Day to Come” over the last three years know just how much dedicated work is needed to accomplish things in an appropriate and proper manner. But I believe that more and more people will feel how grateful we are to the members of the supervisory board for their dedication, and it will therefore be understandable that I express my heartfelt thanks to the supervisory board and wish that its work in the near and distant future will be rewarded with the most beautiful fruits.

Secondly, I would like to express my warmest thanks to the board of directors, above all to the prudent, dedicated and extremely objective director of the board, Mr. Emil Leinhas, and to the other members of the board as a whole for their dedicated work. It has not exactly become easier for social and economic enterprises to carry out their management activities in recent times. It requires not only an extremely exhausting amount of work, but above all, constant thoughtfulness and constant prudence, which it is neither necessary nor even possible to describe in detail here. But if you have seen all this, if you have had to go through all this, so to speak, if you have had to see from day to day how things have actually been worked on, especially by the management of our board in recent times and since the beginning, it will also be understood that, out of a very special inner satisfaction and heartfelt feeling, I would also like to express my warmest thanks to the members of the board, above all to the director, Mr. Emil Leinhas, when I leave. In doing so, I would also like to express my heartfelt thanks to all those who, from the inner circle of the Anthroposophical Movement and from further afield, have turned their interest and attention to the endeavors of “Der Kommende Tag” and have simply given “Der Kommende Tag” the opportunity to survive through their sympathy and participation within the circle of shareholders. I would like to express my most sincere thanks to all of you on my resignation! I now ask you to take note of my resignation from the position of Chairman of the Supervisory Board and from the Supervisory Board in general. This brings us to the fourth item on the agenda. Since I have now resigned and no longer bear responsibility, I ask the Deputy Chairman of the Supervisory Board, Dr. Unger, to take over the chairmanship of this Annual General Meeting.

Our time is not very inclined to build that bridge that must be built to the realm where the dead and the high spirits are; and our time, in many respects, my dear friends, one can even say it has a hatred, a truly hateful attitude towards the spiritual world. And it is incumbent on the spiritual scientist who wants to be a Christian, it is incumbent on the spiritual scientist to familiarize himself with the hostile forces of our spiritual scientific development, to pay a little attention to them, because the matter has really deep reasons. It has its reasons where the reasons are for all the forces that counteract true human progress today.

Isn't it truly wonderful – I have mentioned this often and I don't want to bore you today, but I must mention it at some point – isn't it truly wonderful that those who fight the hardest against that which wants to live in our Anthroposophical Society are often those who have emerged from this society themselves. We have witnessed the grotesque spectacle of what is alive in our Society being fought against, and the arguments used for this fight are taken from my writings! Everywhere else, people at least get their reasons from outside; here with us we experience the strange phenomenon that what is built on throwing filth at me — the expression is not exaggerated — is constantly being substantiated with quotations from my own writings. It is a phenomenon whose deeper reasons will have to be investigated, because they are connected with one another in many ways, my dear friends. There is a continuous line, a continuous current, from the quiet gossip that sometimes runs rampant in our society to the Ahrimanic attacks, but one must only grasp things by their right name; this is more necessary today, my dear friends, than at any other time.

Think – as I said, I don't want to bore you with this, but such things must be mentioned briefly – think: a short time ago, and following on from that, a series of other articles appeared that I have not read, by a man who was in our society for years, who went through everything in our society – in which the man in question wants to prove all kinds of contradictions in my works. The person in question knows very well what the situation is with these so-called contradictions; he is of course very well aware of all the nonsense he is asserting. But you can assert anything in the world if you want, especially if you find a community that believes in good faith; you can also refute such things. But what are the causes?

The same man who writes this very pompous article once published a small work with our publishing house, and after some time he again requested to publish another work with our publishing house. However, because he had used various things from my writings without authorization in this writing in an improper way, we could not exactly – since he said that the things in my writings are imperfect and he wanted to perfect them – we could not exactly publish this writing, and so we had to reject it. Today, if we had not rejected the writing, the man would still have been a good follower, despite always grumbling and grumbling. He does not tell the world that he now hates just because we could not publish the writing. But he now finds a whole edifice of all sorts of contradictions.

Such reasons, my dear friends, which are the real reasons, which are the most pernicious, selfish reasons, you will usually find behind the most shameful attacks.

Now, in addition to these disgraceful attacks, there is usually another phenomenon. There is a kind of person among us who does not turn their goodwill to those who are right, but to those who spread gossip, who do all kinds of wrong things, and who find that those who defend themselves against these things are terribly wrong. It is a very common phenomenon. Indeed, this phenomenon goes a step further, as things intensify. Some time ago, we were really quite badly insulted in our circle; although we were actually quite, quite reserved in our defense — we were not interested in this defense, because one has more important, more positive things to do — not the slightest thing was done from our side, but everything from the other side. But still – Dr. Steiner received a letter saying that she should do everything she can to help the people who throw things at us in this way, to meet them halfway and to help them in turn, to encourage them to live together with us in harmony. If the writers of such letters (and it is very often women who write them) then find that they are not obeyed to a T, they think: What despicable theosophists! They want to be called theosophists, and yet when they are insulted they cannot even find it in themselves to ask people for forgiveness!

Yes, you see, when I tell this to my dear friends, it seems grotesque; but that is really how these things are in the broadest sense. Because this attitude: to apply the most tremendous love and goodwill to sin, this attitude is an extraordinarily popular one, and one must stand in amazement before it again and again. These things are symptomatic of significance. And they are significant for the simple reason that the worst enemies of our cause will actually come from among those who take the weapons with which they wage a war of this kind from our own cause. And if these things are not properly appreciated, then nothing will come of it but that, as it happens so very often now, a spiritual movement that wants to do its best for the spiritual progress of humanity will, for some time, be made impossible.

I have often interwoven precisely this remark into my lectures; but this remark is not taken very seriously. And above all, one very often finds: That one harmonious mood should not be interrupted by such things.

But my dear friends, it is not I who am interrupting you, and I would certainly prefer it not to be necessary to interrupt the harmonious mood. But it is extremely important for the sake of the matter at hand that we consider this in the context of the great impulses that are to pass through our movement. For today's superficial humanity, it naturally means an enormous amount when opponents grow out of the circle of anthroposophists themselves. It is of course easier for outsiders to forge their credentials. For these things, one must be willing to develop an unprejudiced, absolutely unprejudiced judgment, and not develop unkindness – forgive the grotesque, paradoxical word – unkindness towards a person who, purely because because he has had a book rejected, trumpets all kinds of things out into the world, one must not be unkind to this person by keeping quiet about it, because that is the truth, and the truth must be told. And such truths underlie very many things which certainly harm society at first, but with society they harm the matter.

And when we consider how many Ahrimanic powers are waiting to place obstacles and hindrances in the way of our movement, then we will want to pay a little attention to what, despite having become bad enough, today still looks, I might say, like the beginning of a countermovement. It is the beginning. And this, in particular, is connected with the hatred and antipathy towards the rise of a spiritual movement. My dear friends, when it comes to certain phenomena, it is not true to keep repeating that these people are convinced of what they are saying. It is not true. If you trace this conviction back to its roots, they turn out as I have just explained in this specific case.

My dear friends! It is necessary to say these things because anyone who really looks into the spiritual life of the present and what is needed for it says to himself: It takes such an effort to overcome the obstacles that come from outside that there is truly no time to keep in mind what comes from within in the way I have indicated. But it will have to be considered.

Yes, my dear friends, the ways are not quite easy. If someone writes something in a magazine, no matter how well it is refuted, not much comes of it. And some of these things that have been written are so long since they could easily be condemned with a court action. But do you think that our movement would be served if we had to take part in 25 court cases? That is probably how many there would be. Then it would be easy to get a conviction.

In order to work with all our intensity on the impulses of our spiritual movement, it is necessary for those who want to be loyal to our movement to, above all, overcome the prejudices mentioned, which culminates in our not always turning our benevolence to the side that does something wrong; that those people are found to be the best members who go against us ourselves. Usually the people who act on this impulse are unaware of it, but I say it so that they will pay attention. The trivial gossip usually starts, then it ends somewhere, where someone can write, in a long, lying newspaper article, which is often only the last link in an avalanche that comes crashing down. The seed may be that someone could not keep his tongue, or out of his very ordinary selfishness found that someone should have done something that the person concerned had to refrain from doing for good reasons, and so on, and so on.

What matters most is that we rise above such prejudices and look at things in their truth, getting used to looking at things in their truth. Then we will also find ways and means to represent and carry things through in their truth, so to speak.

Please excuse me for linking this smaller reflection to the larger reflection after our time had already expired, but given the intensity and the outrageousness with which there is now a furor in private and journalistic life against what we do, it is necessary that at least the thing in which the reasons are to be found be pointed out.

Translated by Steiner Online Library

Dr. Steiner: I would like to say a few things about my impressions of the past few days. I wish we had time to discuss them, but I fear it will not be possible during this visit. Before, it was not so bad, but now with the new classrooms I see we need to hang pictures on the walls. The fourth grade classroom is dreadful in that respect. It was so apparent to me that I mentioned to Mr. U., while he was teaching religion, that things are falling apart. You must take care of this. There is also much to be desired in the fifth grade room. The walls should not look only like walls; they need some pictures. But, you must do this carefully.

A Mr. G., a member of the Anthroposophical Society who wants to find some pictures, is mentioned.

Dr. Steiner: I am a little fearful of that. The pictures must harmonize with our pedagogy, and therefore cannot be chosen before I return.

Where are the painters who can do something? The impulses must arise from the respective class teachers, and then the paintings must be really very artistic. We cannot do anything inartistic. We must create something special for this school.

This morning Miss L. went through The Giant Toy, something Chamisso intended as a poem. As soon as you have gone through it with the children in Chamisso’s sense, you easily come into rationalism and lose the flavor of it. You need to understand it as a poem describing the old landed aristocracy traveling to castles. It is a very social poem. The giant toy is the farmer whom the landed aristocracy use as a toy. I would have been shocked to mention such a thing this morning. It can easily fall into rationalism. On the other hand, since the children really liked it, we should try to translate it into painting without losing the flavor of those thoughts—that is, the poem’s thoughts of the playthings of the declining landed aristocracy. We should not have the children translate this poem into prose, but into a picture. If we hung something like that as a picture, it would give a deep impression, something taken from the instruction that the children fully felt.

When the Waldorf School opened, I spoke in detail about this with Miss Waller. I spoke about the need to create something in a truly artistic way that gives metamorphic thought to the realm of life. We have done something similar in Dornach in the transition from one architrave to another. If we had such things, it would be much easier to explain things we teach. When G. donates things, he donates what he likes. That is something we want no part of. Perhaps you could think about these things, but we need them.

A teacher: Would it be in keeping pedagogically if the children painted something themselves?

Dr. Steiner: Your niece visited me and brought her first paintings. She said I should not just look at them, but should hang them on the walls in my home.

It depends upon how they are. I have nothing against hanging up things the children make, but with pictures it is very difficult. It is thoughtless simply to hang normal pictures on the wall. What does a picture on the wall mean? In artistic times, people never thought of just hanging pictures on the wall. They had to fit the room. Leonardo da Vinci’s Last Supper is in the dining room of the cloister. The monks sat in a circle, and the four walls were painted. He ate with them and was a part of them. That was thought of out of the relationship of the room. Such things justify the paintings. Simply hanging up pictures makes things more confused.

A teacher: I wanted to hang reproductions of the windows in Dornach.

Dr. Steiner: You should leave that for now.

A teacher asks if paintings from an anthroposophical painter should be hung.

Dr. Steiner: It depends upon how they are done. It is important that the children have pictures that will make a lasting impression upon them.

There is another thing I wanted to speak about. There are a number of things under construction. Due to the lack of appropriate rooms, music instruction is suffering terribly. That is a calamity. It is certainly true that if the music teacher goes deaf because he has to teach in an inappropriate space, that is a calamity. We must improve this. People would be quite satisfied if we had something like a quartet in the Waldorf School. That is the sort of thing we can achieve when we have everything we need. It would be good to know for sure that we would properly provide for music for the next three or four years.

A teacher: We have plans for a music room.

Dr. Steiner: Have you consulted the music teacher as an expert? It is important that you determine what you need yourselves. We must also take care to see that we do something for the gymnasium at the same time.

The music teacher: I also need an appropriate room to prepare for class. I need to try out things.

Dr. Steiner: We should do these things in the way you say we should do them.

Are there rooms large enough for the trades classes? How do you handle so many children? If you always have such a troop, you can hardly get through to them all.

A teacher: It only begins in the sixth grade.

Dr. Steiner: In spite of that, I am not certain you can get through everything. The problem is that there is not enough space in the classrooms, really only a corner. The children get sick in them. We need to take these symptoms into account.

Now, I would like to hear what you would like to talk about.

A teacher: What to do with children who are lethargic.

Dr. Steiner: How is Sch. in the trades class? He walks so oddly. Last year I gave some basic exercises for those children who were weak in comprehending so that they had to think about their own bodies. “Touch your left shoulder with your middle right finger.” Through such things, you have to think about your own body. I also showed you how to draw something in a stylized way, and then have the children figure out what it is. You can also have them draw a symmetrical picture. Through those things, you form a perspective connected with the structure of the body. When you bring such exercises into your teaching, they work to awaken the sleepy child. That boy is sleepy.

I ask you to accept no laziness in detail with the children. Do not tolerate the children holding chalk like a pen, or doing anything awkwardly. I would pay a great deal of attention to such things. Nearly half the children hold chalk improperly. You should not allow that to pass by. You should be very attentive to such things.

I would not allow the children to shuffle out, like the little girl today. I would try to see that she improves her walk. That has a very wakening effect.

N. in the sixth grade is also very apathetic, and such exercises would quickly help him.

I would also pay some attention to the little girl in the fourth grade at the back on the right. She tends to invent a great deal, and she thought that the whole scene from “The Ode to the Courageous Man” took place in the Mediterranean Sea. She began with the line, “The dewy wind came from the midday sea.” From that beginning, she made a fantastic geography. You need to speak with this little girl often, since she is in danger of suffering from flights of fancy. “The Aegean Sea flows into the Mediterranean Sea.”

There are some children who write very well and have progressed far, but the little boy writes like many communist speakers speak. He pays no attention. He writes disconnectedly, the way a speaker speaks of communism. Such exercises would awaken him also.

A teacher asks about F.L.

Dr. Steiner: Perhaps you should often call upon F.L. He is not so bad, only dreamy. He does not find his way to himself. He needs to feel that you are interested in him, and then things will immediately improve. It’s already going better now.

A teacher: He doesn’t speak in class.

Dr. Steiner: Could he get himself to do that? He is always afraid that no one loves him. That is his basic problem. You shouldn’t look for anything more complicated.

A teacher: What would you advise for Ch.D. in the second grade?

Dr. Steiner: Has she learned something from the instruction?

A teacher: Her character disturbs me.

Dr. Steiner: Sit near her and pay no attention when she is flirting with you. Pay no attention at first, but on the next day speak a few words with her about what she did the previous day. Don’t do it immediately, only twenty-four hours afterward.

A teacher: W.R.K. is in my fourth grade class. He pays no attention, doesn’t learn anything and continually disturbs the other children. He is sleepy and apathetic.

Dr. Steiner: I would also try the exercises with him. Do everything from the beginning so that they don’t get used to anything, they don’t have any specific forms they comprehend.

A teacher: (Who took over the fifth grade because Mrs. K. fell ill) Since there have been so many changes in teachers, one of the main problems is that the children’s knowledge of arithmetic is so haphazard. Should I stop arithmetic and take up another subject?

Dr. Steiner: How long do you think it will take until each child is far enough along that things will work?

A teacher: The majority of the class is not so bad in arithmetic.

Dr. Steiner: I think that it is good to teach in chorus. It is good to do that within bounds. If you do too much in chorus, I would ask you not to forget that the group soul is a reality, and you should not count upon the children being able to do individually what they can do properly in chorus. You may have the feeling that when the children are speaking in chorus, you can keep them quiet more easily. That is a good method when done in moderation so that the group soul becomes active. To that extent, it is good to leave the children in the hands of their group soul. However, as individuals they cannot do what they can do in chorus. You need to change that. You need to ask the children a lot individually. That is what you need to do because that has significant educational value. Don’t believe that when the children become restless you should always have them speak in chorus.

A teacher: What should we do about restlessness?

Dr. Steiner: What do the children do?

A teacher: They talk, chatter, and make noise.

Dr. Steiner: That appears to happen in arithmetic class. When I was there recently, the children were wonderfully quiet.

A teacher: They were afraid of you. That’s what they said afterward.

Dr. Steiner: Perhaps you should try for a time to excite the children’s curiosity so that they follow the instruction with a certain level of interest. Do that through the material itself, not through something external to it.

(Speaking to Miss Hauck) It’s true, isn’t it, that I’ve never found the children misbehaving in your class. I think things will settle down, and the children will get used to you. The fourth grade is really well behaved and interested. They entered into a difficult discussion and thought things out well. I spoke a little about that. You should not immediately expect—as a teacher in the Waldorf School, you are still quite young and fresh as the break of day. You need to wait until the children come to see you more closely.

A teacher: G.Z. is homesick. He is always asking questions.

Dr. Steiner: He is also quite attentive in physics. I was amazed that he is so well behaved. The woman he is living with says he is always criticizing and complains terribly about the teachers and the school. He says that he learned much more at other schools. We should find out if that is true.

A teacher: G.D. is easily annoyed and feels unjustly treated.

Dr. Steiner: His mother feels herself to be very spiritual, and it appears she has told the child a lot of rubbish. Over the years she has said all kinds of terrible things. What is the problem?

A teacher: The mother complains that I am stressing the child.

Dr. Steiner: I don’t think that it would be so easy to work with the mother. She is a kind of society woman.

You will often notice that children who can still be guided and with whom you can achieve everything have the most horrible situations at home. This little boy could turn out to be a really wonderful young man through proper handling, but he cannot move forward in this situation. He is talented, but he has all the illnesses his mother has, only more so and in a different form. If you pay no attention to those things, you immediately do the right thing. A eurythmy teacher: I cannot awaken R.F.’s interest in eurythmy.

Dr. Steiner: Be ironic with him. He was in a parochial school. The main problem is that he does not participate in eurythmy. I would try to have him draw some eurythmy forms first. He should draw the forms and after he has done that, have him do them. A teacher asks a question.

Dr. Steiner: Now we have your primer. It is well done, and it would certainly be very helpful for someone who uses it. We could do a number of things with it. It would be a good example of the spirit active in the Waldorf School. I think it would be generally good to publish such things connected with the instruction. Not simply essays, but things that we actively use in teaching. That, however, would cost money, and the problem is, how can we do it? The way you have put your book together with its drawings, we should print it in an appropriate way. We can certainly have it set. We could do that. We could also make a title page. The typefaces available now are terrible. We would need to do that for the whole book. It would cost twenty thousand marks. If we assume we could sell a thousand copies, we would need to sell it for forty marks each. How can we do that financially? It would be interesting to discuss how we could do it. We need to think about that. Books are terribly expensive, and you could not do this sort of thing with normal typeface. It is so different as a primer, and it deserves support. I could write an afterword for it. No one would understand it if we published it as it is, but there would be much talk about it.

You have a system with the moveable pictures that have strings attached to them; you have a short text and above it a moveable picture. I find that very useful for picture books. Such picture books are extremely necessary in kindergarten. If you would only continue to work on it! Modern books are so boring.

A teacher: I wanted to ask if we should also include old documents in the religious instruction.

Dr. Steiner: Of course, but also things you do yourself. I think we should ask Mr. A. to take over half of the religion class. Give him only half and select those students you want to get rid of. In spite of his age, he will be just as young and fresh as the morning.

A teacher: Would he also participate in the services?

Dr. Steiner: That will soon be necessary.

(Speaking to Miss. H.) I would like Miss S. to join you. I think it would be good if Miss S. were with you, and if you allowed her to continue the instruction. You teach a period and then remain in the class and maintain contact. In between, there is someone else. It seems to me you should want that. Of course, you do not need to carry it out pedantically. I just think that should begin because you cannot manage that class by yourself in that room.

I was certain that I could give you the yearly report, but I have so much to do that I can only send it to you from Dornach. I was happy to see you are also not yet finished. I already wrote something for the Goetheanum, but you haven’t written anything yet.

A teacher: I would like to have the yearly report printed.

Dr. Steiner: I will really write it when I get to Dornach, and I will give it to Mr. M. Someone will have to edit all these articles. If only I had the time! I will have to take it with me to Dornach and do it there.

Dr. W. is also unhappy and makes a long face all day long. You should do the lectures from H. As I have often said with a certain kind of sensationalism, my father wrote love letters for all the fellows in his town. They were always coming by to have him write their love letters. The girls were always very happy. But that you should do H.’s lectures? I need to give some lectures in Zurich, and I will tell H. that he will have to do his own lectures.

I also need to think about your desire for a Christmas service. Is there anything else to discuss? We do not use illustrations just to make things clear, but to make the spirit more mobile. I would not find it unjustified if you illustrated the size of the community by taking the prime numbers contained in them and tossing them into a bowl. Then you have only the prime numbers. You can make that visible. Take a large bowl and the prime factor of two and throw it in. That is a number you can use to measure both.

It is important not just to reinforce what you want to make comprehensible. Memory is supported by including visible spatial thoughts, so the children need to have spatial ideas. There is nothing wrong with that. That period was very good, but we could connect something to it to give the children some idea of space.

If there are no further questions, then we will close. I can only say concerning something going around that the school has lost an intimacy due to the increase in the number of children, but I don’t find anything wrong in that. I don’t think it is something you should feel to be particularly unpleasant. We need to accept that as it is. In general, I can say that I think the school has made very good progress in every direction. Does anyone have a different opinion?

There is something else I want to mention. In a certain sense, our activities in Stuttgart need to be a harmonizing whole, and we need to feel them in that way. We need to develop a harmonious working together. It would be good if things everywhere went as the Waldorf School pedagogical work did last year. The Waldorf teachers are working valiantly so that one thing supports another. You need to consider what is in Stuttgart as a whole. The Anthroposophical Society and the Waldorf School are together the spiritual part of the threefold organism. The Union for Threefolding should be the political part, and the Waldorf teachers should help it with their advice. The Coming Day is the economic part. The Waldorf School began, but everyone must do what is necessary so that the other things do not get lost. In particular, everything depends upon the activities of the Union for Threefolding. We should remember that with each new step forward, new tasks arise. Now that we have added the Del Monte factory, we have a whole slew of workers. A factory meeting like the one we held is very visible in today’s society. Every bridge between the workers and the leading classes has broken. If we cannot awaken common interest through the threefold movement, like that of the 1870s when the European proletariat was interested in the democratic idea, so there were common interests, and people thought of more than simply bread, if we cannot do that, then we will move forward nowhere. We need to create a cultural atmosphere. In that connection, the cultural life in Stuttgart has been sleeping a deep sleep in the last five months, and we must awaken it again.

We can see that the threefold newspaper, that is as good as possible, has not had any increase in circulation in the last five months, nor has it had an increase in the number of employees. We need new people for the threefold newspaper. Our goal must be to change it as quickly as possible into a daily paper. If we are not consequential, that is, if we add new factories without accomplishing something positive for the political movement in Middle Europe, we will not survive. We cannot simply add new companies and at the same time fail to do something politically important.

In politics and social life things are not simply true. If you go to such a meeting today, and say that something is true, but do not act accordingly in the next months, then it is no longer true. It becomes untrue. If The Coming Day remains simply a normal company, it will become untrue. It is true only if we move forward with real strength. What is important is that we act against prejudice in current events.

Someone like Stinnes is very important for the near future. His ideas are gaining support. In particular, his party, the German Idiots Party, that is, the German Industry Party, is gaining strength through those ideas. We need to be clear though, that there are clever people behind the scenes. He intends to create a monopolistic trust for cultural life and economic activity so that the proletariat crawl to the gates of his factories and ask to be allowed in. He is well under way in that direction, and what he does is systematic. The cultural movement in Germany has a certain connection with such people. People in our group understand this trick too little, but Graf Keyserling in Darmstadt certainly saw through it.11 He has strong financing behind him. What Stinnes is trying to do is put forth as a salvation. You can read about it in the newspapers. This is bringing about a kind of threefolding, but with an Ahrimanic slant. It will be the devil’s work if it is not done in the way we can do it.

It is important that we keep our eyes open, our ears to the ground, and our noses to the wind for everything happening. It is nice to set up absolute theories, and we need to connect the overview with the details. Our activities need to remain current. In my lecture in the Liederhalle, I connected what I said with the miners’ strike. We need to raise people’s view from everyday things to the large perspective. We need to coordinate everything and through that The Coming Day will probably work. It would not hurt the Union for Threefolding if we lit a little fire under it.

The urgent question is what to do with all those children coming from the newly acquired factories. That is a question that can turn into an accusation if we do not act. It’s certainly true that Dr. Unger’s company has a hoard of children, as does the Del Monte factory. Since we took them over, our task has grown, so how do we now handle the Waldorf School? We need to take care of that. I would also like to remind you of what I said yesterday in a different place. We have a responsibility not to allow those students who have engaged themselves in spreading the word to be left out on a limb. We need to be careful about that. The call is a terribly valiant deed. It is having an effect. The students from the Agricultural College in Hohenheim have already reacted. We must see our movement in such a way that it does not stop, that it makes progress every day, for otherwise it makes no sense. We can’t move into a retirement home yet.

The Theosophical Society, founded by H.P. Blavatsky,¹ had the task of adding an occult element to the awakening European interest in oriental spirituality which had been greatly stimulated in the mid-19th century by Schopenhauer and other major thinkers. ‘The Secret Doctrine’² by H.P. Blavatsky was the sensational work which caused the rapid expansion of the Theosophical Society in the English-speaking world. It made no effort to take account of Christianity. An attempt by Rosicrucian occultists to place Christianity at the centre of the new movement, in which the author's mediumistic faculties were to have been used, had been deflected earlier. And yet it was required that Western and Eastern wisdom should be brought into harmony. The ancient wisdom was to live on in the future development of mankind, whose salvation was guaranteed by the Mystery of Golgotha. Similar to the way that Christianity in the past, still young and vigorous in belief, had assimilated science through the wave of Arabism, turning observation of nature into the science of nature, present mankind, fallen prey to materialism and parched, had to be revitalised by being permeated with the knowledge of ancient wisdom. This took place by way of a knowledge of Buddhist philosophy with the result that the teaching of karma and reincarnation found entry to many souls and penetrated their understanding. The scientific works of Max Muller,³ Deussen⁴ and other significant philosophers opened up to Europeans a world of overwhelming spirituality and vivid imaginations. The key to the understanding of these worlds, however, still had to be given to intellectual science.

The work done by Blavatsky and her pupils in this respect was insufficient. Suitable personalities to act as mediators in this task still remained to be found. Through the particular constitution of her physical organism H.P. Blavatsky had been an instrument which was particularly open to the influences of the spiritual world. Her strong will made her suitable to carry out difficult tasks in the service of mankind; but her thinking was disjointed and her character often degenerated into emotionalism, and when her emotions broke loose catastrophe ensued and sometimes even the direction of her striving was reversed. It would not be wrong to say: as an instrument open to spiritual influence, occult forces fought for her possession.

In order to turn knowledge of the occult worlds into a science of the spirit which might in time be learnt by people through serious study, a person had to devote himself to this transformation who had his character and temperament completely under control, who also had a grasp of the knowledge of his time and command of the individual fields of knowledge to an extent which enabled him to reply to the most fierce criticism. An iron and yet flexible physical organism were required in order to withstand the onslaught against him.

Such a person was Rudolf Steiner.⁵ His youth was spent in what might be called convivial seclusion and constant study. Hardly grown up, he supported himself by giving lessons and then as an educator. On this foundation his lecturing and writing activity developed while he was still a young man. Since recognition of the spirit was quite natural to him, he quite consciously set himself the task of raising all the objections which the critical materialist brings to bear on revelations of the spirit and to spare himself nothing which might be the smallest deviation from this line. This he called ‘crawling into the skin of the dragon.’ He felt this difficult task to be his duty. Otherwise he would have considered himself as lacking the right to fight to the end the difficult battle for mankind, of wresting victory from abstract intellectualism. Only then would he be able to present the deed of the Buddha and the deed of the Christ as a harmonious unity; only then, when he himself had gained victory over the inner adversary and his hidden ways, would he be able to point the path of salvation through Christ's deed. Thus armed, he made his appearance as representative of the ancient mystery teachings as they had been revealed to him in the light of Christ's deed.

The Theosophical Society was alarmed. It saw the deep effect of Steiner's teachings on souls in search of Christ. It did not want to expose its members to this, did not want to expose them to the danger of taking in Steiner's teachings, thus abandoning the orientalising stream. His topics for the Congress of the Federation of European Sections, arranged to take place in Genoa,⁶ contained as their subject: Buddhist wisdom and Western esotericism. They opposed this subject with an Indian boy, the incarnation in the flesh of Christ Jesus according to their teaching. No common ground for scientific debate as it should have taken place at the Congress in Genoa could be found to cover such a gaping divergence; and now that Rudolf Steiner's significance had been recognised such a debate was deemed much too dangerous an undertaking. It was better to avoid such hot issues altogether. The congress was cancelled at the last minute for reasons which never became clear.

And Steiner, who had already set out for Italy,—as had many others—was able to speak only to group meetings, to small circles. There was not time to arrange for stenographers to be present. But not everything was lost, due to the devotion of a number of members who were taking notes, whose hand, however, naturally weakened towards the end in the fire of the enthusiastically spoken word. The Locarno lecture and those held in Neuchatel in particular give us cause to remember our dear Agnes Friedlander, who died of pneumonia in 1942 in a concentration camp. She was among those whose soul was particularly deeply affected by the transforming impulse alive in the mystery of Christ.

The lectures themselves have only been preserved as fragments. No satisfactory transcripts exist. It seems like a counter-attack by adversary forces that no experienced stenographer was present. They exist—apart from the shortened Cassel lectures—partly as fragments and partly as notes which have been pieced together. Nevertheless, the essential framework has been preserved and the effort was made to place them into context. This effort is not always successful as far as the stylistic form is concerned, but the spirit is challenged all the more to sharpen its powers of thought and stimulated to embark on their study.

Besides emphasising the particular character of Spiritual Science after the event of Christ, the aim of the lectures held in 1911 and 1912⁷ was to bring out the significance of karma as the course of destiny and to enable us to penetrate into its intimate nature. Even if the overall course of those reflections has been preserved only as a series of remembered images—the notes were frequently too brief to convey the logical progression and the irregular collection of notes and headings tend to be little more than indications—the direction of the spiritual impulses given by Dr. Steiner has been preserved and perhaps justifies this attempted collection: they can deepen the soul by meditative work and continue to be active within us.

Marie Steiner

• 1. The Theosophical Society, founded by H.P. Blavatsky: Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, nee von Hahn (Ekaterinoslav, Southern Russia, 1831 – 1891 London), founded the Theosophical Society together with Col. H.S. Olcott in New York in 1875, its headquarters moving in 1879 to India (Adyar, near Madras).
• 2. The Secret Doctrine: The Synthesis of Science, Religion and Philosophy. Volume 1, Cosmogenesis; Volume II, Anthropogenesis; London, 1888. A third volume was published from manuscripts by Annie Besant in London in 1897.
• 3. Max Muller: 1823 – 1900; one of the most important orientalists of the nineteenth century.
• 4. Paul Deussen: 1845 – 1919; philosopher and scholar of Indian culture.
• 5. Rudolf Steiner. His youth was spent: see Rudolf Steiner, ‘An Autobiography’, Rudolf Steiner Publications; New York, 1977.
• 6. Congress ... in Genoa: see Rudolf Steiner ‘The Anthroposophical Movement, its History and Life Conditions in Relation to the Anthroposophical Society’. Eight lectures in Dornach, 10th – 17th June 1923; London, 1933.
• 7. aim of the lectures held in 1911 and 1912 was to bring out the significance of karma: see the Berlin and Stuttgart lectures ‘Reincarnation and Karma: their Significance in Modern Culture’; London, 1960.

Dr. Steiner: I would like to share some of my thoughts about my visit to the school, specifically, about the walls. Now that everything here is so new, it is more apparent than before that it is not good for a school to merely have a somewhat lost and not particularly good picture hanging here and there. It is significant that our school does not make a particularly impressive artistic impression.

Of course, we cannot completely fulfill the ideal at this stage, but it seems to me that it would be good to at least have that ideal before us so that we could move toward it, at least in our thoughts, and that in the end we would do something in that direction. I would ask you not to understand what I have to say the way many things have been understood. For instance, when I said that this or that is a difference between eating meat or vegetables and people immediately began to promote vegetarianism as a result.

Accept it as an ideal. Out of our pedagogy itself, what should be the artistic form in our classrooms? We could perhaps extend this from what we find in the schoolrooms to what we find near the schoolrooms on the walls.

There is no doubt that we need some pictures to decorate the schoolrooms. I say this not because I think we need to do this tomorrow morning, but because our guiding principle needs to be what is needed by our pedagogy.

First, we have the lower grades. There, we need a more physical presentation of what we give the children pictorially. That can gradually move into the more artistic, on the one hand, and to more practical activities in life, on the other. Today, I only want to mention some of the main things that we can deepen in the course of time. It is important that where the subjects themselves play the main role in artistic decoration, we have no mechanically created or barren illustrations, but that things be artistically formed. These artistic creations should not be such that they emphasize special opinions or special styles, but more in the direction of what seems to genuinely human.

If we look at the first grade, the main thing would be to decorate the walls with pictures from fairy tales, and when possible, to have them in color. I need to emphasize that if it is not possible to do everything in color, we will need to use some black-and-white reproductions. It is better to have a technically good reproduction than to have some poorly done copy of something. In the first grade we need to have pictures of fairy tales, and in the second, of legends. That is something we need to strictly maintain.

You can imagine the continuous and proper effect that will have upon the children’s feelings. The only thing is that we cannot just take the pictures from picture books. They should be artistically done. It would be beneficial to set this as a task, not in some one-sided painting style, but such that everything has a general human feeling to it.

When we come to the third grade, we must take into account the state of the soul. What we hang on the walls should be what is normally called “still life” pictures of plants and of flowers. Of course, these should not be normal still lifes, but genuine representations of what is living, but not yet feeling. If we bring the children so far that they live into them with their souls, that will be good. We should save representations of the feeling of animals for the next grade because then the child’s soul begins to relate to a portrayal of feeling. Only from that time on do children have a sense that they have feeling in themselves, even though that feeling may be quite dull. Pictures of animals that the children saw earlier in children’s books have an effect such that the child cannot differentiate whether it is a picture of a real cow or a cow made of wood. Before about the age of nine or ten, children cannot differentiate in an inner living way between the picture of a real cow and a cow made of wood. However, at about that age, this capacity to differentiate begins.

In the fifth grade, when the children are ten or eleven years old, what is important is to choose pictures that show groups of people of differing ages, for instance, dancing groups, or, say, a street where people meet one another, so that you can say something to the children about it. You need groups of people so you can talk with the children about what occurs between those people.

We now come to the sixth grade. There, we should have individual human beings. You could have pictures of heads or of the whole person, for example, a person standing in nature, where nature comes to that person’s aid. You could then draw the children’s attention to what a sunny landscape is, or to one in the rain, but there should be a person in it such that the individual person is important. Perhaps a picture of a small lake where someone is rowing.

We have now come to the point where the material itself is less important and where the pictures should move more into the artistic. Here, we need to begin with the most artistic things. We must, of course, recall that if you cannot obtain good copies, then we should have black-and-white pictures. For the age of the children in the seventh grade, it would be good to have Raphael and Leonardo, things that can also remain in the eighth grade. You could divide these between the classes in both grades. What is important is that the children have these pictures in front of them. You should not believe that the proper thing to do is to choose the pictures so that they go in parallel to what is being taught. It is actually quite important that the children have the pictures before they are spoken of in art class. You should speak occasionally about the pictures, but, in general, the child’s eyes should simply be occupied with the artistic aspect of the pictures. Children should first receive only a pure sense impression and know that we consider these pictures particularly beautiful. They have already been properly prepared since they knew that previously the pictures hanging on the walls were primarily important because of their content.

In the following classes, what is important is that you tactfully connect what is artistic with the practicalities of life, so that the children have both perspectives continually in front of themselves. Thus, in the ninth grade, you might have pictures from Giotto or similar things, and in the same class, pictures of other things, more technical, for instance, a meadow or a willow tree, a pine forest, and so forth, but not done artistically, rather, technically. Purely as examples, in the way that you might draw a plan. You could put those on one wall and hang other things on the back wall, for instance, paintings by Giotto. You could also have a star chart in the ninth grade where the various constellations are connected with some figure, with stylized figures of the heavens, as used to be done in star charts.

In the tenth grade, where you are dealing with fifteen and sixteen year olds, you should have pictures by Holbein and Dürer on the artistic side, and on the technical-scientific side, you could have—other things would be possible—a drawing of everything in the sea, all the animals, and so forth. That would have to be drawn appropriately so that it was intellectually instructive, but also had an artistic effect upon the children.

Holbein and Dürer would remain for the eleventh grade, with perhaps the addition of Rembrandt. That would also continue in the following grades. You might also include some older paintings. At that age instruction can go in parallel. Thus, for the eleventh and twelfth grades, Holbein, Rembrandt, and Dürer.

On the technical side in the eleventh grade, you should hang something like a cross-section of the Earth or geological cross-sections or perhaps elevation charts and similar things. Only in the twelfth grade would you have physiological pictures, anatomic charts in addition to Holbein, Dürer, Rembrandt.

That is what we need as an ideal. Things look terrible now, but if you have an ideal before you, at least under some circumstances, you can work in that direction, even if it takes a century. It is better to have a good woodcut than much of what is hanging now. This is what I wanted to say to you about pedagogy. It is certainly necessary that we attend to an exceptionally good treatment of art in our pedagogy, since that definitely belongs to the total picture of the anthroposophical treatment of human progress.

We can say that until the sixteenth century, there was not a sharp contrast between an intellectual and an artistic comprehension of the world. You should remember something that is no longer considered; the Scholastics created their books with a certain architectural art, very consciously, apart from the illuminations. Until the tenth century, there was absolutely no real difference between art and knowledge. Now, children in even the earliest grades are poisoned with purely intellectual material. There is an effect here in our school of something we cannot yet do differently: when teachers use reference books, not only by giving them to the children, but also for their own preparation, the intellectual tendency of such references enters the teacher. The teacher thus becomes a distorted picture of intellectualism.

You could ask, then, how should teachers prepare themselves? When the teacher wants to teach something to the children, he or she learns the material from modern presentations. When I see where teachers get their material for preparation, I would like to put another book alongside the one the teacher is using, a book that is perhaps a century older than the teacher’s. It is not possible to use only books that are centuries old, but it would certainly help in many areas to use books that are a hundred years old along with more modern books on the same subject. Now, if people are teachers, they know what someone like Goethe or some other exemplary person wrote about one work of art or another, or about something in nature. The problem is that no one looks at what people two or three generations ago, at Goethe’s time, wrote about art, but these, along with more modern works, are certainly important. Even today, when we have so many outstanding things, you can gain something by using books that are a century or so old that treat subjects similar to the subjects of more modern works. That is very important. I have often mentioned that, for example, editions of Greek and Latin from the first half of the nineteenth century are like gold in contrast to the brass printed today. The grammar texts that are thirty or forty years old are much better than the modern presentations.

I think we need to take into account that our pedagogy must everywhere counter with a thoroughly artistic activity the rule of intellectualism present throughout modern thinking. We should avoid allowing modern systematic books to affect our teaching. The systematic presentation in modern books is narrow-minded and inartistic. People are ashamed to speak of anything artistic. Modern academics are ashamed to develop their own artistic style or to artistically divide things into chapters. We need to take these things into account in our own preparations.

I would like to take this opportunity, which has arisen from a number of circumstances, to ask you all the following question. During a meeting last night, I again had the feeling that you think preparing is very difficult. Someone said that Waldorf teachers normally sleep only from 5:30 until 7:30 in the morning. Everyone needs to recognize that is much too little. People need to understand that a really enormous amount of time is used to prepare for school. From that, it seems that preparation is difficult. I would like to ask in that regard if it is true that for one reason or another you can go to sleep only at 5:30. I would also like to know if the difficulty lies in the preparation, if it is really so difficult and requires so much time. Of course, that is subjective; nevertheless, I would like to pose this question now, at the beginning of our discussions, and ask you to tell me about it so we can talk about this today or at our next meeting.

Some teachers report about it.

Dr. Steiner: Are there any specific questions about preparation?

A teacher: I usually need a long time. I used Carus for teaching about the skeleton.

Dr. Steiner: The bones of the human being have not changed. You used a book that is a hundred years old, but it is important that you use the easiest sources. This is a case where much help could have been given. The teacher of one class could help the teacher of the following class.

An upper-grades teacher: I do not actually prepare for a specific class. Instead, I read a book about the whole subject I will be teaching. Then, I read an anthroposophical book connected with it, for example, The Riddles of Philosophy, for background on the development of consciousness within the period. I read something that brings me into a mood of that time. For the specific class period, I look for something, perhaps even a small detail, from which I can form the instruction.

Dr. Steiner: That is a very good method, to begin with something you are strongly interested in yourself that brings your soul into movement, so that you make some small discovery. In that way, you will get an idea during the class. You will notice that while you are with the children, things come to you more easily than when you sit and brood by yourself. That will not happen in history and geography until you have taught for a few years. It is particularly important when you are beginning a new period that you really try to form a comprehensive picture of what occurs during the entire period, possibly only in broad outlines, so that you know what is important in that period.

The same teacher later gave Dr. Steiner some additional information when he was visiting the teacher’s class. Dr. Steiner told the teacher that while using that method he actually thought of too many things. He needed to be careful not to overload the students with what he was interested in at the moment.

A teacher: In Latin grammar, I have the feeling it could be organized according to thinking, feeling, and willing, but it falls apart when I do it.

Dr. Steiner: To orient yourself, it would be a good idea, when you have three weeks free, to simply take one author, for instance, Livius, and select some sentences, then study the sentence structure empirically. Someone should do that.

I would like you to pay more attention to developing a certain feeling regarding the Socratic method. I would like you to try to develop a feeling so that you differentiate between what the children can simply repeat and what you should ask them. It is more exciting for the children when you tell them something than when you ask them something they cannot answer. You should not believe you can get the children to say something they cannot know. You should not overdo the Socratic method because you will tire the children too much. You need to develop a feeling for what you can ask, and what you need to say. You need to develop a certain tactfulness. I would now like to hear questions about what is currently going on.

A teacher asks about the school administration. Many things within the administration need to be done by everyone.

Dr. Steiner: This is an awkward problem, but I have given it a great deal of thought. This is so difficult and we can accomplish our intentions only when we carry it out with the general support of the entire faculty, or at least the vast majority of the faculty. On the other hand, the way it is accepted necessarily affects the way it is organized.

First of all, I would ask you to consider what should be included in this new area of organization. There are a large number of operations the person in the school house needs to do. We need to exclude these things since they are connected with the person in the house. Concerning everything in the administration that represents the school to the outside, I would recommend that a small group of three or four people from the faculty take up that work in the future. This group can only work in an alternating fashion, so that they work one after another as individuals, and they should meet with one another only in those cases where a common decision is valuable. In order not to violate our republican constitution, it should be a group. I would ask you to speak your thoughts about this freely and openly, even though you might think what you have to say may contradict this in the broadest sense. I would still ask you to say what you think.

A teacher: There are some things we all know only Y. can do, and other things for which other people are better suited.

Dr. Steiner: I thought that such a small group would always represent the faculty since members would alternate, particularly for limited tasks. This group could do what you just said from case to case, namely, designate one person as capable of one task or another. Nevertheless, there will still be differences of opinion.

A teacher: I think regulating the situation would be a help. It could be very useful for the school.

Dr. Steiner: We could think still further. We would form such a group and the entire faculty would declare itself in agreement when the group decides some member of the faculty should be designated for a particular task. That is what should happen. Preparation for faculty meetings and setting the agenda could also be part of the duties of the head of the administration, but that would make the job rather difficult. It is possible that preparation for the faculty meeting could be one of the tasks of the committee member who has the task of administering the school at the time. It is important to do this in complete harmony with the whole faculty.

A committee of seven teachers had formed concerned with questions of the Anthroposophical Society.

Dr. Steiner: Of course, I now need to ask what the faculty thinks of this committee that formed itself. It is important to find a way of reaching a final resolution of this problem. That committee seems very active, and we could make an assumption that through its efforts to reorganize the Anthroposophical Society, it wanted to prepare itself for administering the school. Of course, if that committee has the complete trust of the faculty, the question can be easily answered.

A teacher proposes expanding the committee.

Dr. Steiner: I only thought that if a group of people was already working with this question, it would be best if that group continued its work because it would save time.

A teacher makes a remark.

Dr. Steiner: You are mixing up two questions. I only wanted to ask who is in that group because I know such a group exists. Apparently that group has worked with these questions and—I must emphasize from the outset that we must do the whole thing harmoniously—the first question I wanted to ask is whether that group has the complete trust of the faculty, so that it can make proposals for a final form. It would be difficult for us to begin from zero today. It would be better, since I will probably be here again soon, if we could answer the question of whether that or an extended group has the full trust of the faculty, so that the group could prepare a proposal for a final resolution of the question for the next meeting. That is the question we need to answer today. I would like to hear what you have to say about this question of trust.

A teacher: This makes an impression that there are first- and second- class Waldorf teachers, but perhaps that feeling is based upon a false assumption.

Dr. Steiner: The fact that a group has formed is their business. Since, however, it has worked with these questions, we could, in the event there is trust in that group, think we could trust them with working out such a proposal. It is more complicated to consider this question in the faculty as a whole than it would be to have a group that has the trust of the faculty consider it. Some teachers agree.

A teacher: I have an awkward feeling about the formation of that group. The people who formed the group are the same ones who are so distracting for the administration.

A teacher: I have noticed that certain groups get together, and when you go by, you hear parts of important conversations. I became uncomfortable with that, and I went to a colleague and said that it was creating cliques. I was quite fearful that the faculty was dividing into those who were more or less active.

Dr. Steiner: That is certainly a problem. The Waldorf School can prosper only if the faculty is in harmony. It is not possible for everyone to find everyone else sympathetic, but that is a personal question and does not belong in the faculty. To the extent that the faculty represents the entire Waldorf School, the prosperity of this school depends upon the inner harmony of the faculty. There is a major difference in whether someone says to someone outside, “You are getting on my nerves,” and when that is said here in the faculty meeting. Here in our meetings and in the administration of the Waldorf School there are only teachers from the Waldorf School, and the difficulties arise due solely to the more democratic constitution of the school. Of course, difficulties do arise. I am certainly against using the terms “first- and second-class” here in the faculty. That would certainly be the beginning of very bad things if something like a first- and second-class of faculty and faculty cliques played a role in our discussions. These are things we must strictly keep out.

Basically, when such a group forms, we need to accept the fact that the group exists and not use it as an occasion to say bad things about it. If there were reason to do that, it would be the start of difficult times in the faculty. As long as the group has formed and exists as such, I would like to again ask to what extent we need to take that group into account. It is perhaps not at all necessary to say anything about that. The question has been posed because it has received an official duty and that group should work on proposals. Barring some misdeed, I do not see that it should have any significance whether it is that group or a completely different small group. The only thing that is important is the usefulness of the group, since the proposal will be presented to the whole faculty and discussed. The only question is one of trust, that is, whether you consider that group capable of making the proposals. When such remarks are made, it is difficult to see that there is even the slightest movement toward forming a faculty. That is something that must not happen. Here we must have only harmony.

A teacher: I have complete trust in the group, but I did want to bring out that there may be colleagues who do not.

Dr. Steiner: When I use the expression, “getting on my nerves,” I mean that one person makes another person nervous. The subject of the group’s work would be how to organize the administration. Thus, you would make them nervous.

A teacher: I do not distrust the group.

Another teacher: I do not feel there is a faculty within the faculty. I think all of my colleagues could agree to this group.

Dr. Steiner: Some things have been said that were not taken back, so we can assume we cannot do this in the way it was originally intended. I could just as well think that according to the impulses out of which the school and the faculty arose, I could create such a group. I am not doing this because suspicions have arisen. I would like to wait until things have become clearer. Some antagonisms are apparent.

The committee that works upon these questions needs to study such things in order to make proposals for the administration. I think six people would be enough.

Dr. Steiner has the faculty vote by secret ballot for a preparatory committee of six members.

Dr. Steiner: I would like to have the committee propose people who can do things.

A teacher asks about an educational conference in England.

Dr. Steiner: There is a possibility of another conference in England. I need to try to put these two things together. Perhaps we could agree to it in principle.

A teacher: The English people want to know if you would agree to inviting Waldorf teachers who can speak English.

Dr. Steiner: Of course, they can do that.