Practical Course for Teachers
GA 294
5 September 1919, Stuttgart
XIV. Moral Educative Principles and their Transition to Practice
If you were to look back at the time-tables which were issued fifty or sixty years ago, you would see that they were comparatively short. A few short sentences summarized the ground to be covered in every school year in the different subjects. The time-tables were at the most two or three or four pages long—all the rest in those days was left to the actual process of teaching itself, for this out of its own powers should stimulate teachers to do the part left to them by the curricula. To-day things are different. To-day the syllabus for the schools has more and more increased. The Official Gazette has become a collection of books. And in this book there is not only a suggestion of what is required, but there are all kinds of instructions as to how things should be taught at school. That is, in the last decades people were on the way to letting State legislation swallow up the theory of education. And perhaps it is an ideal of many a legislator gradually to issue as “Official Publication,” as “Decrees and Regulations” all the material formerly contained in old literary works on pedagogy. The Socialist leaders quite definitely feel this subconscious impulse—however ashamed they may be to admit it; their ideal is to introduce in the form of decrees what was until recently common spiritual property even in the sphere of education.
For this reason those of us here who wish to preserve the educational and teaching system from the collapse which has overtaken it under Lenin—and which might overtake Central Europe—must approach the curriculum with a quite different understanding from that in which the ordinary teacher approaches the Official Gazette. This, even in the days of the monarchy and in the days of ordinary democratic Parliamentarianism, he has solemnly studied, but he will study it with feelings of greater obedience if it is sent to his house by his Dictator-Comrades. The potential tyranny of socialism would be felt quite particularly in the sphere of teaching and education. We have had to approach the curriculum differently.
That is, it has been incumbent on us to approach this curriculum with an attitude of mind which enabled us really to create it for ourselves at every turn, so that we learnt to tell the needs of all children at any age. Let us put side by side this ideal curriculum and the curriculum at present in use in other schools of Central Europe. This we shall do and we shall have prepared ourselves thoroughly for this estimate if we have really assimilated into our feelings all that we should absorb on the way to an understanding of a curriculum.
Here, again, is a very important aspect which is falsely estimated in these days in official pedagogy. I concluded my last lecture1See Allgemeine Menschenkunde als Grundlage der Pädagogik, Lecture 14. with a direct talk on the “Morality of Educational Theory;” the moral tendencies which must be the basis of all pedagogy. It will only result in the practice of teaching if the many examples given in modern books on didactics are ignored. These speak of “object lessons.” They are quite sound, and we have referred to the way in which they should be conducted. But we have constantly had to emphasize the fact that these object lessons should never become trivial, that they should never exceed a certain limit. This eternal cross-questioning of the child on self-evident things in the form of object lessons simply extends a pall of weariness over the whole of teaching, and this should not be. And it robs teaching of precisely what I emphasized at the end of my last lecture2Ibid. as so necessary: the cultivation of the child's imaginative faculty or the faculty of fantasy. If, for the sake of giving an object lesson, you discuss with the children the shape of any cooking utensil you like to choose, you undermine his imagination. If you describe the shape or origin of a Greek vase, you may do more for his understanding of what he finds around him in daily life. Object lessons, as given to-day, literally stifle the imagination. And you do not do amiss in teaching if you simply remember to leave many things unspoken, so that the child is induced to continue working with his own soul-force on what he has learnt in the lesson. It is not at all a good thing to want to explain everything down to the last dot on the “i.” The child simply leaves the school feeling that he has learnt everything already, and looking out for other things to do. Whereas if you have sown his imagination with seeds of life he remains fascinated by what the lesson offered him and is less ready to be distracted. That our children to-day are such rough tomboys is simply due to the fact that we go in for far too much false object teaching and too little training of the will and the feelings.
But in still another respect we really need to identify ourselves quite inwardly in our souls with the curriculum.
When you receive a child in the first years at the elementary school he is quite a different being from the same child in the last years of the school course. In his first years he is still very much immersed in his body, he is still very much part of his body. When the child leaves school you must have enabled him to cling no longer to his body with all the fibres of his soul, but to be independent of his body in thinking, feeling, and willing. Try to penetrate rather more deeply into the nature of the growing being and you will find, relatively speaking, particularly when the children have not been spoilt in their very first years, that they still have very sound instincts. They have then not acquired the craving to stuff themselves with sweets and so on. They still have certain sound instincts with regard to their food, as, of course, the animal too, because he is still very much dominated by his body, has very good instincts in the matter of his own nourishment. The animal, just because he is limited to his body, avoids what is hurtful to him. The animal world is not likely to be overrun by any evil like the spreading of alcoholic consumption in the human world. The spread of evils such as alcohol is due to the fact that man is so much a spiritual being that he can become independent of his bodily nature. For physical nature, in its reasonableness, is never tempted to become alcoholic, for instance. Comparatively sound food instincts are active in the first years at school. These cease in the interests of human development with the last years of school life. When puberty comes upon the individual he loses his food-instincts; he must find in his reason a substitute for his earlier instincts. That is why you can still intercept, as it were, the last manifestations of the food and health instincts in the last school years of the growing being. Here you can still steal a march on the last manifestations of the sound food-instincts, of the instinct of growth, etc. Later you can no longer find an inner feeling for the right care of food and health. That is why particularly the last years of the elementary school course should include instruction in nourishment and the care of personal health. Precisely in this connection object lessons should be given. For these object lessons can reinforce the fantasy or imagination quite considerably. Put before the child three different substances; place these before him, or remind him of them, for he has, of course, already seen them: any substance which is composed primarily of starch or sugar, a substance composed primarily of fat, a substance composed primarily of albumen. The child knows these. But remind him that the human body owes its activity primarily to these three constituents. From this explain to him in his last years of school the secrets of nutrition. Then give him an accurate description of the breathing and enlarge on every aspect of nutrition and breathing connected with the care of personal health. You will gain an enormous amount in your education and teaching if you undertake this instruction precisely in these years. At this stage you are just in time to intercept the last instinctive manifestations of the health and food instincts. That is why you can teach the child in these years about the conditions of nutrition and health without making him egoistic for the rest of his life. It is still natural to him to satisfy instinctively the conditions of health and nutrition. That is why he can be talked to about these things and why they still strike a chord in the natural life of the human being and so do not make him egoistical. If the children are not taught in these years about matters of nutrition and health they will have to inform themselves later from reading or from other people. What the child learns later, after puberty, about matters of nutrition and health, makes him egoistic. It cannot but produce egoism. If you read about nutrition in physiology, if you read a synopsis of rules about the care of the health, in the very nature of the case this information makes you more egoistic than you were before. This egoism, which continually proceeds from a rationalized knowledge of how to take personal care of oneself, has to be combated by morality. If we had not to care for ourselves physically we should not need to have a morality of the soul. But the human being is less exposed to the dangers of egoism in later life if he is instructed in nutrition and health in his last years at the elementary school, where the teaching is concerned with questions of nutrition and health rules, and not with egoism—but with what is natural to man.
You see what very far-reaching problems of life are involved in teaching a particular thing at the right moment. You really provide for the whole of his life if you teach a child what is right at his particular age. Of course, if one could imbue children of seven or eight with precepts of nutrition, with precepts of health, that would be the best way of all. They would then absorb these rules of nutrition and health in the most unegoistic way, for they are hardly aware at that moment that the rules refer to themselves. They would see themselves as objects, not as subjects. But they cannot understand it so early. Their power of judgement is not yet sufficiently developed to be able to understand it. For this reason you cannot take rules for nutrition and health at this age, and you must save them up for the last school years, when the fire of the inner instinct of food and health is already dying down, and when, in contrast to these dying instincts, there has already emerged the power to comprehend what comes into consideration. At every turn it is possible to intermingle for the older children some reference to rules of health and nutrition. In natural history, in physics, in the lessons which expand geography to its full scope, even in history lessons, every moment lends itself to an opportunity of instruction in dietetics and health. You will see from this that we do not need to accept it as a subject in the school time-table, but that much of our teaching must contain such vitality that it absorbs this with it. If we have a right feeling for what the child is to learn—then the child himself, or the community of children in school, will remind us every day of what we have to introduce into the rest of our teaching. And for this purpose we have to cultivate and practise, because we are teachers, a certain alertness of mind. If we are drilled as specialists in geography or history we shall not develop this mental alertness, for then we are exclusively concerned, from the beginning of the history lesson to the end of the history lesson, with teaching history. And then there can come into play those extraordinarily unnatural conditions whose injurious effects on life are not by any means fully appreciated.
It is profoundly true that we do the human being a service, and one that discourages his egoism, when we teach him the rules of dietetics and health, as I have explained, in the last years at the elementary school.
But here, too, it is possible to refer to many aspects which permeate the whole of teaching with feeling. And if you attach a certain amount of feeling to every step of your teaching, the results at which you are aiming will persist throughout life. But if in the last years at the elementary school you only teach things of interest to the reason, to the intellect, very little lasting impression will be made. You will have to permeate your own self with feeling whenever you give something to the children in the years from twelve to fourteen. You must try to teach, not only graphically, but with vivid feeling, geography, history, natural history, in the last school years. Imagination or fantasy is not enough without feeling.
Now in actual fact the curriculum for the elementary school (aged seven to fourteen) falls into three distinct periods which we have traced: first, up to nine years of age, when we introduce to the growing child chiefly conventionalities, writing, reading; then up to twelve, when we introduce to him the uses of this conventionality, and on the other hand to all learning based on the individual power of judgement. And you have seen that into this school period we put the study of animals, and nature-study, because the individual at this stage still has a certain instinctive feeling for the relationships here involved. I laid down lines for you on which to develop, from the cuttle-fish, the mouse, the lamb, and the human being, a feeling of the relationship of man with the whole of the world of nature. We have taken great pains, too—and I hope not in vain, for they will flower and come to fruition in the teaching of botany—to develop man's relation to the plant world. These ideas of things must be rooted in feeling during the middle period of the elementary school course, when the instincts are still alive to this feeling of intimacy with the animals, with the plants, and when, after all, even if the experience never emerges into the ordinary light of reasoning consciousness, the child feels himself now a cat, now a wolf, now a lion or an eagle. This identification of oneself now with one animal, now with the other, only occurs up to about the age of nine. Before this age it is even more profound, but it cannot be used, because the power to grasp it consciously is non-existent. If children are very precocious and talk a great deal about themselves when they are still only four or five, their comparisons of themselves with the eagle, with the mouse, etc., are very common indeed. But if we start at the ninth year to teach natural history on the lines I have suggested, we come upon a good deal of the child's instinctive feeling of relationship with animals. Later this instinctive feeling ripens into a feeling of relationship with the plant world. Therefore, first of all the natural history of the animal kingdom, then the natural history of the plant kingdom. We leave the minerals till the last because they require almost exclusively the power of judgement. So it is in accordance with human nature to arrange the curriculum as I have suggested. The intermediate school period, from eight to eleven, presents a fine balance between the instincts and the powers of discernment. We can always assume that the child will respond intelligently if we rely on a certain instinctive understanding, if we are not—especially in natural history and botany—too obvious. We must avoid drawing external analogies particularly with the plant world, for that is really contrary to natural feeling. Natural feeling is itself predisposed to seek psychic qualities in plants; not the external physical form of man in this tree or that, but soul-relations such as we tried to discover in the plant system.3See The Art of Education (“Erziehungskunst”), No. 7; Rudolf Steiner, The Training of Teachers (“Pädagogisches Seminar”).
And the actual power of discernment, the rational, intellectual comprehension of the human being which can be relied on, belongs to the last school period. For this reason we employ precisely the twelfth year in the child's life, when he is gravitating in the direction of the power of discernment, for merging this power of judgement in the activities still partly prompted by instinct, but already very thickly overlaid with discerning power. These are, as it were, the twilight instincts of the soul, which we must overcome by the power of judgement.
At this stage it must be remembered that man has an instinct for gain, for profiteering, for the principle of discount, etc., which appeals to the instincts. But we must be sure to impose the power of discernment very forcibly upon this, and consequently we must use this stage of development for studying the relations existing between calculation and the circulation of commodities and finance, that is, for doing percentage sums, interest sums, discount sums, etc.
It is very important not to give the child these ideas too late, for that would really be appealing to his egoism. We are not yet reckoning on his egoism if we teach him at about the age of twelve to grasp to some extent the principle of promissory notes and so on, commercial calculations, etc. Actual book-keeping could be studied later; this already requires more intelligence. But it is very important to bring out these ideas at this stage. For the inner selfish appetite for interest, bills of exchange, promissory notes, and so on, is not yet awake in the child at this tender age. These things are more serious in the commercial schools when he is older.
You must absorb these facts quite completely into your being as instructors, as teachers. Try not to do too much, whatever your inclination may be, let us say, in describing plants. Try to teach about plants so that a great deal is left to the child's imagination, that the child can still imagine for himself, in terms of his own feeling, the psychic relations prevailing between the human soul and the plant world. The person who enthuses too freely on object lessons does not know that there are things to be taught which cannot be studied externally. And when people try to teach the child by object lessons things which ought only to be taught through moral influence and through the feelings, this very object teaching does him harm. We must never forget, you see, that mere observation and illustration are a very pronounced by-product of the materialistic spirit of our age. Naturally, observation must be cultivated in its proper place, but you must not apply the method when it would only spoil the intimate relation between the child and the world in the sphere of his imaginative mind.
Vierzehnter Vortrag
Wenn Sie zurückblicken würden auf die Lehrpläne, die noch vor verhältnismäßig kurzer Zeit, vor sechs oder fünf Jahrzehnten ausgegeben worden sind, dann würden Sie sehen, daß diese Lehrpläne verhältnismäßig kurz waren. Es wurde in ein paar kurzen Sätzen dasjenige angegeben, was in jedem Schuljahr für den einen oder andern Unterrichtsgegenstand getan werden sollte. Höchstens 2, 3, 4 Seiten waren die Lehrpläne lang, alles übrige überließ man in jener Zeit dem pädagogisch-didaktischen Unterricht selbst, der aus eigenen Voraussetzungen und aus eigenen Kräften heraus in den Lehrern anregen wollte, was sie mit den Lehrplänen zu tun hatten. Heute ist das anders geworden. Heute ist der Lehrplan für die höhere Schule schon zu einem Buch angeschwollen, wo oben «Amtsblatt» steht. Und in diesem Buche findet sich nicht nur eine Angabe desjenigen, was verlangt wird, sondern es finden sich auch allerlei Anweisungen, wie man es in der Schule machen soll. Das heißt, man war in den letzten Jahrzehnten auf dem Wege dahin, die Pädagogik aufsaugen zu lassen von der Staatsgesetzgebung. Und vielleicht ist es ein Ideal manches Gesetzgebers, nach und nach alles dasjenige, was in den alten Literaturwerken über Pädagogik gestanden hat, als «Amtsblatt-Publikationen», als «Verordnungen» auszugeben. Die sozialistischen Führer haben im Unterbewußtsein ganz entschieden dieses Bestreben — wenn sie sich auch heute noch schämen, das ganz offen zu sagen, es sitzt doch in ihrem Unterbewußtsein drinnen -, sie haben das Ideal, dasjenige in Verordnungen einzuklammern, was noch vor verhältnismäßig kurzer Zeit freies Geistesgut auch auf dem Gebiete der Pädagogik war.
Aus diesem Grunde muß es sein, daß wir hier, die wir das Erziehungs- und Unterrichtswesen bewahren wollen vor ihrem Leninschen Untergang, der auch Mitteleuropa ergreifen könnte, uns dem Verstehen des Lehrplans ganz anders nähern müssen, als heute der gewöhnliche Lehrer sich dem «Amtsblatt» nähert, das er schon mit ernster Miene in den Zeiten der Monarchie und in den Zeiten des gewöhnlichen, demokratischen Parlamentarismus angeschaut hat, das er aber mit ganz besonderen Gehorsamkeitsgefühlen anschauen wird, wenn es ihm von seinen Diktatorengenossen ins Haus geschickt wird. Das, was im Sozialismus als Tyrannis liegen kann, das würde man ganz besonders zu spüren bekommen auf dem Gebiete des Unterrichts- und Erziehungswesens. Wir mußten uns also in einer ganz andern Weise auch dem Lehrplan nähern. Das heißt, wir mußten uns diesem Lehrplan so nähern, daß wir uns in die Lage versetzen, ihn eigentlich in jedem Augenblick uns selber zu bilden, so daß wir ablesen lernen dem 7., 8., 9., 10. Jahre und so weiter, was wir in diesen Jahren zu treiben haben. Wir werden uns morgen den Ideallehrplan und dann den Lehrplan, wie er einmal jetzt in den äußeren Schulen Mitteleuropas üblich ist, nebeneinanderstellen. Aber wir werden uns gründlich zu diesem Abschlusse vorbereitet haben, wenn wir alles das wirklich gefühlsmäßig in uns aufgenommen haben, was wir auf dem Wege zur Lehrplanerkenntnis aufnehmen sollten.
Da ist auch noch etwas außerordentlich wichtig, was heute in der offiziellen Pädagogik ziemlich falsch beurteilt wird. Ich habe die vorherige Stunde gerade damit geschlossen, daß ich von der Moral der Pädagogik gesprochen habe. Diese Moral der Pädagogik muß aber in der Didaktik Unterrichtspraxis werden, Unterrichtspraxis wird sie nur, wenn man dasjenige vermeidet, was heute vielfach in den Beispielen gegeben wird, die in den Büchern stehen, die von Didaktik handeln. Da wird von Anschauungsunterricht gesprochen. Er ist schon recht, wir haben auch darauf hingewiesen, wie er gepflegt werden soll. Aber immer mußten wir betonen, daß dieser Anschauungsunterricht nirgends trivial werden darf, daß er nirgends über ein notwendiges Maß hinausgehen darf. Das ewige Abfragen des Schülers nach selbstverständlichen Dingen zur Pflege des Anschauungsunterrichts, das heißt: über den ganzen Unterricht eine Sphäre der Langweile breiten, die nicht da sein darf. Und es nimmt dem Unterricht gerade dasjenige, was ich eben am Schlusse der vorigen Stunde als so notwendig hervorgehoben habe: die Ausbildung der Phantasiefähigkeit bei den Zöglingen. Besprechen Sie mit den Zöglingen die Form eines beliebigen Kochtopfes, um Anschauungsunterricht zu treiben, vergleichsweise ge an i sprochen, so werden Sie seine Phantasie untergraben. Besprechen Sie mit ihm die Formen einer griechischen Vase und überlassen Sie ihm selbst, von der Auffassung der Formen der griechischen Vase die Seelenkräfte auch zum Verstehen eines gewöhnlichen, trivialen Kochtopfes hinüberzuziehen, dann werden Sie etwas Besseres tun, als was heute oftmals der Anschauungsunterricht treibt. Denn dieser Anschauungsunterricht ist oftmals gerade für die Phantasie ertötend. Und es ist nicht uneben für den Unterricht, wenn Sie gerade daran denken, mancherlei im Unterricht unausgesprochen sein zu lassen, so daß das Kind veranlaßt ist, sich in seinen Seelenkräften weiter mit dem zu befassen, was es im Unterricht aufgenommen hat. Es ist gar nicht gut, bis zum allerletzten i-Tüpfelchen alles erklären zu wollen im Unterricht. Dann geht das Kind nur aus der Schule und hat das Gefühl, daß es alles schon aufgenommen hat und sucht nach anderem Allotria. Während, wenn Sie der Phantasie beim Kinde Keime geben, dann bleibt das Kind gefesselt durch dasjenige, was ihm im Unterricht geboten wird und sucht weniger nach anderem Allotria. Daß heute unsere Kinder solche Rangen werden, das hängt nur damit zusammen, daß wir zu viel falschen Anschauungsunterricht und zu wenig Willens- und Gefühlsunterricht treiben.
Aber noch in einer andern Weise ist es notwendig, wirklich ganz innerlich seelisch zusammenzuwachsen mit dem Lehrplan.
Wenn Sie das Kind für die ersten Volksschuljahre bekommen, dann ist es ein ganz anderes Wesen als in den letzten Volksschuljahren. Wenn Sie das Kind in den ersten Volksschuljahren bekommen, dann ist es noch sehr, sehr leiblich, es steckt noch sehr in seinem Leibe drin. Wenn Sie das Kind aus der Schule entlassen, so müssen Sie in ihm die Fähigkeit veranlagt haben, nicht mehr mit allen Fibern der Seele im Leibe drinnenzustecken, unabhängig geworden zu sein vom Leibe in bezug auf Denken, Fühlen und Wollen. Versuchen Sie, sich etwas intimer in die Natur des werdenden Menschen zu vertiefen, so werden Sie finden, daß, verhältnismäßig, besonders dann, wenn die Kinder nicht schon in den allerersten Jahren verzogen worden sind, in den ersten Schuljahren die Zöglinge noch gesunde Instinkte haben. Sie haben in den ersten Schuljahren noch nicht durchaus den Hang, sich mit Süßigkeiten und dergleichen zu überfressen. Sie haben noch gewisse gesunde Instinkte für ihre Ernährung, wie ja auch das Tier, weil es ganz. im Leibe steckt, sehr gute Instinkte hat für seine Ernährung. Es vermeidet das Tier, eben weil es in seinem Leibe drinsteckt, dasjenige, was ihm schädlich ist. Mindestens gehört es zu den Ausnahmen, daß sich in der Tierwelt solche Übel verbreiten, wie der Alkohol sich verbreitet hat in der Menschenwelt. Die Verbreitung solcher Übel wie des Alkohols, kommt nur davon her, daß der Mensch ein so geistiges Wesen ist, so unabhängig werden kann von der Leiblichkeit. Denn die Leiblichkeit in ihrer Vernunft ist niemals dazu veranlagt, Alkoholiker zu werden zum Beispiel. Also gesunde Ernährungsinstinkte leben verhältnismäßig noch in den Kindern der ersten Schuljahre. Diese hören auf; sie hören auf um der Entwickelung des Menschen willen mit den letzten Schuljahren. Und wenn die Geschlechtsreife an den Menschen herangerückt ist, dann bedeutet das zugleich auch, daß er seine Instinkte für die Ernährung verloren hat, daß er dasjenige, was ihm früher die Instinkte gegeben haben, durch die Vernunft ersetzen muß. Deshalb ist es so, daß Sie gewissermaßen die letzten Offenbarungen der Ernährungs- und Gesundheitsinstinkte noch abfangen können in den letzten Volksschuljahren des werdenden Menschen. Da kommen Sie gerade noch heran an die letzten Offenbarungen der gesunden Ernährungsinstinkte, Wachstumsinstinkte und so weiter. Später kommen Sie nicht mehr an das innere Fühlen der richtigen Ernährungs- und Gesundheitspflege heran. Daher gehört gerade in die letzten Volksschuljahre hinein eine Unterweisung über die Ernährung und die Gesundheitspflege des Menschen. Man sollte gerade in dieser Beziehung Anschauungsunterricht treiben. Denn dieser Anschauungsunterricht, der kann wiederum die Phantasie recht gut unterstützen. Legen Sie dem Kinde dreierlei vor, legen Sie ihm vor, oder erinnern Sie es daran, denn es hat ja diese Dinge schon gesehen, irgendeine Substanz, die im wesentlichen Stärke oder Zucker ist, eine Substanz, die im wesentlichen Fett ist, eine Substanz, die im wesentlichen Eiweiß ist. Das Kind kennt das. Aber erinnern Sie das Kind daran, daß sich im wesentlichen aus diesen drei Bestandteilen die Tätigkeit des menschlichen Organismus herschreibt. Davon ausgehend, gehen Sie dann dazu über, dem Kinde in den letzten Volksschuljahren auseinanderzusetzen die Geheimnisse der Ernährung. Dann beschreiben Sie ihm genau die Atmung und entwickeln ihm alles dasjenige, was in bezug auf Ernährung und Atmung mit der menschlichen Gesundheitspflege zusammenhängt. Sie gewinnen für Ihre Erziehung und Ihren Unterricht ungeheuer viel dadurch, daß Sie diese Unterweisung gerade in diesen Jahren vornehmen. Da fangen Sie eben noch die letzten instinktiven Offenbarungen der Gesundungs- und Ernährungsinstinkte ab. Daher kommt es, daß Sie das Kind in diesen Jahren über die Ernährungs- und Gesundheitsbedingungen unterrichten können, ohne daß Sie das Kind für das ganze spätere Leben durch diesen Unterricht egoistisch machen. Es ist dem Kinde noch natürlich, instinktiv seine Gesundheits- und Ernährungsbedingungen zu erfüllen. Deshalb kann man ihm davon reden, und es schlägt dieser Rede noch etwas von dem entgegen, was dem Menschen natürlich ist und ihn nicht egoistisch macht. Werden die Kinder nicht in diesen Jahren über Ernährungs- und Gesundheitsverhältnisse unterrichtet, dann müssen sie sich später erst durch Lesen oder durch Mitteilungen von andern darüber unterrichten. Was später, nach der Geschlechtsreife, über Ernährungs- und Gesundheitsverhältnisse auf irgendeinem Wege an den Menschen herankommt, das erzeugt in ihm den Egoismus. Es kann gar nicht anders, als den Egoismus erzeugen. Wenn Sie eine Ernährungsphysiologie, wenn Sie einen Abriß von Regeln für Gesundheitspflege lesen, dann machen Sie sich, das liegt einfach in der Natur der Sache, durch diese Lektüre egoistischer, als Sie vorher gewesen sind. Dieser Egoismus, der fortwährend ausgeht von unserer verstandesgemäßen Bekanntschaft mit unserer eigenen Pflege, dieser Egoismus muß ja gerade durch die Moral bekämpft werden. Brauchten wir uns nicht physisch zu pflegen, so brauchten wir ja seelisch keine Moral zu haben. Aber der Mensch ist den Gefahren des Egoismus im späteren Leben weniger ausgesetzt, wenn er in Ernährungs- und Gesundheitslehre unterrichtet wird in den letzten Volksschuljahren, wo der Unterricht über Ernährungsfragen und Gesundheitslehre noch nicht auf den Egoismus geht, sondern auf das dem Menschen Natürliche.
Sie sehen, in welch hohem Maße Lebensfragen darinnen liegen, im rechten Zeitpunkte den Menschen in irgend etwas zu unterrichten. Sie sorgen wirklich für das ganze Leben vor, wenn Sie den Menschen in irgendeinem Zeitpunkte vom Rechten unterrichten. Könnte man natürlich die siebenjährigen oder achtjährigen Kinder mit der Ernährungslehre, mit der Gesundheitslehre durchdringen, dann wäre das das Allerbeste. Dann würden sie in der unegoistischsten Weise diese Ernährungs- und Gesundheitslehre aufnehmen, denn sie wissen noch kaum, daß sie sich auf sie selbst bezieht. Sie würden sich selbst wie ein Objekt, nicht wie ein Subjekt betrachten. Aber sie verstehen es noch nicht; die Urteilskraft ist noch nicht so weit, daß sie es verstehen. Daher können Sie Ernährungs- und Gesundheitslehre nicht in diesen Jahren treiben, müssen sie also auf die letzten Schuljahre aufsparen, wo das Feuer des inneren Instinktes für Ernährung und Gesundheit schon abglimmt, wo aber gegenüber diesem abglimmenden Instinkte die Fähigkeit schon vorhanden ist, das, was für sie in Betracht kommt, aufzufassen. Bei jeder Gelegenheit ist es möglich, für die älteren Kinder irgend etwas einfließen zu lassen, was sich auf die Gesundheits- und Ernährungslehre bezieht. In der Naturgeschichte, in dem physikalischen Unterricht, auch in dem Unterricht, der die Geographie sehr verbreitert, sogar in dem geschichtlichen Unterricht, überall läßt sich Ernährungs- und Gesundheitslehre einflechten. Sie werden daraus ersehen, daß es nicht notwendig ist, es als Lehrgegenstand in den Schulplan aufzunehmen, und daß vieles so im Unterrichte leben muß, daß wir es eben in den Unterricht einfließen lassen. Wenn wir Verständnis haben für dasjenige, was das Kind aufnehmen soll, dann sagt uns jeden Tag das Kind selber, oder die Gemeinschaft der Kinder, die in der Schule versammelt sind, was wir an Zwischensätzen gewissermaßen in den andern Unterricht einzufügen haben, wie wir nur als Lehrer auch eine gewisse Geistesgegenwart zu entwickeln haben. Wenn wir als Fachlehrer der Geographie oder der Geschichte dressiert sind, dann werden wir nicht diese Geistesgegenwart entwickeln, denn dann haben wir nur das Bestreben, von Anfang der Geschichtsstunde an bis zum Ende der Geschichtsstunde Geschichte zu treiben. Und da können dann jene außerordentlich unnatürlichen Verhältnisse eintreten, deren schädliche Wirkungen auf das Leben noch gar nicht voll in Betracht gezogen werden.
Es ist eine intime Wahrheit, daß wir dem Menschen etwas Gutes tun, etwas, was seinen Egoismus weniger hochkommen läßt, wenn wir ihm Ernährungs- und Gesundheitslehre in den letzten Volksschuljahren erteilen, wie ich es Ihnen auseinandergesetzt habe.
Da aber ist es auch möglich, schon auf manches hinzuweisen, was den ganzen Unterricht durchdringt mit Gefühlsmäßigem. Und wenn Sie Ihrem Unterrichtsstoff überall etwas Gefühlsmäßiges anhängen, dann bleibt das, was durch den Unterricht erreicht werden soll, durch das ganze Leben hindurch. Wenn Sie aber in dem Unterricht in den letzten Volksschuljahren nur Verstandesmäßiges, Intellektualistisches vermitteln, dann bleibt fürs Leben sehr wenig da. Daher müssen Sie darauf sinnen, dasjenige, was Sie in den letzten Volksschuljahren phantasievoll ausgestalten, zugleich mit Gefühlsmäßigem in ihrem eigenen Selbst zu durchdringen. Sie müssen versuchen, anschaulich, aber gefühlsmäßig anschaulich, Geographie, Geschichte, Naturgeschichte in den letzten Schuljahren vorzubringen. Zum Phantasiemäßigen muß das Gefühlsmäßige kommen.
Da gliedert sich Ihnen in der Tat die Volksschullehrzeit in bezug auf den Lehrplan deutlich in die drei Teile, die wir befolgt haben: Zunächst bis gegen das 9. Jahr hin, wo wir das Konventionelle, das Schreiben, das Lesen hauptsächlich an das werdende Menschenwesen heranbringen; dann bis zum 12. Jahr, wo wir alles dasjenige an das werdende Menschenwesen heranbringen, was sich ebenso von dem Konventionellen herleitet, wie auf der andern Seite von dem, was in der eigenen Urteilskraft des Menschen begründet ist. Und Sie haben ja gesehen: Wir versetzen in diese Schulzeit Tierkunde, Pflanzenkunde aus dem Grunde, weil der Mensch da noch ein gewisses instinktives Gefühl hat für die Verwandtschaften, die vorhanden sind. Ich habe Ihnen im Didaktischen gezeigt, wie Sie ein Gefühl für die Verwandtschaft des Menschen mit der ganzen Naturwelt an Tintenfisch, Maus, Lamm, Mensch entwickeln sollen. Wir haben uns auch viel Mühe gegeben und ich hoffe, sie wird nicht vergeblich sein, denn sie wird Blüten und Früchte tragen im Botanikunterricht -, die Verwandtschaft des Menschen mit der Pflanzenwelt zu entwickeln. Diese Dinge sollen wir mit gefühlsmäßigen Vorstellungen in dieser Mittelzeit des Volksschulunterrichts entwickeln, wo die Instinkte noch vorhanden sind für ein solches Sich-Verwandtfühlen mit den Tieren, mit den Pflanzen, wo schließlich immerhin, wenn es auch nicht in die gewöhnliche Helle des urteilenden Bewußstseins heraufsteigt, der Mensch sich bald als Katze fühlt, bald als Wolf, bald als Löwe oder als Adler. Dieses Sich-Fühlen bald als das eine, bald als das andere, das ist so nur noch gleich nach dem 9. Jahr vorhanden. Vorher ist es stärker vorhanden, aber es kann nicht durchdrungen werden, weil die Fassungskraft nicht dazu vorhanden ist. Würden Kinder ganz frühreif sein und schon im 4., 5. Jahr viel von sich sprechen, so würden die Vergleiche von sich mit dem Adler, mit der Maus und so weiter bei Kindern sehr, sehr häufig sein. Aber wenn wir mit dem 9. Jahr beginnen, so wie wir darauf hingewiesen haben, Naturgeschichte zu unterrichten, so stoßen wir immerhin noch auf viel verwandtes, instinktives Empfinden beim Kinde. Später reift dieses Instinktive auch für das Empfinden der Verwandtschaft mit der Pflanzenwelt. Daher zuerst Naturgeschichte des Tierreiches, dann Naturgeschichte des Pflanzenreiches. Die Mineralien lassen wir uns eben bis zuletzt übrig, weil zu ihnen fast nur Urteilskraft notwendig ist, und diese appelliert nicht an irgend etwas, wodurch der Mensch verwandt ist mit der Außenwelt. Der Mensch ist ja auch nicht mit dem Mineralreich verwandt. Er muß es ja vor allen Dingen auflösen, wie ich es Ihnen gezeigt habe. Selbst das Salz duldet der Mensch nicht unaufgelöst in sich; sobald er es aufnimmt, muß er es auflösen. Es liegt also durchaus in der Menschennatur, den Lehrplan so einzurichten, wie wir es angedeutet haben. Da ist ein schönes Gleichgewicht in der mittleren Volksschulzeit vom 9. bis zum 11. Jahr zwischen dem Instinktiven und der Urteilskraft. Wir können überall voraussetzen, daß das Kind uns Verständnis entgegenbringt, wenn wir auf ein gewisses instinktives Verstehen rechnen, wenn wir nicht — besonders in der Naturgeschichte und in der Botanik nicht - zu anschaulich werden. Wir müssen das äußerliche Analogisieren gerade mit Bezug auf die Pflanzenwelt vermeiden, denn das widerstrebt eigentlich dem natürlichen Gefühl. Das natürliche Gefühl ist schon so veranlagt, daß es seelische Eigenschaften in den Pflanzen sucht; nicht die äußere Leibesgestalt des Menschen in dem oder jenem Baum, sondern seelische Beziehungen, wie wir sie eben versuchten für das Pflanzensystem festzustellen.
Und dasjenige, was eigentlich Urteilskraft ist, wobei wir auf das verstandesmäßige, intellektuelle Verstehen des Menschen rechnen können, das gehört in die letzte Volksschulzeit. Deshalb benützen wir gerade das 12. Jahr, wo es nach dem urteilenden Verstehen hingeht, um dieses zusammenfließen zu lassen mit demjenigen, wozu noch ein gewisser Instinkt notwendig ist, der aber schon sehr stark überdeckt wird von der Urteilskraft. Da sind gewissermaßen die Abenddämmerungsinstinkte der Seele, die wir mit der Urteilskraft überwinden müssen.
In dieser Zeit ist zu berücksichtigen, daß der Mensch einen Instinkt hat für Zinsbezug, für dasjenige, was einzuheimsen ist, was im Diskont liegt und so weiter. Das appelliert an die Instinkte; aber wir müssen das schon sehr stark mit Urteilskraft übertönen, daher müssen wir die Beziehungen, die zwischen dem Rechnerischen und zwischen der Warenzirkulation und den Vermögensverhältnissen bestehen, also Prozentrechnung, Zinsrechnung und so weiter, Diskontrechnung und ähnliches schon in diese Zeit versetzen.
Das ist von großer Wichtigkeit, daß wir diese Begriffe dem Kinde nicht zu spät beibringen. Ihm diese Begriffe zu spät beibringen heißt eigentlich, beim Beibringen nur auf seinen Egoismus rechnen. Wir rechnen noch nicht auf den Egoismus, wenn wir so zum 12. Jahr hin dem Menschen etwas vom Begreifen des Wechsels und dergleichen, von den Begriffen der kaufmännischen Rechnung und so weiter beibringen. Das eigentliche Buchführen können wir dann später machen; da ist schon mehr Verstand drinnen. Aber diese Begriffe beizubringen, das ist von großer Bedeutung für diese Zeit. Denn es regen sich noch nicht die inneren selbstischen Gefühle für Zinsen, Wechselausstellung und dergleichen, wenn das Kind noch so jung ist. In der Handelsschule wird das dann schon bedenklicher, wenn der Mensch älter ist.
Das sind solche Dinge, die Sie ganz gründlich als Unterrichtende, als Lehrende in sich aufnehmen müssen. Versuchen Sie, nur ja nicht zu viel zu tun, sagen wir im Beschreiben der Pflanzen. Versuchen Sie gerade den Pflanzenunterricht so zu geben, daß noch viel übrigbleibt für die Phantasie der Schüler, daß das Kind noch viel, viel aus der Empfindung heraus sich phantasievoll ausbilden kann über dasjenige, was als seelische Beziehungen waltet zwischen der menschlichen Seele und der Pflanzenwelt. Wer gar zu viel von dem Anschauungsunterricht fabelt, der weiß eben nicht, daß es dem Menschen Dinge beizubringen gibt, die sich eben nicht äußerlich anschauen lassen. Und wenn man versucht, durch Anschauungsunterricht dem Menschen Dinge beizubringen, die man ihm eigentlich beibringen sollte durch moralische, gefühlsmäßige Wirkung auf ihn, so schadet man ihm gerade durch den Anschauungsunterricht. Man darf eben nicht vergessen, daß das bloße Anschauen und Veranschaulichen sehr stark eine Beigabe unserer materialistischen Zeitgesinnung ist. Natürlich muß man die Anschauung da, wo sie am rechten Platz ist, pflegen, aber man darf nicht dasjenige in Anschauung umwandeln, was dazu geeignet ist, eine moralisch-gemütvolle Wirkung von dem Lehrer auf den Schüler ausgehen zu lassen.
Jetzt glaube ich, haben Sie so viel aufgenommen, daß wir dann wirklich unseren Lehrplan formieren können.
Damit schließen die Ausführungen Rudolf Steiners am 5. September 1919.
Am folgenden Tag gab er dann in den drei Lehrplanvorträgen eine skizzenhafte Darstellung der Lehrziele für die einzelnen Fächer auf den verschiedenen Altersstufen, in den einzelnen Klassen; er wies auf die Fächer hin, welche in der Behandlung miteinander verknüpft werden können.
Als Schluß dieser vierzehntägigen Arbeit mit den Lehrern sprach dann Rudolf Steiner die folgenden Worte:
Fourteenth Lecture
If you were to look back at the curricula that were issued relatively recently, six or five decades ago, you would see that these curricula were relatively short. A few short sentences specified what should be done in each school year for one subject or another. The curricula were at most two, three, or four pages long, and everything else was left to the pedagogical and didactic teaching itself, which sought to inspire teachers to do what they had to do with the curricula based on their own assumptions and their own strengths. Today, things have changed. Today, the curriculum for secondary schools has grown into a book with “Official Gazette” written on the cover. And this book not only specifies what is required, but also contains all kinds of instructions on how to do it in school. This means that in recent decades, there has been a move towards allowing pedagogy to be absorbed by state legislation. And perhaps it is the ideal of many legislators to gradually publish everything that was written in the old literature on pedagogy as “official gazette publications” and “regulations.” The socialist leaders have this aspiration quite decisively in their subconscious—even if they are still ashamed to say so openly today, it is still there in their subconscious—they have the ideal of enclosing in regulations what was, until relatively recently, free intellectual property in the field of pedagogy.
For this reason, we who want to preserve education and teaching from their Leninist demise, which could also engulf Central Europe, must approach the understanding of the curriculum in a completely different way than the ordinary teacher today approaches the “official gazette,” which he already regarded with a serious expression in the days of the monarchy and in the days of ordinary democratic parliamentarianism, but which he will regard with a very special sense of obedience when it is sent to his home by his fellow dictators. What may be tyrannical in socialism would be felt particularly strongly in the field of education and training. So we had to approach the curriculum in a completely different way. That is, we had to approach this curriculum in such a way that we put ourselves in a position to actually form it ourselves at any moment, so that we learn to read from the 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th years and so on what we have to do in these years. Tomorrow we will compare the ideal curriculum with the curriculum that is currently used in the external schools of Central Europe. But we will have thoroughly prepared ourselves for this conclusion when we have truly absorbed everything we should absorb on the way to understanding the curriculum.
There is also something else that is extremely important, which is currently being misjudged in official pedagogy. I concluded the previous lesson by talking about the morality of pedagogy. However, this morality of pedagogy must become teaching practice in didactics, and it will only become teaching practice if we avoid what is often given in the examples in books on didactics. These books talk about visual teaching. It is quite right, and we have also pointed out how it should be cultivated. But we have always had to emphasize that this visual teaching must never become trivial, that it must never go beyond what is necessary. Constantly questioning the student about self-evident things in order to cultivate visual teaching means spreading a sphere of boredom over the entire lesson, which must not be allowed to happen. And it takes away from the lesson precisely what I emphasized as so necessary at the end of the previous lesson: the development of the pupils' imagination. If you discuss the shape of any cooking pot with the pupils in order to teach them a visual lesson, comparing it to other pots, you will undermine their imagination. Discuss with them the shapes of a Greek vase and leave it to them to transfer the mental powers they use to understand the shapes of the Greek vase to the understanding of an ordinary, trivial cooking pot, and you will do something better than what visual teaching often does today. For this visual teaching is often precisely what kills the imagination. And it is not detrimental to teaching if you remember to leave some things unsaid in class, so that the child is prompted to continue to engage with what they have learned in class in their soul forces. It is not good to want to explain everything down to the last detail in class. Then the child leaves school feeling that they have already absorbed everything and looks for other distractions. Whereas if you give the child's imagination something to work with, the child will remain captivated by what is offered in class and will be less inclined to look for other distractions. The fact that our children today become such ranks is only because we give them too much false visual instruction and too little instruction in will and feeling.
But in another way, too, it is necessary to really grow together with the curriculum in a deep inner way.
When you receive the child for the first years of elementary school, it is a completely different being than in the last years of elementary school. When you receive the child in the first years of elementary school, it is still very, very physical, still very much in its body. When you release the child from school, you must have instilled in it the ability to no longer be stuck in its body with every fiber of its soul, to have become independent of the body in terms of thinking, feeling, and willing. If you try to delve a little more deeply into the nature of the developing human being, you will find that, relatively speaking, especially if the children have not been spoiled in their very early years, the pupils still have healthy instincts in their first years of school. In the first years of school, they do not yet have a tendency to overeat sweets and the like. They still have certain healthy instincts for their nutrition, just as animals, because they are completely within their bodies, have very good instincts for their nutrition. Precisely because they are within their bodies, animals avoid what is harmful to them. It is at least an exception that evils such as alcohol have spread in the animal world as they have in the human world. The spread of evils such as alcohol only comes from the fact that human beings are such spiritual beings that they can become independent of their physicality. For physicality, in its rationality, is never predisposed to becoming an alcoholic, for example. So healthy eating instincts still live on relatively well in children in their first years of school. These cease; they cease for the sake of human development in the last years of school. And when sexual maturity approaches, it also means that the person has lost their instincts for nutrition, that they must replace what their instincts previously gave them with reason. That is why you can still catch the last revelations of the instincts for nutrition and health in the last years of elementary school of the developing human being. This is when you can still access the last manifestations of healthy nutritional instincts, growth instincts, and so on. Later on, you will no longer be able to access the inner feeling of proper nutrition and health care. That is why instruction on human nutrition and health care belongs precisely in the last years of elementary school. It is precisely in this regard that visual instruction should be given. This visual teaching can in turn support the imagination quite well. Present three things to the child, or remind them of these things, because they have already seen them: a substance that is essentially starch or sugar, a substance that is essentially fat, and a substance that is essentially protein. The child knows these things. But remind the child that the activity of the human organism is essentially derived from these three components. Starting from this, move on to explaining the secrets of nutrition to the child in the last years of elementary school. Then describe breathing to them in detail and develop everything related to nutrition and breathing in connection with human health care. You will gain an enormous amount for your education and teaching by providing this instruction during these years. This is when you can still capture the last instinctive revelations of the instincts for health and nutrition. This is why you can teach children about nutrition and health during these years without making them selfish for the rest of their lives. It is still natural for children to instinctively fulfill their health and nutritional needs. That is why you can talk to them about it, and they will respond to this talk with something that is natural to human beings and does not make them selfish. If children are not taught about nutrition and health during these years, they will have to learn about it later through reading or from others. Whatever information about nutrition and health reaches people later, after puberty, in whatever way, will make them selfish. It cannot help but make them selfish. When you read about nutritional physiology or an outline of rules for health care, you naturally become more selfish than you were before. This selfishness, which constantly emanates from our intellectual knowledge of our own care, must be combated by morality. If we did not need to take care of ourselves physically, we would not need to have morality in our souls. But people are less exposed to the dangers of selfishness in later life if they are taught nutrition and health in the last years of elementary school, where teaching about nutrition and health does not yet focus on selfishness, but on what is natural to human beings.
You see how important it is to teach people about life at the right time. You are really preparing them for life when you teach them the right things at the right time. Of course, it would be best if seven- or eight-year-old children could be taught about nutrition and health. Then they would absorb this nutrition and health education in the most unselfish way, because they hardly know yet that it applies to themselves. They would regard themselves as objects, not as subjects. But they do not yet understand; their power of judgment is not yet developed enough for them to understand. Therefore, you cannot teach nutrition and health education at this age, but must save it for the last years of school, when the fire of the inner instinct for nutrition and health is already dying down, but when, in contrast to this dying instinct, the ability to understand what is relevant to them is already present. At every opportunity, it is possible to introduce something related to health and nutrition education to older children. In natural history, in physics lessons, even in lessons that broaden geography, and even in history lessons, nutrition and health education can be woven in everywhere. You will see from this that it is not necessary to include it as a subject in the school curriculum, and that much of it must live in the lessons in such a way that we simply weave it into the lessons. If we understand what the child is supposed to learn, then every day the child itself, or the community of children gathered at school, tells us what we need to insert into the other lessons, so to speak, as interjections, and how we as teachers need to develop a certain presence of mind. If we are trained as subject teachers of geography or history, then we will not develop this presence of mind, because then we will only strive to teach history from the beginning of the history lesson to the end of the history lesson. And then those extremely unnatural conditions can arise, the harmful effects of which on life have not yet been fully considered.
It is an intimate truth that we do something good for people, something that reduces their egoism, when we teach them nutrition and health in the last years of elementary school, as I have explained to you.
But it is also possible to point out many things that permeate the entire lesson with emotion. And if you attach something emotional to your teaching material everywhere, then what is to be achieved through the lesson will remain throughout life. But if you only teach intellectual, intellectual things in the last years of elementary school, very little will remain for life. Therefore, you must strive to imbue what you imaginatively develop in the last years of elementary school with emotional content in your own self. You must try to present geography, history, and natural history in the last years of school in a vivid but emotionally vivid way. Imagination must be accompanied by emotion.
In fact, the elementary school teaching period is clearly divided into the three parts that we have followed in terms of the curriculum: First, up to about the age of 9, where we mainly introduce the conventional, writing, and reading to the developing human being; then up to the age of 12, where we introduce to the developing human being everything that is derived from the conventional as well as from what is based on the human being's own power of judgment. And as you have seen, we include zoology and botany in this school period because human beings still have a certain instinctive feeling for the relationships that exist. In the didactics, I have shown you how to develop a feeling for the relationship between human beings and the whole natural world through squid, mice, lambs, and human beings. We have also made a great effort, and I hope it will not be in vain, because it will bear fruit in botany lessons, to develop the relationship between humans and the plant world. We should develop these things with emotional mental images in this middle period of elementary school education, when the instincts are still present for such a feeling of kinship with animals and plants, when, after all, even if it does not rise to the usual brightness of the judging consciousness, the human being soon feels like a cat, then like a wolf, sometimes as a lion or an eagle. This feeling of being sometimes one thing, sometimes another, is only present immediately after the age of 9. Before that, it is more strongly present, but it cannot be penetrated because the capacity to comprehend it is not yet there. If children were very precocious and already talked a lot about themselves at the age of 4 or 5, comparisons of themselves with eagles, mice, and so on would be very, very common among children. But when we begin to teach natural history at the age of 9, as we have pointed out, we still encounter many related, instinctive feelings in children. Later, this instinctive feeling also matures for the feeling of kinship with the plant world. Therefore, first natural history of the animal kingdom, then natural history of the plant kingdom. We leave minerals until last because they require almost only power of judgment, and this does not appeal to anything through which humans are related to the outside world. After all, humans are not related to the mineral kingdom. Above all, they must dissolve it, as I have shown you. Even salt is not tolerated by humans in an undissolved state; as soon as they ingest it, they must dissolve it. It is therefore entirely in human nature to organize the curriculum as we have suggested. There is a nice balance between instinct and judgment in middle elementary school, from grades 9 to 11. We can assume everywhere that the child will show us understanding if we count on a certain instinctive understanding, if we do not become too vivid — especially in natural history and botany. We must avoid external analogies, especially with regard to the plant world, because this actually goes against natural feeling. Natural feeling is already predisposed to seek spiritual qualities in plants; not the external physical form of humans in this or that tree, but spiritual relationships, as we have just tried to establish for the plant system.
And what is actually power of judgment, whereby we can count on the intellectual understanding of human beings, belongs to the last years of elementary school. That is why we use the 12th year, when judgmental understanding comes into play, to allow this to flow together with that which still requires a certain instinct, but which is already very much overshadowed by the power of judgment. These are, so to speak, the twilight instincts of the soul, which we must overcome with the power of judgment.
During this period, it must be taken into account that human beings have an instinct for receiving interest, for what can be reaped, for what lies in discount, and so on. This appeals to the instincts, but we must drown it out with our power of judgment, which is why we must already introduce the relationships that exist between arithmetic, the circulation of goods, and financial circumstances, i.e., calculating percentages, interest, discounts, and the like, at this stage.
It is very important that we do not teach these concepts to the child too late. Teaching these concepts to the child too late actually means relying solely on their egoism when teaching them. We are not yet counting on selfishness when we teach 12-year-olds something about understanding bills of exchange and the like, about the concepts of commercial arithmetic, and so on. We can do the actual bookkeeping later; by then they will have more understanding. But teaching these concepts is very important at this age. For when the child is still so young, the inner selfish feelings for interest, bills of exchange, and the like are not yet stirred. In business school, this becomes more of a concern when the person is older.
These are the kinds of things that you, as teachers, must take to heart. Try not to do too much, for example when describing plants. Try to teach botany in such a way that there is still plenty left for the students' imagination, so that the child can still develop a great deal of imagination based on their feelings about the spiritual relationships between the human soul and the plant world. Those who place too much emphasis on visual teaching do not realize that there are things to be taught to human beings that cannot be seen externally. And if one tries to teach people things through visual teaching that should actually be taught through moral and emotional influence, then one is actually harming them through visual teaching. One must not forget that mere observation and illustration are very much an addition to our materialistic contemporary mindset. Of course, one must cultivate observation where it is appropriate, but one must not convert into observation that which is suitable for exerting a moral and emotional influence from the teacher on the student.
Now I believe you have absorbed enough that we can really start to form our curriculum.
This concludes Rudolf Steiner's remarks on September 5, 1919.
The following day, in three lectures on the curriculum, he gave a rough outline of the teaching objectives for the individual subjects at the various age levels and in the individual classes; he pointed out the subjects that could be linked together in their treatment.
At the end of this fortnight of work with the teachers, Rudolf Steiner spoke the following words (see NEXT lecture):