Faculty Meetings with Rudolf Steiner
GA 300
Seventeenth Meeting
31 July 1920, Stuttgart
Dr. Steiner: What do we need to discuss? Who wants to say something?
A teacher: I want to ask how we will divide the foreign language classes.
Dr. Steiner: In general, the foreign language classes will continue as they were, and the teachers who taught them will continue next year. However, there will be something new with the first grade. How many class teachers have taught foreign language in their class themselves? Miss Lang and Mrs. Koegel, both languages. Geyer, Dr. von Heydebrand, Miss von Mirbach, and Kolisko, one language each. Next year, Miss Uhland will take over both languages in her first grade and perhaps Mr. Killian in his.
Dr. Schubert will have the beginning fourth grade Latin class and Geyer, the fifth and sixth grades. We will have to see how many want to take Latin. The interest is not too great.
Hahn will have the independent religious instruction for the first through third grade group and also the seventh through ninth graders. Then, we need someone only for the fourth, fifth and sixth grades. What should we do there? How about asking Mr. Uehli? That might be a solution. He doesn’t have much time, but two hours per week might be possible. I think we should consider Mr. Uehli for the fourth through sixth grades.
If there is nothing else, I would like to bring up something I know some of you want, namely, the problem of the World School Association.
A teacher: We thought we should immediately found the World School Association so it can begin collecting money, whether for schools or for the Goetheanum. The Waldorf School Association would be a member of the World School Association.
Dr. Steiner: How do you imagine we would collect the money and administer it from one place? We certainly cannot do what was requested after the lecture last night. We would collect that for the Waldorf School. What we collect for the Waldorf School should not be forgotten. Should we have a meeting and tell people that besides what we did last night, we will also do this other thing?
There was then considerable discussion about the events of the previous evening.
A teacher: What happened yesterday relates particularly to collecting for the Waldorf School. What we can do through the World School Association is to obtain money for all the activities so that there is no competition between these different collections by different groups.
Dr. Steiner: In a certain sense, competition already exists. We could wait until the things discussed last night are done, and then begin to think about founding a World School Association. Only when it is quite clear what will happen with the Waldorf School Association can we approach people about founding the World School Association. We cannot continue to try different things. What happened yesterday blocked the plan for the World School Association, and I do not think that is all that bad. We cannot do two such things at the same time.
A teacher: Couldn’t we found the World School Association in Dornach?
Dr. Steiner: We don’t need to decide that here. That would certainly not hinder collecting for the Waldorf School. If it were done in Dornach, we would need to stand behind it.
A teacher: We cannot postpone the plan for the Eurythmeum. We certainly cannot drop it.
Dr. Steiner: Well, because of the whole attitude that arose, it is certainly at an end. It was silly that I had to defend myself in that way, but it did happen, and we will now have to take the consequences. The dumb things we do exist so we can improve them, but important things should not suffer for that. Individual events express the whole.
A teacher: Dr. Steiner, you asked us to think about the name of the school. We should certainly assume that the whole business of the World School Association concerns us.
Dr. Steiner: I said that the name should indicate independence from the state. What I meant was that forming a World School Association could circumvent the difficulties that arise when people from out of town want to have their own schools, because the Association would exist to form such schools everywhere. I also said that could begin by supporting the Waldorf School with the money it needs. I did not mean we should spend our time on that. That would be important only if people wanted it. That is certainly the case. For now, we can only put things off until yesterday’s appeal takes effect. We cannot simply stand up now and say, “Yesterday we stood here and said we need to collect 256,000 marks for the Waldorf School, but today we’re going to give all that a new name. Today, we will collect for the World School Association.”
A teacher: That is not what I meant. What I meant is that we want to support the idea of creating a World School Association.
Dr. Steiner: Well, what does that mean? If you had added that we want to form a World School Association to what you said yesterday about how effective the school has been and our need for more donations, then that would now be on the table. We cannot form the World School Association ourselves. It was not my opinion that the faculty would form the World School Association. We certainly would not move one step forward regardless of how determined we are to do that.
A teacher: My understanding was that we wanted to ask you for some further suggestions.
Dr. Steiner: This seems premature to me. It is certainly premature to say anything about the work of such an organization. It is not yet urgent. You see, it might have helped had we stood firm upon the statement that we would not continue the school if we could not make the world understand that it must make sacrifices for this thing. That was the initial idea of the statement we wanted to present, but the picture shifted, primarily because, out of all we need, only a laughably small amount was presented. That is an illusion, because we will need two and a half times that much. It is certainly clear that we will receive the amount we asked for, and thus reach the first goal.
A teacher: Should we put announcements in the Norwegian and Dutch newspapers? Would that help?
Dr. Steiner: Certainly, if someone were to do it. All these things are good if they are done, very good. We do not need to decide things, someone can do them.
Well, then we’ve taken care of all the questions, if there is nothing more. I am certainly very sorry that a number of things happened that disturbed the harmony among us.
I want to say only that I’m sorry things did not end better. We will not meet again for some time. I wish you all a good and fruitful new year. For many of you, it will be a very difficult year if you are to achieve anything we have discussed. I cannot give you a longer speech now. Let’s begin the next school year fresh and strong.