Faculty Meetings with Rudolf Steiner
GA 300
Twenty-Second Meeting
16 January 1921, Stuttgart
Dr. Steiner: Since we have only a little time, we can discuss only the most important things. Perhaps you would be good enough to present the things that have come up in the faculty.
A teacher: The school was approved, but now we have received an official edict about how many children we can accept in the first grade. We need to discuss that.
Dr. Steiner: Discussing it will not help much. The order says that as long as the government allows it, we can have a first grade that at best is only as large as it was in these two school years, and that we cannot accept more children. That is what it clearly contains. There can be no talk at all of the school continuing in any way we wish. We can accept no more children than we have already had.
What we can say about it is that if we actually had a Union for Threefolding, we could protest against this school regulation. In connection with such things, the individual can never achieve anything. It is necessary to take a general position against such tendencies. There is not much else to say, and we cannot do much else about that order.
I also need to mention something about limitations in another area. There has never been any intention within the Anthroposophical Society of acting publicly against medical tyranny. To the contrary, we have had a tendency toward quackery, and that is what is ruining our movement, namely, this secret desire that we cannot speak about publicly. It is rampant. (Speaking to a teacher) You were certainly courageous enough today with your words. They can have consequences, but that will hurt nothing.
Another thing we must speak of is the fact that the threefold newspaper has not had one single new subscriber since the end of May. The fact that the Union for Threefolding is absolutely not functioning needs to be said.
A teacher: The school building will not be completed in time. We may need to put up a temporary building.
Dr. Steiner: We probably will have to put up such a temporary building. The prospect that this large school building costing millions will be completed in the near future is minimal. The money would have to come from The Coming Day. It is not very likely that The Coming Day could afford it since it has a number of absolutely necessary things to do. It is virtually impossible that they could use the first money for the construction of the school building. If they cannot use the first money, then we cannot think the school building will be completed in time for next school year. Technically, we could complete it, but financially that is impossible. Several teachers speak about ways of obtaining money.
Dr. Steiner: There is nothing standing in the way of obtaining money somehow. That kind of activity depends upon humor. I was unable to take care of the Waldorf School very much recently. That was very difficult for me. I have never gone away with such painful feelings as I do this time. I want to say a few things. It does not seem to me that our present Waldorf teachers can add much to such appeals. In general, I have the impression that the Waldorf teachers are sufficiently burdened with teaching the seminars. We need to relieve them of many things if the school is to flourish properly. I have the impression that we cannot burden you further. When you want to teach, you really need a certain amount of time for preparation. You need a thorough preparation of the material. Some of you are so burdened that that is no longer possible. Thus, I would decisively recommend to Dr. Stein that, when someone shoves him a task from the Union for Threefolding, he energetically refuse it. This is a way of correcting things. If the Union for Threefolding pushes things onto you that it should do itself, and then limits itself to withdrawing to its rooms, that is a method of overburdening and thus ruining those few people who really work, and allowing the others to return to their fortress so that nothing moves forward.
A teacher: I am supposed to give lectures. I have known for some time that I absolutely cannot do the necessary preparation.
Dr. Steiner: I am not complaining about you. I did not intend to criticize. It would certainly be inappropriate to criticize the best group. We need to spread things out more evenly. Certainly, when we arrange things properly, you can do things like you did in Darmstadt, but a much more intensive, cooperative working with the Union for Threefolding would need to exist. In any event, you must see to it that people do not hang things around your neck that are primarily the responsibility of those people in the Union for Threefolding. That goes for the rest of you also.
Our primary task is to take care of the school. The research laboratory and the school belong together in order to act in accord. They belong together.
A teacher: I would like to ask what to do about including music in the instruction. I have done it by playing a little piece on the piano at the beginning of class in order to prepare the mood.
Dr. Steiner: What you just said is nonsense. We can certainly not affect the instruction through an artificially created mood, and on the other hand, we cannot use an art for such an end. We must always maintain art for its own sake; it should not serve for preparing a mood. That seems to have a questionable similarity to a spiritualistic meeting. I do not think you should do this any more. The case would be different if you were teaching acoustics.
A teacher: I have always sought to make a connection.
Dr. Steiner: There is no connection between the Punic Wars and something musical. What do you suppose the connection to be? What is the goal? Not with eurythmy, either. You can certainly not present some eurythmy in order to create a mood for a shadow play. Would you want to give eurythmy presentations in order to write business letters? That would be an expansion in the other direction. Our task is to form the lessons as inwardly artistically as possible, but not through purely external means. That is as detrimental for the content of what we present as it is for the art itself. You cannot tell a fairy tale as preparation for a discussion on color theory. That would put the instruction upon the completely wrong track. We should form the instruction so that we create the mood out of it. If you find it necessary to first create a mood through something decorative, whereby the art itself suffers, then you are admitting that you cannot bring about that mood through the content of the lesson. I think it is questionable that sometimes anthroposophical discussions are preceded by some piece of music, although that is something else because that is done with adults. We cannot do that in the classroom, and we will need to stop it.
A teacher: Could we use that in physics as a bridge between music and acoustics?
Dr. Steiner: It would be desirable that you make acoustics more musical, and that you develop an artistic bridge to acoustics with music. It is certainly possible to bring music into that, but you should not try to do it in the way mentioned previously. I really don’t know what would remain for the Punic War if you took half an hour for all those things.
A eurythmy teacher: It was a very short poem.
Dr. Steiner: That is a ridiculous pedagogy. It is the best way to make eurythmy laughable.
A eurythmy teacher: I had the impression that the children were very interested.
Dr. Steiner: Perhaps they would be even more interested if you showed a short film. We may never pay any attention to what interests the children. We could let them dance around. What interests them is unimportant, it leads only to a terribly nonsensical pedagogy. If that became normal practice, then our instruction would suffer and eurythmy would be discredited. Either it is proper in principle, in which case we should do it, or it is wrong. Those are the two choices. In any event, this is something that doesn’t work.
There was that boy, T.L. in the 6-b class, who had difficulty writing, who made one stroke into the next. In such cases there is a tendency to cramp in the central nervous system, which may lead later to writer’s cramp. You need to try to counteract it at an early age. You should have this boy do eurythmy with barbells. He should do the movements with barbells. They don’t need to be particularly heavy, but he should do eurythmy with barbells. You will notice that his handwriting will improve in that way. You could also do some other things. You could try to get him to hold his pen in a different direction. There are such pens, although I don’t know if they are still available now after the war, with the nib set at an angle to the pen. Such a boy needs to become accustomed to a different position. It will help him to become conscious of the way he holds his fingers. Another thing is that the axes of his eyes converge too strongly. Get him to hold the paper further from his eyes so that the axes converge less. You will need to wait to see how his handwriting changes due to the influence of these more organic means. If you observe that he makes some effort, and that he writes something more orderly, then you can begin to guide him and his conscious will can take over.
The other boy, R.F., is a bit apathetic. I have not seen his writing.
A teacher: His handwriting is quite beautiful. He wrote for an hour and a half.
Dr. Steiner: You don’t need to do anything there. He was always a problem child, and now there is not much we can do with him. Until the light goes on, in spite of the fact that he makes trouble, you will have to call upon him more often so that he sees that you see him lovingly. He will then think to himself, “I can be called upon more often.”
With such children, you need to remember to call upon them more often, and perhaps distract them from the normal course of things. There is not much else you can do with them. He is also nearsighted and apathetic. Probably there is an organic problem lying at the basis. You must work with him individually. Probably he is suffering from some organic problem. I had the impression that the boy should be given worm medicine every other day for two weeks. You will need to check him then. I think he is suffering from worms. If we can cure that, things will go better. You need to take care of such things with the children. Perhaps you could take a look at him, Dr. Kolisko, and see whether that or something similar is in his digestive system. There may be something else slowing his digestion. You can certainly find the actual reason for his apathy in the digestive system.
If there are things similar to those with these two children, please do not hesitate to mention them. The individual cases are not so important. What is important is that through discussing a number of such cases where we consider individual children, you will slowly gain some experience. Please do not forget to mention such things that seem important to you, or possibly unpleasant.
Now, what is the situation with the withdrawals?
A teacher: Many parents have removed their children after the eighth grade to put them to work. The children of laborers are particularly susceptible to that.
Dr. Steiner: That will truly be a problem if we cannot expand the instruction in the higher grades with training that people can see can replace what the children would receive through some sort of apprenticeship. We need to set up our upper classes in the way that I discussed in my “Lectures on Public Education.” That way, the children can stay. If we do not move in that direction, we will find it very difficult to get the parents to allow them to stay. Many will not see what we want to do with their children. We can still prepare the children for their final examinations. That is a practical difficulty, and we need to look for some solution. We can still prepare the children for their final examinations, even though they may do practical work. For those who tend more toward the trades, we should provide more practical training, but without splitting the school. I don’t think we can avoid losing a number of children when they are fifteen if we allow the school to become an “institution of higher learning.”
A teacher: I only hope the workers’ children will remain in the school as long as possible.
Dr. Steiner: First, the parents have no understanding, something that does not go very far in social democratic circles. “Our children should become something better,” is something they may understand a bit. That attitude is barely present. They may have taken the opportunity to allow their girls to be educated cheaply. We cannot immediately achieve very much in the area of people’s habits. It will also not be easy with the children who have not attended the elementary school from the very beginning, that is, with those who entered later, those we had for only a year in the eighth grade, and who will now move on to the higher grades. Those children cannot really move up. We did not have very many working-class children in the eighth grade.
A teacher: Nine have left. It is difficult to teach the children in the eighth grade what they need for the higher grades.
Dr. Steiner: We should not raise their attitude toward life, I mean exactly what I say, the inner attitude of their souls, to what we normally have in a higher school. Working-class children can get into the higher bourgeois schools only if they are ambitious, that is, if they want to move into the bourgeoisie. We would need to set up the school as I described it in my “Lectures on Public Education.” We would then see what we need to give these students as a proper education. As long as the law requires us to have a college preparatory high school, something that is purely bourgeois with nothing that is not precisely for the bourgeoisie, the working-class children will not fit in.
I would like to say something about this tone of “just teach.” That is, that we do not actually bring anything to the children. Here the issue is that the method we began and that I presented in my didactic lectures can offer a great deal toward efficient instruction when we properly develop it. We still need to work more toward efficiency in teaching. This efficiency is absolutely necessary if other things are to be retained.
I have not complained that the children cannot yet write. In this period of life, they will learn to do something else. I would like to mention the case of R.F.M. as an example. At the age of nine, she could not write and learned to write much later than all the other children. She simply drew the letters. Now she is over sixteen and is engaged. She is extremely helpful at work. This is really something else. In spite of how late the girl learned to read, she received a scholarship to the commercial school and has been named the director’s secretary. We do not take such things sufficiently into account. When we do not teach such things as reading and modern handwriting at too early an age, we decisively support diligence, for such things are not directly connected with human nature. Learning to read and write later has a certain value.
A teacher: There is talk among the parents that a certain discrimination exists between the working class children and the others.
Dr. Steiner: What has occurred in those relationships?
A teacher: I was unable to discover anything between the children. Only little W.A. draws such things out of a hat: “You allow the rich kids to go out, but you do not allow us poor people to do that.” In spite of that, we have never had an attitude against the working-class children.
Dr. Steiner: That is not particularly characteristic of the development of our school because he has become better here. He is much more civilized than he was. He was really wild when he first came, but has improved decisively. I don’t think he is an example of discrimination against the working-class children.
A teacher: He cannot concentrate.
Dr. Steiner: Things would significantly improve if we could look at him from a pathological standpoint. That is, if we could give him a couple of leechings. That is something that belongs to pedagogy, but we would cause a tremendous turmoil if we attempted it now.
You could achieve something with him if you could get him to do something of consequence in detail from the very beginning to the end. If he is chewing on a problem, then he should write it down. In some way, you will need to have him go through the problem into the last details. You can achieve a great deal if you have him do something until he has done it perfectly. His main problem is that his blood has too strong an inner activity. There is a tremendous tension within him, and he is what I would like to call a physical braggart. He wants to boast. He swaggers with his body. That is something that treating the blood could change significantly.
There is much you could do with many of the children if you take it up in the proper way. I will pick out a few children in each class who need physical treatment. It is certainly so that K.R. needs proper treatment. He needs to have a special diet that will treat him for what I spoke of.
We need a school doctor and we need to arrange that position in such a way that it is acceptable to official opinion. We need to create the special position of the school doctor.
A teacher: Couldn’t we do that quickly?
Dr. Steiner: I am not certain if Dr. Kolisko could do something like that. The school doctor I am thinking of would need to know all the children and keep an eye on them. Such a person would not teach any special classes, but would take care of the children in all the classes as necessary. He would have to know the state of health of all the children. There is much I could say about that. I have often mentioned that people say there are so many illnesses and only one health. But, there are just as many healths as there are illnesses.
The position of the school doctor who knows all the children and keeps an eye on them would be a full-time position. That person would have to be employed here. I don’t think we can do it. We are not so far along financially that it would be responsible. We would have to carry it out strictly as that is the only way the officials would accept it. The doctor would have to be employed by the school.
There are questions about W.L. and R.D.
Dr. Steiner: R.D. is much better. Last year he was not in that state. Why did you put him in the back of the class? Last time he sat quite close to the heater.
A teacher: That was mostly because he was too preoccupied with E.
Dr. Steiner: In any event, R.D. is better now. Concerning W.L., I know only of his general state of health as I have not given him much thought. There is something wrong with him physically. R.D. is hysterical, he has an obvious male hysteria. Perhaps the other one has something similar. We will have to examine him to see if there is something organically wrong.
A teacher: May I ask if you recall D.R.?
Dr. Steiner: The boy is physically small, but he seems to be very curious. I think what the boy needs is to often experience that you like him so that he has some security. He receives little love at home. It may well be that the mother talks cleverly, but we should give him some love here at school. You should speak to him often and do similar things. That will be difficult because he makes such an unsympathetic impression. You should speak with him often and ask him about one thing or another. I have the impression that we need to treat him along those lines. The boy is simply a little stiff.
A teacher: Should I also do something special with N.M.?
Dr. Steiner: The question is whether we can awaken her.
A teacher: She is quite distracted, and her eyes are a little askew.
Dr. Steiner: She is intellectually weak. We need a class for weak-minded children so that we can take care of them systematically. These children would gain a great deal if we did not have them learn to read and write, but instead learn things that require a certain kind of thinking. They need basic tasks like putting a number of marbles in a series of nine containers so that every third container has one white and two red marbles. They need to do things that involve combining, and then you could achieve quite a bit with them. We need a teacher for these emotionally disturbed children.
A teacher: In ninth grade history, I have gotten as far as 1790, but I should be at the present. I’m moving forward only slowly.
Dr. Steiner: Recently, I was unable to determine how quickly you were moving forward. What is the problem, in your opinion?
A teacher: The problem is that I am not very familiar with history. The preparation needed to encompass entire periods is very arduous.
Dr. Steiner: Where did you begin?
A teacher: With the Reformation.
Dr. Steiner: What follows is short. You need to come to the present as quickly as possible.
A teacher: Is it better to begin with the artistic or with the geometric when teaching sixth grade projective geometry?
Dr. Steiner: Probably the best thing is to form a kind of bridge in the instruction between art and what is strictly geometric. I don’t think you can treat it through art. What I mean here is the central projection. I think the children really need to know about how the shadow of a cone falls upon a plane. They need an inner perspective.
A teacher: Should I use expressions such as “light rays” or “shadow rays”?
Dr. Steiner: Well, that is a more general question. It is not a good idea to use things in projective geometry that do not exist. There are no light rays and still less shadow rays. It is not necessary to work with such concepts in teaching projections. You should work with spatial forms. There are no light rays and no shadow rays. There are cylinders and cones. There are shadows that arise when I place a cone at an angle and illuminate it from a point and allow a shadow to fall upon an appropriately angled plane. Then I have a shadow form. The form of the shadow as such is the boundary of the shadow, and even a child should understand that. It is the same later in projective geometry when the child learns what occurs when a cylinder cuts through another with a smaller diameter. It is very useful to teach children that, but it does not detract from the artistic. It guides children into the artistic. It makes their imagination flexible. You can imagine flexibly if you know what section occurs when two cylinders intersect one another. It is very important to teach these things, but not as abstractions. A teacher asks about plane geometry.
Dr. Steiner: Perhaps I came in the middle of the class. In this case I think you should proceed more visually. The children could answer more rationally. Everything fell apart. The children spoke in a confused way. If you taught them juicier ideas, that would, of course, change. I would begin with more visual things; teach the children how different a building looks when seen from a balloon. Or, how different things look when you look down upon them from a mountain behind them. In this way, I would then move on from the more complicated object to explain the concepts of the horizontal and vertical projections before I went on to a presentation of the point.
This sort of geometry is something children would do with a passion when you teach them. It is something terribly fruitful. I think you talked too much about placing a point in the surface of a triangle. When you drew a point at the beginning of the lesson and then spoke about all kinds of things without having come to drawing the lines at the end of the class, then I think you have spread the picture out too much. When you spread children’s’ imaginations out so much, they lose the connection. They lose the thread. Everything is so spread out that the children can no longer understand it. It breaks apart.
A teacher: Is there some artistic value in learning “The Song of the Bells”?
Dr. Steiner: You can certainly do that if you raise it to a freer understanding. “The Song of the Bells” is one of those poems where Schiller made concessions to convention. A great deal of it is very conventional. Many of the ideas are quite untrue, and for that reason, it is dangerous. Of course, the working-class children will tell it to their parents, something we don’t want. People perceive it as a bourgeois poem. How are things with the first grade? A teacher reports.
Dr. Steiner: The homogeneity of your class makes a good impression. The children in both first grade classes do not seem to be particularly gifted or dull.
A teacher: There are some individuals with some difficulties.
Dr. Steiner: That is also good; you should awaken some individuals. In general, I was quite pleased with both first grade classes. They were relatively quiet, whereas the second grade is terribly loud. They are having a hellish time of it. They are also restless. In that regard, the two first grade classes are quite good.
A teacher: It is somewhat more difficult in foreign language.
Dr. Steiner: In general, we can be satisfied with the children in these classes. There are a few lagging behind. The little girl in the first row to the left is moving forward only with difficulty. Also, little B.R. is not doing too well.
Dr. Steiner had proposed that a younger teacher, Miss S., help one of the older class teachers, Miss H. A question arose as to how they should work together.
Dr. Steiner: I thought you would relieve one another, but while one of you was not teaching, you would not simply listen, but go around a little to maintain discipline on the side.
A teacher: We did not do that because we thought it would not work.
Dr. Steiner: In an abstract connection that may be correct, but in the intimacy of the class, that is not so. Miss H. is under terrible strain, so that if you were to go around a little, you could keep those children seated when they jump up. That is certainly more effective than when you simply listen.
A teacher: When I tell the children something, Miss H. says the opposite.
Dr. Steiner: Well, that certainly does not come into question if you are seeing to it that a child who is jumping about remains in his seat. I don’t think we want to get into a discussion about principles here. The interesting thing about this class is that the children all run around in colorful confusion. You can certainly keep them from that confusion. What could Miss H. say in opposition? I certainly hope you are not having differences between yourselves. I don’t mean that when children go somewhere for a reason you should keep them in their seats. The concern here is with those obvious cases when children are misbehaving and it is difficult to maintain discipline. Do it unobtrusively so that you do not do anything about which Miss H. could complain.
Is it really so difficult to do that? My intent in proposing this was to give Miss H. some help because the class was too large for her, and the children are somewhat difficult to keep under control. We cannot make an experiment like this one if it remains an experiment. I can easily imagine that you might come so far as to speak for five minutes with one another about the object of the next day’s lesson.
It appears that a question was posed in regard to the telling of fairy tales.
Dr. Steiner: If you think that it is justifiable. I would, however, warn you about filling up time with fairy tales. We should keep everything well divided pedagogically. I do not want these things emphasized too much, so that you do not think through the instruction sufficiently. I do not want you simply to tell a fairy tale when you don’t know what else to do. You should think out each minute of the lesson. Telling a fairy tale is good when you have decided to do it. In the sense of our pedagogical perspective, these two hours in the morning should be a closed whole. Diverging interests should not enter into them.
You will get through only if the two of you are together heart and soul, that is, when you have a burning desire to continue your work together. To be completely of one accord, that is most essential.
A teacher: Miss Lang wants to leave because she is getting married.
Dr. Steiner: I can say nothing other than that it is a shame. We will need to have another teacher. It is absolutely necessary that we call someone who can find the way into the spirit of the Waldorf School completely out of his or her heart. We have gone through nearly all the people who come into consideration as teachers. Not many more may marry.
When will Boy be free? I received a very reasonable letter from him. The question is whether he can be here heart and soul. He is a little distant from the work. I have the feeling he might come here with a predetermined opinion about teaching and not be quite able to find his way into our methods. teachers at such schools have their own curious ideas. I have seen from a number of signs that he is not quite so fixed in such things, but, of course, I would have to know he would be here heart and soul. I would like to meet Mr. Boy personally.
Boy was at that time working at a country boarding school. Other candidates were also discussed.
Dr. Steiner: Well, then, we’re in agreement that we will give Mr. Ruhtenberg one class and that we will try to get Boy or someone else. Is it possible for me to meet Boy personally?
Is there still a class in deportment?
A teacher: I have included all of it in the music class.
Dr. Steiner: If it is properly done, that may be good. In this class, you must teach through repetition so that the rhythm of the repetitions affects the children.
I have not seen much of the eurythmy.
A teacher asks about curative eurythmy and how difficult cases are to be treated in particular.
Dr. Steiner: I have been considering the development of curative eurythmy for a long time, but it has been difficult for me to work in that area recently. We will have to work out curative eurythmy. Of course, there is also much we can do for the psychological problems. If we have the children, then there is much we can do. A teacher reports about the singing class.
Dr. Steiner: I can hardly recommend using two-part singing with the younger children. We can begin only at fifth grade. Until the age of ten, I would remain primarily with singing in one part. Is it possible for you to have the children sing solo what they also sing in chorus?
A teacher: I can do that now.
Dr. Steiner: That is something we should also consider. I think we should give attention to allowing the children to sing not only in chorus. Do not neglect solo singing. Particularly when the children speak in chorus, you will find the group soul is active. Many children do that well in chorus, but when you call upon them individually, they are lost. You need to be sure the children can also do individually what they can do in chorus, particularly in the languages.
How do things stand with the older children in singing?
A teacher: The boys are going through the change of voice. They receive theory and rhythmic exercises. The older children work in various ways. Perhaps we could form a mixed choir. That would be fun.
Dr. Steiner: We can certainly do that. How is it in the handwork classes?
A report is given.
Dr. Steiner: You will need to take into account the needs of the children when you select the work. It is not possible to be artistic in everything. You should not neglect the development of artistic activities nor let the sense of art dry out, but you cannot do much that is artistic when the children are to knit a sock. When the children are knitting a sock, you can always interrupt with some small thing. We want to bring some small activities into our evening meetings [with parents], perhaps making a small bracelet or necklace out of paper, but we shouldn’t get into frivolous things. Things people can use, which have some meaning in life and can be done artistically and tastefully. But, make no concessions. Don’t make things that arise only out of frivolous desires. There are not many things we can do with paper. I also hope to attend.
Mr. Wolffhügel, you certainly have some special experiences with shop.
A teacher: The children have begun making toys, but they have not yet finished.
Dr. Steiner: There is nothing to say against the children making cooking spoons. They don’t need to make anything removed from life, and when possible, no luxury items.
A biennial report is mentioned.
Dr. Steiner: A yearly report would be good. We cannot say enough about the Waldorf School, its principles and intentions and its way of working. It is a shame when that does not always occur objectively. I will see what I can write. It should not be too long.
A teacher: In the parent evening for my class, I gave a talk about all the children have learned.
Dr. Steiner: Nothing to say against that, but it cannot become a rule. Those who want to do it, should do it. You simply need to believe it is necessary. Not everyone can do that. People will need the kind of energy you have if they are to do such things.
When we cannot increase the number of students due to the lack of space, quite apart from the problems with the regulations, then you, of course, need to consider our primary work is for the continuation of the Waldorf School. That is what is important. It is important that we place the goals of the Waldorf School in the proper light. Within the threefold movement, it is more important to present the characteristic direction of the Waldorf School objectively, not as advertising for the school, but as characteristic of our work. It is certainly much more necessary to do that than to speak about Tolstoy among the members of the Union for Threefolding. People already know about the school to a certain extent, but it must become much better known, particularly its basic principles. We also need to emphasize the independence of the faculty, the republican-democratic form of the faculty, to show that an independent spiritual life is thinkable even within our limited possibilities.
A teacher: Would you advise us to continue to travel north to give lectures?
Dr. Steiner: Well, we would have to decide in each case whether that is possible. If we can make good arrangements, it would certainly be good to reach as many people as possible with our lectures.
Marie Steiner: Mr. L. wants to meet with me tomorrow regarding a performance in another city.
Dr. Steiner: Well, it is in general not possible for the children from the Waldorf School to travel around. I am not sure we should even begin that when the whole thing is somewhat spinsterish. We cannot be sending the Waldorf children around all the time, so that must be an exception. The Waldorf children can’t be a traveling troupe. I don’t think that would be appropriate. We can certainly work for the children’s eurythmy, but we should have people travel here to see it. It must be taken more seriously than Mrs. P. and Mr. L. would do. They want to make it into some sort of social affair. There is also too much energy being expended in giving lectures in this connection. We should not accept this tea party Anthroposophy too much.
Those who have time may want to go, but it is really a little bit wasted energy. Those who want to can go to lectures. Popular celebrities also hold lectures, but it is relatively clear that the audience is not very promising. It’s a little bit of a mixture of Bohemians and salon people, not people who could really contribute in some way to the further development of the anthroposophical movement.
In Bavaria, the major party is completely narrow-minded. These idealists have done everything wrong, so that narrow-minded viewpoints easily arise. When Bavarians say “Wittelsbacher,” they mean a good bratwurst.
Is there anything else? From my own perspective, I wish I could be more active here in the Waldorf School.