The Child's Changing Consciousness and Waldorf Education
GA 306
19 April 1923, Dornach
Lecture V
Between the ages of seven and approximately fourteen, the teacher's main concern must be directed toward the students' evolving life of feeling. It is really very important that educators acquire the ability to create the kind of mental imagery that can guide pupils through the tender transitional stages characteristic of this period.
When children enter school, remnants of the previous “bodily-religious mood,” as I call it, still exist. There is still a longing in children to absorb through the senses everything happening in their surroundings; this perceiving, which is transformed into imitation, then connects with listening for what comes from the natural authority of the teacher. Truth, at this stage, is not based on the child's judgment, but comes in the guise of what the naturally revered authority of the teacher says. Similarly, what is considered false simply agrees with what this freely accepted authority considers false. This also applies to what is seen as beautiful or ugly, good or evil. Children can only develop the faculty of independent judgment in adulthood if they have gone through the experience of looking up to the voice of authority with uncritical veneration. Of course I am not referring to any kind of enforced authority here; the authority I am speaking of must never be imposed externally. And if, in some cases, an authoritarian approach is necessary for the sake of general society, the child should not be aware of it. The child must always feel secure in looking up with total confidence to the teacher's authority or that of another adult in charge. Everything has to be supported by this tender relationship to authority from the day the child enters the first grade until the ninth year, and especially during the seventh to ninth years. This relationship should be preserved even longer, but between the ninth and tenth years it will necessarily change somewhat.
Within this same context we must now look at another point. During the initial period of life—that is, from birth until the change of teeth—the child lives like one great multifaceted sense organ, but as a sense organ where will forces were working in every moment of life. For me to use the expression “a sense organ where will forces are working,” may sound strange, but this is only because of the complete inadequacy of what we are told by contemporary physiology and the popular ideas derived from it. Today one does not associate will forces with the function of the human eye, for example. Nevertheless, even in the eye, the perceived image is due to will activity. The same is true of the functioning of every other sense organ: will-substance is instrumental in creating the inner sense impressions. The task of a sense organ, first of all, is to expose itself, or the human being, passively to the external world's influences. But within every sense organ an inner activity also occurs that has a will nature.
This will element works very intensively throughout the child's whole body until the change of teeth. It also remains active after this event, with the result that, between entering school and the ninth year, this predominant will element in the child will tolerate only an approach to external nature and to the human being that is entirely human and pictorial. This is why we introduce not aesthetics but a thoroughly artistic element, especially in the younger classes. We do this by allowing children to use liquid colors from the very beginning, even if this practice is likely to cause rather uncomfortable consequences in the classroom. We let children handle colors because, by putting them on paper next to one another—not according to preconceived notions, but simply from an instinctive sense of color; and through the ensuing inner satisfaction, they work in harmony with their own formative forces. When given this opportunity, children reveal a wonderful instinct for painting artistic color combinations, and these soon show the teacher how to direct children's efforts toward drawing with colored pencils from which writing can eventually evolve.
But one thing children at this age cannot do is follow explanations; they have no understanding for this at all. If a teacher tries to explain the subjects during the first school years, the children will react by becoming blunted and dull. This approach simply does not work. On the other hand, everything will go smoothly if, rather than explaining the subject matter, one forms the content into a story, if words are painted with mental images, and if rhythm is brought into one's whole way of teaching. If the teachers' relationship to music is not restricted to music in a narrow sense, but if they can introduce a musical element into their teaching—if their lessons are permeated by beat, rhythm, and other less obvious musical qualities—then children will respond spontaneously and with acute understanding. On the other hand, if the teachers who introduce the world by appealing to feeling in their students were to speak now of the human being as a separate entity, the children would feel inwardly resentful. They would reject it; indeed, they could simply not bear it. What children really want during this stage is for everything they learn about—even if it is part of inorganic nature—to be presented in living, human terms.
The inner horror (I think one can put it that strongly) of facing a description of the human being remains with the child until about the twelfth year. From the ninth to the twelfth year we can use what I described yesterday as the content for the lessons. As long as we present it imaginatively we can speak about the plant world in terms of hair growing out of the Earth, and we can introduce animal study by showing how in every animal form we can see a part of the human organism, but specialized in a one-sided way. At this stage, however, we must not study the human being directly as an object, because children are not yet ready for this. Only toward the twelfth year do they experience a dim longing to gather together the entire animal kingdom in order to discover synthesis of the animal world in the human being. This can form the new content for the classes, then, following the eleventh and twelfth years.
For you to be told that teachers should relate parts of the human organization to certain animal forms before their pupils have reached the necessary maturity to study the human being as a separate entity may sound contradictory, but life is full of such apparent contradictions. It is correct, nevertheless, to proceed in this way until the great moment comes when teachers can show their students how what is concentrated within one single human individual, is spread out over all of the animal kingdom. To allow children to experience very intensely such decisive moments in life is tremendously important in teaching; and one of these moments is the realization, passing through the child's soul, that the human being as seen physically is both the extract and the synthesis of the entire animal world, but on a higher level. The inner experience of such a climb over a childhood peak—if I may use this comparison—is more important than acquiring knowledge step by step. It will have a beneficial effect for the rest of the child's life. But because of the way our times have developed in an external scientific direction, there is little inclination to look so intimately at human nature. Otherwise things would not happen as they do in our civilization, especially in modern spiritual life. You only need to consider what I emphasized in our first meeting.
Until the seventh year, soul forces are working in all of the child's physical processes, concluding to a certain extent during the change of teeth. I have compared this with a solution that forms a sediment at the bottom of a container. The precipitate represents the denser parts, while a more refined solution remains above it. The two substances have separated from each other. Similarly, until the change of teeth, we can look at the child's physical and etheric bodies as still forming a homogeneous solution until the physical is precipitated, leaving the etheric free to work independently.
But now too much soul substance might be retained by the physical body. Part of the soul substance must always remain behind, because the human physical body must be permeated by soul and spirit throughout life. But too much soul and spiritual substance could be retained so that too little of it remains in the upper region. The result is a human being whose physical body is over-saturated with soul substance and whose soul and spiritual counterpart has become too insubstantial. This condition is met far too frequently, and with the necessary insight one can see it clearly in children between seven and fourteen. But in order to see this, one must be able to distinguish exactly between the coarser and the more refined components of our human organization.
It is essential today that our society develops a physiology backed by a strong enough psychology and a psychology that is not abstract, but supported by the necessary background of physiology. In other words, one has to be able to recognize the interrelationship between body and soul; otherwise an amateurish physiology and an equally amateurish psychology will result. Because of this lack of ability to see clearly through the human being, contemporary scientific life has produced two such dilettante branches of science. The reciprocal effect between them has resulted in “dilettantism squared,” or as it is also called, psychoanalysis.
Just as a number multiplied by itself is that same number squared, so also a dilettante physiology, when multiplied by dilettante psychology, equals psychoanalysis. This is the secret behind the origin of psychoanalysis. I am not saying this to cast aspersions on psychoanalysis. Things could hardly have been otherwise because, due to our present day scientific climate, society lives in a time when psychology has become too diluted and physiology too dense. Seen in this light, physiology, rather than becoming a genuine branch of science, assumes the role of the precipitate from what should have remained as a homogeneous solution. This is only a picture, but I hope that you understand it.
We cannot avoid the need to be clear about how the growing human being develops, and about how we have to give appropriate attention to each particular stage in the life of children. Thus, we find that between the ninth and twelfth years children are receptive to whatever comes to them as pictures. Until about the ninth year they want to participate in the formation of the picture—they will not yet play the role of spectators. During this time teachers have to work with their students in such a living way that their joint efforts, in and of themselves, already have a pictorial quality. It doesn't matter whether actual picture-making is involved, such as painting, drawing, or similar activities; all of the work, the lessons themselves, must form a picture. And then, between the ninth and tenth years, the children develop a new sense for a more external presentation of the pictorial element, and this is when we may appropriately introduce botany and animal study. Those two subjects in particular must be presented pictorially and imaginatively; and the more one can do this, the better one is as a teacher for children between nine and twelve—in contrast to what one finds in the usual textbooks on botany, where a great lack of imagery is displayed. Portraying the plant world in its many forms with true imagination is very rewarding, because to achieve this requires that one be “co-creative.”
This sharing in the world's creativity is just the thing our present culture awaits. People in the middle of life come to me, again and again, full of despair because they cannot comprehend anything pictorially. This shortcoming can be traced back to childhood when their needs were not adequately met.
It is much too easy for the world to laugh when we say that the human being consists of a physical body, etheric body, astral body, and I-being. As long as one merely evaluates these matters with the yardstick of ordinary science, one cannot help but laugh. This is very understandable. But considering the serious tangle of our civilization, one would expect at least some willingness to look for what cannot be found elsewhere. There are many instances of apparent conundrums. Of course, it is easy enough to denigrate the following description of the human being: The physical body is born at birth. It develops through body-bound religiosity, by imitation, until the change of teeth. During these early years the etheric body and all the other forces are fully engaged in working on the child's physical body; they are soul and spiritual forces working in the child. The astral body is born only at puberty, and gains its independent existence from that time on. And as far as the human I is concerned—this is something that can be spoken of with certain reservations only—the I is fully born only after the twentieth year of life. Although it may be wisest to remain silent about this last point when talking to young people engaged in their first years of academic study, it is nevertheless an unalterable fact.
If one does not know the characteristic differences between the four members of the human being, one is likely to look at these differentiations as being nonsense—or at least, something highly superfluous. This changes, however, as soon as one knows about the whole human being. You see, if we look at physical matter we find that its main characteristic is its exertion of a certain pressure. I could equally say that it occupies space. It presses on other matter, pushing it. It also presses on our body, and we experience this pressure through the sense of touch. Physical matter exerts pressure.
The nature of the etheric has a quality all its own. During the last forty or fifty years natural science has seen the etheric as a rather peculiar phenomenon. If one were to speak about all the theories formulated concerning the essence of the etheric, one would be kept busy for a long time. This has already reached the degree that many people assert that the etheric is essentially the same as the principles of mathematics and mechanics that work in space, existing merely as some kind of linear force. To many investigating minds, the essence of the etheric is not much more than differential quotients flying around in space, or at least something that is mathematically calculable.
As you can see, much hard thinking has delved into the question of what the etheric is, and this in itself is admirable enough. However, as long as one continues along these lines, nothing of real significance will be discovered about the etheric. One has to know that the etheric has the characteristic of being the polar opposite of pressure; it has the effect of suction. It always has the tendency to expedite physical matter out of space, to annihilate it. This is the characteristic feature of the etheric. Physical matter fills up space, and the etheric gets rid of space-occupying matter. It could be called negative matter, but in a qualitative sense and not from a quantitative perspective.
This applies also to the human etheric body. Our relationship to the physical and etheric bodies consists of our constantly destroying and renewing ourselves. The etheric continually destroys material substance, and the physical body builds it up again. This statement contradicts the law of conservation of energy, which is generally accepted today. I am mentioning this only in passing, but it is a fact, nevertheless, that this law of conservation of energy is not compatible with the inner nature of the human being, and that it contradicts the truth. Strictly speaking, this law applies only to the inorganic realm. Within the organic world it is only true of the iron particles in the blood serum, but not concerning the whole human being, in whom a constant oscillation occurs between the suction process of the etheric, whose forces destroy matter, and the restoration affected by the physical body.
The astral body not only draws in space but—strange as it sounds—it draws in time! It has the quality of leading backward in time. This will be clearer to us if we consider an older person's life. Imagine that you were, let's say, fifty years old. In your astral body, forces are always at work, leading you back to earlier times in your life, taking you back to times before puberty. Fifty-year-olds do not experience their present age in their astral body, but actually experience themselves as eleven, twelve, thirteen, or fourteen again. These past ages radiate back to them through the backward-leading activity of their astral bodies. This is the secret of life. In reality we grow older only with regard to the physical body, and with the etheric body and its oscillations. The astral body, however, leads us back again and again to previous stages of life. Regarding the astral body we are all still “adult children.” If we imagine the course of our lives expressed symbolically in the form of a tube, and if we have reached a certain point, say aged fifty, then our adult childhood shines right into our fifties, because the astral body always takes us back in time.

In the astral body, one always lives backward, but this retrospective life naturally begins only with the advent of puberty. If one can earnestly accept this in all earnestness, then one will appreciate its implications for education, and will give students something that will serve their later lives. Whatever one decides to do with them would then be seen in the context of their entire lives, even if they live to the age of ninety! This awareness will endow teachers with an appropriate sense of responsibility. It is this feeling of responsibility, arising from the knowledge of what one is really doing, that truly matters. However, this awareness can be developed only if teachers learn to recognize the hidden interconnections that affect human life. And if this happens, teachers will not assert that children should be taught only what they can comprehend fully. Such an attitude is truly appalling if one considers the true nature of the human being; pedagogical textbooks and handbooks written from the perspective of concrete demonstrations can lead one to despair. There the aim is always to come down to the level of the children's present stage of development and to treat everything so that they will see through them in every detail. This method deprives children of immensely important values for life, as anyone can see who recognizes how childhood is related to human life as a whole.
Let's take the example of a child who, at the age of eight, has accepted something that could not yet be comprehended, accepted something simply on the strength of a love and respect for the teacher, simply because whatever the teacher says must be right and good. Here, love for the teacher—or sympathy—was the vehicle for inner acceptance; the child may not understand the matter fully until sometime around the age of thirty-five. It is not easy to speak about such things to modern people, because they tend to disagree with the idea that sufficient maturity is gained only in the thirty-fifth year of life for understanding certain matters. It is nevertheless the truth, however, that only in the thirty-fifth year is one mature enough to understand certain things, things that one accepted as a child out of love for a teacher. Again, at this age one has experiences that result from the astral body's regressive forces. Something arises from within, a kind of a mirror reflection that, in reality, is a return to the days of childhood. It is like the arising of an inner vision. One is thirty-five years old, has become mature, and from the depths of one's soul there comes the realization: Only now do I understand what I accepted on trust when I was eight.
This ability to understand something that, permeated with love, has thus lived in one's being for many years, has a tremendously revitalizing effect on one's life. We can give this potential force of rejuvenation to children by safeguarding their inborn feeling for authority—so that such feeling can become a vehicle for love and sympathy—and also by giving children what they cannot yet fully comprehend, but will gradually ripen during the coming years of life. Such interconnections are not recognized by teachers who bring to their classes only what lies within their pupils' present capacity to understand. On the other hand, the opposite view is equally wrong and out of place. A teacher who knows human nature would never tell a child, “You cannot yet understand this.” One must never resort to such a remark, because one can always clothe what one has to say in an appropriate garment if the necessary rapport has been established with the students.
If the pedagogy we are speaking of here becomes instinctive, one will know just what to say at the right moment. Above all, one will avoid sharply defined or rigid concepts. It is really appalling when a teacher's ideas and concepts have been worked out to the degree that they are no longer adaptable or flexible. They would have an effect similar to the effect of iron gloves forced onto a child's little hands, preventing them from growing naturally. We must not chain children's minds to finished concepts, but give them concepts that can grow and expand further. We must give them living concepts that can be transformed. But this can be achieved only through an imaginative approach in every subject, certainly until the twelfth year; then the method of teaching I have thus far sketched for you will encourage you to use language creatively, to draw helpful drawings on the blackboard or to take up a paintbrush to make colorful illustrations of what you want to communicate. But there must always be an awareness that everything a teacher brings has to be inwardly mobile and capable of remaining so; for one must recognize that, with the approach of the twelfth year (actually very close to the twelfth year), something new begins to develop, and that is the sense for cause and effect.
Before the approach of the twelfth year, the concept of causality does not exist in the minds of children. They have an eye for what is mobile. They can apprehend ideas that are flexible, and they can perceive what comes in the form of pictures or music; anything connected with causality, however, makes no sense to them until about the twelfth year. Consequently, this concept must be avoided at all costs until this time, and then we may consider a newly emerging understanding for the relationship between cause and effect. Only at that time do children begin to have their own thoughts about various things. Previously they saw the world in pictures; but now something begins to dawn that will light up only at puberty—that is, the life of thinking and the ability to form judgments, which is closely connected with thinking.
Between the change of teeth and puberty, children live primarily in the realm of feeling; before the change of teeth, they live in the region of the will, which, while still far removed from the sphere of thinking, is intimately connected with the fact that children imitate their surroundings. But what enters the child's being physically at that time also contains moral and spiritual forces, which became firmly established in the child's organism. This is why, during the tenth and eleventh years (and in most cases until the beginning of the twelfth year) it is impossible to communicate knowledge that demands an understanding of causality. Consequently, one should not introduce students to the mineral kingdom until around the twelfth year. Also, concepts connected with physics should not be explored before that age, although these have to be prepared for earlier through imagery that bypasses causality. Anything relating to cause and effect in the inorganic world can be grasped by children only around the twelfth year. This is one side of the problem.
We meet the other side when teaching history. Around the twelfth year it is impossible to awaken in students an understanding of the complex fabric of historical interconnections. Until that age it is wise for teachers to present graphic descriptions of historical personages whose actions, due to their goodness, truth, and other qualities of greatness, will stimulate sympathy or, in the case of negative qualities, antipathy in the souls of children. At this stage, historical content should appeal, above all, to the students' feelings. This can be accomplished by a wise selection of historical personalities and events; these should, in themselves, present a complete story, which should nevertheless remain flexible in the students' minds (in the sense mentioned). Causal links between earlier and later historical events can be taught meaningfully only at the dawn of the regressive forces of the astral body; these forces come increasingly into their own after the fourteenth year. At about the twelfth year, children enter this reverse stream, and this is the time when one can begin to appeal to a sense of causality in history as well.
When this is done earlier (and closely connected with the concept of cause and effect is the formation of judgments) one puts something into motion that can become very damaging in later life. At first there is only the child's etheric body. Toward the twelfth year, the astral body slowly begins its process of birth, which is completed at puberty. But the etheric body was already fully developed before that. If you ask students to make judgments (which always have a yes or no quality), or if you have them remember prefabricated concepts, these will enter the etheric body instead of the still unborn astral body. But what else does the astral body carry? As you may conclude from the facts of sexual maturity, the astral body also carries human love. Love is, of course, already active in children before puberty, but it has not yet reached an independent existence, has not yet been born fully. Thus, critical judgments, with their attendant yes-or-no qualities, are instilled in the child's etheric body instead of in the astral body. On the other hand, when made at the right time, the astral body's power of love and benevolence becomes an integral part in forming judgments or criticisms. If you make the mistake of forcing children to form critical judgments—of making them decide between yes and no—too early, then you fill their etheric bodies with immature judgments. But the ether body is not benevolent. It draws in whatever is in its way. Indeed, in this context, it is even malicious; it has a destructive effect. And this is what you do to children when you ask them to decide yes-or-no judgments prematurely, because a yes-or-no judgment is always behind the concept of causality.
On the other hand, a historical process that is complete in itself, or historical characters who are vividly described, can simply be looked at in the way one looks at pictures. As soon as one links later historical periods to earlier ones, however, one has to make judgments, one has to reject or accept, and this choice always contains an element of yes or no. The final outcome of such premature judgment in children under the age of fourteen is an inner resentment toward judgments that are generally accepted by society. If the power of judging is developed too early, the judgments of others are received with a latent destructive force rather than with benevolence. These things demonstrate the importance of doing the right thing at the right time.
Keeping this in mind, let us again compare the animal with the human being. When looking at the animal's outer appearance, its form indicates everything it does. We can also observe the animal's behavior. But in the case of the human being, we have to look for inner causes. Since children are only mature enough to look for causes in the twelfth year, this is the proper time to present the animal world as a “spread-out human being,” or the human being as the synthesis of the entire animal kingdom. This is an instance where the teacher is asked to affect an experience in the child that satisfies an inner demand and readiness at this particular stage.
But now you have to acknowledge that this marks a powerful reversal in the child's nature between the change of teeth and puberty. In a certain sense, the child's soul now proceeds entirely from within outward. Recall that, until the twelfth year, children could not stand listening to a description of the human being, and now they are beginning to look at themselves as mirrors of the world—and they do this conceptually, in the form of ideas. This new readiness for a portrayal of the human being—that is, a portrayal of themselves—really does represent a complete about-face of children's nature between the second dentition and puberty.
During this same time—roughly between the ninth and tenth years—another very important transition occurs in the child's life. Individually, this change can vary; in some children it doesn't happen until after the tenth year. Each child, instinctively, unconsciously, faces a kind of riddle of life. This change of direction from within outward, this new awareness of being a self surrounded by an external world—whereas previously these two aspects were woven together—is something the child does not experience consciously, but through inner doubts and restlessness, which make themselves felt at that time. Physically, the breathing becomes properly integrated into the blood circulation, as the two processes begin to harmonize and balance each other. The relationship between the pulse and breathing is established. This is the physical aspect. The soul and spiritual counterpart is a new kind of dependence of the child on help from teachers or educators. This appeal for help is not necessarily expressed by direct questions, but in a characteristic form of behavior.
And now the teacher is called on to develop the skill necessary to correctly weigh this great, but unspoken, life question that lives in every student, although differently in each individual. What is this great life question? Up to this point, the child's natural sense of authority resulted from the image of the teacher as representative and mediator for the whole world. For the child, the stars moved because the teacher knew the stars' movement. Things were good or evil, beautiful or ugly, and true or false because this was the teacher's assessment. Everything that came from the world had to find the child through the teacher, and this represented the only healthy relationship between teacher and child.
Now however, between the ninth and the tenth years—sometimes a little later—a question arises within the child's soul, not as a concept or idea, but as a feeling. “From where does my teacher receive all this knowledge?” At this moment the teacher begins to become transparent to the student, if I may say it pictorially. The child wants to see the world as living behind the teacher, who must not fail now to confirm the student's heartfelt conviction that the teacher is properly attuned to the world, and embodies truth, beauty, and goodness. At this stage, the unconscious nature of children tests the teacher as never before. They want to discover whether the teacher is truly worthy of representing the entire world.
Again, all this has to remain unspoken. If a teacher were ever to mention or allude to it, through explanations or in other ways, this would appear only as a sign of weakness to the child, whose present state of consciousness has not yet developed a sense of causality; anything that requires proof only shows weakness and inner uncertainty. It is unnecessary to prove what is experienced powerfully in the soul.
This is also true concerning the history of our civilization. I do not want to go into details now, but merely give you a dynamic impression; until a particular time during the Middle Ages, people knew the meaning of the Last Supper. For them there was no need for proof. Then the situation suddenly changed. When seen in the proper light, this just shows that a real understanding of this event no longer existed. If someone is caught red-handed, no one would have to prove that such person is a thief. But if a thief escapes unseen, then proof must be found before that person can be properly called a thief. Proof is always demanded in cases of uncertainty, but not for what the facts of life tell us directly. This is why it is so ludicrous whenever people try to find the inner connection between formal logic and reality. This is somewhat like looking for the inner connection between a path leading to a mountain, and the mountain itself; the path is there to allow the wanderer to reach the mountain, and then the mountain itself begins. Logic is there only for the sake of reaching reality, and reality begins where logic ends.
Awareness of these things is of fundamental importance. One must not make the mistake of wanting to prove to students, when they are going through this important stage in life, that the world is being truthfully interpreted for them. When adjusting to this new situation in the classroom, one has to bring about in the pupils an unreasoned conviction that the teacher knows even more than they had previously imagined. The proper relationship between teacher and students can be established once again, perhaps while surprising the children with an amiable off-hand remark about something new and unexpected, which will make them sit up and listen; this can now happen if students feel that, until now, their teacher has not yet shown his or her true courage at all, and can truly reach unexpected heights. One has to save some things for just such moments, so that the teacher's image will continue to command respect. The solution to an important question of life lies within the students' feeling that their teacher can grow beyond even the boundaries of the personality. Here also are the comfort and strength one must give to children at this stage, so that one does not disappoint the hopeful expectations with which they come. Inwardly, such children were longing for reassurance from the one person for whom they had already developed sympathy and love. If this critical moment goes unnoticed, teachers will have to go through the bitter experience of losing their authority and hold over students around the ages of nine to ten. They may well feel tempted, therefore, to prove everything they do, and this dreadful mistake will only make matters worse.
When this view of education has become second nature, one will also find other helpful guidelines. But whatever is presented in class has to cohere; it has to fit together. I have already told you that we allow our young children paint quite freely and naturally, out of their own formative forces—at first not with colored pencils but with liquid colors. Through this, one soon realizes how much children live within the world of colors. After a while, the young student will come gradually to experience something distant—something that draws us away into far distances—as blue. It goes without saying that the teacher must have experienced this quality of blue as well. Yellow and red seem to move toward the beholder. Children can already experience this in a very concrete way during the seventh or eighth year, unless they have been plagued with fixed tasks in drawing or painting. Of course, if you force children to copy houses or trees representationally, this color experience will soon be lost. But if one guides children so they can feel: Wherever I move my hand, there the color follows—then the type of material used is of secondary importance. Or: The color really begins to live under my fingers—it wants to spread a little further. Whenever such feelings can be drawn out in children's souls, one enables them to discover something fundamental and significant—that is, color perspective. A child will feel that the reddening yellow comes towards us, and that mauve-blue takes us further away. This is how one can livingly prepare the ground for something that must be introduced at a later stage—linear perspective; it is very harmful to teach this subject before students have had an intensive experience of color perspective. To teach them quantitative perspective without their first having inwardly absorbed qualitative perspective—which is inherent in the experience of color—has the thoroughly harmful effect of making them superficial.
But there are even further implications. If you prevent children from having an intensive experience of color perspective, they will not develop the necessary incentive while learning to read (always remembering the reservation expressed yesterday, that it is unnecessary to push a child into reading at the earliest possible time). These color experiences will stimulate mobility in the child's mental imagery, suppleness in feelings, and flexibility in the will activities. The child's entire soul life will become more sensitive and pliable. It may well be that, if you use the method of painting-drawing and drawing-painting, the child will not learn to read as quickly. But when the right time comes, reading will not be anchored too loosely, which can happen, nor too tightly, as if each letter were making a kind of a scratch upon the tender soul-substance of the child.
The important thing is that whatever is comprehended through soul and spiritual faculties should find its proper realm within the human being. We should never ask: What is the point of teaching the child to paint, if it will never be used in later life? This represents an entirely superficial view of life because, in reality, a child has every need for just this activity; if one wants to understand the complexity of a child's needs, one just has to know something about the spiritual background of the human being. Just as the expression “You can't understand this” should never be used when talking to children, so also there should never be a skeptical attitude among adults concerning what a child needs or does not need. These needs should be recognized as flowing from the human constitution itself; and if they are, one will respond with the right instinct. One will not worry unduly, either, if a child forgets some of what has already been learned, because knowledge is transmuted into capacities, and these are truly important later in life. Such capacities will not develop if you overload a child with knowledge. It is essential to realize—and actually practice—that one should impress in the student's memory only what is demanded by social life, that there is no purpose in overburdening the student's memory.
This brings us to the question concerning the relationship between the individual and society, national or ethnic background, and humanity as a whole. When addressing this problem, we must try to avoid harming human nature when blending external demands with our educational practice.
A question is asked regarding music lessons given to a seventeen-year-old girl.
RUDOLF STEINER: The essential thing is what Mister Baumann has already presented to us.1Paul Baumann (1887–1964) music teacher at the Waldorf School in Stuttgart, Germany. With the beginning of puberty and during the following years, a certain musical judgment takes the place of a previous feeling for music and of a general musical experience. The faculty of forming musical judgments emerges. This becomes very noticeable through the phenomenon characterized by Mister Baumann—that is, a certain self-observation begins to manifest, a self-observation of the student's own singing and, with it, the possibility of using the voice more consciously, and so on. This has to be cultivated methodically.
At the same time, however, something else becomes noticeable—that is, from this stage on, natural musical memory begins to weaken a little, with the effect that students have to make more effort to remember music. This is something that has to be especially remembered during music lessons. Whereas, before puberty the children's relationship to music was spontaneous and natural, and because of this their musical memory was excellent, some of them now begin to encounter difficulties—not in taking in music, but in remembering it. This needs to be addressed. One must try to go over the same music several times, not by immediate repetition, but intermittently.
Another characteristic sign at this particular stage is that, whereas previously the instrumental and vocal parts of a piece were experienced as a unity, after the sixteenth to seventeenth years they are listened to with clear discrimination. (From a psychological point of view there is a fine and intimate difference between these two ways of listening.) At this age, musical instruments are listened to far more consciously. There is also a greater understanding for the musical qualities of various instruments. Whereas earlier the instrument appeared to join in with the singing, it is now heard as a separate part. Listening and singing become two separate, though parallel, activities.
This new relationship between singing and the appreciation of the part played by musical instruments is characteristic of this new stage, and the methods of teaching must be changed accordingly. What is important is not to introduce any music theory before this age.
Music should be approached directly and any theoretical observations a teacher may wish to make should come from the students' practical experience of it. Gradually it should become possible for pupils of this age to make the transition toward forming musical judgments on a more rational basis.
What Mister Baumann indicated at the end of his contribution is absolutely correct: one can make use of the ways pupils express themselves musically to increase certain aspects of their self-knowledge. For example, in the Waldorf school we let the older students do some modeling, and from the very beginning one can perceive individual characteristics in what they produce. (When you ask children to model something or other, their work will always display distinctly individual features.) But with regard to musical activities, the teacher cannot go into the pupils' more individual characteristics until the age of sixteen or seventeen. Then, to avoid one-sidedness, it is proper to address questions presented by too much attraction toward a particular musical direction. If pupils of that age develop a passion for certain types of music—for example, if they are strongly drawn to Wagner's music (and in our times many young people slide into becoming pure Wagnerians almost automatically)—then the teacher must try to counterbalance their tendency to be too emotionally swept away by music, rather than developing an appreciation of the inner configuration of the music itself. (This in no way implies any criticism of Wagner's music.)
What happens in such a case is that the musical experience slips too easily into the emotional sphere and consequently needs to be lifted again into the realm of consciousness. A musician will notice this even in the quality of a pupil's singing voice. If music is experienced too much in the realm of feeling, the voice will sound differently from that of a young person who listens more to the formation of the tones, and who has a correct understanding of the more structural element in music.
To work toward a balanced musical feeling and understanding is particularly important at this age. Of course, the teacher, who is still the authority, does not yet have an opportunity to work in this way before the student reaches puberty. After puberty, the teacher's authority no longer counts, but the weight of the teacher's musical judgments does. Until puberty, right or wrong is concurrent with what the teacher considers to be right or wrong. After puberty reasons have to be given—musical reasons also. Therefore it is very important to go deeply into the motivation of one's own musical judgments if there is an opportunity for continuing music lessons at this age. The whole night could be spent talking about this theme, if one wished to.
Question: Is there not an element of dishonesty in asking a child a question if one knows the answer?
RUDOLF STEINER: There is something very interesting at the bottom of this question. Usually, if I ask a question it is because I want to find an answer to something I don't know. If I now question a child—knowing the answer—I commit an untruth. However, in teaching there are always imponderables to be reckoned with, and sometimes it becomes necessary to become clear about this point.
To do that, I often use the following example: If, as a teacher, one wants to speak about the question of immortality in a religious and imaginative way, one might choose the following procedure, and say to oneself: Since children cannot yet comprehend conceptual thoughts, I will use an image to convey the idea of the soul's immortality. As the teacher, I am the one who knows, and my students are uninformed. From my knowledge I will create a picture for them and say, “Look at a cocoon. When the time is right it opens, and a beautiful butterfly flies out. And just as the butterfly flies out of the cocoon, so the immortal soul flies out of the body when a human being dies.” This is one way to approach the subject. Fine; but if such is one's attitude, one may find that the chosen image does not make a deep impression in the children at all. This is because the teacher, with all ingenuity, does not believe the truth of this image, which is used only to illustrate the issue of immortality to “uninformed” children.
But there is another possibility as well—that the teacher believes the truth of this picture. Then one's attitude could be: Despite my limited knowledge and wisdom, I am aware of what is real in the world, and I do believe the truth of this image. I know that I did not invent it, but that it was placed in the world through the powers that ordained the world. Through the butterfly creeping from the cocoon, what happens when the immortal human soul leaves the body is represented on a lower level, but in sense-perceptible form. And I can and do believe in this revelation.
Notice the difference: If teachers believe in the truth of their images and the words used to describe them, their inner attitude will communicate itself to the students. Innumerable examples of this can be found. And so, similarly, imponderables play into the interesting question just raised. It's not important that, as the teacher, one has the opinion: I know my subject, the child does not know it; now I will ask my question, pretending that I want to hear the answer to something I do not know. It does make a great difference, after all, whether I ask the child a question, for example, about the Battle of Zabern, and I know the answer but the child does not, or whether I know the answer and the child also knows it. The untruth would be in asking something I already know. But I could also have a different attitude—that is, I am interested in how the child answers the question. I may phrase my question to find out what the child feels and thinks about a particular point. In this case I don't know in advance what the child will say. The child's answer could have many different shades or nuances.
Let's assume that the teacher's ideal attitude—something I have often emphasized in my lectures—is that even the wisest is not beyond the capacity to learn, even from a tiny baby. For, no matter how far one may have advanced in scientific knowledge, a baby's cry can still teach one very much. If this is the ideal, the way a child answers each question will help teachers learn how to teach. If teachers ask questions, it does not imply that they want to hear something from their pupils that they already know, but that they themselves want to learn from the way a child answers. They will then also phrase their questions properly. For example, they may formulate a question like this: What does this mean to you? Even the tone of voice may indicate the teacher's interest in how the child will answer.
It is a fact that much depends on the imponderables that affect what happens between teacher and child. If what is going on in the child's subconscious is known, one will also discover many other things. The whole question of untruth in the teacher is part of this theme also—that is, what we find when teachers stand before their classes teaching from books or written notes. It can certainly be very convenient for them, but such expediency has a very devastating effect on the actual teaching. This is because, in their subconscious, the children are continually forming the judgment: Why should we be made to learn what even teachers do not know? Why are we made to know what they are reading from their books? This is an even greater untruth that enters the classroom than if teachers ask questions. Even when dictating, teachers should avoid doing so from books. If one perceives what is happening in the child, and if the child can feel the teacher's genuine interest in the pupils, and thus not asking questions with false undertones, the whole situation is entirely different. Then teachers can safely ask their questions without fear of introducing an element of untruth into their lessons.
Fünfter Vortrag
Für die Unterrichts- und Erziehungspraxis zwischen dem 7. Jahr ungefähr und dem 14. Jahr kommt vor allen Dingen in Betracht, daß man sich richtig zu orientieren vermag zu dem Gefühlsleben des Kindes und innerhalb des Gefühlslebens des Kindes. Da handelt es sich wirklich darum, daß man sich als Lehrer selbst die richtigen bildhaften Vorstellungen zu machen vermag, welche einen führen können durch die zarten Übergänge, welche gerade für diese Lebensperiode beim Kinde bestehen.
Wenn man das Kind in dieSchule hereinbekommt, dann wirkt noch etwas nach die frühere leiblich-religiöse Stimmung - wie ich es genannt habe -, dann wirkt noch nach die Sehnsucht, alles, was in der Umgebung vor sich geht, wahrzunehmen, und es verbindet sich dann dieses Wahrnehmen, welches in Nachahmung übergeht, mit dem Hinhorchen auf das, wie von der selbstverständlichen Lehrer- und Erzieherautorität auf das Kind gewirkt wird. Es muß ja durchaus so sein für dieses kindliche Lebensalter, daß wahr nicht dasjenige ist, was man untersucht hat auf seine Wahrheit, sondern daß wahr dasjenige ist, wovon die selbstverständliche Autorität sagt, daß es wahr ist. Und ebenso muß etwas unwahr sein aus dem Grunde, weil es die selbstverständliche Autorität unwahr findet. Ebenso ist es bei schön und häßlich, ebenso bei gut und böse. Man kann erst zu einem richtig selbständigen, freien Urteil über richtig und unrichtig, gut und böse, schön und häßlich im späteren Leben kommen, wenn man in diesem Lebensalter so recht innig verehrungsvoll zu einer selbstverständlichen Autorität in bezug auf diese Dinge hat aufschauen können. Natürlich darf das nicht eine anbefohlene Autorität sein; es darf nicht eine äußerlich festgestellte Autorität sein. Wenigstens darf, wenn das der Fall sein muß aus äußeren sozialen Gründen, daß die Autorität eine anbefohlene und eine äußerlich festgestellte ist, das Kind nichts davon wissen. Das Kind muß durch die ganze Richtung seiner Gefühle und Empfindungen von der Lehrer- und Erzieherpersönlichkeit eben den Eindruck bekommen, daß es zu ihr als zu der entsprechenden Autorität hinaufschaut. Und man muß alles in diesem zarten autoritativen Verhältnisse, insbesondere so zwischen dem 7. und 9. Lebensjahr, überhaupt zwischen dem Eintreten in die Volksschule und dem 9. Lebensjahr, erhalten. Man muß es noch lange erhalten, aber es modifiziert sich dann zwischen dem 9. und 10. Jahr von selber.
Nun trifft etwas anderes zusammen mit dem selbstverständlichen Sichhineinleben des Kindes in das Autoritative. Es trifft das zusammen, daß das Kind ja in der ersten Lebensepoche bis zum Zahnwechsel hin ein Sinneswesen war, gewissermaßen ein ganzes Sinnesorgan war; aber ein Sinnesorgan, in dem bei jedem Schritt des Lebens der Wille gewirkt hat. Es kann Ihnen das vielleicht sonderbar erscheinen, daß ich sage: ein Sinnesorgan, in dem der Wille wirkt. Aber das erscheint Ihnen nur sonderbar, weil die heutige Physiologie und dasjenige, was sich als populäre Ansichten aus dieser Physiologie ergeben hat, eben etwas ganz Unzulängliches ist. Heute denkt man gewöhnlich nicht an den Willen, wenn man zum Beispiel ans Auge denkt. Aber auch beim Auge ist es so, daß das Willensartige das innere Bild zustande bringt und nicht etwas anderes. In jedem Sinnesorgan schafft das Willensmäßige das innere Bild. Das Sinnesorgan, passiv, hat zunächst nur die Aufgabe, sich oder den Menschen der Außenwelt zu exponieren, aber es findet in jedem Sinnesorgan eine innere Aktivität statt, und die ist willensartiger Natur. Und dieses Willensartige wirkt beim Kinde intensiv durch den ganzen Leib bis zum Zahnwechsel hin. Dann bleibt noch dieses Willensartige vorhanden. Und dieses Willensartige erträgt nämlich zwischen dem Eintritt in die Volksschule und ungefähr dem 9. Jahr zunächst nur, daß man es in einer ganz menschlich-bildhaften Weise an alle Dinge der Natur und des Menschen heranführt. Daher arbeiten wir zum Beispiel so, daß wir in der Tat nicht ein ästhetisierendes, aber ein künstlerisches Element gerade in den ersten Unterricht hineinbringen; daß wir das Kind zum Beispiel auch schon ganz von Anfang an mit Farben hantieren lassen, trotzdem das manchmal in der Klasse recht unbequem wird. Aber wir lassen das Kind mit Farben hantieren, weil es damit seinen eigenen Bildekräften folgt im Nebeneinandersetzen der Farben, in dem Sichbefriedigen daran, Farbe neben Farbe zu setzen, nicht bedeutungsvoll, sondern instinktiv-sinnvoll Farbe neben Farbe zu setzen. Das Kind entwickelt nämlich eine wunderbare instinktive Art, die Farben nebeneinanderzusetzen. Und man kann dann schon sehen, wie man dirigieren kann dieses Farbennebeneinandersetzen in das Zeichnen und wie man dann aus dem Zeichnen heraus das Schreiben gewinnen kann.
Aber ganz ohne Verständnis bleibt das Kind dafür, daß man ihm in diesen Jahren schon etwas erklären will. Dafür hat es gar kein Verständnis. Wenn man ihm in diesen Jahren etwas erklären will, dann wird es stumpf, dann geht das gar nicht. Aber es geht wunderbar, wenn man alles, was man an das Kind heranbringen will, nicht erklärt, sondern erzählt, wenn man auch mit Worten, mit Vorstellungen malen will, wenn man Rhythmus hineinbringt in die ganze Art und Weise, wie man dem Kinde die Dinge beibringt. Wenn man Musik nicht nur in der Musik hat, sondern das Musikalische auch in der ganzen Handlung des Unterrichts hat, wenn im Unterricht Takt, Rhythmus, ja sogar ein innerlich Musikalisches walten kann, so hat das Kind dafür ein feines Verständnis. Aber es würde zum Beispiel sich dagegen sträuben, wenn man das, was man gefühls- und willensmäßig menschlich an das Kind heranbringt, nun selbst beschreiben wollte; wenn man also dem Kinde zwischen dem Eintritt in die Volksschule und dem 9. Lebensjahr etwa den Menschen beschreiben wollte. Dagegen würde es sich furchtbar sträuben, das könnte es gar nicht aushalten. Jedoch alles, bis zu den unorganischen Naturwesen herunter, menschlich behandeln, das ist dasjenige, was es in dieser Zeit durch sein Inneres eigentlich fordert.
Nun bleibt dieser Horror, könnte man es nennen, vor dem Beschreiben des Menschen eigentlich sogar bestehen bis gegen das 12. Lebensjahr. Wir können ganz gut dasjenige ausführen, was ich gestern gesagt habe, zwischen dem 9. und 12. Lebensjahr. Wir können so, wie ich es gestern auseinandergesetzt habe, die Pflanzenwelt dem Kinde beibringen als die Haare, die auf der Erde wachsen; aber wir müssen bei der bildlichen Charakteristik bleiben. Wir können auch die Tierwelt so dem Kinde nahebringen, daß wir in einer Art, die eben dem Kinde liegt, jede Tierform auffassen wie ein Stück Mensch, das einseitig ausgebildet ist. Wir dürfen aber ja nicht nun übergehen etwa zu der Beschreibung des Menschen selber in dieser Zeit. Wir können sogar ganz gut daraufhin das Kind lehrend beeinflussen, daß wir von den Gliedern des Menschen sprechen und diese Glieder in einseitiger Ausbildung auf diese oder jene Tierform anwenden, aber die Zusammenfassung zum Menschen, die versteht das Kind noch gar nicht. Erst gegen das 12. Jahr hin bekommt es dann auch die Sehnsucht, nun das ganze Tierreich zusammenzufassen zum Menschen. Und das kann man dann betreiben in denjenigen Klassen, die eben auf das Lebensalter zwischen dem 11. und 12. Jahr folgen.
Darin liegt nun ein scheinbarer Widerspruch, aber das Leben ist eben widerspruchsvoll. Der scheinbare Widerspruch ist der, daß man erst sollte das ganze tierische Reich wie den ausgebreiteten Menschen beschreiben. Aber es ist doch richtig, es so zu machen, bevor man den Menschen nun als eine Raumesgestalt selbst in der Zusammenfassung beschreibt. Das Kind muß gewissermaßen zunächst ein Gefühl davon bekommen, daß alles Menschliche vereinseitigt die ganze Erde bewohnt, daß die Tierwelt die ganze Menschlichkeit vereinseitigt in ihren einzelnen Exemplaren ist. Und dann muß das Kind den großen Moment erleben, wo man ihm zusammenfaßt, wie alles dasjenige, was ausgebreitet ist in der Tierwelt, im Menschen konzentriert ist. Darauf kommt es beim Unterrichten an, daß man das Kind die entscheidenden Lebensmomente wirklich erleben läßt. Daß man also dem Kinde einmal das durch die Seele ziehen läßt: Der Extrakt und die synthetische Zusammenfassung der ganzen Tierwelt ist auf einer höheren Stufe der Mensch als physischer Mensch.
Es kommt nicht darauf an in diesem Lebensalter, daß man von Stufe zu Stufe dem Kinde diese oder jene Kenntnisse beibringt, sondern es kommt darauf an, daß man im entscheidenden Lebenspunkte es wirklich erleben läßt - daß man es gewisse, wenn ich so sagen darf, Berge des Menschenlebens, die eben im kindlichen Lebensalter liegen, wirklich übersteigen läßt. Das wirkt auf das ganze spätere Leben nach. Und es ist ja schon einmal so, daß unsere Zeit aus der Art, wie sie sich wissenschaftlich entwickelt hat, wirklich recht wenig Begabung hat, so intim auf das Menschenleben und auf das Menschenwesen hinzuschauen. Sonst würden gar nicht die Dinge entstehen, die eben innerhalb der heutigen Zivilisation und insbesondere des heutigen Geisteslebens entstehen. Bedenken Sie nur einmal etwas, was ich in der allerersten Stunde betont habe: Bis zum 7. Lebensjahre arbeitet in all dem körperlichen Geschehen, das dann später im Zahnwechsel sich auslebt, das Seelische. Und ich habe den Vergleich gebraucht: Wenn wir hier eine Lösung haben und da unten bildet sich ein Bodensatz, so ist dies das Dichtere: dann bleibt das Feinere oben übrig - und jedes ist jetzt für sich. Bis zum Zahnwechsel um das 7. Jahr waren eben die beiden beieinander. Wir sagen: Der physische Leib und der Ätherleib, der gröbere Leib und der feinere Leib waren noch eins. Jetzt hat sich der physische Leib herausgesondert, und das ätherische Menschenwesen wird jetzt selbständig arbeitend.

Ja, aber da kann das eintreten, daß von dem Menschenwesen zuviel von dem Seelischen im physischen Leibe aufgenommen wird. Es muß ja immer Seelisches zurückbleiben, denn der Mensch muß das ganze Leben hindurch seinen physischen Leib beseelt und durchgeistigt haben. Es kann aber zuviel von dem Seelisch-Geistigen zurückbleiben, und da oben zu wenig sein: dann haben Sie ein Menschenwesen, das in seinem physischen Leibe zu viel Seelisches und ein zu dünnes geistig-seelisches Wesen hat; da ist etwas, was schon im Geistig-Seelischen sein sollte, im physischen Leibe zurückgeblieben. Und sehen Sie, das ist ein Tatbestand, der außerordentlich häufig vorkommt! Das aber liefert die wirkliche Erkenntnis, wie Seeleninhalte, die, sagen wir zwischen dem 7. und 14. Lebensjahr als Seeleninhalte da sein sollten, im physischen Leibe unten sitzen. Da haben Sie eine exakte Erkenntnis davon. Aber um diese exakte Erkenntnis zu erwerben, ist es eben notwendig, daß man den Menschen seinem gröberen und feineren Wesen nach wirklich kennt. Daß man also eine Physiologie hat, welche noch genügend Psychisches enthält, und eine Psychologie, die nicht abstrakte Psychologie ist, sondern genügend viel Physiologie enthält; das ist durchaus notwendig. Da muß man sehen, wie das Leiblich-Physische zum Seelischen steht und wie das SeelischGeistige zum Leiblich-Physischen steht; das muß) man durchschauen.
Durchschaut man das nicht, so hat man doch nur eine dilettantische Physiologie, keine wirkliche Physiologie, und man hat auch eine dilettantische Psychologie und keine wirkliche Psychologie. Und durch dieses Nichtdurchschauen des Menschen hat tatsächlich das heutige Wissenschaftsleben eine dilettantische Psychologie und eine dilettantische Physiologie. Das heißt, es hat so etwas, was sich zusammensetzen kann aus der Wechselwirkung zwischen dem psychologischen Dilettantismus und dem physiologischen Dilettantismus. Das gibt einen «Dilettantismus zum Quadrat», und das nennt man dann - Psychoanalyse. Das ist eben gerade das Geheimnis der Entstehung der Psychoanalyse, daß sie aus einer dilettantischen Physiologie und einer dilettantischen Psychologie hervorgeht, die miteinander so wirken wie zwei Zahlen, die man miteinander multipliziert und die das Quadrat geben. So kommt eben der «Dilettantismus zum Quadrat» heraus. Dilettantische Psychologie multipliziert mit dilettantischer Physiologie = Psychoanalyse. Das sage ich wirklich nicht, um der Psychoanalyse etwas anzuhängen, denn die Dinge können ja nach den Wissenschaftsbedingungen der heutigen Zeit nicht anders sein, weil eben die Menschheit durch ein Zeitalter durchgegangen ist, wo die Psychologie zu dünn und die Physiologie zu dick geworden ist. Und wenn der Mensch die Dinge so betrachtet, so wird immer, statt daß eine echte Wissenschaft zustande kommt, die Physiologie chemisch herausgefällt aus demjenigen, was eine einheitliche Lösung sein sollte. Es ist ein Bild, aber Sie werden das Bild verstehen.
Nun, so ist es nun schon einmal, daß wir uns klar sein müssen darüber, wie das wirkliche Menschenwesen sich entwickelt und wie wir die Lebensstationen besonders beim Kinde zu beachten haben.
Gerade in diesem Lebensalter zwischen dem 9. und 12. Jahr, da ist das Kind empfänglich für alles das, was ihm nun von außen her als Bild entgegengebracht wird. Bis zum 9. Jahre ungefähr will es mittun an dem Bild; da läßt es die Bilder nicht an sich herankommen. Da muß man immer so lebendig neben dem Kinde arbeiten, daß eigentlich das, was der Lehrer macht und das Kind macht, zusammen schon ein Bild ist. Das Arbeiten selber muß schon ein Bild sein. Es kommt nicht darauf an, ob man da Bilder bearbeitet oder etwas anderes, die Arbeit selbst, der Unterricht muß ein Bild sein. So zwischen dem 9. und 10. Jahr tritt dann das auf, daß das Kind für die äußere Bildlichkeit einen besonderen Sinn hat. Die kann man jetzt heranbringen, und das gibt eben die Möglichkeit, in der richtigen Weise die Pflanzen- und Tierwelt an das Kind heranzubringen, insofern darinnen die Bildlichkeit lebt. Bildliches muß man heranbringen gerade in der Pflanzen- und Tierwelt. Und je mehr man imstande ist, bildlich darzustellen dasjenige, was in unseren botanischen Lehrbüchern bis zur dritten Potenz der Unbildlichkeit dargestellt wird, ein desto besserer Lehrer ist man gerade für die Kinder zwischen dem 9. und 12. Jahr. Alles ins Bild hereinbringen, das ist ja auch das, was so unendliche innere Befriedigung geben kann. Denn wenn man die Pflanzenwelt in ihren Formen in die Bilder hereinbringt, so muß man mitschöpferisch sein.
Dieses Mitschöpferische, das ist es ja, was überhaupt wiederum in unsere Zivilisation erst so recht hereinkommen will! Man erlebt es ja heute alle Augenblicke, wie Menschen, die im Leben stehen, voller Verzweiflung zu einem kommen, weil sie nichts Bildliches erfassen können. Das führt eben zurück darauf, daß die Kindheit dieser Menschen nicht in der richtigen Weise zugebracht worden ist. Die Welt hat ja leicht darüber lachen, daß wir sagen: Der Mensch besteht aus physischem Leib, Ätherleib, Astralleib und Ich. Die Welt hat leicht lachen darüber, denn wenn man alles das, was man heute aus der gangbaren Wissenschaft wissen kann, zusammen nimmt und dann solch eine Sache beurteilt, kann man ja nur über sie lachen. Wenn man nicht auf die Sache eingeht, kann man nur lachen - man versteht es ganz gut, daß die Menschen darüber lachen. Aber es sollte gerade aus den ernsten Verwickelungen der Kultur heraus doch der Drang hervorgehen, dasjenige zu suchen, was man sonst nirgends findet; das ist doch bei vielem der Fall, daß man es sonst nirgends findet. Und gar viel ist natürlich zu lachen, wenn man sagt: Der physische Leib wird mit der Geburt geboren, da entwickelt er sich in jener leiblichen Religiosität, jenem Nachahmen bis zum Zahnwechsel hin; der Ätherleib und alles übrige arbeitet da noch in ihm. Das sind die Kräfte, die in ihm geistig-seelisch arbeiten. Mit dem Zahnwechsel wird der Ätherleib geboren; der arbeitet dann selbständig in dem Menschen. Der Astralleib wird erst geboren mit der Geschlechtsreife; dann arbeitet auch der Astralleib selbständig im Menschen. Und das Ich - das muß man nun schon mit einer gewissen Reserve heute sagen -, das Ich, das wird nämlich erst nach dem 20. Lebensjahre wirklich geboren. Das ist dasjenige, worüber man dann am besten weise schweigt, wenn man zu Menschen zu sprechen hat, die in ihren ersten akademischen Jahren stehen. Aber es ist eben doch eine Wahrheit. Es bleibt nichts anderes übrig, es ist eben so.
Nun, wenn man allerdings die Unterschiede nicht kennt zwischen den vier ganz voneinander verschiedenen Gliedern der menschlichen Wesenheit, dann wird man das zunächst als einen Unsinn betrachten oder wenigstens als etwas höchst Überflüssiges. Es ist aber nichts Überflüssiges, wenn man die volle Wesenheit kennt. Sehen Sie, das Physische hat zu seiner hauptsächlichsten Charakteristik, daß es drückt - ich könnte auch sagen, daß es den Raum ausfüllt. Daß es drückt. Es drückt auf die anderen Gegenstände, es schiebt sie weiter; es drückt auf uns selber. Diesen Druck erleben wir mit dem Tastsinn. Das Physische drückt. - Das Ätherische - ja, mit diesem Ätherischen ist es etwas ganz Sonderbares. Der Äther ist ja eigentlich für die Wissenschaft in den letzten 40 bis 50 Jahren ein merkwürdiges Ding gewesen. Wenn man alle die Äthertheorien jetzt hersagen wollte, die aufgestellt worden sind über die Wesenheit des Äthers, ja, dann würden wir nicht so bald fertig werden - bis es zuletzt heute schon so ist, daß eine ganze Anzahl von Leuten behaupten: der Äther, der ist im Grunde eigentlich nur die im Raum wesende Mathematik und Mechanik, die eigentlich nur etwa als Linien da seien. Ja, im Grunde genommen ist für viele der Äther seinem Inhalte nach bestehend aus herumfliegenden Differentialquotienten; also Errechnetes jedenfalls. Nun, immerhin hat man über diesen Äther sehr viel nachgedacht. Das ist ja sehr löblich, aber auf diesem Wege kommt über den Äther nichts heraus. Da muß man schon wissen, daß der Äther die von dem Druck entgegengesetzte Eigenschaft hat. Er saugt nämlich, der Äther ist der Saugende. Er will durch seine eigene Wesenheit immer die räumliche Materie aus dem Raume heraus vernichten. Das ist das Wesentliche des Äthers. Wo die physische Materie drückt, da saugt der Äther. Die physische Materie erfüllt den Raum; der Äther schafft die Materie aus dem Raume heraus. Er ist nämlich die negative Materie, aber qualitativ negativ, nicht quantitativ negativ.
Das ist in bezug auf den menschlichen Ätherleib ebenso. Wir leben zwischen physischem Leib und Ätherleib so, daß wir uns fortwährend vernichten und wieder herstellen. Der Äther vernichtet fortwährend unsere Materie, der physische Leib stellt sie wieder her. Das widerspricht allerdings - das will ich nur in Parenthese erwähnen - dem heute so beliebten Gesetz von der Erhaltung der Kraft. Aber die Tatsache ist, daß? dieses Gesetz von der Erhaltung der Kraft der inneren Wesenheit des Menschen, der Wahrheit widerspricht. Es gilt nur für die unorganische Welt im strengen Sinne des Wortes. Für die organische gilt es nur so weit, als diese von Unorganischem ausgefüllt ist; für die Eisenteilchen im Blutserum gilt dieses Gesetz, aber nicht für das ganze Menschenwesen. Da findet ein fortwährendes Oszillieren statt zwischen den aufsaugenden und uns vernichtenden Kräften des Äthers und der Wiederherstellung des physischen Leibes.
Beim Astralleibe ist es nun so, daß er nun nicht nur den Raum aufsaugt, sondern daß er kurioserweise die Zeit aufsaugt. Der hat nämlich etwas Rückführendes. Er ist rückführend, der Astralleib. Das kann ich Ihnen nun gleich am Beispiel des Menschen ganz klarmachen. Denken Sie sich einmal, Sie seien eine ältere Persönlichkeit von etwa 50 Jahren geworden. Ja, in Ihrem Astralleibe wirken nämlich fortwährend Kräfte, die Sie zurückführen in die Zeiten des verbrachten Erdenlaufes, die Sie zurückführen in die Zeit, die vor der Geschlechtsreife liegt. Sie erleben in Ihrem Astralleib gar nicht diesen Fünfzigjährigen. Sie erleben den EIf-, Zwölf-, Dreizehn-, Vierzehnjährigen in Wirklichkeit. Der strahlt herein in Sie dadurch, daß der Astralleib zurückführt. Das ist das Geheimnis des Lebens. Wir werden nur in bezug auf den physischen Leib und den Ätherleib und seine Oszillationen eigentlich alt. Der Astralleib ist dasjenige, was uns immer wieder zurückführt zu den früheren Lebensstadien. Da sind wir noch immer reifere Kinder. Alle miteinander sind wir noch immer reifere Kinder durch unseren Astralleib. Wenn wir also unseren Lebenslauf durch eine Röhre symbolisch vorstellen, und wir sind hier 50 Jahre alt, dann strahlt unsere reifere Kindheit, weil eben der Astralleib uns zurückleitet, ihr Wesen bis in unsere Fünfzigerjahre hinein. Im Astralischen lebt man immer rücklaufend - aber selbständig wird dieses rücklaufende Leben eben erst mit der Geschlechtsreife. Sieht man das in seinem vollen Ernste ein, dann will man schon selbstverständlich den Kindern für ihr ganzes Leben das erhalten, was man ihnen im schulpflichtigen Alter angestaltet. Man will ihnen das erhalten. Denn das, was Sie dem Kinde da angestalten, das lebt mit ihm durch das ganze Leben, weil der Astralleib immer rückwirkend ist. Für alles, was Sie im volksschulpflichtigen Alter mit dem Kinde vollbringen, steht eigentlich vor Ihnen der ganze menschliche Lebenslauf - und wenn der Mensch 90 Jahre alt wird. Das gibt für die Gesinnungspädagogik die richtige Verantwortung. Denn auf diese Verantwortlichkeit kommt es an, daß man überhaupt wissen lernt, was man tut. Und man lernt das erst wissen, wenn man solche Zusammenhänge des Lebens wirklich kennenlernt.

Nun, wenn man das kennt, dann wird man nicht mehr bloß sagen: Bringe dem Kinde nur dasjenige bei, was es schon versteht. Das ist nämlich eigentlich in bezug auf das Wesen des Menschen etwas Schreckliches, dem Kinde nur das beizubringen, was es schon versteht. Und diejenigen Lehrbücher und auch pädagogischen Handbücher für Lehrer, die unter dem Einflusse dieser Art von besonderem Anschauungsstreben entstanden sind, die sind zum Verzweifeln trivial. Da will man sich immer auf die Stufe des Kindes herunter versetzen und nur so die Dinge behandeln, daß das Kind schon alle Einzelheiten durchschauen kann. Da nimmt man dem Kinde etwas Ungeheueres; das sieht derjenige ein, der den Zusammenhang des kindlichen Lebens mit dem ganzen Menschenwesen durchschaut. Nehmen Sie an, das Kind habe irgend etwas, was es im 8. Jahr noch gar nicht verstehen kann, deshalb aufgenommen, weil es seinen Lehrer und Erzieher liebt, weil ihm das wahr und schön und gut ist, was der Lehrer sagt. Die Liebe zum Lehrer, die Sympathie ist das Vehikel für das Aufnehmen; reif ist man, sagen wir, erst mit 35 Jahren, diese Sache zu verstehen. - Es sagt sich so etwas zwar dem modernen Menschen schwer, weil er nicht zugibt, daß man für manche Sachen erst mit dem 35. Jahr reif wird, aber es ist doch so: Reif wird man erst für irgend etwas, was man da in Liebe zum Lehrer aufgenommen hat, mit dem 35. Jahr. Da hat man dann wiederum ein Erlebnis durch die rückstrahlende Kraft des Astralleibes. Da dringt etwas wie aus dem Innern herauf, es schaut wie ein Spiegelbild aus; eigentlich ist es ein Hingehen zu der Kindlichkeit. Es ist wie ein Heraufkommen in der Anschauung. Da ist man 35 Jahre alt, ist reifgeworden - aus den Tiefen der Seele taucht herauf: Jetzt verstehst du ja erst dasjenige, was du in deinem 8. Jahr dazumal in dich aufgenommen hast. Und dieses Verstehenkönnen von etwas, was lange in einem gelebt hat, auf die Liebe hin in einem gelebt hat, ist etwas ungeheuer Erfrischendes im Leben. Dieses Erfrischende im Leben können wir dem Kinde geben, wenn wir in ihm die Autorität so bewahren, daß das Vehikel zwischen ihm und uns die Liebe ist, die Sympathie ist - und wir dem Kinde dasjenige geben, was es noch nicht anschauen und verstehen kann, sondern was ihm erst heranwachsen muß im Laufe des Lebens.
Diese Zusammenhänge kennt eben derjenige gar nicht, der immer nur das an das Kind heranbringen will, was es versteht. Aber auch das Entgegengesetzte ist durchaus falsch und ungehörig. Derjenige, der das Menschenwesen versteht, wird als Erzieher oder Lehrer die Redensart nie im Munde führen: Das verstehst du noch nicht! - das darf es ja gar nicht geben, daß man jemals veranlaßt ist, zu dem Kinde in irgendeinem Lebensalter zu sagen: Das verstehst du noch nicht. Denn es wird immer eine Form geben, in die man dasjenige kleiden kann, was das Kind wissen will, wenn man nur das richtige Verhältnis zum Kinde hat. Man muß diese Form nur finden. Und diese Form findet man, wenn man eine solche Pädagogik, wie sie hier gemeint ist, zum instinktiven Leben macht. Man findet eben die entsprechende Form in dem Augenblick, wo man sie braucht. Und man findet vor allen Dingen dann die Möglichkeit, dem Kinde keine scharf umrissenen Vorstellungen zu geben. Das ist nämlich schrecklich, wenn man dem Kinde gegenüber alle Vorstellungen bis zur Unbeweglichkeit deutlich ausarbeitet. Tut man das, dann ist es nämlich so, wie wenn man das kleine Händchen des Kindes in einen eisernen Handschuh einspannte, daß es nicht mehr wachsen kann. Wir dürfen dem Kinde nie fertige Vorstellungen beibringen, sondern nur solche, die wachsen können, sich wandeln können, Vorstellungen, die selber leben.
Wenn wir also beim Bildhaften, Gestaltenhaften bleiben bis gegen das 12. Jahr hin, so werden wir auch nicht versucht sein, dem Kinde scharf umrissene, gewissermaßen starre Begriffsfiguren vorzuführen. Denn da ist es, wie wenn wir dem kleinen Kind ein Händchen in einen Eisenhandschuh zwängen, daß es nicht mehr wachsen kann. Und das, was ich als Unterricht skizziert habe, das gibt gar nicht Veranlassung dazu, in scharfe Begriffsformen die Dinge einzuspannen, sondern zu gestalten mit Worten, mit der Hand, auf die Tafel oder was es sonst ist, mit dem Pinsel in der Farbe anschaulich zu malen, zu zeichnen und so weiter. Aber immer ist das Bewußtsein da: das ist in sich beweglich, und es muß beweglich bleiben; denn man muß wissen, daß sich etwas erst gegen das 12. Jahr, und zwar sehr nahe am 12. Jahr, in dem Kinde entwickelt, und das ist der Sinn für den Kausalitätsbegriff.
Den Kausalitätsbegriff hat das Kind bis gegen das 12. Jahr hin überhaupt nicht. Es sieht dasjenige, was beweglich ist, was bewegliche Vorstellungen sind. Was als Bildhaftes, Musikalisches da ist, das schaut es, nimmt es wahr, aber es hat für den Kausalbegriff bis gegen das 12. Jahr hin keinen Sinn. Daher müssen wir dasjenige, was wir dem Kinde beibringen bis gegen das 12. Jahr hin, rein sein lassen vom Kausalitätsbegriff. Da erst können wir darauf rechnen, daß das Kind die gemeiniglichen Zusammenhänge zwischen Ursachen und Wirkungen ins Auge fassen kann. Von da an fängt das Kind eigentlich erst an, sich Gedanken zu machen; bis dahin hat es Bildvorstellungen. Da leuchtet nämlich schon voran dasjenige, was dann mit der Geschlechtsreife vollständig auftritt: das gedankliche, das urteilende Leben, das an das Denken im engeren Sinne geknüpft ist - während das Leben zwischen dem Zahnwechsel und der Geschlechtsreife an das Fühlen geknüpft ist und das Leben vor dem Zahnwechsel an den innerlich sich entfaltenden Willen, der für dieses Lebensalter nicht unter Gedanken steht, sondern unter Nachahmung des dem Kinde körperhaft Entgegentretenden. Aber mit dem körperhaft dem Kinde Entgegentretenden setzt sich auch das Moralische, das Geistige beim Kinde fest im Körperhaften. Daher ist es auch unmöglich, im 10. bis 11. Lebensjahr, meistens sogar noch im 11. bis 12. Lebensjahr, dem Kinde etwas beizubringen, wo man auf Kausalität sehen muß. Man sollte daher anfangen mit dem Beibringen der mineralischen Welt erst gegen das 12. Jahr. Und physikalische Begriffe sollten auch erst gegen dieses Lebensjahr hin auftreten, nachdem sie vorher im Grunde genommen nur vorbereitet sind. Da wird das Kind erst reif für das Aufnehmen solcher Begriffe. Alles, was sich auf das Unorganische bezieht, kann das Kind im Sinne eines Kausalbegriffes erst gegen das 12. Jahr hin begreifen. Es muß natürlich alles vorher vorbereitet sein, aber nicht durch Kausalbegriffe; sondern was später durch diese Kausalbegriffe erfaßt wird, das muß vorbereitet werden in Bildern ohne den Kausalitätsbegriff. Das Kind muß gewissermaßen einen Stoff haben, an dem es diese Kausalitätsbegriffe anwendet. Das auf der einen Seite.
Auf der anderen Seite können Sie den Kindern vor diesem Lebensalter gegen das 12. Jahr hin nicht Zusammenhänge in der Geschichte begreiflich machen. Da sollen Sie vor die Kinder hinstellen einzelne Menschenbilder, die entweder das Gefallen erwecken durch ihre Güte, ihre Wahrhaftigkeit oder dergleichen oder das Mißfallen erwecken durch das Gegenteil. Auf Gefallen und Mißfallen, auf das Gefühlsund Gemütsleben muß auch die Geschichte gestellt werden: geschlossene Bilder von Vorgängen und von Persönlichkeiten, aber Bilder, die in dem Sinne wieder beweglich gehalten werden, wie ich es angedeutet habe. Dagegen kausale Zusammenhänge zwischen dem Früheren und dem Späteren, die können Sie dem Kinde erst beibringen, wenn in ihm voranleuchtet dieses Rückläufige des Astralleibes, das dann stärker auftritt nach dem 14. Jahr. So gegen das 12. Jahr hin kommt das Kind in dieses Rückläufige hinein, und man kann dann anfangen, an den Kausalitätsbegriff zu appellieren auch in der Geschichte.
Vorher bereitet man dem Kinde im Grunde genommen etwas recht Schlimmes für das Leben zu, wenn man auf den Kausalitätsbegriff und das damit verknüpfte Verstandesurteil sieht. Denn sehen Sie: da ist ja erst der Ätherleib da. Gegen das 12. Jahr hin fängt langsam der Astralleib an, geboren zu werden; er wird dann voll geboren mit der Geschlechtsreife - aber vorher ist ja nur der Ätherleib da. Wenn Sie da dem Kinde Urteile von Ja und Nein einprägen oder es sich Begriffe einprägen lassen, so gehen ja die Dinge statt in den Astralleib in den Ätherleib hinein. Aber von was ist denn der Astralleib noch der Träger? Bedenken Sie, Sie werden aus dem Faktum der Geschlechtsreife es entnehmen können: Der Astralleib ist der Träger der menschlichen Liebe. Er arbeitet natürlich schon vorher im Kinde, aber er ist nicht selbständig geboren. Dadurch pflanzen Sie dann das Ja und Nein, das Kritikurteil, statt in den Astralleib in den Ätherleib hinein. Wenn Sie es in den Astralleib zur richtigen Zeit hineinpflanzen, dann fügen Sie dem Urteil, auch der Kritik, die Kraft der Liebe bei, die Kraft des Wohlwollens. Fügen Sie dem Kinde die Untat zu, es zu früh kritisieren zu machen, es zu früh auf Ja und Nein abzustimmen, dann stopfen Sie dieses Ja und Nein, diese Kritik, in den Ätherleib hinein. Der ist nicht wohlwollend: der ist aufsaugend, der ist übelwollend eigentlich, der wirkt zerstörend. Das tun Sie dem Kinde an, wenn Sie zu früh das Ja- oder Nein-Urteil - und ein Ja- und NeinUrteil ist auch immer in der Kausalitätsvorstellung gelegen - dem Kinde beibringen. Den geschlossenen Vorgang schaut man an; die Persönlichkeit, die bildhaft geschildert wird, schaut man an. Wenn man in der Geschichte epochenweise das Spätere mit dem Früheren verbindet, da urteilt man, da weist man ab, da nimmt man an. Da ist immer das Ja und Nein drinnen, und man bekommt zuletzt eben dasjenige heraus, was eigentlich ein Sichsträuben ist gegen das, was einem als Urteil in der Welt entgegentritt. Man nimmt die Urteile der anderen nicht mit Liebe auf, sondern mit einer in einem liegenden zerstörerischen Kraft, wenn man die Urteilskraft zu früh entwickelt. Aus solchen Dingen kann man wirklich sehen, wie sehr es darauf ankommt, zur richtigen Zeit das Richtige im schulpflichtigen Alter zu tun.
Und dann bedenken Sie doch nur einmal den Übergang in dieser Beziehung vom Tier zum Menschen. Das Tier sehen Sie nach seiner Gestalt an. In der Gestalt liegt schon das, was das Tier tut; man schaut an, was das Tier tut. Beim Menschen muß man die Causa, die Ursache, suchen. Ja, sehen Sie, weil das Kind erst gegen das 12. Jahr reif wird, die Causa zu suchen, muß auch da der Punkt eintreten, wo es die Tierwelt synthetisch zusammenfaßt in der Gesamtheit des Menschen. Da handelt es sich darum, daß man das dem Kinde entgegenbringt als ein Erlebnis, was die innere Natur verlangt, daß es Erlebnis werde in einer bestimmten Zeit.
Nun werden Sie aber zugeben: Da liegt ein großartig gewaltiger Umschwung in der kindlichen Natur zwischen dem Zahnwechsel und der Geschlechtsreife. Das Kind geht gewissermaßen mit seiner Seele den Weg ganz von innen nach außen. Denken Sie nur, daß das Kind bis gegen das 12. Jahr hin gar nicht erträgt, daß man ihm den Menschen schildert. Da beginnt es dies zu ertragen, begriffsmäßig, vorstellungsmäßig sich in dem Spiegel der Welt zu schauen. Es kann sich selber aushalten, ausstehen, indem man schildert, was der Mensch ist. Es ist wirklich ein vollständiges Umwenden der menschlichen Natur vom Zahnwechsel bis zur Geschlechtsreife.
Nun liegt innerhalb dieses Zeitraumes ein sehr wichtiger Lebensübergang. Er liegt für die meisten Kinder so zwischen dem 9. und 10. Jahr; es ist das individuell, bei manchem Kind liegt es über das 10. Jahr hinaus. Da tritt für jedes Kind etwas ein, wo das Kind instinktiv, unbewußt vor einer Art Lebensrätsel steht. Dieses Umwenden von innen nach außen, dieses Gewahrwerden, daß man ein Ich ist und draußen die Welt ist - was man bisher miteinander verflochten hat -, das ist etwas, was das Kind nicht bewußt erlebt, aber was das Kind erlebt durch innere Zweifel und Unruhe, die auftreten. Im Leibe drückt sich das so aus, daß in diesem Lebenspunkt die Atmung sich eigentlich erst richtig einschaltet in die Blutzirkulation. Das gleicht sich da aus. Es wird das dem Menschen angemessene Verhältnis hergestellt zwischen Puls und Atemzügen. Das ist das leibliche Korrelat dafür; das seelisch-geistige ist, daß das Kind jetzt in diesem Lebenspunkte uns als Lehrer und Erzieher ganz besonders braucht. Es geschieht ein Appell, der nicht in einer Frage, sondern in einer Art von Verhalten liegt, an den Lehrer oder Erzieher gerade in diesem Lebenspunkt.
Man muß sich nun das pädagogische Geschick aneignen, aus der Art und Weise des Kindes die große Lebensfrage, die das Kind jetzt an uns stellen will, im individuellen Falle richtig zu wägen. Was ist denn eigentlich diese Lebensfrage? Nun, sehen Sie, bis zu diesem Lebenspunkte hat sich das selbstverständliche Autoritätsverhältnis eigentlich so herausgebildet, daß man als Lehrer und Erzieher dem Kinde die Welt ist, Für das Kind bewegen sich die Sterne, weil es weiß, daß sein Erzieher weiß, daß sich die Sterne bewegen. Alles ist eben gut und böse, schön und häßlich, wahr und falsch, weil es der Lehrer und Erzieher so in sich hat. Es muß alles, was von der Welt kommt, in einem gewissen Sinne durch Lehrer und Erzieher durchgehen; das ist das einzig gesunde Verhältnis. Zwischen dem 9. und 10. Lebensjahr, manchmal etwas später, stellt sich, nicht in Begriffen und Vorstellungen, aber in Gefühl und Empfindung, vor die Seele des Kindes die Frage: Ja, woher hat denn der Lehrer und Erzieher das alles? Da beginnt nämlich plötzlich, wenn ich mich bildlich ausdrükken darf, dieser Lehrer und Erzieher durchsichtig zu werden. Man “will hinter ihm die Welt sehen, die hinter ihm lebt. Da muß er standhalten; da muß er gegenüber dem, was das Kind heranbringt, in dem Kinde die Überzeugung erhalten, daß er richtig in das Rückwärts, in die Welt, eingeschaltet ist; daß er Wahrheit, Schönheit und Güte wirklich in sich trägt. Da prüft die unbewußte Natur des Kindes den Lehrer in einer ganz unerhörten Weise, möchte ich sagen. Sie prüft ihn, ob er nun wirklich die Welt in sich trägt, ob er würdig war, bisher ihm der Repräsentant des ganzen Kosmos zu sein.
Und wiederum kann das nicht ausgesprochen werden. Würde man das in irgendeiner Form auch nur leise theoretisch vorführen durch Gründe oder dergleichen, dann würde die unbewußte Natur des Kinles, weil sie für Kausalität keinen Sinn hat, das als Schwäche, nicht als Stärke des Lehrers empfinden; lediglich als Schwäche. Denn alles das, was man erst beweisen muß, lebt schon schwach in der Seele; dasjenige, was stark in der Seele lebt, muß man ja nicht erst beweisen. Das geht auch in der Kulturentwickelung so. Ich will jetzt nicht inhaltlich über die Sache entscheiden, aber ich möchte Sie auf das Dynamische der Sache führen: Bis zu einem gewissen Zeitpunkte des Mittelalters haben die Leute gewußt, was das Abendmahl bedeutet. Da war man noch nicht ergriffen von der Notwendigkeit des Beweisens. Nun fingen plötzlich die Leute an, die Notwendigkeit des Beweisens dem Abendmahl gegenüber zu empfinden. Für den, der die Sache durchschaut, ist das nur ein Beweis dafür, daß die Leute eben nichts mehr von dem Abendmahl wußten. - Denn man beweist Janicht, dafß einer ein Dieb ist, wenn man ihn gesehen hat, sondern nur wenn man ihn nicht gesehen hat; wenn man ihn gesehen hat, benennt man ihn nur als Dieb. Das Beweisen bezieht sich immer auf das, was man nicht weiß, niemals aber auf dasjenige, was man wirklich weiß durch die Tatsachen des Lebens selber. Daher ist es so drollig, wenn die Leute den Zusammenhang zwischen der formalen Logik und der Wirklichkeit suchen. Es ist ungefähr gerade so, wie wenn einer den inneren Zusammenhang zwischen dem Wege, der ihn zu einem Berge hinführt, und dem Berge sucht. Der Weg ist nämlich dazu da, daß ich bis zum Berge komme; dann beginnt der Berg. Die Logik ist nur dazu da, daß man bis zur Wirklichkeit kommt; da beginnt erst die Wirklichkeit, wo die Logik aufhört.
Ja, daß man diese Dinge selber weiß, ist eben von ganz fundamentaler Bedeutung. Nicht darf man also in den Fehler verfallen, in diesem wichtigen Lebenspunkt dem Kinde beweisen zu wollen, daß man der richtige Repräsentant der Welt ist. Sondern man muß nun durch neues Verhalten dem Kinde die unmittelbare Empfindungsüberzeugung beibringen: Ja, der weiß ja noch viel mehr, als man bisher gedacht hat! Wenn das Kind weiß: der Lehrer kann sich steigern, er hat ihm bisher noch gar nicht alle Seiten gezeigt, er hat sich bisher nicht ausgegeben, jetzt sagt er vielleicht ganz vertraulich zu dem Kinde etwas, wovon das Kind überrascht ist, so daß das Kind es wieder unbewußt empfindet, aufhorcht auf das Neue, das es von dem Lehrer erfahren hat - dann ist jetzt das richtige Verhältnis hergestellt. Also man muß sich etwas bewahren, vor allen Dingen auch für diesen Zeitpunkt bewahren können, wodurch man sich als Lehrer dem Kinde gegenüber steigern kann. Denn das ist die Lösung eines wichtigen Lebensrätsels in diesem Lebenspunkte, daß man sich für das Kind, für die Wahrnehmung des Kindes steigern kann, daß man plötzlich über sich hinauswächst. Das ist der Trost und die Kraft, die man dem Kinde in diesem Punkte geben muß, weil es schon mit diesem Ansinnen herankommit an den Lehrer, zu dem es die nötige Sympathie und Liebe entwickelt hat. Die anderen Lehrer, die werden eben die bittere Erfahrung machen, daß die Autorität nach und nach, wenn das Kind zwischen dem 9. und 10. Lebensjahr steht, ausraucht, verduftet; daf3 sie dann nicht mehr da ist. Dann werden diese Lehrer eben das Schreckliche versuchen, alles dem Kinde beweisen zu wollen, und dergleichen.
Ja, und wenn man sich nun einmal einen Sinn angewöhnt hat für solche Lebensbetrachtungen, dann kommt man auch auf anderes. Sehen Sie, es müssen die einzelnen Dinge, die man heranbringt an das Kind, durchaus zusammenhängen. Nun sagte ich Ihnen: wir lassen das Kind aus seinen eigenen Bildekräften heraus irgendwie malen, natürlich nicht mit Stiften, sondern mit wirklichen Farben. Dann merke ich: das Kind lebt mit den Farben. Nach und nach wird für das Kind - man muß nur selber eine Empfindung dafür haben, daß es so ist - das Blau etwas, was weggeht, nach der Ferne geht; das Gelb und Rot etwas, was herankommt. Das ist etwas, was bei dem Kinde auch schon im 7., 8. Jahr stark hervortritt, wenn man es nur nicht in diesem Alter quält mit irgendwie dressiertem Zeichnerischem und Malerischem. Wenn man das Kind freilich Häuser und Bäume malen läßt, wie sie in Wirklichkeit sind, so geht das nicht. Aber wenn man das Kind folgen läßt, so daß es das Gefühl hat: wohin ich die Hand bewege, da geht die Farbe - der Stoff der Farbe ist nur Nebensache -, da lebt die Farbe auf unter den Fingern, da will sie sich fortsetzen irgendwo - wenn man das erreicht, so bekommt man etwas sehr Sinnvolles in der Seele des Kindes: Farbenperspektive. Das Kind bekommt das Gefühl, daß das rötende Gelb näherkommt, daß das Blauviolett fern und ferner geht. Da arbeitet man aus dem Intensiven heraus das, was man dann später mit dem Kinde auch erarbeiten soll: die Perspektive, die man dann in Linien durchführt. Es ist etwas furchtbar Schädliches, die Perspektive einem Kinde im späteren Lebensalter beizubringen, dem man nicht vorher eine Art intensiver Farbenperspektive beigebracht hat. Dadurch wird ja der Mensch in furchtbarer Weise veräußerlicht, wenn er sich gewöhnt, die quantitative Perspektive sich anzueignen, ohne vorher die intensive, die qualitative Perspektive sich angeeignet zu haben, die in der Farbenperspektive liegt.
Und in diesem Zusammenhang liegen dann die weiteren Zusammenhänge. Wenn Sie dem Kinde verwehren, intensiv in der Farbenperspektive zu leben, so wird das Kind niemals mit der richtigen Schnelligkeit lesen lernen. Immer mit der Einschränkung, die ich gestern gesagt habe: Es kommt ja nicht darauf an, daß man das Lesen so schnell als möglich am Anfange dem Kinde beibringt. Aber das Kind bekommt geschmeidige Vorstellungen, geschmeidige Empfindungen und geschmeidige Willensaktionen aus diesen Farbenempfindungen heraus. Alles Seelische wird geschmeidiger. Vielleicht müssen Sie durch das alles, was hier verlangt wird, aus dem malenden Zeichnen, dem zeichnenden Malen das Lesen zu entwickeln, länger brauchen, um das Lesen an das Kind heranzubringen. Aber in dem Lebensalter, wo es dann darankommt, ist es dann doch eben möglich, das Lesen wirklich richtig an das Kind heranzubringen, ohne daß es im Körper, im ganzen Menschen zu flüchtig sitzt - wie es auch sein kann - und ohne daß es zu tief im Menschen drinnen sitzt und ihm förmlich jeder Buchstabe einen Ritz macht in der menschlichen Wesenheit.
Daß man in der richtigen Sphäre dasjenige drinnen hat, was das Seelisch-Geistige begreift, das ist es auch, worauf es ankommt. Niemals darf nach dem Maßstab geurteilt werden, daß man sagt: Was soll das Kind so malen lernen, es braucht es ja nie im Leben! Das heißt: nur auf das Äußerliche sehen. Es braucht es nämlich ganz gewaltig, und man muß eben schon etwas vom geistigen Menschenwesen verstehen, wenn man die Zusammenhänge, die für das Kind notwendig sind, verstehen will. Ebensowenig wie der Ausspruch «das verstehst du nicht» gebraucht werden sollte, ebensowenig sollte jemals ein Skeptizismus bestehen über das, was das Kind braucht oder nicht. Was das Kind braucht, soll aus der Gesetzmäßigkeit der Menschennatur fließen. Fließt es da heraus, dann tut man instinktiv das Richtige. Dann ist man auch gar nicht trostlos, wenn das Kind einiges vergißt von dem, was es in sich aufgenommen hat. Denn die Dinge gehen dann über aus dem Wissen in das Können. Und das ist so wichtig, daß wir die Dinge später im Können haben. Wir werden sie nicht im Können haben, wenn wir mit Wissen überladen sind. Es ist notwendig, diese Dinge zu wissen und sie wirklich einzuführen in die pädagogische Praxis, daß man dem Gedächtnis nur so viel einverleibt, als eben von dem sozialen Leben gefordert wird, daß es keinen Sinn hat, das Gedächtnis zu überladen.
Und da kommen wir dann auf diejenigen Fragen der Lebenspraxis, die sich vorzugsweise ergeben aus dem Verhältnis des einzelnen individuellen Menschen zu dem sozialen Wesen, das ringsherum ist, zu dem Volkswesen, dem sozialen Wesen der gesamten Menschheit und so weiter. Denn da müssen wir auch durchaus darauf hinschauen, daß wir das Wesen der Menschennatur nicht verletzen, wenn wir die von außen herankommenden sozialen Forderungen in die Erziehungspraxis einführen wollen.
Fragenbeantwortungen
Über musikalische Ausbildung fin Beantwortung einer Frage über Musikstunde bei einem 17jährigen Mädchen).
Das Wesentliche ist ja doch das, was Herr Baumann hingestellt hat: daß gerade mit der Geschlechtsreife und dann in den folgenden Jahren sich ergibt, daß ein gewisses musikalisches Urteil an die Stelle eines früheren musikalischen Empfindens und musikalischen Erlebens tritt. Das musikalische Urteil tritt dann auf. Das ist natürlich darin sehr deutlich zu bemerken, daß die Erscheinungen auftreten, die Herr Baumann charakterisiert hat. Es tritt eine gewisse Selbstbeobachtung ein bei den Kindern, eine Selbstbeobachtung ihres Singens und dadurch wiederum die Möglichkeit, bewußter die Stimme zu behandeln und dergleichen. Das muß nun auch methodisch kultiviert werden. Dann aber tritt das sehr stark hervor, daß gerade von diesem Jahre ab jenes selbstverständliche musikalische Gedächtnis etwas zurückgeht, so daß die Kinder von diesen Jahren ab sich mehr anstrengen müssen, um auch gedächtnismäßig das Musikalische zu behalten. Darauf muß man dann im Unterricht ganz besonders sehen. Während die Kinder bis zur Geschlechtsreife ein selbstverständliches Leben haben im Musikalischen, die Dinge sehr leicht behalten, fangen manchmal diejenigen, die früher sehr gut behalten haben, nun an, Schwierigkeiten zu haben im Behalten, also nicht so sehr im Aneignen, sondern im Behalten. Darauf muß man sehen. Man muß versuchen, nicht unmittelbar hintereinander, aber oftmals die Dinge zu wiederholen. Namentlich tritt in diesem Alter stark das hervor - psychologisch liegt da ein sehr feiner, intimer Unterschied zugrunde -, daß, während früher das Instrumental-Musikalische und das Stimmliche, das Vokal-Musikalische in eins zusammenfallen, werden diese zwei Dinge gerade vom 16., 17. Jahr ab sehr deutlich voneinander unterschieden. Es wird viel bewußter hingehört auf das Instrument, es wird viel bewußter von diesem Lebensalter an auch auf das Instrumental-Musikalische hingehört. Man bekommt mehr Verständnis für das InstrumentalMusikalische als vorher. Vorher sang das Instrument sozusagen mit, nachher hört man die Instrumente; hören und singen sind dann zwei, wenn auch parallel miteinandergehende Prozesse. In diesem Verhältnis, das dann eintritt zwischen Singen und Verstehen des Instrumentes, liegt das Charakteristische. Da müssen dann die Unterrichtsmethoden eben darnach eingerichtet werden. Wichtig ist, daß man mit dem Theoretisch-Musikalischen vor diesem Lebensalter überhaupt nicht anfangen sollte, sondern daß man eigentlich das Musikalische praktisch treiben sollte und, was man theoretisch bemerken will, anknüpft an das unmittelbar praktische Treiben, und dann allmählich, gerade in diesem Lebensalter, den Übergang erst gewinnt, nun auch etwa verstandesgemäß zu urteilen über das Musikalische. Das, was Herr Baumann zuletzt angedeutet hat, daß man den Kindern manches in ihrer Selbsterkenntnis beibringen kann aus ihrem musikalischen Auftreten heraus, das ist durchaus richtig. Und während zum Beispiel, wenn man, wie wir es ja in der Waldorfschule machen, die älteren Kinder zur plastischen Tätigkeit bringt, wenn man sie allerlei bilden läßt, währenddem man da die Eigentümlichkeiten der Kinder gleich von Anfang an wahrnehmen kann in dem, was sie plastisch hervorbringen - es ist irgend etwas, wenn es von verschiedenen Kindern plastisch gestaltet wird, ja etwas ganz Verschiedenes -, ist es beim Musikalischen so, daß man auf dasjenige, was den Kindern individuell ist, zunächst gar nicht eingehen kann. Das tritt dann eben hervor, wenn das Kind dieses Lebensalter erreicht hat. Dann kann man, natürlich namentlich aus den ja dann auch schon intensiver hervortretenden Neigungen für diese oder jene musikalische Richtung, zurückwirken auf das Kind, um Einseitigkeiten zu vermeiden. Wenn also das Kind eine bestimmte Musik besonders liebt, sagen wir zum Beispiel, es gibt ja gerade in unserer gegenwärtigen Zivilisation sehr viele Kinder, bei denen stellt sich ganz von selbst ein, daß sie reine Wagnerianer werden. Da muß man entgegenwirken, denn da findet eigentlich das statt, daß ein zu starkes Aufnehmen des Musikalischen mit dem Gefühl eintritt, statt der inneren Gestaltung des Musikalischen selber - ich will damit nichts gegen Wagner sagen -, also es rutscht das Musikalische gewissermaßen zu stark in das Gefühlsleben hinunter. Da muß man es dann heraufheben. Das merkt der Musiker auch an der Gestaltung der Stimme. Die Stimme klingt anders bei einem Kinde, bei dem zu stark das Musikalische ins Gefühl rutscht, als bei einem Kinde, das die Formung der Töne hört, für das Plastische in der Musik ein richtiges Verständnis hat. Da in der richtigen Weise zu wirken für ein richtiges musikalisches Gefühl und Verständnis, dafür ist dieses Lebensalter besonders wichtig. Natürlich kommt dabei in Betracht, daß man ja bis zur Geschlechtsreife unbedingt als Autorität neben den Kindern steht. Da hat man noch nicht Gelegenheit, auf diese Dinge zu sehen beim Kinde. Nachher steht man schon nicht mehr als Autorität neben dem Kinde, sondern durch das Gewicht, das man dem eigenen Urteil für das Kind geben kann. Bis zur Geschlechtsreife ist dasjenige richtig, was der Lehrer für richtig hält, falsch, was der Lehrer für falsch hält, weil es der Lehrer für richtig oder falsch hält. Nach der Geschlechtsreife muß man begründen, auch musikalisch begründen. Deshalb ist es sehr wichtig, daß gerade dann, wenn eben die Veranlassung vorliegt, den musikalischen Unterricht in diese Zeit hinein besonders fortzusetzen, wirklich stramm in das Motivieren der Urteile, die man heranzieht, eingegangen wird. - Ja, man könnte die ganze Nacht über dieses Thema weiterreden, wenn man wollte.
Frage: Liegt nicht eine Lüge darin, wenn man das Kind nach etwas fragt, was man doch schon weiß?
Es liegt etwas sehr Interessantes zugrunde. Wenn ich jemand frage nach etwas, so ist die Voraussetzung, ich will die Antwort haben, weil ich sie noch nicht weiß. Nun frage ich das Kind um etwas, ich weiß es aber schon, also begehe ich eine Unwahrheit. - Nun handelt es sich im Unterricht eben sehr stark um Imponderabilien. Sehen Sie, es ist manchmal durchaus notwendig, sich dieses klarzumachen. Ich gebrauche oftmals ein Beispiel dafür: Man kann, wenn man religiös bildhaft unterrichtet, bei der Besprechung der Unsterblichkeitstrage zu einem Bilde greifen in der folgenden Weise. Man sagt sich: du willst dem Kinde, das noch nicht irgendwelche Erörterungen begrifflicher Art verstehen kann, bildlich etwas von der Unsterblichkeit beibringen. Du bist gescheit als Lehrer, das Kind ist dumm; also präge ich aus meiner Gescheitheit heraus ein Bild. Ich mache das so, daß ich sage: Schau dir die Schmetterlingspuppe an; die Puppe öffnet sich, wenn sie reif wird, dann fliegt der schöne Schmetterling heraus. So wie der Schmetterling aus der Puppe ausfliegt, so fliegt die unsterbliche Seele aus dem Körper, wenn der Mensch stirbt. Man bringt das dem Kinde bei. Schön, aber man wird bemerken, daß, wenn man aus dieser Orientierung heraus das dem Kinde beibringt, so wird es keinen sehr starken Eindruck auf das Kind machen. Denn der Lehrer in seiner Gescheitheit glaubt natürlich selber nicht an das Bild, sondern er verdeutlicht nur für das dumme Kind die Unsterblichkeitsfrage in diesem Bilde. Aber es gibt noch eine andere Orientierung, das ist die, daß man selber an das Bild glaubt. Und da kann ich sagen: Wenn man nicht furchtbar gescheit ist, sondern wirklichkeitsverwandt ist, glaubt man selber daran. Da nimmt man das Bild so, daß man sich sagt: Nicht ich vergleiche, sondern die Weltordnung selber hat dieses Bild hingestellt; es liegt wirklich im Auskriechen des Schmetterlings auf einer unteren Stufe dasselbe ausgedrückt, versinnlicht vor, was in der Unsterblichkeit der Seele vorliegt. Ich kann daran glauben. Merken Sie den Unterschied: Wenn ich an meine Bilder selber glaube, mit alldem, was in meinen Worten liegt, wenn ich sie dem Kinde beibringe, da wirkt die Gesinnung des Lehrers mit auf das Kind. Solche Dinge können Sie unendlich viele finden. Und so wirken auch die Imponderabilien mit in der interessanten Frage, die jetzt eben aufgestellt ist. Es handelt sich nicht darum, daß man als Lehrer nun die Ansicht hat: Ich weiß das, das Kind weiß es nicht, und ich frage das nun, als wenn ich es wissen wollte. Nicht wahr, es ist ein großer Unterschied, ob ich das Kind frage etwa über die Schlacht bei Zabern, und ich weiß es, das Kind aber nicht, oder weiß es auch; die Unwahrheit liegt darinnen, daß ich frage, während ich die Sache schon weiß. Nun kann ich aber die Gesinnung haben, daß mich trotzdem an der Antwort des Kindes etwas interessiert, und ich stelle vorzugsweise die Fragen in der Absicht, nun richtig zu erfahren, was das Kind über die Sache meint. Dann weiß ich wirklich nicht, was das Kind sagen wird. Das Kind sagt mir die Dinge nuanciert. Und wenn ich mir überhaupt als Ideal stelle, wie ich es oftmals betont habe in meinen Vorträgen: Kein Weiser ist so gescheit, daß er nicht von einem Säugling etwas lernen könnte - ja man kann noch so weit in der Wissenschaft fortgeschritten sein, der Schrei eines Säuglings kann einen viel lehren -, so kann man tatsächlich als Lehrer aus jeder Antwort des Kindes, wenn man die Frage in dieser Gesinnung stellt, lernen zu lehren. Man kann aus jeder Antwort eines Kindes durchaus nicht das herausholen: man will hören, was man weiß, sondern man kann dasjenige kennenlernen, was das Kind einem sagt. Dann wird man auch seine Frage richtig stellen. Dann wird man sehr häufig zum Beispiel die Frage so formulieren: Was meinst du darüber? - Schon in der Betonung der Frage wird etwas liegen, daß man selber als Lehrer neugierig ist, was das Kind antwortet. Es ist wirklich so, daß auf die Imponderabilien, die sich abspielen zwischen Kind und Lehrer, viel ankommt. Wenn man das unterbewußte Leben kennt, wie es im Kinde ausgebildet ist, kommt man auf vieles andere noch. Auf diesem Gebiete liegt ja auch die Frage des Lügenhaften im Unterricht, wenn man es bestimmt ausdrücken will, wenn der Lehrer vor der Schule steht und aus dem Buche unterrichtet oder sich so hilft, daß er sich. die Sachen irgendwie aufgeschrieben hat. Ja, nicht wahr, das ist unter Umständen sehr bequem für den Lehrer. Für den Unterricht ist es aber eigentlich furchtbar; schon deshalb furchtbar, weil das Kind in seinem Unterbewußtsein sich fortwährend ein Urteil bildet, wenn der Lehrer mit dem Unterrichtsstoffe so in der Klasse steht. Da spricht das Unterbewußtsein des Kindes: Warum soll ich wissen, was der nicht weiß? Von mir wird verlangt, zu wissen, was der mir aus seinem Buche vorliest. - Sehen Sie, das ist noch eine viel größere Unwahrheit, die auf diese Weise in die Klasse kommt, als durch das Fragestellen. Selbst beim Diktieren von Übungssätzen soll man vorsichtig sein und nicht aus dem Buche diktieren. Wenn man beachtet, was im Kinde vorgeht, und das Kind merkt, daß der Lehrer für es Interesse hat und nicht die Frage aus Lügenhaftigkeit stellt, dann ist die Sache eben ganz anders. Auf diese Weise wird man wirklich dazu kommen, keine Lüge mehr zu entwickeln in dem Frage- und Antwortverhältnis zwischen Lehrer und Kind.
Fifth Lecture
For teaching and educational practice between approximately the age of 7 and the age of 14, it is particularly important to be able to orient oneself correctly to the emotional life of the child and within the emotional life of the child. It is really a matter of the teacher being able to form the right visual images that can guide them through the delicate transitions that exist in children during this period of life.
When you get your child into school, something of the earlier physical-religious atmosphere – as I have called it – still has an effect, as does the longing to to perceive everything that is going on in the environment, and this perception, which turns into imitation, is then combined with listening to how the natural authority of teachers and educators affects the child. It must certainly be the case for this childish age that what is true is not what one has examined for its truth, but what the natural authority says is true. And likewise, something must be untrue for the reason that the natural authority finds it untrue. The same applies to beautiful and ugly, and to good and evil. One can only arrive at a truly independent, free judgment about right and wrong, good and evil, beautiful and ugly in later life if, at this age, one has been able to look up to a self-evident authority with such deep reverence in relation to these things. Of course, this must not be an imposed authority; it must not be an externally established authority. At least, if for external social reasons the authority must be an imposed and externally established one, the child must not know anything about it. The child must, through the whole direction of its feelings and sensations, receive the impression from the personality of the teacher and educator that it looks up to them as the appropriate authority. And everything in this delicate authoritative relationship, especially between the ages of 7 and 9, and in general between starting elementary school and the age of 9, must be preserved. It must be preserved for a long time, but then it modifies itself between the ages of 9 and 10.
Now something else coincides with the child's natural immersion in authority. It coincides with the fact that in the first phase of life, up to the change of teeth, the child was a sensory being, in a sense a whole sensory organ; but a sensory organ in which the will was at work at every step of life. It may seem strange to you that I say: a sensory organ in which the will is at work. But it only seems strange to you because today's physiology and the popular views that have arisen from this physiology are quite inadequate. Today, people do not usually think of the will when they think of the eye, for example. But even with the eye, it is the will that creates the inner image and nothing else. In every sense organ, the will creates the inner image. The sense organ, passive, initially has only the task of exposing itself or the human being to the outside world, but an inner activity takes place in every sense organ, and that activity is of a volitional nature. And this volitional element has an intense effect on the child throughout the entire body until the change of teeth. Then this volitional element remains. And between the start of elementary school and about the age of 9, this volitional element can only tolerate being introduced to all things in nature and in human beings in a very human, pictorial way. That is why we work, for example, in such a way that we do not introduce an aestheticizing element, but rather an artistic element, especially in the early lessons; that we let the child handle colors right from the start, even though this sometimes causes discomfort in the classroom. But we let the child handle colors because in doing so, it follows its own pictorial powers in juxtaposing colors, in finding satisfaction in placing color next to color, not meaningfully, but instinctively and sensibly. The child develops a wonderful instinctive way of placing colors next to each other. And then you can already see how you can direct this juxtaposition of colors into drawing and how you can then gain writing from drawing.
But the child has no understanding whatsoever for the fact that you want to explain something to them at this age. They have no understanding of this at all. If you try to explain something to them during these years, they become dull, and it doesn't work at all. But it works wonderfully if you don't explain everything you want to teach the child, but rather tell them, if you want to paint with words and ideas, if you bring rhythm into the whole way you teach the child things. If you have music not only in music, but also in the whole action of the lesson, if tempo, rhythm, even an inner musicality can prevail in the lesson, then the child has a fine understanding of it. But it would resist, for example, if you wanted to describe what you bring to the child in terms of feelings and will; if you wanted to describe human beings to the child between the time it enters elementary school and the age of 9. It would resist terribly; it could not bear it at all. However, treating everything, down to inorganic natural beings, as human is what the child actually demands from its inner self during this period.
Now this horror, you might call it, of describing human beings actually persists until around the age of 12. We can quite well carry out what I said yesterday between the ages of 9 and 12. As I explained yesterday, we can teach the child about the plant world as the hair that grows on the earth; but we must stick to the pictorial characteristics. We can also teach the child about the animal world in such a way that, in a manner that suits the child, we understand each animal form as a piece of the human being that is developed on one side. However, we must not now move on to describing human beings themselves at this stage. We can even influence the child quite well by talking about the limbs of human beings and applying these limbs in one-sided development to this or that animal form, but the child does not yet understand the summary of the human being. It is only around the age of 12 that they develop a longing to summarize the entire animal kingdom as human beings. And this can then be done in the classes that follow the age between 11 and 12.
There is an apparent contradiction here, but life is contradictory. The apparent contradiction is that one should first describe the entire animal kingdom as the extended human being. But it is right to do so before describing the human being as a spatial figure in the summary. The child must first get a feeling that everything human inhabits the whole earth, that the animal world is the whole of humanity in its individual specimens. And then the child must experience the great moment when it is summarized how everything that is spread out in the animal world is concentrated in the human being. What is important in teaching is that the child really experiences the decisive moments of life. That the child is allowed to let this sink into their soul: the extract and synthetic summary of the entire animal world is, at a higher level, the human being as a physical human being.
At this age, it is not important to teach the child this or that knowledge from stage to stage, but rather to let them truly experience the decisive moments in life – to let them truly transcend, if I may say so, certain mountains of human life that lie precisely in childhood. This has an effect on their entire later life. And it is already the case that our time, with the way it has developed scientifically, really has very little talent for looking so intimately at human life and the human being. Otherwise, the things that arise within today's civilization, and especially within today's intellectual life, would not arise at all. Just consider something I emphasized in the very first lesson: Up to the age of seven, the soul works in all the physical processes that later play out in the change of teeth. And I used the comparison: if we have a solution here and a sediment forms down there, this is the denser part: then the finer part remains above – and each is now separate. Up to the change of teeth around the age of seven, the two were together. We say: the physical body and the etheric body, the coarser body and the finer body, were still one. Now the physical body has separated itself, and the etheric human being now works independently.

Yes, but it can happen that too much of the soul is absorbed by the physical body. Some of the soul must always remain behind, because human beings must have their physical bodies animated and spiritualized throughout their entire lives. But too much of the soul-spiritual can remain behind, and too little can be up there: then you have a human being who has too much soul in his physical body and too little spiritual-soul being; there is something that should already be in the spiritual-soul realm that has remained behind in the physical body. And you see, this is a situation that occurs extremely frequently! But this provides the real insight into how soul contents that should be present between the ages of 7 and 14, so to speak, remain in the physical body below. There you have an exact insight into this. But in order to acquire this precise insight, it is necessary to really know human beings in their grosser and finer nature. So it is absolutely necessary to have a physiology that still contains enough of the psychic, and a psychology that is not abstract psychology, but contains enough physiology. One must see how the physical body relates to the soul and how the soul-spirit relates to the physical body; one must understand this.
If one does not understand this, one has only a dilettantish physiology, not a real physiology, and one also has a dilettantish psychology, not a real psychology. And because of this failure to understand the human being, today's scientific life actually has an amateurish psychology and an amateurish physiology. That is, it has something that can be composed of the interaction between psychological amateurism and physiological amateurism. This results in “dilettantism squared,” which is then called psychoanalysis. This is precisely the secret of the emergence of psychoanalysis, that it arises from amateurish physiology and amateurish psychology, which interact with each other like two numbers that are multiplied together and produce a square. This is how “dilettantism squared” comes about. Dilettantish psychology multiplied by dilettantish physiology = psychoanalysis. I am not saying this to accuse psychoanalysis of anything, because things cannot be any different under the scientific conditions of today, precisely because humanity has gone through an age in which psychology has become too thin and physiology too thick. And when people look at things this way, instead of a genuine science emerging, physiology chemically precipitates out of what should be a unified solution. It is an image, but you will understand the image.
Well, it is now clear that we must be clear about how the real human being develops and how we must pay attention to the stages of life, especially in children.
It is precisely at this age, between 9 and 12, that children are receptive to everything that is presented to them as an image from the outside world. Up to about the age of 9, they want to participate in the image; they do not allow the images to approach them. One must always work so vividly alongside the child that what the teacher does and what the child does together actually form an image. The work itself must be an image. It does not matter whether one is working with images or something else; the work itself, the teaching, must be an image. Between the ages of 9 and 10, the child then develops a special sense for external imagery. This can now be introduced, and it provides the opportunity to introduce the child to the plant and animal world in the right way, insofar as imagery lives within it. Imagery must be introduced, especially in the plant and animal world. And the more one is able to depict pictorially what is presented in our botanical textbooks to the third power of non-pictoriality, the better a teacher one is, especially for children between the ages of 9 and 12. Bringing everything into the picture is also what can give such infinite inner satisfaction. For when you bring the plant world in its forms into pictures, you have to be co-creative.
This co-creativity is what our civilization really needs to embrace! Today, we experience it every moment, when people who are in the midst of life come to us in despair because they cannot grasp anything pictorial. This leads back to the fact that these people's childhoods were not spent in the right way. The world finds it easy to laugh at us when we say that human beings consist of a physical body, an etheric body, an astral body, and an ego. The world finds it easy to laugh at this, because if you take everything that is known today from mainstream science and then judge such a thing, you can only laugh at it. If you don't go into the matter, you can only laugh — you understand very well that people laugh about it. But it is precisely out of the serious complications of culture that the urge should arise to seek what cannot be found anywhere else; this is often the case, that it cannot be found anywhere else. And of course there is much to laugh about when one says: The physical body is born at birth, where it develops in that physical religiosity, that imitation until the teeth change; the etheric body and everything else still works in it. These are the forces that work spiritually and soulfully in it. With the change of teeth, the etheric body is born; it then works independently in the human being. The astral body is only born with sexual maturity; then the astral body also works independently in the human being. And the ego — one must say this with a certain reserve today — the ego is only really born after the age of 20. This is something that is best left unsaid when speaking to people who are in their first years of college. But it is nevertheless a truth. There is no other way, that is simply how it is.
Now, if one does not know the differences between the four completely different members of the human being, then one will initially regard this as nonsense or at least as something highly superfluous. But it is not superfluous if one knows the full nature of the being. You see, the main characteristic of the physical is that it exerts pressure — I could also say that it fills space. That it exerts pressure. It exerts pressure on other objects, it pushes them further; it exerts pressure on ourselves. We experience this pressure with our sense of touch. The physical exerts pressure. The etheric — yes, with this etheric, it is something very strange. The ether has actually been a curious thing for science in the last 40 to 50 years. If we wanted to recount all the theories that have been put forward about the nature of ether, we would not finish anytime soon – until finally, today, a whole number of people claim that ether is basically just the mathematics and mechanics that exist in space, which are actually only there as lines. Yes, basically, for many, the ether consists of flying differential quotients; in other words, something that has been calculated. Well, at least a lot of thought has been given to this ether. That is very commendable, but nothing will come of it. One must know that the ether has the opposite property to pressure. It sucks; the ether is the sucking force. Through its very nature, it always wants to destroy spatial matter from space. That is the essence of the ether. Where physical matter presses, the ether sucks. Physical matter fills space; the ether removes matter from space. It is negative matter, but negative in quality, not in quantity.
The same applies to the human etheric body. We live between the physical body and the etheric body in such a way that we are constantly destroying and restoring ourselves. The ether constantly destroys our matter, and the physical body restores it. This contradicts, of course – I just want to mention this in parentheses – the law of conservation of energy, which is so popular today. But the fact is that this law of conservation of energy contradicts the inner essence of the human being, the truth. It applies only to the inorganic world in the strict sense of the word. For the organic world, it applies only insofar as it is filled with inorganic matter; this law applies to the iron particles in blood serum, but not to the whole human being. There is a constant oscillation between the absorbing and destroying forces of the ether and the restoration of the physical body.
The astral body not only absorbs space, but curiously also absorbs time. It has a retroactive effect. The astral body is retroactive. I can explain this to you clearly using the example of a human being. Imagine that you have become an older person of about 50 years of age. Yes, forces are constantly at work in your astral body that take you back to the times of your past earthly life, that take you back to the time before sexual maturity. In your astral body, you do not experience this fifty-year-old at all. In reality, you experience the five-, twelve-, thirteen-, fourteen-year-old. This shines into you because the astral body takes you back. That is the secret of life. We only actually grow old in relation to the physical body and the etheric body and its oscillations. The astral body is what takes us back again and again to earlier stages of life. There we are still more mature children. All of us together are still more mature children through our astral body. So if we symbolically imagine our life course as a tube, and we are 50 years old here, then our more mature childhood shines through, because the astral body leads us back, its essence into our fifties. In the astral, one always lives backwards – but this backward life only becomes independent with sexual maturity. If you understand this in all its seriousness, then you naturally want to preserve for children throughout their lives what you shape for them during their school years. You want to preserve it for them. Because what you shape for the child lives with them throughout their entire life, because the astral body is always retroactive. For everything you accomplish with the child during their compulsory school age, the entire human life course actually stands before you – even if the person lives to be 90 years old. This gives the right responsibility to the education of the mind. For it is this responsibility that matters, that one learns to know what one is doing. And one only learns this when one really gets to know such connections in life.

Well, once you know that, you will no longer say: Just teach the child what it already understands. In fact, in relation to the nature of human beings, it is something terrible to teach children only what they already understand. And those textbooks and educational manuals for teachers that have been written under the influence of this kind of special striving for clarity are exasperatingly trivial. They always want to put themselves on the same level as the child and only deal with things in such a way that the child can already understand all the details. This robs the child of something tremendous; anyone who understands the connection between a child's life and the whole human being can see this. Suppose the child has absorbed something that it cannot yet understand at the age of 8 because it loves its teacher and educator, because what the teacher says is true, beautiful, and good to it. Love for the teacher, sympathy, is the vehicle for absorption; one is only mature enough to understand this at the age of 35, let's say. It is difficult for modern people to say such a thing, because they do not admit that one only becomes mature for some things at the age of 35, but it is nevertheless true: one only becomes mature for something that one has absorbed out of love for the teacher at the age of 35. Then you have an experience through the reflective power of the astral body. Something rises up from within, it looks like a mirror image; actually, it is a return to childhood. It is like a rising up in perception. You are 35 years old, you have matured — something emerges from the depths of your soul: now you finally understand what you absorbed in your eighth year. And this ability to understand something that has lived within you for a long time, that has lived within you through love, is something tremendously refreshing in life. We can give this refreshing feeling in life to the child if we preserve authority in such a way that the vehicle between us and the child is love, is sympathy – and we give the child what it cannot yet see and understand, but what it must grow into in the course of its life.
Those who only ever want to teach children what they can understand are completely unaware of these connections. But the opposite is also completely wrong and inappropriate. Those who understand human nature will never, as educators or teachers, say: You don't understand that yet! — it should never be the case that one is ever prompted to say to a child of any age: You don't understand that yet. For there will always be a form in which one can clothe what the child wants to know, if only one has the right relationship with the child. One only has to find this form. And you will find this form if you make the kind of pedagogy referred to here an instinctive part of your life. You will find the appropriate form at the moment you need it. And above all, you will find the possibility of not giving the child sharply defined ideas. It is terrible to work out all ideas for the child to the point of immobility. If you do that, it is like putting the child's little hand in an iron glove so that it can no longer grow. We must never teach the child ready-made ideas, but only those that can grow, that can change, ideas that are alive themselves.
If we stick to the pictorial and creative until around the age of 12, we will not be tempted to present the child with sharply defined, rigid concepts. For that is like forcing a small child's hand into an iron glove so that it can no longer grow. And what I have outlined as teaching does not give any reason to constrain things into sharply defined concepts, but rather to shape them with words, with the hand, on the blackboard or whatever else, to paint vividly with a brush in paint, to draw, and so on. But the awareness is always there: it is flexible in itself and must remain flexible, because we must know that something develops in the child only around the age of 12, very close to the age of 12, and that is the sense of the concept of causality.
The child has no concept of causality at all until around the age of 12. It sees what is mobile, what are mobile ideas. It sees and perceives what is pictorial and musical, but it has no sense of the concept of causality until around the age of 12. Therefore, what we teach children up to the age of 12 must be free of the concept of causality. Only then can we expect children to be able to grasp the common connections between causes and effects. From then on, children actually begin to think; until then, they have visual images. What then appears in full with sexual maturity already shines through: the intellectual, judgmental life that is linked to thinking in the narrower sense — whereas life between the change of teeth and sexual maturity is linked to feeling, and life before the change of teeth to the inner unfolding of the will, which at this age is not governed by thought but by imitation of what the child encounters physically. But with what physically confronts the child, the moral and spiritual aspects also become firmly established in the child's physical being. Therefore, it is impossible to teach a child anything in the 10th to 11th year of life, and in most cases even in the 11th to 12th year, where one must look at causality. One should therefore begin teaching about the mineral world only around the age of 12. And physical concepts should also only appear around this age, after they have basically been prepared beforehand. Only then is the child ready to absorb such concepts. The child can only understand everything related to the inorganic in the sense of a causal concept around the age of 12. Of course, everything must be prepared beforehand, but not through causal concepts; rather, what will later be grasped through these causal concepts must be prepared in images without the concept of causality. The child must, in a sense, have material to which it can apply these causal concepts. That is on the one hand.
On the other hand, you cannot make connections in history comprehensible to children before this age, around the age of 12. You should present the children with individual images of people who either arouse their liking through their kindness, their truthfulness, or the like, or arouse their dislike through the opposite. History must also be placed on the basis of liking and disliking, on the emotional and mental life: closed images of events and personalities, but images that are kept flexible in the sense I have indicated. On the other hand, you can only teach the child causal connections between the earlier and the later when this retrograde movement of the astral body begins to shine forth in him, which then becomes more pronounced after the age of 14. Around the age of 12, the child enters this retrograde phase, and one can then begin to appeal to the concept of causality in history as well.
Before that, one is basically preparing the child for something quite bad in life if one looks at the concept of causality and the intellectual judgment associated with it. For you see, only the etheric body is there at first. Around the age of 12, the astral body slowly begins to be born; it is then fully born with sexual maturity – but before that, only the etheric body is there. If you impress judgments of yes and no on the child, or allow it to memorize concepts, then these things go into the etheric body instead of the astral body. But what else is the astral body the bearer of? Consider this, you will be able to deduce it from the fact of sexual maturity: the astral body is the bearer of human love. Of course, it is already at work in the child before that, but it is not born independently. By doing so, you then plant the yes and no, the critical judgment, into the etheric body instead of the astral body. If you plant it into the astral body at the right time, you add the power of love, the power of goodwill, to the judgment, even to the criticism. If you do the child the disservice of criticizing it too early, of conditioning it too early to say yes and no, then you stuff this yes and no, this criticism, into the etheric body. It is not benevolent: it is absorbing, it is actually malevolent, it has a destructive effect. You do this to the child when you teach it too early to judge yes or no—and a yes or no judgment is always based on the idea of causality. You look at the closed process; you look at the personality that is described pictorially. When you connect the later with the earlier in the story, epoch by epoch, you judge, you reject, you accept. There is always the yes and no in there, and in the end you get what is actually a resistance to what you encounter as judgment in the world. If you develop your power of judgment too early, you do not accept the judgments of others with love, but with a destructive force that lies within you. From such things, you can really see how important it is to do the right thing at the right time during school age.
And then just consider the transition in this relationship from animal to human. You see the animal by its form. The form already contains what the animal does; you look at what the animal does. With humans, you have to look for the cause. Yes, you see, because the child only becomes mature enough to search for the cause around the age of 12, the point must also come when it synthesizes the animal world into the totality of the human being. It is a matter of presenting this to the child as an experience, which its inner nature demands, so that it becomes an experience at a certain time.
But you will admit that there is a tremendous change in the nature of the child between the change of teeth and sexual maturity. In a sense, the child's soul travels the path from the inside to the outside. Just think that until around the age of 12, the child cannot bear to have human beings described to them. Then they begin to be able to bear it, conceptually, imaginatively, to see themselves in the mirror of the world. They can bear themselves, tolerate themselves, when you describe what human beings are. It is truly a complete reversal of human nature from the change of teeth to sexual maturity.
Now, within this period, there is a very important transition in life. For most children, it occurs between the ages of 9 and 10; it is individual, and for some children it occurs after the age of 10. Something happens to every child at this point, where the child instinctively and unconsciously faces a kind of life puzzle. This reversal from the inside to the outside, this realization that one is an “I” and that the world is outside – which until now have been intertwined – is something that the child does not consciously experience, but which the child experiences through inner doubts and restlessness that arise. In the body, this is expressed by the fact that at this point in life, breathing actually begins to properly integrate with blood circulation. The two balance each other out. The appropriate relationship between pulse and breath is established in the human being. This is the physical correlate; the spiritual-soul correlate is that at this point in life, the child has a particular need for us as teachers and educators. An appeal is made, not in the form of a question, but in a kind of behavior, to the teacher or educator at this particular point in life.
We must now acquire the pedagogical skill to correctly weigh, in each individual case, the great question of life that the child now wants to ask us, based on the child's behavior. What exactly is this question of life? Well, you see, up to this point in life, the natural relationship of authority has actually developed in such a way that, as a teacher and educator, you are the world to the child. For the child, the stars move because it knows that its educator knows that the stars move. Everything is good and evil, beautiful and ugly, true and false, because the teacher and educator sees it that way. Everything that comes from the world must, in a certain sense, pass through the teacher and educator; that is the only healthy relationship. Between the ages of 9 and 10, sometimes a little later, the question arises in the child's soul, not in terms of concepts and ideas, but in feelings and sensations: Yes, where did the teacher and educator get all this? Suddenly, if I may express myself figuratively, this teacher and educator begins to become transparent. One wants to see the world behind him, the world that lives behind him. There he must stand firm; there, in the face of what the child brings forth, he must maintain the conviction in the child that he is correctly connected to the world behind him, that he truly carries truth, beauty, and goodness within himself. The child's unconscious nature tests the teacher in a quite unprecedented way, I would say. It tests him to see whether he really carries the world within him, whether he has been worthy of being the representative of the entire cosmos for him up to now.
And again, this cannot be expressed. If one were to demonstrate this in any way, even quietly and theoretically, through reasons or the like, then the unconscious nature of the child, because it has no sense of causality, would perceive this as a weakness, not as a strength of the teacher; merely as a weakness. For everything that first has to be proven already lives weakly in the soul; that which lives strongly in the soul does not first have to be proven. This is also the case in cultural development. I do not want to decide on the substance of the matter now, but I would like to draw your attention to the dynamic aspect of it: until a certain point in the Middle Ages, people knew what the Lord's Supper meant. They were not yet seized by the need to prove it. Then suddenly people began to feel the need to prove the Lord's Supper. For those who understand the matter, this is only proof that people no longer knew anything about the Lord's Supper. For you do not prove that someone is a thief by seeing him, but only by not seeing him; if you have seen him, you simply call him a thief. Proving always refers to what one does not know, but never to what one really knows through the facts of life itself. That is why it is so funny when people seek the connection between formal logic and reality. It is roughly the same as when someone seeks the inner connection between the path that leads him to a mountain and the mountain itself. The path is there so that I can reach the mountain; then the mountain begins. Logic is only there so that one can reach reality; reality only begins where logic ends.
Yes, knowing these things yourself is of fundamental importance. So you must not make the mistake of trying to prove to the child at this important point in life that you are the true representative of the world. Instead, you must now teach the child through new behavior the immediate conviction of feeling: Yes, he knows much more than we have thought so far! When the child knows that the teacher can improve, that he has not yet shown him all sides, that he has not yet revealed himself, and now perhaps says something quite confidentially to the child that surprises him, so that the child unconsciously senses it and pricks up his ears to the new thing he has learned from the teacher – then the right relationship has been established. So one must be able to reserve something, above all for this moment, whereby one can improve oneself as a teacher in relation to the child. For that is the solution to an important riddle of life at this point in life, that one can improve oneself for the child, for the child's perception, that one suddenly rises above oneself. That is the comfort and strength that one must give the child at this point, because it already approaches the teacher with this request, having developed the necessary sympathy and love for them. The other teachers will have the bitter experience of seeing their authority gradually evaporate when the child reaches the age of 9 or 10; because it will no longer be there. Then these teachers will try the terrible thing of wanting to prove everything to the child, and the like.
Yes, and once you have acquired a sense for such observations of life, you will also come up with other things. You see, the individual things that you bring to the child must be connected. Now I told you: we let the child paint somehow from its own powers of imagination, not with pencils, of course, but with real paints. Then I notice: the child lives with the colors. Gradually, for the child—you just have to have a feeling for it yourself—blue becomes something that goes away, goes into the distance; yellow and red become something that comes closer. This is something that is already very evident in children as young as 7 or 8, provided they are not tormented at this age with somehow trained drawing and painting. Of course, if you let the child paint houses and trees as they are in reality, it doesn't work. But if you let the child follow their instincts, so that they feel: wherever I move my hand, the color goes – the substance of the color is only secondary – the color comes alive under their fingers, it wants to continue somewhere – if you achieve that, you get something very meaningful in the child's soul: color perspective. The child gets the feeling that the reddish yellow is coming closer, that the blue-violet is going further and further away. From this intensity, you work out what you will later work out with the child: perspective, which you then carry out in lines. It is terribly harmful to teach perspective to a child at a later age if they have not previously been taught a kind of intense color perspective. This externalizes the human being in a terrible way when they become accustomed to acquiring quantitative perspective without first having acquired the intense, qualitative perspective that lies in color perspective.
And in this context lie the further connections. If you deny the child the opportunity to live intensively in color perspective, the child will never learn to read at the right speed. Always with the restriction I mentioned yesterday: it is not important to teach the child to read as quickly as possible at the beginning. But the child gains flexible ideas, flexible feelings, and flexible volitional actions from these color sensations. Everything in the soul becomes more flexible. Perhaps, through everything that is required here, from painting drawing, drawing painting, to developing reading, you will need more time to introduce reading to the child. But at the age when it becomes necessary, it is then possible to really teach the child to read properly, without it sitting too fleetingly in the body, in the whole person – as can also be the case – and without it sitting too deeply within the person, so that every letter literally makes a scratch in the human being.
What is important is that one has within oneself, in the right sphere, that which comprehends the soul and spirit. One must never judge by the standard of saying: Why should the child learn to paint like that, it will never need it in life! That means looking only at the outward appearance. It needs it very much, and one must understand something of the spiritual human being if one wants to understand the connections that are necessary for the child. Just as the phrase “you don't understand” should not be used, so too should there never be any skepticism about what the child needs or does not need. What the child needs should flow from the laws of human nature. If it flows from there, then you instinctively do the right thing. Then you are not at all disheartened when the child forgets some of what it has absorbed. For then things move from knowledge into ability. And it is so important that we have things later in ability. We will not have them in our skills if we are overloaded with knowledge. It is necessary to know these things and to really introduce them into educational practice, that one should only incorporate as much into one's memory as is required by social life, that it makes no sense to overload one's memory.
And this brings us to those questions of practical life that arise primarily from the relationship of the individual human being to the social being that surrounds them, to the national being, the social being of humanity as a whole, and so on. For here we must also take care not to violate the essence of human nature when we want to introduce external social demands into educational practice.
Answers to questions
On musical education (answer to a question about music lessons for a 17-year-old girl).
The essential point is what Mr. Baumann has pointed out: that with the onset of puberty and in the years that follow, a certain musical judgment takes the place of an earlier musical sensibility and musical experience. Musical judgment then emerges. This is, of course, very clearly noticeable in the phenomena that Mr. Baumann has characterized. Children begin to observe themselves, observing their own singing and thereby gaining the ability to use their voice more consciously and so on. This must now be cultivated methodically. But then it becomes very apparent that, starting in this year, that natural musical memory begins to decline somewhat, so that from this age on, children have to make more of an effort to retain musical knowledge in their memory. This must be given special attention in lessons. While children have a natural affinity for music until they reach puberty and retain things very easily, those who previously retained things very well sometimes begin to have difficulties in retaining them, not so much in acquiring them, but in retaining them. This must be taken into account. One must try to repeat things often, but not immediately one after the other. At this age, it becomes particularly apparent – psychologically, there is a very subtle, intimate difference underlying this – that while instrumental music and vocal music used to coincide, these two things become very clearly distinguished from each other from the age of 16 or 17 onwards. From this age onwards, people listen much more consciously to the instrument and also much more consciously to instrumental music. One gains a greater understanding of instrumental music than before. Previously, the instrument sang along, so to speak, but afterwards one hears the instruments; hearing and singing are then two processes, albeit parallel ones. The characteristic feature lies in this relationship that then arises between singing and understanding the instrument. Teaching methods must then be adapted accordingly. It is important not to start with theoretical music at all before this age, but rather to engage in music in a practical way and to link what one wants to learn theoretically to immediate practical activity, and then gradually, especially at this age, to make the transition to judging music intellectually. What Mr. Baumann indicated at the end, that children can be taught many things about self-knowledge from their musical behavior, is absolutely correct. And while, for example, when we encourage older children to engage in plastic arts, as we do in Waldorf schools, and let them create all kinds of things, we can perceive the children's individual characteristics right from the start in what they produce – there is something about it when it is sculpted by different children, something quite different – in music, however, it is not possible to respond to what is individual in each child at first. This only emerges when the child has reached this age. Then, of course, based on the inclinations for this or that musical direction, which are already more pronounced at that point, one can influence the child in order to avoid one-sidedness. So if the child particularly loves a certain kind of music, let's say, for example, that in our current civilization there are many children who naturally become pure Wagnerians. This must be counteracted, because what is actually happening is that an excessive absorption of the musical element with the emotions is taking place instead of the inner formation of the musical element itself – I don't mean to say anything against Wagner – so the musical element is, in a sense, slipping too strongly into the emotional life. This must then be lifted up. The musician also notices this in the formation of the voice. The voice sounds different in a child in whom the musical slips too strongly into feeling than in a child who hears the formation of the tones and has a proper understanding of the plasticity in music. This age is particularly important for working in the right way for a proper musical feeling and understanding. Of course, it must be taken into account that until puberty, one is necessarily an authority figure alongside the children. At that stage, one does not yet have the opportunity to observe these things in the child. Afterwards, one no longer stands as an authority figure alongside the child, but rather through the weight that one can give to one's own judgment for the child. Until puberty, what the teacher considers right is right, and what the teacher considers wrong is wrong, because the teacher considers it right or wrong. After puberty, one must give reasons, including musical reasons. That is why it is very important, especially when there is a reason to continue music lessons during this period, to be very strict in motivating the judgments that are used. Yes, one could talk about this topic all night long if one wanted to.
Question: Isn't it a lie to ask a child about something you already know?
There is something very interesting underlying this. When I ask someone about something, the prerequisite is that I want the answer because I don't know it yet. Now I ask the child about something, but I already know it, so I am committing an untruth. - Now, teaching is very much about imponderables. You see, it is sometimes absolutely necessary to realize this. I often use an example to illustrate this: when teaching religion in a pictorial way, you can use an image in the following way when discussing the concept of immortality. You say to yourself: you want to teach the child, who is not yet able to understand any conceptual discussions, something about immortality in a pictorial way. You are clever as a teacher, the child is stupid; so I use my cleverness to create an image. I do this by saying: Look at the butterfly chrysalis; the chrysalis opens when it is ripe, and then the beautiful butterfly flies out. Just as the butterfly flies out of the chrysalis, so the immortal soul flies out of the body when a person dies. This is what is taught to the child. Fine, but it will be noticed that if this is taught to the child from this perspective, it will not make a very strong impression on the child. For the teacher, in his cleverness, naturally does not believe in the image himself, but only explains the question of immortality to the stupid child in this image. But there is another orientation, which is that one believes in the image oneself. And here I can say: if one is not terribly clever, but is in touch with reality, one believes in it oneself. You take the image in such a way that you say to yourself: it is not I who am making the comparison, but the world order itself has placed this image there; it is really expressed in the crawling out of the butterfly on a lower level, symbolizing what is present in the immortality of the soul. I can believe in that. Notice the difference: when I believe in my images myself, with everything that lies in my words, when I teach them to the child, the teacher's attitude has an effect on the child. You can find an infinite number of such things. And so the imponderables also have an effect in the interesting question that has just been raised. It is not a matter of the teacher thinking: I know this, the child does not know it, and I am now asking this as if I wanted to know it. Isn't it true that there is a big difference between asking the child about the Battle of Zabern, for example, when I know it but the child does not, or when the child also knows it; the untruth lies in the fact that I ask the question when I already know the answer. However, I may have the attitude that I am nevertheless interested in the child's answer, and I prefer to ask questions with the intention of finding out what the child really thinks about the matter. Then I really don't know what the child will say. The child tells me things in a nuanced way. And if I set myself the ideal, as I have often emphasized in my lectures, that no wise man is so clever that he cannot learn something from an infant—indeed, no matter how advanced one may be in science, the cry of an infant can teach one a great deal—then, as a teacher, one can actually learn to teach from every answer the child gives, if one asks the question with this attitude. You cannot extract what you want to hear from every answer a child gives, but you can learn what the child is telling you. Then you will also ask the right questions. Then you will very often formulate the question as follows: What do you think about that? The emphasis of the question will already convey that you, as a teacher, are curious about the child's answer. It is really the case that the imponderables that occur between child and teacher are very important. If you know the subconscious life as it is formed in the child, you will discover many other things. This area also includes the question of dishonesty in the classroom, to put it bluntly, when the teacher stands in front of the class and teaches from the book or helps himself by having written things down somehow. Yes, that's true, under certain circumstances this can be very convenient for the teacher. But it is actually terrible for teaching; terrible because the child is constantly forming a judgment in his subconscious when the teacher stands in front of the class with the teaching material. The child's subconscious says: Why should I know what he doesn't know? I am required to know what he reads to me from his book. You see, this is an even greater untruth that enters the classroom in this way than through questioning. Even when dictating practice sentences, one should be careful and not dictate from the book. If one pays attention to what is going on in the child's mind, and the child realizes that the teacher is interested in him and is not asking the question out of dishonesty, then the situation is quite different. In this way, one will really come to no longer develop lies in the question and answer relationship between teacher and child.