Education
GA 307
11 August 1923, Ilkley
VII. The Rhythmic System, Sleeping and Waking, Imitation
The transition from early childhood to the school age is marked by the change of teeth at about the seventh year, and in studying this period it must above all be remembered that up to the seventh year the child is working, as it were, as an inner sculptor and with the creative forces of the head is organizing and moulding his whole being. All that has been present in his environment, including the moral qualities, now plays a part in the development of the vascular system, the circulation of the blood and the processes of the breath, so that as a physical being man bears within him throughout his earthly life the results of the imitative period of his childhood from birth up to the time of the second dentition.
It cannot, of course, be said that he is conditioned only by this, for naturally much can be rectified in the body later by the exercise of moral forces and by inner activity of soul. Still we should realize with what a wonderful heritage we can endow the child on his path of life if we are able to prepare his physical organism to be the bearer of moral and spiritual qualities, if we help the work of the sculptor within him up to the age of seven by ourselves living a moral and spiritual life at his side.
Certain details and other matters of which I spoke yesterday, will come to light as the lectures proceed.
The teacher, then, must understand that when the child has passed his seventh year and comes then to actual school age, these plastic forces are transformed into an activity in the soul which must be reckoned with by his teacher. The child longs for pictures, imagery, and this fact should indicate to us the fundamental principle of his education at this age. From the time of the second dentition up to the age of adolescence, the development of the rhythmic system, i.e., the breathing and the circulation of the blood and also the digestive functions, is all-important. The soul of the child during that period longs for pictorial imagery and his rhythmic system is there to be dealt with by the teacher in an organic bodily sense. And so a pictorial, imaginative element must dominate all that the child is given to do; a musical quality, I might even say, must pervade the relationship between teacher and pupil. Rhythm, measure, even melody must be there as the basic principle of the teaching, and this element demands that the teacher must himself feel and experience this ‘musical’ quality.
It is the rhythmic system that predominates in the child's organic nature during this first period of school life, and the entire teaching must be pervaded by rhythm. The teacher must feel himself so inwardly living in this musical element that true rhythm may prevail in the class-room. He must be able to feel this instinctively.
It thus becomes evident that during the early years of school life (that is to say after the age of seven) all true education must develop from the foundation of art. The reason why education in our day leaves so much to be desired is because modern civilization is not conducive to the development of artistic feeling. I am not here referring to the individual arts, but to the fact that sound educational principles can only arise from a civilization penetrated with artistic quality. This has very great significance.
And if we can imbue our whole teaching with artistic quality, we influence the rhythmic system in the child. Such lessons actually make the child's breathing and circulation more healthy. On the other hand, our task is also to lead the child out into life, to develop a sound faculty of judgment for later life, and so during this age we must teach him to use his intelligence, though never by constraint. There must also, naturally, be some physical training and exercise, for it is our duty to help the child to have a healthy body in later life, in so far as his destiny permits. But to accomplish all this we need a deeper insight into the whole nature of man.
In our modern civilization, where all eyes are concentrated on outer, material things, no attention is given to the consideration of the state of sleep, although man devotes to it one-third of his earthly life. This alternating rhythm of our waking and sleeping is of the greatest possible significance. Never should it be thought that man is inactive while he sleeps. He is inactive only in so far as the outer, external world is concerned, but as regards the health of his body, and more especially the welfare of his soul and spirit, sleep is all-important. True education can provide for a right life of sleep, for the activities which belong to man's waking hours are carried over into the condition of sleep, and this is especially the case with the child.
At the base of all artistic creation lies in reality the unceasing activity of the rhythmic system. Breathing and the action of the heart continue without intermission from birth to death. It is only the processes of thought and will that induce fatigue. Thinking and movements of the body cause fatigue, and since they everywhere come into play, we may say that all life's activities cause fatigue. But in the case of the child we must be especially watchful to guard against over-fatigue. The best possible way to do this is to see that throughout the all-important early school years our teaching has a basic artistic quality, for then we call upon the child's rhythmic system where he tires least of all.
What then will happen if we make too great a demand on the intellect, urging the child to think for himself, forcing him to think? Certain organic forces that tend inwardly to harden the body are brought into play. These forces are responsible for the salty deposits in the body and are needed in the formation of bone, cartilage and sinew, in all those parts of the body in short that have a tendency to become rigid. This normal rigidity is over-developed if intellectual thinking is forced. These hardening forces are normally active during our waking consciousness, but if we make undue claims upon the intellect, if we force the child to think too much, we are sowing the seeds of premature arterial sclerosis.
Thus here too it is essential to develop by means of a true observation of the nature of the child a fine sense of the degree to which we may call with safety upon the different forces at work. A most vital principle is here at stake. If I allow the child to think, if I teach him to write, for instance, in an intellectual way, saying: ‘Here are the letters and you must learn them,’ I am overstraining the mental powers of the child and laying the germs of sclerosis, at any rate of a tendency to sclerosis. The human being as such has no inner relationship whatever to the letters of modern script. They are little ‘demons’ so far as human nature is concerned, and we have to find the right way to approach them. This way is found if to begin with we stimulate the child's artistic feeling by letting him paint or draw the lines and colours that flow of themselves on to the paper from his innermost being. Then, as the child's artistic sense is aroused, one always feels—and feeling is here the essential thing—how greatly man is enriched by this artistic activity. One feels that intellectuality impoverishes the soul, makes a man inwardly barren, whereas artistic activity makes him inwardly rich, so rich in fact that this richness must somehow be modified. The pictorial and artistic tends of itself to pass into the more attenuated form of concepts and ideas, and must in a measure be impoverished in this process of transference. But if, after having stimulated the child artistically, we then allow the intellectuality to develop from the artistic feeling, it will have the right intensity. The intellect too will lay hold of the body in such a way as to bring about a rightly balanced and not an excessive hardening process.
If we force intellectual powers in the child we arrest growth; but we liberate the forces of growth if we approach the intellect by way of art. For this reason at the Waldorf School value is placed upon artistic rather than upon intellectual training at the beginning of school life. The teaching is at first pictorial, non-intellectual; the relation of the teacher to the child is pervaded by a musical, rhythmic quality, so that by such methods we may achieve the degree of intellectual development that the child needs. The mental training in this way becomes at the same time the very best training for the physical body.
To the more sensitive observer there is abundant evidence in our present civilization that many grown-up people are too inwardly rigid. They seem to walk about like wooden machines. It is really a characteristic of our day that men and women carry their bodies about like burdens, whereas a truer and more artistically conceived educational system so develops the human being that every step, every gesture of the hand to be devoted later to the service of humanity brings to the child an inner sense of joy and well-being. In training the intellect we free the soul from the bodily activities, but if we over-intellectualize, man will go through life feeling that his body is “of the earth earthly,” that it is of no value and must be overcome. Then he may give himself up to a purely mystical life of soul and spirit, feeling that the spirit alone has value. Right education, however, also leads us by ways of truth to the spirit that creates the body. God in creating the world did not say: Matter is evil and man must avoid it. No world would have come into being if the Gods had thought like this. The world could only emanate from the Divine because the Gods ordained that spirit should be directly and immediately active in matter.
If man realizes that his highest life in every sphere is that which is directed according to divine intention, he must choose a form of education that does not alienate him from the world, but makes him a being whose soul and spirit stream down into the body throughout his whole life. A man who would deny the body when he immerses himself in thought, is no true thinker.
The waking life is beneficially affected if we develop the intellect from the basis of the artistic, and all physical culture has a definite relation to the child's life of sleep. If we wish really to understand the form that healthy culture and exercise of the body should take, we must first ask this question: ‘How does bodily exercise affect the life of sleep?’
All bodily activity arises supersensibly from the will, is indeed an out-streaming of will-impulses into the organism of movement. Even in purely mental activity the will is active and is flowing into the limbs. If we sit at a desk and think out decisions which are then carried out by others, our will-impulses are, nevertheless, streaming into our limbs. In this instance we simply hold them back, restrain them. We ourselves may sit still, but the orders we give are really an in-streaming of the will into our own limbs. We must therefore first discover what is of importance in these physically active impulses of the will if their unfolding is to have the right effect upon the state of sleep; and the following must be taken into account.
Everything that is transformed into action by the human will sets up a certain organic process of combustion. When I think, I burn up something in my organism, only this inner process of burning up must not be compared with the purely chemical combustion of the science of physics. When a candle is alight there is an external process of combustion, but only materialistic thinking can compare this inner process of combustion with the burning of a lighted candle. In the human organization the processes of outer Nature are taken hold of by forces of the soul and spirit, so that within the human body, and even within the plant, the outer substances of nature are quite differently active. Similarly the burning process within the human being is altogether different from the process of combustion we see in the lighted candle. Yet a certain kind of combustion is always induced in the body when we will, even though the impulse does not pass into action.
Now because we generate this process of inner combustion, we bring about something in our organism that sleep alone can rectify. In a certain sense we should literally burn up our bodies if sleep did not perpetually reduce combustion to its right degree of intensity. All this must again be understood in a subtle sense and not in the crude sense of Natural Science. Sleep regulates the inner burning by spreading it over the whole organism, whereas otherwise it would confine itself to the organs of movement.
Now there are two ways of carrying out bodily movements. Think of the kind of exercises children are often given to do. The idea is (everything is “idea” in a materialistic age in spite of its belief that it is dealing with facts) that the child ought to make this or that kind of movement in games or in gymnastics, because only so will he grow up to be a civilized human being. As a rule movements which grown-up people practice are considered the best, for since the ideal is that the child should grow up an exact copy of his elders, he is made to do the same kind of gymnastics. That is to say, a certain opinion is held by ordinary people and must apply also to the child.
As a result of this abstract public opinion, outer influence is brought to bear on the child. He is given this or that exercise merely because it is customary to make these movements. But this sets up processes of combustion which the human organism is no longer capable of adjusting. Restless sleep is the result of mere external methods of physical culture.
These things cannot be observed by the methods of ordinary physiology, but they take place nevertheless in the finer and more delicate processes of the human body. If we give children these conventional gymnastic exercises, they cannot get the deep, sound sleep they need, and the bodily constitution cannot be sufficiently refreshed and restored in sleep.
If on the other hand we can give cur educational methods an artistic form (and remember, in artistic activities the whole nature comes into play) a certain hunger for physical activity will arise quite naturally in the child, for, as we have seen, the excessive richness of the artistic sense reacts as an impulse towards the more sobering element of the intellect. Nothing so easily induces a craving for bodily exercise as artistic activity. If the child has been occupied artistically for about two hours—and the length of time must be carefully arranged—something that longs for expression in movements of the body begins to stir in the organism. Art creates a real hunger for true movements of the body.
Thus gradually we should lead over into games, into free movements in space, what the hands have expressed in painting and drawing, or the voice in singing. Also the child should be encouraged to learn some kind of musical instrument at the earliest possible age, for this involves direct physical activity. The inner forces must be allowed to stream out into movements in space, which should be a continuation, as it were, of the inner organic processes called up by the artistic work in the school. Physical training is then a natural development from the methods of teaching that are right for this age of life, and there is an intimate connection between the two.
If the child is given only such physical exercises as his artistic work creates a need for, he will get the kind of sleep he needs. A right provision for the waking life can thus cause a right life of sleep in which all the organic processes of combustion are harmonized. Bodily and mental training alike must develop from the artistic element. Thus especially so far as the body is concerned, nothing is more essential than that the teacher himself should be an artist through and through. The more joy the teacher can experience in beautiful forms, in music, the more he longs to pass from abstract words into the rhythms of poetry; the more the plastic sense is alive in him the better will he be able to arrange such games and exercises as offer the child an opportunity for artistic expression. But alas! our civilization to-day would like the spirit to be easy of access, and people do not feel inclined to strive too strenuously for spiritual ideals.
As I said in a previous lecture most people, while admitting the inadequacy of their own education, claim at the same time to know what education ought to be and are quite ready to lay down the law about it. And so it comes about that there is little inclination to take into consideration the finer processes of the human organism, as to how, for example, an artistic conception of gymnastic is determined by the artistic activity itself. What are the movements demanded by the human organism itself? No artistic feeling is brought to bear on the solution of these problems. The reading of books is the main occupation of the modern intellectual class; people study Greek ideals and a revival of the ‘Olympic Games’ has become a catch phrase, though this ‘revival’ is of a purely external nature. The Olympic Games are never studied from the point of view of the needs of the human organism, as they were in Greece, for the modern study of them is all book-learning, based on documents or outer traditions that have been handed down.
Now modern men are not ancient Greeks, and they do not understand the part played by the true Olympic Games in the culture of Greece. For if one penetrated fully into the spirit of ancient Greece, one would say: the children were instructed by the gymnasts in dancing and wrestling, as I have described. But why were they thus instructed? This was due to the Olympic Games, for these were not only artistic but also religious in their nature—a true offspring of Greek culture. In their Olympic Games the Greeks lived wholly in an atmosphere of art and religion, and with a true educational instinct they could bring these elements into the gymnastic exercises given to children.
Abstract, inartistic forms of physical culture are contrary to all true education, because they hinder the development of the human being. It would be far better to-day if, instead of trying to find out from books how to revive the Olympic Games, people made some attempt to understand the inner nature of man. For then they would realize that all physical education not based on the inner needs of the organism sets up an excessive process of combustion. The result of performing such exercises in childhood will lead in later life to flabbiness of the muscular system. The muscles will be incapable of carrying out the behests of the soul and spirit.
While on the one hand a false intellectual education inwardly so hardens the body that the bones become burdensome instead of moving with resilience in harmony with the soul, on the other hand the limbs are weakened through too strong a tendency to the process of combustion. Man has gradually become a creature who is dragged down on the one hand by the burden of the salts that have formed within him, and on the other hand is always attempting to escape, to free himself from those organic processes which are due to faulty combustion. An intimate knowledge of man is necessary before a true relationship can be established between these two processes of combustion and salt-formation. Only when we lead over artistic feeling into the intellectual element can the tendency to over-rigidity be balanced by the right degree of combustion. This right balance then affects the life of sleep, and the child sleeps deeply and peacefully. The restlessness and fidgetiness caused by most modern systems of bodily training are absent. Children who are forced to practise the wrong kind of physical exercises fidget in soul during sleep, and in the morning, when the soul returns to the body, restlessness and faulty processes of combustion are set up in the organism.
Our conceptions must therefore be widened by knowledge, for all this will show you that a profound understanding of human nature is essential. If in this earthly existence we hold man to be the most precious creation of the Gods, the great question must be: What have the Gods placed before us in man? How can we best develop the human child entrusted to us here on earth?
Up to the seventh year the child is through and through an imitative being, but from the time of the change of teeth onwards, his inner nature longs to shape itself according to the models set up by a natural authority.
A long time ago now I wrote The Philosophy of Spiritual Activity, and in view of what I said there, I do not think you will accuse me of laying undue stress upon the principle of authority in any sphere of social life. Although man's self-expression is directed by an impulse of spiritual freedom, it is just as fully subject to law as the life of Nature. It is therefore not for us to decide according to our likes or dislikes what kind of education should be given to our children between the time of the change of teeth and adolescence. Education should rather be dictated by the needs of human nature itself. Up to the second dentition, at about the seventh year, the child imitates in every gesture, nay, even in the pulsations of the venal blood and in the rhythms of the breath, everything that goes on around him. From birth to the age of seven, the environment is the model which the child copies. But from the seventh to the fourteenth or fifteenth years, to the age of puberty, he must unfold a free spiritual activity under the influence of natural authority. This must be so if development is to be healthy and free and if the child is rightly to use his freedom in later life.
The faculty of personal judgment is not ripe until the fourteenth or fifteenth year. Only then has the child developed to a point at which the teacher is justified in appealing to his faculty of judgment. At the age of fourteen or fifteen he can reason for himself, but before this age we injure him, we retard his development if we enter into “the why and wherefore.” The whole of later life is immeasurably benefited if between the seventh and fourteenth years (approximately, of course) we have been able to accept a truth not because we see its underlying reason—indeed, our intellect is not mature enough for this—but because we feel that the teacher whom we revere and love feels it to be true. Our sense of beauty grows in the right way if we are able to accept the teacher's standard of the beautiful—the teacher to whom we give a spontaneous, and not a forced respect.
Our feeling for the good will also be a guide in later life if we have not been forced to observe petty rules, but have realized from the teacher's own warm-hearted words how much he loves a good deed and hates a bad one. His words can make us so warmly responsive to the good and so coldly averse from evil that we turn naturally to the good because the teacher himself loves it. Then we grow up, not bound hand and foot by dogma, but filled with a spontaneous love for what the teacher declares to be true, beautiful and good. If during the first period of school life we have learnt to adopt his standard of truth, beauty and goodness because he has been able to express them in artistic imagery, the impulse for these virtues becomes a second nature, for it is not the intellect that develops goodness. A man who has over and over again been told dogmatically to do this, or net to do that, has a cold, matter-of-fact feeling for the good, whereas one who has learnt in childhood to feel sympathy with goodness and antipathy to evil has unfolded in his rhythmic nature the capacity to respond to the good and to be repelled by what is evil. He has a true enthusiasm for the one and power to resist the other. In later life it is as though under the influence of evil he cannot breathe properly, as if by evil the breathing and the rhythmic system were adversely affected.
It is really possible to achieve this if after the child has reached his seventh year we allow the principle of natural authority to supersede that of imitation which, as we have seen, must be pre-dominant in the earlier years. Naturally authority must not be enforced for this is just the error of those methods of education that attempt to enforce authority by corporal punishment.
I have heard that what I said yesterday in this connection seemed to suggest that this form of punishment had been entirely superseded. As a matter of fact, what I said was that the humanitarian feelings of to-day would like to do away with it. I was told that the custom of caning in England is still very general and that my words had created a wrong impression. I am sorry that this should have been so, but the point I want now to make is that in true education authority must never be enforced and above all not by the cane. It must arise naturally from what we ourselves are. In body, soul and spirit we are true teachers if our observation of human nature is based upon a true understanding of man. True observation of man sees in the growing human being a work of divine creation. There is no more wonderful spectacle in the whole world than to see how definiteness gradually emerges from indefiniteness in the child's nature; to see how irrelevant fidgeting changes into movements dominated by the inner quality of the soul. More and more the inner being expresses itself outwardly and the spiritual element in the body comes gradually to the surface. This being whom the Gods have sent down to earth becomes a revelation of God Himself. The growing human being is indeed His most splendid manifestation. If we learn to know this growing human being not merely from the point of view of ordinary anatomy and physiology, but with understanding of how the soul and spirit stream down into the body, then as we stand with pure and holy reverence before that which flows from divine depths into the physical form our knowledge becomes in us pure religion. Then as teachers we have a certain quality that is perceptible to the child as a natural authority in which he places spontaneous trust. Instead of resorting to the cane or using any form of inner punishment such as I mentioned yesterday we should arm ourselves with a true knowledge of man, with the faculty of true observation. This will grow into an inner moral sense, into a profound reverence for God's creation. We then have a true position in the school and we realize how absolutely essential it is in all education to watch for those moments when the child's nature undergoes certain changes. Such a metamorphosis occurs, for instance, between the ninth and tenth years, though with one child it may be earlier with another later. As a rule it occurs between the ages of nine and ten.
Many things in life are passed by unperceived by the materialist. True observation of the human being tells us that something very remarkable happens between the ninth and tenth years. Outwardly, the child becomes restless; he cannot come to terms with the outer world and seems to draw back from it with a certain fear. In a subtle way this happens to almost every child, indeed if it does not occur the child is abnormal. In the child's life of feeling, a great question arises between the ninth and tenth years; he cannot formulate this question mentally, he cannot express it in words. It lies wholly in his life of feeling, and this fact intensifies the longing for its recognition. What does the child seek at this age?
Till now, reverence for the teacher has been a natural impulse within him, but at this age he wants the teacher to prove himself worthy of this reverence by some definite act. Uncertainty rises in the child, and when we observe this we must by our demeanour respond to it. It need not be something specially contrived. We may perhaps be especially loving in our dealings with the child—make a special point of speaking to him—so that he realizes our affection and sympathy. If we watch for this moment between the ninth and tenth years and act accordingly, the child is saved as it were from a precipice. This is of far-reaching significance for if this sense of insecurity remains it will continue through the whole of later life, not necessarily in this particular form, but none the less expressed in the character, temperament and bodily health.
At all times we must understand how the spirit works in matter and hence upon the health of the body and how the spirit must be nurtured so that it may rightly promote the health. A true art of education unmistakably shows us that we must conceive of this co-operation of spirit and matter as harmonious and never as in opposition. Modern civilization with its tendency to separate everything is guilty in regard to educational questions. Its conceptions of Nature are materialistic, and when people are dissatisfied with the results of this conception of nature they take refuge in spiritualism, attempting to reach the spiritual by methods that are anything but scientific.
This is one of the tragedies of our day. A materialism which intellectualizes everything is now only able to understand the concepts itself has evolved about matter; materialism however can never reach the heart of matter. And modern spiritualism? Its adherents want the spirits to be tangible, to reveal themselves materially by means of table-turning, physical phenomena and so on. They must not be allowed to remain spirits, and so invisible, intangible, because men are too lazy to approach them in a super-sensible form.
These things are really tragic. Materialism speaks only of matter, never of the spirit. But as a matter of fact materialism does not even understand matter, but speaks of it only in empty abstractions, while spiritualism, imagining that it is speaking of the spirit, is concerned only with matter.
Our civilization is divided into materialism and spiritualism—a strange phenomenon indeed! For materialism understands nothing of matter and spiritualism nothing of spirit.
Man is both body and spirit, and true education must bring about a harmony between the two. It can never be too strongly emphasized that the goal of education must be to give man an understanding of the spirit in matter and a spiritual understanding of the material world. We find the spirit if we truly understand the material world, and if we have some comprehension of the spirit we find, not a materialized spirituality, but a real and actual spiritual world.
If humanity is to find a path of ascent and not be led to its downfall, we need the reality of the world of spirit and an intelligent comprehension of the world of matter.
Siebenter Vortrag
Beim Übergange aus dem eigentlich kindlichen Alter, durch den Zahnwechsel hindurch um das siebente Jahr herum, in das schulmäßige Alter, ist insbesondere zu berücksichtigen, daß bis zum siebenten Lebensjahre der Mensch innerlich eigentlich Plastiker ist. Vom Haupte des Menschen gehen die Bildekräfte aus und organisieren den ganzen Menschen. Was der Mensch in seiner Umgebung beobachtet, auch der moralische Charakter des Beobachteten, teilt sich dem Aufbau des Gefäßsystems, der Blutzirkulation, der Atmung und so weiter mit, so daß der Mensch als physische Organisation durch sein ganzes Erdenleben in sich trägt, was er bis zum Zahnwechsel nachahmend geworden ist. Nicht als ob er ganz unbedingt abhängig wäre von dieser Organisation. Er kann gewiß später durch moralische Kraft, durch seelische Intensität von innen heraus manches im Körper zurechtrücken. Aber man muß doch bedenken, welches wunderbare Erbgut wir dem Menschen mit auf den Lebensweg geben, wenn wir seinen Organismus zu einem geeigneten Träger des Geistig-Moralischen dadurch machen, daß wir den inneren Plastiker im Menschen bis zum siebenten Lebensjahre in der Art unterstützen, daß wir nur Moralisches und solches, das zum Leben tüchtig macht, in seine Nähe bringen, damit er es nachahmen könne. Von den genaueren Details habe ich gestern gesprochen, und es wird noch manches im Laufe der Zeit zur Darstellung kommen.
Wenn nun das Kind das siebente Jahr überschritten hat und in das eigentlich schulmäßige Alter kommt, dann werden diese plastischen Kräfte seelisch, und der Lehrende, der Unterrichtende, hat auf diese plastischen Kräfte hinzuschauen. Das Kind will in anschaulichen Bildern beschäftigt sein: das muß der allererste Erziehungsgrundsatz für den Anfang des schulmäßigen Alters sein.
Dasjenige, was nach dem Kopfsystem beim Kinde von dem Zahnwechsel bis zur Geschlechtsreife ganz besonders sich entwickelt, das ist das rhythmische System, in der Hauptsache Atmungssystem, Blutzirkulationssystem mit allem, was zum regelmäßigen Rhythmus der Ernährung gehört. Und während man das Plastisch-Anschauliche seelisch beim Kinde vor sich hat, hat man das rhythmische System als Lehrender und Unterrichtender in der Schule unmittelbar noch organisch-körperlich vor sich. Das heißt, man muß in dem, was man mit dem Kinde unternimmt, was das Kind tun soll, das Bildhafte vorherrschen lassen. Und in alledem, was zwischen dem Lehrer und dem Kinde sich abspielt, muß Musikalisches herrschen, muß Rhythmus, Takt, sogar Melodik pädagogisches Prinzip werden. Das erfordert, daß der Lehrer in sich selber eine Art Musikalisches hat, in seinem ganzen Leben ein Musikalisches hat.
Das rhythmische System also ist es, das im Kinde im schulpflichtigen Alter organisch vorhanden ist, organisch prädominiert, und es handelt sich darum, daß der ganze Unterricht in rhythmischer Weise orientiert wird, daß der Lehrer selber in sich ein, man möchte sagen, musikalisch angelegter Mensch ist, so daß wirklich im Schulzimmer Rhythmus, Takt herrscht. Das ist etwas, was allerdings in einer gewissen Weise instinktiv in dem Unterrichtenden, in dem Lehrenden leben muß.
Wenn wir auf all dies hinschauen, dann müssen wir uns klar darüber sein, wie der Unterricht gerade im Beginne des schulmäßigen Alters nur ein solcher sein kann, der ganz und gar ausgeht von einem künstlerischen Elemente. Und wenn heute das Unterrichten viel zu wünschen übrig läßt, so ist es darum, weil die heutige Zivilisation als solche bei den Erwachsenen im Grunde genommen viel zu wenig künstlerischen Sinn entwickelt. Eine gesunde Pädagogik kann nicht aus den einzelnen Künsten, wohl aber aus der künstlerischen Gesamtverfassung der Zivilisation hervorgehen. Das ist außerordentlich wichtig.
Nun handelt es sich darum, daß, wenn wir den Unterricht künstlerisch einrichten, wir ja vor allen Dingen appellieren an das rhythmische System des Menschen. Es ist schon so: das Kind atmet gesund, wenn wir den Unterricht künstlerisch einrichten. Das Kind vollzieht seine Blutzirkulation gesund, wenn wir den Unterricht künstlerisch einrichten. Aber wir müssen uns auch klar darüber sein, daß wir ja das Kind auf der einen Seite hereinführen müssen in das Leben, daß wir es also tüchtig machen müssen in bezug auf die Urteilsfähigkeit, daß das Kind ein gesundes Urteil im ganzen späteren Leben haben muß. Wir müssen also im Laufe des schulmäßigen Alters das Kind zum Gebrauche seines Intellekts hinleiten. Wir dürfen ihm den Intellekt nicht zwangsweise beibringen, aber wir müssen es hinleiten. Wir müssen auf der anderen Seite körperlich gesunde Menschen erziehen, das heißt, wir müssen die Körperpflege, die Körperübungen so einrichten, daß der Mensch gesund für das ganze Leben werden kann, soweit es wenigstens in seinem Schicksal ihm vorgezeichnet ist. All das können wir nur, wenn wir nun wiederum etwas tiefer hineinblicken in die gesamte menschliche Wesenheit.
Zum menschlichen Leben gehört ein Drittel der Zeit, die eigentlich von unserer nur auf das Äußerlich-Materielle sehenden Zivilisation gar nicht berücksichtigt wird: das ist das Schlafesleben. Es gibt im menschlichen Erdendasein einen regelmäßigen Rhythmus zwischen Schlafen und Wachen. Dieser regelmäßige Rhythmus spielt die denkbar größte Rolle im menschlichen Erdendasein, und man darf nicht glauben, daß der Mensch, wenn er schläft, untätig ist. Er ist für die äußere materielle Zivilisation untätig; für sein eigenes Wesen, für seine Gesundheit, namentlich aber für die Gesundheit der Seele, für die Gesundheit des Geistes ist in der Tat der Schlaf ein Allerwichtigstes. Und fortwährend wird dasjenige, was der Mensch während des Wachens ausführt - besonders ist dies beim Kinde der Fall -, in das Schlafesleben hineingetragen. Und wir können, indem wir richtig erziehen, für ein gesundes Schlafesleben sorgen.
Wir müssen nur das Folgende verstehen: das rhythmische System, das allem Künstlerischen zugrunde liegt, das ermüdet nicht. Die Herztätigkeit, die Atmungstätigkeit gehen unermüdlich von der Geburt bis zum Tode fort. Ermüden kann der Mensch nur durch sein intellektuelles System und durch sein Willenssystem. Denken macht müde, Körperlich-sich-Bewegen macht müde. Da aber natürlich Denken und Körperlich-sich-Bewegen im Leben bei allem dabei sind, so macht im Leben alles müde. Aber beim Kinde ist darauf zu sehen, daß die Ermüdung im geringsten Maße auftritt.
Sie tritt im geringsten Maße auf, wenn wir zunächst in diesem wichtigen schulmäßigen Alter den Unterricht auf das Künstlerische hinorientieren; denn da appellieren wir an das rhythmische System, da ermüden wir das Kind am allerwenigsten.
Was geschieht, wenn wir an das intellektuelle System appellieren? Wenn wir an das intellektuelle System appellieren, wenn wir einfach das Kind durch einen inneren Entschluß zum Denken veranlassen, zum Denken als solchem, dann kommen diejenigen Kräfte des Organismus in Betracht, die den Menschen innerlich verfestigen, diejenigen Kräfte, die im Inneren des Organismus namentlich die salzablagernden Kräfte sind, die kalkablagernden Kräfte, die knochenbildenden Kräfte, die sehnenbildenden Kräfte, die knorpelbildenden Kräfte, alles dasjenige, was den Menschen fest macht. Das ist dasjenige, was durch das Denken, durch das zwangsmäßige Denken im Organismus entwickelt wird. Und der Mensch ist innerlich an seiner Verfestigung tätig, wenn er wacht. So daß wir dem Wachleben eine zu starke innere Verfestigung zumuten, wenn wir das Wachleben zu stark intellektualistisch anstreben. Wenn wir das Kind zu viel denken lassen, dann versetzen wir in den Organismus die Anlage zu einer frühen Sklerose, zu einer frühen Arterienverkalkung. Das festigende Element, das ist dasjenige, was durch das zwangsmäßige Denken vollführt wird, besonders in Anspruch genommen wird. Hier handelt es sich darum, daß man durch echte Menschenbeobachtung auch einen Takt, einen Instinkt dafür bekommt, wieviel man dem Kinde zumuten darf.
Nun gibt es aber einen sehr wichtigen prinzipiellen Regulator in dieser Beziehung. Lasse ich das Kind denken, lehre ich das Kind zum Beispiel schreiben rein denkerisch, indem ich mir sage: die Buchstaben sind da, das Kind muß diese Buchstaben lernen, dann beschäftige ich dieses Kind intellektualistisch, dann züchte ich in ihm die Sklerose, wenigstens die Neigung dazu; denn es gibt keine innere Beziehung des Menschen zu diesen jetzt entwickelten Buchstaben. Die sind kleine Dämonen für die menschliche Natur. Man muß erst die Brücke, den Übergang dazu finden.
Diese Brücke, diesen Übergang findet man, wenn man das Kind zunächst sich künstlerisch betätigend, mit künstlerischem Sinn malen, zeichnen läßt, was aus seiner innersten Natur an Linien, an Farben förmlich von selbst von dem Kinde aufs Papier geht. Dann entsteht immer, wenn man das Kind künstlerisch sich betätigen läßt, innerlich das Gefühl - und auf dieses Gefühl kommt es an -, daß man durch die künstlerische Betätigung zu reich ist als Mensch. Durch den Verstand verarmt man seelisch, durch den Verstand wird man innerlich öde; durch das künstlerische Handhaben wird man innerlich reich, und man bekommt das Bedürfnis, nun diesen Reichtum etwas abzuschwächen. Und dann lenkt sich das Bildhaft-Künstlerische, das man erlebt, von selbst zu den ärmeren Begriffen und Ideenentwickelungen. Dann entsteht das innere Bedürfnis, das Künstlerische zu verarmen, es zu intellektualisieren. Und wenn man dann, nachdem man künstlerisch das Kind ergriffen hat, aus dem Künstlerischen das Intellektualistische hervorgehen läßt, dann hat dieses Künstlerische das richtige Maß, um in den Körper so einzugreifen, daß er nicht zu stark, sondern richtig verfestigt wird.
Sie halten sogar das Kind im Wachstum auf, wenn Sie es zu stark intellektualisieren. Dagegen geben Sie das Wachstum des Kindes frei, wenn Sie aus dem Künstlerischen heraus alles in das Intellektualistische erst hinüberleiten.
Das ist der Grund, warum in der Waldorfschule zunächst gerade im Anfang des schulmäßigen Alters auf das Künstlerische und nicht auf das Intellektualistische dieser hohe Wert gelegt wird, warum zunächst das Bildhafte, das Unintellektualistische den Unterricht beherrscht, und warum im Verkehr des Lehrers mit dem Kinde überall Musikalisches, eben Rhythmisch-Taktmäßiges hineingetragen wird, damit gerade dasjenige Maß von Intellektualität erzeugt wird, zu dem das Kind dann selber das Bedürfnis hat, und damit die geistige Erziehung zugleich die beste Körpererziehung wird.
Unser Zeitalter zeigt uns ja überall an den erwachsenen Menschen, wie sie zu stark innerlich verfestigt sind, wie sie gewissermaßen wie eine hölzerne Maschine ihren Körper mit sich herumschleppen im Leben. Natürlich gehört das aber nicht der groben Beobachtung, sondern der feineren Beobachtung an. Aber das ist das Eigentümliche unserer Zivilisation, daß die Menschen ihren Körper wie eine Last herumtragen, während eine richtige Erziehung, die aus dem Künstlerischen heraus arbeitet, den Menschen so erzieht, daß ihm jeder Schritt Freude macht, daß ihm jede Handbewegung, die er später im Leben im Dienste der Menschheit auszuführen hat, zu einem innerlichen Wohlgefallen, zur innerlichen Freude wird. Wir lösen die Seele ab vom Körper, indem wir den Menschen intellektualistisch erziehen.
Wenden wir zu stark den Intellektualismus an, so geht der Mensch später durch das Leben und sagt: Ach, das Körperliche, das ist eben bloß irdisch, das hat keinen Wert, das muß überwunden werden; man muß sich hingeben als Mystiker dem bloßen seelisch-geistigen Leben, der Geist allein hat seinen Wert.
Erzieht man in der richtigen Weise, dann kommt man auch in der richtigen Weise an den Geist, nämlich an den körperschöpferischen Geist. Gott hat auch nicht die Welt erschaffen dadurch, daß er gesagt hat: die Materie ist schlecht, man muß sich von ihr zurückziehen. Es wäre keine Welt entstanden, wenn die Götter so gedacht hätten. Einzig und allein dadurch, daß sie gedacht haben: Geist muß tätig, Geist muß bildhaft, offenbar werden in der Materie, dadurch ist von Götterseite her die Welt zustande gekommen. Und wenn der Mensch beachtet, daß es das beste menschliche Leben auf allen Gebieten für ihn ist, wenn er sich nach den Göttern richtet, dann muß er eine Erziehung wählen, welche nicht den Menschen zu einem weltfremden Wesen macht, sondern zu einem solchen seelisch-geistigen Wesen, durch welches Seele und Geist auch durch das ganze Leben sich in das Körperliche hineintragen können. Der ist auch kein guter Denker, der immerfort seinen Körper abwerfen muß, wenn er sich dem Denken hingeben will.
So bezieht sich dasjenige, was wir in gesunder Art durch die künstlerische Grundlage und das Herausarbeiten des Intellektuellen aus der künstlerischen Grundlage tun können, auf das Wachleben des Menschen. Alles dasjenige, was wir in bezug auf die eigentliche Körperpflege beim Kinde tun können, hat eine gewisse Beziehung zum Schlafesleben. Und immer muß die Frage gestellt werden, wenn man wissen will, wie die gesunde Körperpflege und Körperübung sein soll: wie wirkt das körperliche Üben, die körperliche Tätigkeit auf das Schlafesleben?
Die körperliche Tätigkeit des Menschen geht seelisch-geistig aus dem Willen hervor, ist ein Ausströmen des Willensimpulses in den Bewegungsorganismus des Menschen. Auch wenn der Mensch nur geistig tätig ist, ist das doch eine Willenstätigkeit, die übergeht in die Bewegungsglieder. Wenn wir irgendwo in einem Büro sitzen und ausdenken die Willensentschlüsse, die dann andere ausführen, so ist es doch das Einströmen unserer Willensimpulse in unsere Glieder, das wir nur zurückhalten. Wir halten uns still; aber dasjenige, was wir auch still, ruhig befehlen, ist ein Hereinströmen des Willens in unsere Glieder.
So muß erkannt werden, was das Wichtigste ist beim Entfalten des Willens durch die körperliche Tätigkeit, damit diese Willensentfaltung in der richtigen Weise auf das Schlafesleben wirkt.
Dabei kommt folgendes in Betracht: Alles dasjenige, was durch den Willen vom Menschen in Tätigkeit übersetzt wird, bildet eine Art von Verbrennungsprozeß im Organismus. Wenn ich denke, befestige ich den Organismus, lagere ich feste Produkte in ihm ab. Wenn ich will, verbrenne ich etwas in meinem Organismus. Nur muß man sich die Verbrennung, die da im Inneren vor sich geht, nicht so vorstellen, wie man sich die Verbrennung äußerlich oder auch in der Chemie oder in der Physik vorstellt. Wenn eine Kerze verbrennt, so ist das ein äußerlicher Verbrennungsprozeß. Allein dasjenige, was man im Inneren des Menschen Verbrennen nennt, das sehen nur die materialistisch Denkenden in gleicher Art an wie einen Kerzenverbrennungsprozeß. Geradeso wie der äußere Naturprozeß im ganzen Menschen vom Geiste ergriffen ist, seelisch durchsetzt ist, wie also die Stoffe, die äußerlich in der Natur wirken, in ganz anderer Weise tätig sind im Menschen -— schon in der Pflanze sind sie das -, so ist auch der Verbrennungsprozeß im Menschen selbstverständlich etwas ganz anderes als der äußerlich beobachtete Kerzenverbrennungsprozeß. Aber es ist eine Art Verbrennungsprozeß, der immer sich einstellt im Organismus, wenn wir wollen, wenn das Wollen auch in der Ruhe des Menschen zum Vorschein kommt. Dadurch aber, daß wir diesen Verbrennungsprozeß erzeugen, bewirken wir in unserem Organismus etwas, was nur der Schlaf wiederum gutmachen kann. Wir würden gewissermaßen als Organismus ganz verbrennen, wenn nicht der Schlaf jederzeit wiederum den Verbrennungsprozeß - nicht im Sinne der groben Naturwissenschaft, sondern intim — fein abdämpfen würde bis dahin, bis zu dem er abgedämpft werden muß. Der Schlaf gleicht diesen inneren Verbrennungsprozeß aus. Er gleicht ihn namentlich dadurch aus, daß er ihn in den ganzen Organismus überführt, während sonst nur die Verbrennung über die Bewegungsorgane verbreitet ist.
Nun können wir in zwiefacher Weise unsere Körperbewegungen ausführen. Sehen wir darauf hin, wie oftmals gerade beim Kinde die Veranlassung gegeben wird zur Körperbewegung. Man bildet sich ein — die materialistische Zivilisation bildet sich ja alles ein, obwohl sie glaubt, mit Tatsachen zu rechnen -, das Kind müsse, weil es nur dadurch ein zivilisierter Mensch wird, diese oder jene Bewegung im Spiel, in der Gymnastik und so weiter ausführen. Es gefallen einem ja in der Regel am besten diejenigen Bewegungen, an die sich auch die Erwachsenen gewöhnt haben, und da man das Ideal hat, daß das Kind eben auch so werden muß, wie man selbst ist als Erwachsener, daß es eben geradeso einmal seine Gymnastik treiben muß, wie man sie treibt als Erwachsener, so bringt man dem Kinde zwangsmäßig dasjenige spielartig bei, was man als Erwachsener für das Richtige hält. Das heißt, man hat eine gewisse Vorstellung: das gehöre sich für einen ordentlichen, anständigen Menschen, dazu müsse man das Kind nun auch veranlassen.
Da bringt man durch einen äußerlichen Zwang aus der Überlegung, aus dem Abstrakten, wenn die Sache auch noch so materiell ist, das Materielle aus dem Abstrakten an das Kind heran, man sagt ihm: du mußt diese, du mußt jene Bewegung machen. Man richtet schon das ganze Gerätwesen so ein, daß das Kind diese oder jene Bewegung machen muß, und es geht an die Bewegung des Körpers um dieser Bewegung willen. Allein das erzeugt Verbrennungsprozesse, in denen sich der menschliche Organismus nicht mehr auskennt. Er kann sie nicht mehr rückgängig machen. Und ein solches äußerliches Heranbringen der Körperpflege, der Körperübungen, bewirkt einen unruhigen Schlaf.
Wiederum tritt es nicht so grob hervor, daß es die äußere Medizin bestätigen kann; aber im intimen, feinen Geschehen des menschlichen Organismus spielt sich das ab. Bringen wir in äußerer Weise, rein konventionell, die körperlichen Übungen an die Kinder heran, so bekommen die Kinder nicht jenen tiefen, vollen Schlaf, den sie haben müssen, und sie können sich dann auch aus dem Schlafe nicht die Regeneration des Organismus herausholen, die notwendig ist.
Erziehen wir das Kind künstlerisch, bringen wir all dasjenige, was die Schule heranzubringen hat, künstlerisch an das Kind heran, so entsteht, geradeso wie ich auf der einen Seite sagen konnte, daß das künstlerische Leben zu reich ist und deshalb sich nach der Verarmung sehnt, die im Intellektuellen ist, so daß das Intellektuelle aus dem Künstlerischen elementar hervorgeholt wird, so entsteht auf der anderen Seite, wenn das Kind sich künstlerisch betätigt, und weil im künstlerischen Betätigen der ganze Mensch in Aktion ist, ein gewisser Hunger nach Körpertätigkeit. Bei nichts entsteht der Hunger nach Körpertätigkeit mehr als bei künstlerischer Übung. Ist das Kind ein paar Stunden, die man sorgfältig ihrer Länge nach abwägen muß, schulmäßig künstlerisch beschäftigt worden, dann regt sich etwas im Organismus, das ganz bestimmte Körperübungen vollführen will. Der Mensch will sich ausleben in diesen Körperbewegungen. Das Künstlerische erzeugt den Hunger nach den richtigen Körperbewegungen.
Und so muß man allmählich übergehen lassen dasjenige, was nur mit den Händen ausgeführt wird im Malen und Zeichnen, was ausgeführt wird mit der Stimme im Gesang oder auch — schon möglichst früh soll man das tun — von dem Kinde am Instrumente, was also gewissermaßen unmittelbar am Körper und durch den Körper sich abspielt, das muß man allmählich übergehen lassen, ausströmen, auslaufen lassen in Raumesbewegungen, in Raumesspiel: es soll eine Fortsetzung desjenigen sein, was der Mensch innerhalb seines Organismus unternimmt in der künstlerischen Unterweisung. Dann wird die Körperpflege aus dem schulmäßigen Unterricht herausgeholt, sie steht mit ihm in innigstem Einklang.
Und wenn das Kind an Körperpflege, an Körperübung nichts anderes vornimmt als dasjenige, wonach es aus seiner künstlerischen Betätigung Hunger hat, dann entsteht derjenige Schlaf, den gerade das Kind notwendig hat. Kann man daher sorgen für ein richtiges Wachleben, indem man das Intellektualistische aus dem Künstlerischen hervorholt, so kann man für ein richtiges Schlafleben, in dem sich alle Verbrennungsprozesse im Organismus harmonisieren, dadurch sorgen, daß man auch die Körperübungen ganz aus dem Künstlerischen hervorholt. Daher ist nichts notwendiger für ein richtiges Erziehen gerade in körperlicher Beziehung als das Drinnenstehen des Lehrers im Künstlerischen. Je mehr der Lehrer Freude hat an allem Künstlerischen der Form, je mehr der Lehrer inneres Wohlgefallen hat an allem Künstlerischen des Musikalischen, je mehr der Lehrer Sehnsucht danach hat, das abstrakt-prosaische Wort in den Rhythmus der Dichtung überzuführen, je mehr Plastisch-Musisches in ihm selber steckt, desto mehr wird er dasjenige, was er das Kind vollbringen läßt im Raume als Spiele, als Körperübungen, so einrichten, daß sie ein künstlerisches Ausleben des Kindes sind.
Heute, in unserer Zivilisation, möchte man ja alles Geistige so furchtbar bequem haben. Man möchte sich ja in bezug auf die geistigen Ideale nicht zu stark anstrengen. Ich habe schon im vorletzten Vortrage gesagt: die Menschen geben alle zu, daß sie schlecht erzogen worden sind, aber sie geben auch alle zu, daß sie unbedingt von selbst das Richtige wissen über die richtige Erziehung, also sagen können, wie man besser erzieht. Und so ist es auch heute geworden, daß man keine große Neigung dazu hat, über diese feinen Prozesse im menschlichen Organismus nachzusinnen: wie geht aus der künstlerischen Betätigung die Gymnastik in künstlerischer Weise hervor? Was fordert die menschliche Organisation für die äußere Bewegung im Raume? Man hat keine große Neigung dazu, und wenig künstlerischer Sinn durchdringt dieses. Man schlägt lieber ein Buch auf - das ist ja überhaupt die wichtigste Beschäftigung des heutigen geistigen Menschen, daß er Bücher aufschlägt —, man schlägt viel lieber ein Buch auf und sieht nach, wie es die Griechen gemacht haben. Erneuerung der Olympischen Spiele in einer ganz äußerlichen Weise, das ist Schlagwort geworden. Und man studiert die Olympischen Spiele nicht an den Forderungen des menschlichen Organismus, wie das bei den Griechen der Fall war, sondern man studiert sie aus dem Buche oder aus demjenigen, was eben durch Dokumente, durch Äußeres überliefert worden ist.
Man kann aber nicht, weil die heutigen Menschen keine Griechen mehr sind, vom griechischen Leben die richtigen Olympischen Spiele ablesen. Denn dringt man mit voller Geistigkeit in den Sinn des Griechentums ein, dann sagt man sich: Die Kinder wurden gymnastisch unterwiesen, wie ich das geschildert habe, im Tanz, im Ringen. Woher aber war das alles bei dem Griechen gelernt? — Es war gerade von den Olympischen Spielen gelernt, die nicht bloß einen artistischen, künstlerischen Charakter hatten, die sogar einen religiösen Charakter hatten, die unmittelbar aus der Zivilisation des Griechentums in künstlerisch-religiöser Weise hervorgingen. Weil die Griechen mit diesem hingebungsvollen künstlerisch-religiösen Sinne in ihren Olympischen Spielen lebten, deshalb konnten sie aus einem unmittelbar pädagogischen Instinkt heraus dasjenige, was da künstlerisch vorhanden war, auch übertragen auf die körperliche Pflege, auf die Gymnastik des kindlichen Alters.
Abstrakt, prosaisch, unkünstlerisch die Körperpflege, die Gymnastik ausbilden, ist wider alle Didaktik, weil es wider die eigentliche Entwickelung des Menschen ist. Und so sollte man heute viel mehr, als daß man, ich möchte sagen, aus dem Buche eine Art Renaissance der Olympischen Spiele anstellt, sich fragen: Wie begreift man das Innerliche des Menschen? — Und da kann man dann finden, daß unorganische, das heißt, nicht aus der Menschennatur hervorgeholte Körperübungen den Menschen zu stark verbrennen. So daß er durch solche Übungen, wenn sie in der Kindheit gepflogen werden, später eine zu geringe Festigkeit in den Muskeln hat, daß die Muskeln nicht folgen seiner Seele, seinem Geist.
Zu einer falschen intellektualistischen Erziehung für das Wachen, die den Körper innerlich verfestigt und die bewirkt, daß wir in unseren Knochen eine Last tragen, statt sie mit unserer Seele in schwungvoller Weise zu bewegen, kommt das andere, daß nun die weichen Glieder zu stark zur Verbrennung geneigt sind. Und so sind wir allmählich ein Luftikus um einen Holzorganismus herum geworden, ein Mensch, der auf der einen Seite gefesselt ist durch die Last desjenigen, was in ihm an Salzen sich bildet, und der auf der anderen Seite seinem physischen Organismus durch einen falschen Verbrennungsprozeß eigentlich immer davonlaufen, eigentlich davonfliegen möchte.
Damit wir wiederum dasjenige, was Verbrennung ist, mit der Salzbildung in das richtige Verhältnis bringen, dazu ist eben eine intime Kenntnis des Menschen notwendig. Dann werden wir dasjenige, was als Verfestigung entsteht, indem wir das Künstlerische zum Intellektualistischen hinüberleiten, in der richtigen Weise wie durch eine Waage ausgleichen durch den richtigen Verbrennungsprozeß, der ins Schlafesleben hineinwirkt und beim Kinde nicht einen unruhigen, innerlich zappeligen Schlaf erzeugt, wie ihn heute zumeist die Körperübungen bewirken, sondern einen innerlich festen, sicheren, ruhigen Schlaf. Diejenigen Kinder, die zwangsmäßig in die Körperpflege hineingeführt werden, die zappeln seelisch während des Schlafes, und das Zappeln während des Schlafes bewirkt, daß sie am Morgen in ihren Organismus mit der Seele zurückkommen, indem sie diesen Organismus beunruhigen, ihn zu falschen Verbrennungsprozessen veranlassen.
Sie sehen aus alledem, daß das Wesentliche überall ist: tiefe Menschenerkenntnis, Erweiterung aus Menschenerkenntnis heraus. Wenn uns der Mensch in diesem Erdendasein das wertvollste Geschöpf der Götter ist, dann müssen wir vor allen Dingen fragen: Was haben die Götter in dem Menschen vor uns hingestellt? Wie haben wir dasjenige, was sie uns überlassen haben, hier auf Erden an dem Menschen zu entwickeln?
Wenn bis zum siebenten Jahre hin der Mensch vor allem ein nachahmendes Wesen ist, so wird er mit dem siebenten Jahre, mit dem Zahnwechsel, ein Wesen, das vor allen Dingen sein eigenes Inneres bilden will nach dem, was im weitesten Umfange ausgesprochen, geoffenbart wird von einer selbstverständlichen Autorität.
Glauben Sie nicht, meine sehr verehrten Anwesenden, daß ich, der ich vor sehr langer Zeit die «Philosophie der Freiheit» geschrieben habe, nun eintreten möchte in einer unberechtigten Weise für das Autoritätsprinzip, für die ausschließliche, absolute Geltung des Autoritätsprinzips im sozialen Leben. Aber dasjenige, was im Menschenleben sich offenbart, ist -— wenn auch auf geistige Weise unter dem Impuls der Freiheit — geradeso gesetzmäßig orientiert wie das Naturgesetzleben, und so können wir nicht danach entscheiden, was uns für die Kindererziehung vom Zahnwechsel bis zur Geschlechtsreife sympathisch oder unsympathisch ist, sondern wir müssen danach entscheiden, was die menschliche Organisation will. Und ebenso wie die menschliche Organisation bis zum Zahnwechsel, also bis zum siebenten Jahre, daraufhin veranlagt ist, in jeder Gebärde, in jeder Haltung, ja in der inneren Durchpulsierung der Blutzirkulation, der Atmung und der Gefäße das nachzuahmen, was die Umgebung tut, wie also die Umgebung Vorbild ist für das Kind bis zum siebenten Jahre, so muß der Mensch, damit er sich gesund und frei entwickeln kann, damit er später gerade die Freiheit in der richtigen Weise gebrauchen kann, vom siebenten bis zum vierzehnten, fünfzehnten Jahre, bis zur Geschlechtsreife, die Freiheit unter der selbstverständlichen Autorität entwickeln.
Wir werden erst im vierzehnten, fünfzehnten Jahre reif zu einem persönlichen Urteil. Erst im vierzehnten, fünfzehnten Jahre kommt der Mensch so weit, daß der Lehrer auf ihn wirken kann, indem er an das Urteil appelliert. Dann kann er auch vom Denken aus die Gründe entwickeln für irgendeine Sache. Aber vorher schaden wir dem Menschen, halten seine ganze menschliche Entwickelung zurück, wenn wir mit Gründen an ihn herantreten. Es ist die größte Wohltat für das ganze spätere Leben, wenn wir in der Lage sind, zwischen dem siebenten und vierzehnten Jahre, approximativ natürlich, eine Wahrheit deshalb anzunehmen, nicht weil wir schon die Gründe einsehen - dazu ist unser Intellekt noch nicht reif -, sondern weil die verehrte Lehrerautorität dieses nach unserer kindlichen Empfindung für die Wahrheit hält. Und wir entwickeln in richtiger Weise die Empfindung für die Schönheit, wenn wir als schön dasjenige empfinden und fühlen, was die verehrte Lehrerautorität, die selbstverständliche, nicht zwangsweise verehrte Lehrerautorität, als schön uns offenbart. Und wir empfinden das Gute dann in der richtigen Weise, so daß es Lebensweg wird für das spätere Alter, wenn wir nicht auseinandergesetzt bekommen: Dies ist ein Gebot, dies ist ein Gesetz, du sollst es halten, du sollst dich danach richten -, sondern wenn wir aus den warmherzigen Worten des Lehrers heraus erleben, wie er selbst Sympathie mit dieser guten Handlung, Antipathie mit jener bösen Handlung hat, wenn er uns durch sein Wort so erwärmen kann für das Gute, so erkalten kann für das Böse, daß wir die Richtung zum Guten hin aufnehmen wiederum, weil die verehrte Lehrerautorität dies uns durch ihr eigenes Gefühl vorlebt.
Und so wachsen wir nicht auf in einem Dogmatismus, sondern in einer hingebenden Liebe für dasjenige, was der verehrten Lehrerautorität wahr, schön und gut ist. Haben wir durch das schulmäßige Alter hindurch als den Maßstab für die Wahrheit, Schönheit, Güte dasjenige ansehen gelernt, was der geliebte Lehrer für wahr, schön, gut hält, wovon er als wahr, schön, gut in anschaulichen künstlerischen Bildern zu sprechen weiß, dann ist in einer genügend tiefen Art mit unserem Menschenwesen verbunden der Impuls für das Wahre, Schöne, Gute. Denn nicht der Intellekt bildet das Gute aus. Und ein Mensch, der nur immer dogmatisch gehört hat: Das sollst du tun, das sollst du nicht tun -,, der trägt den Sinn für das Gute nur als einen kalten, nüchternen Sinn in sich. Derjenige Mensch, der im kindlichen Alter im Gefühl sympathisieren gelernt hat mit dem Guten, antipathisieren gelernt hat gegenüber dem Bösen, und der aus dem Gefühl heraus den Enthusiasmus für das Gute, die Fliehekraft für das Böse erhalten hat, bei dem ist in dem ganzen rhythmischen Organismus der Sinn für das Gute, der Nichtsinn für das Böse eingezogen. Er fühlt später, wie er förmlich unter dem Einfluß des Bösen nicht atmen kann, wie es ihm den Atem verschlägt, wie sein rhythmisches System in Unordnung kommt.
Das alles erreichen wir, wenn an der Stelle des Imitations-, des Nachahmungsprinzips, das bis zum Zahnwechsel herrschend sein muß in der ganzen Kindererziehung, das Prinzip der selbstverständlichen Autorität auftritt mit dem siebenten Lebensjahre, mit dem schulmäßigen Alter. Das darf nicht auf eine zwangsmäßige Weise auftreten, und deshalb war jene Erziehung so falsch, welche die Autorität durch Prügel erzielen wollte.
Ich bitte um Verzeihung, daß ich gestern in einer, wie ich gehört habe, nicht ganz vollrichtigen Weise über die Prügelstrafe gesprochen habe, indem meine Worte, wie es scheint, so aufgefaßt worden waren, als ob ich meinte, daß überall die Prügelstrafe schon abgeschafft worden wäre. Ich sagte nur, die Humanität, die humanitären Beziehungen in der Zivilisation wollen die Prügelstrafe abschaffen. Es ist mir nämlich mitgeteilt worden, daß in England die Prügelstrafe noch voll in Blüte sei, und ich mit meinen Worten nicht ganz das Richtige getroffen habe. Aber die Sache ist so, daß, wenn wir richtig erziehen wollen, wir durchaus nicht zwangsmäßig die Autorität heranbilden sollen, namentlich nicht durch Strafen, sondern auf eine selbstverständliche Weise durch dasjenige, was wir sind. Und wir sind mit Geist, Seele, Körper der richtige Lehrer, wenn wir richtige Menschenbeobachtung aus Menschenkenntnis heraus entwickeln können. Richtige Menschenbeobachtung sieht in dem werdenden Menschen ein Göttergeschöpf. Es gibt im ganzen weiten Weltenall in der Tat nichts Größeres, als zu sehen, wie bei dem Kinde von der Geburt an aus dem unbestimmten Körperlichen immer mehr und mehr das Bestimmte sich ergibt, wie die unbestimmten Bewegungen, die Zappelbewegungen, die Willkürbewegungen sich umgestalten in solche Bewegungen, die vom Seelischen beherrscht werden, wie da das Innere nach außen sich immer mehr und mehr offenbart, wie da das Geistige im Körperlichen immer mehr und mehr an die Oberfläche kommt. Dieses vom Göttlichen auf die Erde heruntergeschickte Menschenwesen, das wir in dem Körper sich offenbaren fühlen, das ist es, was uns wie eine göttliche Offenbarung selber erscheinen kann. Die größte göttliche Offenbarung ist der sich entwickelnde Mensch. Lernt man diesen sich entwickelnden Menschen nicht bloß äußerlich anatomisch-physiologisch kennen, lernt man erkennen, wie in den Körper Seele und Geist hineinschießen, hineinströmen, dann verwandelt sich jede Menschenerkenntnis in Religion, in fromme, scheue Ehrfurcht vor demjenigen, was aus den göttlichen Tiefen in die weltlichen Oberflächen hineinströmt. Dann bekommen wir dasjenige, was uns als Lehrer trägt und hält, und was das Kind schon fühlt, was sich beim Kinde in die Hingabe, in die selbstverständliche Autorität wandelt. Wir sollten uns als Lehrer, statt den Stock in die Hand zu nehmen - auch nicht den innerlichen Stock, wie ich gestern auseinandersetzte, der innerlich peitscht -, statt mit dem Stock uns zu bewaffnen, uns vielmehr bewaffnen mit wahrer Menschenerkenntnis, wahrer Menschenbeobachtung, die in sittlich-religiös inneres Erleben, in sittlich-religiöse Ehrfurcht vor der Gottesschöpfung übergeht.
Dann stehen wir in der richtigen Weise in der Schule drinnen und wissen auch — was für alle Erziehung ganz unerläßlich ist — gewisse Momente im menschlichen Leben zu beobachten, wo der Mensch an einem Umschwung, an einer Metamorphose seines ganzen Lebens steht. Ein solcher Umschwung ist zum Beispiel die Zeit zwischen dem neunten und zehnten Lebensjahre. Bei dem einen Kinde tritt es früher, bei dem anderen etwas später ein, in der Regel zwischen dem neunten und zehnten Jahre.
Man geht, wenn man Materialist ist, über die Dinge leicht hinweg. Hat man den Sinn für wirkliche Menschenbeobachtung, dann sieht man, wie in diesem Lebensalter zwischen dem neunten und zehnten Jahre bei jedem Kinde etwas Merkwürdiges auftritt. Das Kind wird äußerlich etwas unruhig. Es kommt nicht zurecht mit der äußeren Welt. Es fühlt etwas, wie wenn es scheu werden müßte. Es zieht sich etwas zurück von der äußeren Welt. Das alles geschieht in intimer, feiner Weise bei fast jedem Kinde. Das Kind, bei dem es nicht geschieht, ist nicht normal. Das müssen wir beobachten; denn da entsteht gefühlsmäßig in dem Kinde eine außerordentlich wichtige Frage zwischen dem neunten und zehnten Lebensjahr. Das Kind könnte diese Frage nicht in Begriffe verwandeln, es könnte diese Frage nicht mit Worten ausdrücken. Alles ist Gefühl; aber das Gefühl ist um so stärker da, das Gefühl will um so intensiver berücksichtigt werden. Was will das Kind in diesem Lebensalter? Es hat bis dahin aus einer naturhaften Kraft heraus den Erzieher, den Lehrer verehrt. Jetzt fühlt es: der Lehrer muß ihm durch etwas Besonderes zeigen, daß er verehrungswürdig ist. Das Kind wird unsicher, und wir haben nötig gerade als Lehrer in dem Punkte, wo wir bemerken, daß das auftritt, durch unser Verhalten darauf einzugehen. Durch irgend etwas, es braucht gar nicht etwas Ausgedachtes zu sein, sondern durch eine besondere Liebeentfaltung unserer Tätigkeit, durch eine besondere Berücksichtigung und Zusprache zum Kinde, dadurch, daß wir in diesem Momente in einer ganz besonderen Weise an das Kind herantreten, daß das Kind merkt, der Lehrer hat es ganz besonders lieb, der Lehrer geht auf es ein, dadurch bringen wir das Kind gerade zwischen dem neunten und zehnten Jahre, wenn wir nur überhaupt aufmerksam darauf sind und uns dementsprechend verhalten, über eine Klippe hinweg. Und daß wir es darüber hinwegbringen, ist von einer ungeheuren Wichtigkeit für das ganze spätere Leben. Denn dasjenige, was da an Unsicherheit zurückbleibt in dem Kinde, das tritt als Unsicherheit im ganzen späteren Leben auf, nur ohne daß es der Mensch bemerkt; nur dadurch, daß es in seinem Charakter, in seinem Temperament, in seiner körperlich-physischen Gesundheit sich abdrückt, kommt es zum Vorschein.
Überall müssen wir eben wissen, wie der Geist in das Materielle und damit in das Gesundheitliche hineinwirkt, und wie der Geist gepflegt werden muß, damit er in der richtigen Weise in das Gesundheitliche hineingreifen kann. Gerade die Erziehungskunst zeigt uns, wie sehr wir den Geist und das Materielle nicht als Gegensätze, sondern als in Harmonie befindlich durchschauen müssen. Wir müssen erkennen, was wir da der Erziehung schuldig sind gegenüber der modernen Zivilisation, die alles getrennt hat. Wir haben heute einen Materialismus. In dem lebt man, wenn man an die Natur denkt. Und wenn man dann nicht zufrieden ist mit demjenigen, was die Naturerkenntnisse bieten, dann ersinnt man sich einen Spiritualismus, dann sucht man durch alle möglichen Dinge, die eigentlich der Naturwissenschaft widersprechen, zu den Geistern zu kommen. Darinnen liegt eine Tragik unserer Zivilisation.
Der Materialismus ist dazu gekommen, alles zu intellektualisieren. Der Materialismus versteht nur noch die Begriffe, die er sich über die Materie macht. Er dringt nicht in die Materie hinein. Und der Spiritualismus von heute? Der möchte die Geister angreifen können, möglichst greiflich sie haben; durch Tische, durch Manifestationen sollen die Geister sich in ihrer materiellen Glorie zeigen. Sie sollen nicht Geister bleiben, die das Merkmal der Unsichtbarkeit, der Ungreifbarkeit haben, weil der Mensch zu bequem ist, zu ihnen vorzudringen.
Dadurch ist der Mensch heute in eine merkwürdige Tragik hineingekommen. Der Materialismus redet nur noch von der Materie, nicht mehr vom Geiste, denn der Materialismus versteht nichts von der Materie. Er redet nur in destillierten Geistworten von der Materie. Der Spiritualismus redet eigentlich immer vom Materiellen, indem er glaubt, vom Geiste zu reden. Und so haben wir die eigentümliche Erscheinung, daß unsere Zivilisation gespalten ist in Materialismus und Spiritualismus. Der Materialismus versteht nichts von der Materie, der Spiritualismus versteht nichts vom Geiste. Und so haben wir die merkwürdige Erscheinung, daß zerfallen ist der ganze Mensch in Körperliches, in Geistiges. Die Erziehung aber braucht die Harmonisierung beider. Das kann nicht oft genug betont werden. Darauf muß alle Erziehung abzielen, daß man im Materiellen wieder etwas vom Geiste versteht, daß man vom Spirituellen aus verständnisvoll die materielle Welt ergreift. Versteht man die materielle Welt richtig zu ergreifen, so findet man den Geist; versteht man im Spirituellen etwas vom Geiste, so findet man nicht eine materielle Spiritualität, sondern eine wirkliche geistige Welt.
Das brauchen wir: wirkliche geistige Welt, verständnisvoll ergriffene materielle Welt, wenn wir in richtiger Weise die Menschheit nicht zu einem Niedergang, sondern zu einem Aufstieg erziehen wollen.
Seventh Lecture
During the transition from childhood, through the change of teeth around the age of seven, to school age, it is particularly important to bear in mind that until the age of seven, human beings are essentially sculptors. The formative forces emanate from the human head and organize the whole person. What the human being observes in their environment, including the moral character of what is observed, is communicated to the structure of the vascular system, blood circulation, respiration, and so on, so that the human being, as a physical organization, carries within them throughout their entire earthly life what they have imitated up to the change of teeth. Not as if they were completely dependent on this organization. Later on, they can certainly correct many things in their body from within through moral strength and spiritual intensity. But we must remember what wonderful genetic material we give to human beings for their journey through life when we make their organism a suitable vehicle for the spiritual and moral by supporting the inner sculptor in human beings up to the age of seven in such a way that we bring only moral things and things that make them fit for life into their vicinity so that they can imitate them. I spoke about the finer details yesterday, and more will be explained in the course of time.
When the child has passed the age of seven and reaches school age, these plastic forces become spiritual, and the teacher must pay attention to these plastic forces. The child wants to be engaged with vivid images: this must be the very first principle of education at the beginning of school age.
What develops most particularly in the child's head system from the change of teeth to sexual maturity is the rhythmic system, mainly the respiratory system, the blood circulation system with everything that belongs to the regular rhythm of nutrition. And while the plastic and vivid aspects are present in the child's soul, the rhythmic system is still directly present in the teacher's and instructor's body at school. This means that the pictorial must predominate in what one does with the child, in what the child is to do. And in everything that takes place between the teacher and the child, music must prevail; rhythm, beat, and even melody must become pedagogical principles. This requires that the teacher have a kind of musicality within themselves, that they have musicality in their entire life.
It is therefore the rhythmic system that is organically present in school-age children, that organically predominates, and it is important that all teaching be oriented in a rhythmic way, that the teacher himself be, one might say, a musically inclined person, so that rhythm and beat truly prevail in the classroom. This is something that must live instinctively in the teacher, in the educator, in a certain way.
When we look at all this, we must be clear that teaching, especially at the beginning of school age, can only be based entirely on artistic elements. And if teaching today leaves much to be desired, it is because today's civilization as such develops far too little artistic sense in adults. Healthy pedagogy cannot arise from the individual arts, but rather from the overall artistic constitution of civilization. This is extremely important.
Now, when we organize teaching artistically, we appeal above all to the rhythmic system of the human being. It is true that children breathe healthily when we organize teaching artistically. The child's blood circulation is healthy when we organize our teaching artistically. But we must also be clear that, on the one hand, we have to introduce the child to life, that we have to make them capable of sound judgment, that the child must have sound judgment throughout their later life. So, during their school years, we must guide the child toward using their intellect. We must not force them to learn to use their intellect, but we must guide them. On the other hand, we must educate physically healthy people, which means that we must organize physical care and physical exercises in such a way that people can become healthy for their whole lives, at least as far as their destiny allows. We can only do all this if we take a deeper look at the whole human being.
One third of human life is not taken into account by our civilization, which focuses only on the external and material: this is the life of sleep. There is a regular rhythm between sleeping and waking in human existence on earth. This regular rhythm plays the greatest possible role in human existence on earth, and one must not believe that when a person sleeps, they are inactive. They are inactive for the external material civilization; but for their own being, for their health, and especially for the health of the soul, for the health of the spirit, sleep is indeed of the utmost importance. And what humans do while awake—especially in the case of children—is constantly carried over into their sleep life. And by educating them properly, we can ensure a healthy sleep life.
We only need to understand the following: the rhythmic system that underlies all artistic activity does not tire. The heart and respiratory functions continue tirelessly from birth to death. Humans can only become tired through their intellectual system and their system of will. Thinking makes us tired, physical movement makes us tired. But since thinking and physical movement are naturally part of everything in life, everything in life makes us tired. But in children, it is important to ensure that fatigue occurs to the least possible extent.
It occurs to the least possible extent when we initially orient teaching towards the artistic in this important school age, because then we appeal to the rhythmic system and tire the child the least.
What happens when we appeal to the intellectual system? When we appeal to the intellectual system, when we simply induce the child to think through an inner decision, to think as such, then those forces of the organism come into play that strengthen the human being internally, those forces that are specifically the salt-depositing forces, the calcium-depositing forces, the bone-forming forces, the tendon-forming forces, the cartilage-forming forces, everything that makes the human being strong. This is what is developed in the organism through thinking, through compulsive thinking. And human beings are internally engaged in strengthening themselves when they are awake. So we expect too much internal strengthening from waking life when we strive too strongly for intellectualism in waking life. If we let the child think too much, we implant in the organism the predisposition to early sclerosis, to early arteriosclerosis. The strengthening element is that which is accomplished through compulsive thinking, which is particularly demanding. The point here is that through genuine observation of human beings, one also acquires a sense, an instinct for how much one can expect of a child.
However, there is a very important principle that regulates this relationship. If I let the child think, if I teach the child to write purely intellectually, for example, by saying to myself: the letters are there, the child must learn these letters, then I am occupying this child intellectually, then I am breeding sclerosis in him, or at least a tendency towards it; for there is no inner relationship between the human being and these now developed letters. They are little demons for human nature. One must first find the bridge, the transition to it.
This bridge, this transition, can be found by first allowing the child to engage in artistic activity, to paint and draw with artistic sensibility, allowing what comes from its innermost nature in terms of lines and colors to flow formally by itself from the child onto the paper. Then, whenever the child is allowed to engage in artistic activity, the inner feeling arises—and this feeling is what matters—that one is enriched as a human being through artistic activity. Through the intellect, one becomes spiritually impoverished; through the intellect, one becomes inwardly barren; through artistic activity, one becomes inwardly rich, and one feels the need to tone down this richness somewhat. And then the pictorial-artistic experience naturally directs itself toward poorer concepts and ideas. Then an inner need arises to impoverish the artistic, to intellectualize it. And when, after having captured the child artistically, you allow the intellectual to emerge from the artistic, then this artistic has the right measure to intervene in the body in such a way that it is not too strongly, but correctly solidified.
You even hold back the child's growth if you intellectualize it too strongly. On the other hand, you allow the child to grow when you first transfer everything from the artistic to the intellectual.
This is the reason why, in Waldorf schools, great importance is attached to the artistic and not the intellectual, especially at the beginning of school age, why the pictorial, the non-intellectual, dominates teaching at first, and why the teacher's interaction with the child is permeated with music, with rhythm and meter, so that the child develops precisely the degree of intellectuality that he or she needs, and so that intellectual education becomes at the same time the best physical education.
Our age shows us everywhere how adults are too rigidly fixed in their inner selves, how they carry their bodies around with them through life like wooden machines, so to speak. Of course, this is not something that can be observed with the naked eye, but only with more subtle observation. But it is a peculiarity of our civilization that people carry their bodies around like a burden, whereas a proper education, based on the arts, educates people in such a way that they enjoy every step they take, that every movement of the hand that they later have to perform in the service of humanity becomes an inner pleasure, an inner joy. We separate the soul from the body by educating people in an intellectualistic way.
If we apply intellectualism too strongly, people later go through life saying: Oh, the physical is just earthly, it has no value, it must be overcome; one must devote oneself as a mystic to the purely soul-spiritual life; the spirit alone has value."
If one educates in the right way, then one also arrives at the spirit in the right way, namely at the spirit that creates the body. God did not create the world by saying: matter is bad, we must withdraw from it. No world would have come into being if the gods had thought that way. It was solely because they thought: spirit must be active, spirit must become pictorial, manifest in matter, that the world came into being from the divine side. And if man realizes that the best human life in all areas is for him when he follows the gods, then he must choose an education that does not make man an unworldly being, but rather a soul-spiritual being through which soul and spirit can carry themselves into the physical throughout their entire lives. Nor is he a good thinker who must constantly cast off his body when he wants to devote himself to thinking.
Thus, what we can do in a healthy way through the artistic foundation and the development of the intellectual from the artistic foundation relates to the waking life of the human being. Everything we can do in relation to the actual physical care of children has a certain connection to their sleep life. And if we want to know what healthy physical care and exercise should be like, we must always ask the question: how does physical exercise, physical activity, affect sleep life?
Human physical activity arises spiritually and mentally from the will; it is an outflow of the will impulse into the human organism of movement. Even when a person is only mentally active, this is still an activity of the will that passes into the limbs. When we sit somewhere in an office and think out the decisions of the will, which others then carry out, it is still the inflow of our impulses of the will into our limbs that we are merely holding back. We remain still, but what we command, even quietly and calmly, is an inflow of the will into our limbs.
It is therefore necessary to recognize what is most important in the development of the will through physical activity, so that this development of the will has the right effect on sleep life.
The following should be taken into consideration: Everything that is translated into activity by the human will forms a kind of combustion process in the organism. When I think, I strengthen the organism; I store solid products in it. When I will, I burn something in my organism. However, one must not imagine the combustion that takes place inside in the same way as one imagines combustion externally or in chemistry or physics. When a candle burns, it is an external combustion process. But what is called combustion within the human being is only seen by materialistic thinkers in the same way as the combustion process of a candle. Just as the external natural process in the whole human being is grasped by the spirit, permeated by the soul, just as the substances that act externally in nature are active in a completely different way in the human being — they already are in plants — so too is the combustion process in the human being, of course, something completely different from the externally observed process of a candle burning. But it is a kind of combustion process that always occurs in the organism when we want it to, when the will comes to the fore even in the calmness of the human being. But by generating this combustion process, we cause something in our organism that only sleep can make up for. In a sense, we would burn up completely as an organism if sleep did not constantly dampen the combustion process — not in the sense of crude natural science, but intimately — until it had been dampened to the extent necessary. Sleep compensates for this inner combustion process. It compensates for it in particular by transferring it to the whole organism, whereas otherwise combustion is only spread across the organs of movement.
Now we can perform our bodily movements in two ways. Let us look at how often, especially in children, the impulse for bodily movement is given. People imagine — materialistic civilization imagines everything, even though it believes it is dealing with facts — that children must perform this or that movement in play, in gymnastics, and so on, because only then can they become civilized human beings. As a rule, we like best those movements to which adults are accustomed, and since we have the ideal that children must become just like us as adults, that they must do gymnastics just as we do as adults, we compulsively teach children in a playful way what we as adults consider to be right. In other words, you have a certain idea: this is what a proper, decent person should do, and you must now encourage the child to do the same.
Through external coercion based on consideration, on the abstract, even if the matter is purely material, the material is brought to the child from the abstract; you tell them: you must do this movement, you must do that movement. The whole apparatus is set up in such a way that the child must do this or that movement, and the movement of the body is done for the sake of the movement itself. This alone creates combustion processes that the human organism no longer understands. It can no longer reverse them. And such an external approach to physical care and exercise causes restless sleep.
Again, it is not so obvious that external medicine can confirm it; but it does take place in the intimate, subtle workings of the human organism. If we introduce physical exercises to children in an external, purely conventional way, they do not get the deep, restful sleep they need, and they are then unable to obtain the necessary regeneration of the organism from their sleep.
If we educate the child artistically, if we introduce the child to everything that the school has to offer in an artistic way, then, just as I could say on the one hand that artistic life is too rich and therefore longs for the impoverishment that is found in the intellectual, so that the intellectual is brought out of the artistic in an elementary way, then, on the other hand, when the child engages in artistic activity, and because the whole person is active in artistic activity, a certain hunger for physical activity arises. Nothing creates a hunger for physical activity more than artistic practice. If the child has been engaged in artistic activities at school for a few hours, the length of which must be carefully considered, then something stirs in the organism that wants to perform very specific physical exercises. The human being wants to live out these physical movements. Artistic activity creates a hunger for the right physical movements.
And so one must gradually transition from what is done only with the hands in painting and drawing, what is done with the voice in singing, or even — and this should be done as early as possible — by the child on an instrument, that is, what takes place directly on and through the body, must gradually be allowed to flow out, to run out into spatial movements, into spatial play: it should be a continuation of what the human being undertakes within his or her organism in artistic instruction. Then physical care is taken out of school lessons and brought into intimate harmony with them.
And when the child does nothing else in terms of physical care and exercise than what it craves from its artistic activity, then the sleep that the child needs is created. If, therefore, one can ensure a proper waking life by bringing out the intellectual from the artistic, one can ensure a proper sleeping life, in which all the combustion processes in the organism harmonize, by bringing out the physical exercises entirely from the artistic. Therefore, nothing is more necessary for proper education, especially in physical terms, than the teacher's involvement in the artistic. The more the teacher enjoys everything artistic in form, the more the teacher takes inner pleasure in everything artistic in music, the more the teacher longs to transform abstract prosaic word into the rhythm of poetry, the more plastic and musical he is himself, the more he will arrange what he lets the child accomplish in space as games, as physical exercises, so that they are an artistic expression of the child.
Today, in our civilization, we want everything intellectual to be so terribly convenient. We don't want to exert ourselves too much in relation to intellectual ideals. I already said in my penultimate lecture: people all admit that they have been poorly educated, but they also all admit that they definitely know the right thing about proper education, i.e., they can say how to educate better. And so it has become the case today that people have little inclination to reflect on these subtle processes in the human organism: how does artistic activity give rise to gymnastics in an artistic way? What does the human organism require for external movement in space? There is little inclination to do so, and little artistic sense permeates this. People prefer to open a book—which is, after all, the most important occupation of today's intellectual person, to open books—they much prefer to open a book and see how the Greeks did it. Renewal of the Olympic Games in a completely external way has become a buzzword. And one does not study the Olympic Games in terms of the demands of the human organism, as was the case with the Greeks, but one studies them from books or from what has been handed down through documents, through external sources.
However, because people today are no longer Greeks, it is not possible to learn about the true Olympic Games from Greek life. For if one penetrates the spirit of Greek culture with full intellectual awareness, one realizes that children were taught gymnastics, as I have described, in dance and in wrestling. But where did the Greeks learn all this? — It was learned precisely from the Olympic Games, which were not merely artistic in character, but even had a religious character, emerging directly from Greek civilization in an artistic-religious way. Because the Greeks lived with this devoted artistic-religious sense in their Olympic Games, they were able to transfer what was artistically present there to physical care and gymnastics for children out of a direct pedagogical instinct.
Abstract, prosaic, inartistic physical training and gymnastics are contrary to all didactics because they are contrary to the actual development of the human being. And so today, rather than, I would say, staging a kind of renaissance of the Olympic Games from the book, we should ask ourselves: How do we understand the inner life of the human being? — And then one can find that inorganic, that is, physical exercises that are not derived from human nature, burn people out too much. So that if such exercises are practiced in childhood, they later have too little strength in their muscles, so that the muscles do not follow their soul, their spirit.
In addition to a false intellectualistic education for waking life, which strengthens the body internally and causes us to carry a burden in our bones instead of moving them energetically with our soul, there is the other problem that the soft limbs are now too prone to exhaustion. And so we have gradually become airheads around a wooden organism, human beings who are bound on the one hand by the burden of the salts that form within them, and who on the other hand, due to a false combustion process, actually always want to run away from their physical organism, actually want to fly away from it.
In order to bring combustion into the right relationship with salt formation, an intimate knowledge of the human being is necessary. Then we will balance what arises as solidification by transferring the artistic to the intellectual in the right way, as if on a scale, through the right combustion process, which affects sleep life and does not produce a restless, internally restless sleep, as is usually caused by physical exercises today, but an internally firm, secure, peaceful sleep. Those children who are forcibly introduced to physical hygiene fidget mentally during sleep, and this fidgeting during sleep causes them to return to their organism with their soul in the morning, disturbing this organism and causing it to undergo incorrect combustion processes.
You can see from all this that the essential is everywhere: deep knowledge of human beings, expansion based on knowledge of human beings. If human beings are the most valuable creatures of the gods in this earthly existence, then we must ask above all: What have the gods placed before us in human beings? How can we develop here on earth what they have left us in human beings?
If, up to the age of seven, human beings are primarily imitative beings, then at the age of seven, with the change of teeth, they become beings who, above all, want to form their own inner selves according to what is expressed and revealed to the fullest extent by a self-evident authority.
Do not think, my dear audience, that I, who wrote “The Philosophy of Freedom” a very long time ago, now wish to advocate in an unjustified way for the principle of authority, for the exclusive, absolute validity of the principle of authority in social life. But what is revealed in human life is—even if in a spiritual way under the impulse of freedom—just as lawfully oriented as the laws of nature, and so we cannot decide what we like or dislike in the education of children from the change of teeth to sexual maturity, but must decide according to what the human organization wants. And just as the human organism is predisposed until the change of teeth, that is, until the age of seven, to imitate in every gesture, in every posture, indeed in the inner pulsation of the blood circulation, breathing, and the vessels, the environment is a model for the child until the age of seven. In order for the human being to develop healthily and freely, and to be able to use that freedom in the right way later on, they must develop freedom under natural authority from the age of seven to fourteen or fifteen, until sexual maturity.
It is only at the age of fourteen or fifteen that we become mature enough to form our own personal judgments. It is only at the age of fourteen or fifteen that human beings reach the point where teachers can influence them by appealing to their judgment. Then they can also develop reasons for something based on their thinking. But before that, we harm human beings and hold back their entire human development if we approach them with reasons. It is the greatest benefit for our entire later life if we are able, between the ages of seven and fourteen, approximately of course, to accept a truth not because we already understand the reasons – our intellect is not yet mature enough for that – but because the revered authority of the teacher considers it to be the truth according to our childlike perception. And we develop a proper sense of beauty when we perceive and feel as beautiful what the revered authority of the teacher, the natural, not forcibly revered authority of the teacher, reveals to us as beautiful. And we perceive goodness in the right way, so that it becomes a way of life for later age, when we are not told: This is a commandment, this is a law, you must keep it, you must follow it – but when we experience from the warm words of the teacher how he himself feels sympathy for this good deed, antipathy with that evil action, when he can warm us to the good and cool us to the evil with his words, so that we take up the direction toward the good again, because the revered teacher authority exemplifies this to us through his own feelings.
And so we do not grow up in dogmatism, but in a devoted love for what the revered teacher authority considers true, beautiful, and good. If, throughout our school years, we have learned to regard as the standard of truth, beauty, and goodness that which our beloved teacher considers true, beautiful, and good, and which he knows how to express as true, beautiful, and good in vivid artistic images, then the impulse for truth, beauty, and goodness is connected to our human nature in a sufficiently deep way. For it is not the intellect that forms the good. And a person who has only ever heard dogmatically: “You should do this, you should not do that” carries within them only a cold, sober sense of the good. The person who, in childhood, learned to sympathize with the good, learned to antipathize with the evil, and who, out of feeling, received enthusiasm for the good and repulsion for the evil, has the sense of the good and the sense of the evil drawn into their entire rhythmic organism. Later in life, they feel how they literally cannot breathe under the influence of evil, how it takes their breath away, how their rhythmic system is thrown into disorder.
We achieve all this when, at the age of seven, the age of school, the principle of self-evident authority takes the place of the principle of imitation, which must prevail throughout childhood education until the change of teeth. This must not be imposed in a coercive manner, and that is why education that sought to achieve authority through corporal punishment was so wrong.
I apologize for speaking yesterday in a way that, as I have heard, was not entirely correct about corporal punishment, as my words seem to have been taken to mean that corporal punishment has already been abolished everywhere. I only said that humanity, humanitarian relations in civilization, want to abolish corporal punishment. I have been informed that corporal punishment is still in full swing in England, and that my words were not entirely accurate. But the fact is that if we want to educate properly, we should not necessarily build up authority, especially not through punishment, but in a natural way through who we are. And we are the right teachers with our mind, soul, and body if we can develop proper observation of people based on knowledge of human nature. Proper observation of people sees a divine creature in the developing human being. In fact, there is nothing greater in the whole wide universe than to see how, from birth, the child's indeterminate physicality gives way more and more to the determinate, how the indeterminate movements, the fidgeting movements, the arbitrary movements are transformed into movements that are governed by the soul, as the inner self reveals itself more and more to the outside world, as the spiritual in the physical comes more and more to the surface. This human being sent down to earth by the divine, which we feel revealed in the body, is what can appear to us as a divine revelation itself. The greatest divine revelation is the developing human being. If we learn to know this developing human being not only externally, anatomically and physiologically, but also learn to recognize how soul and spirit shoot into and flow into the body, then every human insight is transformed into religion, into pious, reverent awe of that which flows from the divine depths into the worldly surface. Then we receive that which sustains and supports us as teachers, and which the child already feels, which transforms itself in the child into devotion, into natural authority. As teachers, instead of taking up the stick – not even the inner stick, as I explained yesterday, which whips us internally – instead of arming ourselves with the stick, we should rather arm ourselves with true knowledge of human nature, true observation of human nature, which merges into moral-religious inner experience, into moral-religious reverence for God's creation.
Then we stand in the right way in the school and also know — which is absolutely essential for all education — to observe certain moments in human life when the human being is at a turning point, at a metamorphosis of his whole life. One such turning point, for example, is the period between the ages of nine and ten. For some children it comes earlier, for others a little later, but as a rule between the ages of nine and ten.
If you are a materialist, you easily overlook things. If you have a sense of real human observation, you will see that something strange happens to every child between the ages of nine and ten. The child becomes somewhat restless outwardly. They cannot cope with the outside world. They feel something, as if they were becoming shy. They withdraw somewhat from the outside world. All this happens in an intimate, subtle way in almost every child. Children who do not experience this are not normal. We must observe this, because between the ages of nine and ten, an extremely important question arises emotionally in the child. The child cannot translate this question into concepts, cannot express it in words. Everything is feeling, but the feeling is all the stronger for that, and the feeling demands to be taken into account all the more intensely. What does the child want at this age? Until then, it has revered the educator, the teacher, out of a natural force. Now it feels that the teacher must show it through something special that he or she is worthy of reverence. The child becomes insecure, and we, as teachers, need to respond to this through our behavior at the very moment we notice it occurring. It doesn't have to be something elaborate, but rather a special expression of love in our activities, special consideration and encouragement for the child, approaching the child in a very special way at that moment, so that the child realizes that the teacher loves them very much, that the teacher is responsive to them. in this way, we can help the child between the ages of nine and ten, if we are attentive to this and behave accordingly, to overcome a difficult phase. And getting them over it is of tremendous importance for their entire later life. For whatever uncertainty remains in the child will reappear as uncertainty throughout their later life, only without the person noticing it; it only comes to light through its imprint on their character, their temperament, and their physical health.
Everywhere we must know how the spirit works into the material and thus into health, and how the spirit must be cultivated so that it can intervene in health in the right way. The art of education in particular shows us how much we must see the spirit and the material not as opposites, but as being in harmony. We must recognize what we owe to education in relation to modern civilization, which has separated everything. Today we have materialism. We live in it when we think of nature. And if we are not satisfied with what knowledge of nature offers us, then we invent spiritualism, then we seek to reach the spirits through all kinds of things that actually contradict natural science. Therein lies a tragedy of our civilization.
Materialism has come to intellectualize everything. Materialism only understands the concepts it forms about matter. It does not penetrate matter. And today's spiritualism? It wants to be able to touch the spirits, to have them as tangible as possible; through tables and manifestations, the spirits are to show themselves in their material glory. They are not to remain spirits, which have the characteristic of invisibility and intangibility, because human beings are too lazy to penetrate them.
As a result, people today have fallen into a strange tragedy. Materialism only talks about matter, no longer about spirit, because materialism understands nothing about matter. It only talks about matter in distilled spiritual words. Spiritualism actually always talks about the material, believing it is talking about the spirit. And so we have the peculiar phenomenon that our civilization is divided into materialism and spiritualism. Materialism understands nothing about matter, spiritualism understands nothing about spirit. And so we have the strange phenomenon that the whole human being has disintegrated into the physical and the spiritual. But education needs the harmonization of both. This cannot be emphasized often enough. All education must aim at understanding something of the spirit in the material world again, at grasping the material world with understanding from the spiritual world. If one understands how to grasp the material world correctly, one finds the spirit; if one understands something of the spirit in the spiritual world, one finds not a material spirituality, but a real spiritual world.
This is what we need: a real spiritual world and an understanding grasp of the material world if we want to educate humanity in the right way, not toward decline but toward ascent.