The Essentials of Education
GA 308
8 April 1924, Stuttgart
Lecture One
Dear friends! Our assignment for this educational conference is to answer the question: What is the role of education and teaching to be for the future in terms of both the individual and society? Anyone who looks with an unbiased eye at modern civilization and its various institutions can hardly question the importance of this theme today (by “today” I mean the current decade in history). This theme touches on questions deep in the souls and hearts of a great many people.
Knowledge of the Whole Human Being
In our modern civilization, we have seen people develop a peculiar attitude toward their own being. For over a century, our civilization has witnEssentialEd the ambitious development of natural science and its consequences for humanity; indeed, all of contemporary life has been affected by the knowledge and ideas engendered by natural science. From the perspective of natural science, however, wherever we look and no matter how exactly we observe the mineral kingdom and develop ideas of nature’s other realms, one thing is clear: although there was close and intimate self-knowledge of human beings in earlier cultural epochs, this is no longer the situation today. Whatever achievements natural science may have brought to humankind, it cannot be applied directly to the human being.
We can ask: What are the laws that govern the development of the world beyond humankind? However, none of the answers come close to the essence of what lives within the limits of the human skin. Answers are so inadequate that people today haven’t a clue about the ways that external natural processes are actually transformed within the human being through breathing, blood circulation, nutrition, and so on.
Consequently, we have come to the point where, even in terms of the soul, we do not look at the soul itself, but study its external manifestations in the human body. Today people experiment on human beings. However, I don’t intend to criticize psychological or pedagogical experimentation. We must acknowledge what can be accomplished in this way, but mostly this approach is a symptom of our cultural milieu, since in fact the results of such experiments tell us little about the human being.
In earlier times, people had a sense of inner empathy with the spirit and soul of other human beings, which gave them an intuitive impression of the soul’s inner experiences; it made sense that what one knew about the inner spirit and soul life would explain external physical manifestations. Now, we do just the opposite. People experiment with external aspects and processes very effectively, since all contemporary natural science is effective. The only thing that has been demonstrated, however, is that, given our modern views of life, we take seriously only what is sense-perceptible and what the intellect can comprehend with the help of the senses. Consequently, we have come to a point where we no longer have the capacity to really observe the inner human being; we are often content to observe its outer shell. We are further removed from the human being. Indeed, the very methods that have so eagerly illuminated life in the outer world—the working of nature—have robbed us of the most basic access between souls.
Our wonderfully productive civilization has brought us very close to certain natural phenomena, but it has also driven us away from the human being. It should be obvious that the aspect of our culture most harmed by this situation is education—everything related to human development and teaching children. Once we can understand those we are to shape, we will be able to educate and teach, just as painters must understand the nature and quality of colors before they can paint, and sculptors must first understand their materials before they can create, and so on. If this is true of the arts that deal with physical materials, isn’t it all the more true of an art that works with the noblest of all materials, the material that only the human being can work with—human life, the human being and human development?
These issues remind us that all education and all teaching must spring from the fountain of real knowledge of the human being. In the Waldorf schools, we are attempting to create such an art of education, solidly based on true understanding of the human being, and this educational conference is about the educational methods of Waldorf education.
Knowledge of the human being! I can hear people saying how far we have come in our knowledge of the human being in our time! I must reply that, although we have made extraordinary advances in our knowledge of the human physical body, the human being is really body, soul, and spirit. The worldview at the foundation of Waldorf education—that is, anthroposophic spiritual science—consists equally of knowledge of the human body, the human soul, and the human spirit, being careful to avoid any imbalance.
In the following lectures, I will have much more to say about such knowledge of the human being. But first, let me point out that true knowledge of the human being does not come from merely looking at an isolated individual with three aspects. Knowledge of the human being primarily tries to keep sight of what happens among human beings during earthly life.
When one human being encounters another, a fully conscious knowledge of each other’s being does not develop between them—such a thing would be absurd. We couldn’t begin to interact socially if we were to view one another with analytical questions in mind. But we all carry an unconscious knowledge of the other within ourselves as unconscious perceptions, feelings, and, most importantly, impulses that lead to action. We will see that knowledge of the human being has suffered a great deal in the modern world, and this has given rise to many social evils. In a sense, however, knowledge of human beings has only withdrawn to deeper levels of the unconscious than ever before. Nevertheless, it is still available to us, since, if it weren’t, we would pass each other with no means of understanding one another.
It is certainly true that when one person meets another—whether or not we are aware of it—sympathies and antipathies arise, and impressions are formed. They tell us whether the other person can be allowed to get close, or if we would prefer to stay clear of that other person. Other impressions arise as well. Immediately, we may say, “This is an intelligent person,” or “that person is not very gifted.” I could mention hundreds and hundreds of impressions that spring from the depths of the soul. During most of our life, such impressions are pushed back down again, where they become a part of our soul’s attitude toward the other person; we guide our behavior toward that person in terms of these first impressions. Then, too, what we call empathy—which is essentially one of the most significant impulses of human morality—also belongs to such unconscious knowledge of the human being.
The Relationship between Teacher and Child
In our adult interactions, we use our knowledge of the human being so unconsciously that we are unaware of it, but we nevertheless act according to it. In our capacity as teachers, however, the relationship between our human soul as teacher and the child’s human soul must be much more conscious so that we have a formative effect on the child. But we also must become aware of our own teacher’s soul so that we experience what is necessary to establish the right mood, the right teaching artistry, and the right empathy with the child’s soul. All of these things are necessary to adequately performing our educational and teaching task. We are immediately reminded that the most important aspect in education and teaching is what occurs between the teacher’s soul and the child’s soul.
Let’s start with this knowledge of the human being; it is knowledge with “soft edges.” It lacks sharp contours to the extent that it is not pointed directly at any one person. Rather, over the course of the educational relationship it glides, as it were, weaving here and there between what happens in the teacher’s soul and in the child’s soul. In certain ways, it is difficult to be very sure of what is happening, since it is all very subtle. When we teach, something is present that flows like a stream, constantly changing. It is necessary to develop a vision that allows us to seize anything that is developing between human beings in this intimate way.
We might consider a few specific examples as an introduction to the way these currents form. In doing this, we must consider one thing: when we deal with a human being “in-process,” a growing child, knowledge of the human being is too often applied in an exact way. We take the child at a specific point in life and get to work, asking about the child’s developmental forces, how they operate at that particular age, and so on, and we ask how we can properly meet these developmental forces at this particular time. But knowledge of the human being as intended here is not concerned only with these moments of experience, but with the person’s whole earthly life. It is not really as easy as observing a precise time span in a human life. But educators and teachers must be able to look at the whole human life; whatever we do in the eighth or ninth year will have effects upon the forty- or fifty-year-old adult, as we will see a little later.
As a teacher, anything I do to a child during the years of education will sink deeply into the physical, psychological, and spiritual nature of that individual. Whatever I do that plants a seed at the beginning of life will in some way go on living and working for decades beneath the surface, reappearing in remarkable ways many years later, perhaps not until the very end of life. It is possible to affect childhood in the right way if we consider not just childhood but all of human life as seen from the perspective of a real knowledge of the human being.
This is the knowledge I have in mind as I give you a few examples about the intimate ways the teacher’s soul can affect the child’s soul. I will present only a few indications for today—we will go into greater detail later. We can understand how to prepare the intellect for activities of the will only if we can answer this question: What happens between the teacher and the child, simply because the teacher and the child are present together, each with a unique nature and temperament—a particular character, level of development, constitution of body and soul? Before we even begin to teach and educate, the teacher and the child are both present. There is already an interaction. The teacher’s relationship to the child presents the first important question.
Rather than wandering off in abstractions, let’s just look at specifics; we shall examine one particular characteristic in human nature—the temperament. Let’s not view a child’s temperament, which of course offers us no choice—we must educate each human being regardless of temperament (we will speak later of the children’s temperaments); but let’s begin rather by looking at the teacher’s temperament. The teacher approaches the child with a very specific temperament—choleric, sanguine, melancholic, or phlegmatic. The question is: As educators, what can we do to control our own temperaments; how can we perhaps educate ourselves in relation to our own temperament? To answer this question we must first look directly at the fundamental question: How does a teacher’s temperament affect the child, just by being what it is?
The Choleric Temperament
We will begin with the choleric temperament. The teacher’s choleric temperament may be exprEssentialEd when the teacher lets loose and vents anger. We will see later how teachers can control themselves. Let’s assume for starters that the teacher has a temper, which is exprEssentialEd in powerful, vehement expressions. It may drive the teacher to act or handle the child in ways that arise from a choleric temperament, which is regretted later on. The teacher may do things in the presence of the child that cause fright (we will see the fragile nature of a child’s soul). The child’s fright may not last for long, but nevertheless take root deep in the child’s physical organism. A choleric adult may have such an effect that the child always approaches the teacher in fear, whereas another child may just feel pressured. In other words, there is a very specific way the choleric temperament works on a child, having subtle, intimate effects.
Let’s consider the preschool child. At that stage a child is a single entity; the child’s three members—body, soul, and spirit—separate later on. Between birth and the change of teeth (which is a very important point in the child’s development) there is a period of time when the child is, for all practical purposes, entirely a sensory organ; this is not generally emphasized enough.
Let’s imagine a sensory organ—the eye, for example. This eye is organized in very integral ways that unite with the impressions made by colors. Without a person having any say in the matter, the slightest external impression is immediately transformed into activity, which is only then experienced in the soul. The entire life of the child before the change of teeth is ruled in this way by sensory perceptions that impress the soul. All inner experiences are a kind of soul experience.
Children absorb impressions from all the people around them with the same intensity that sensory organs receive impressions from the environment. The way we move around children—whether slowly, displaying a relaxed soul and spirit or with stormily, showing a heavy soul and spirit—is absorbed by them; they are completely sensory. We might say that an adult tastes with the mouth, or with the palate or tongue. Children, however, experience taste in the very depths of their organism; it’s as though the sense of taste were spread throughout the whole body. This is also true of the other senses. The effects of light relate internally to a child’s respiratory system and circulation. What is to an adult a separate visual perception, the child experiences in the whole body; and without any forethought, a child’s will impulses take the shape of reflexes. A child’s whole body responds reflexively to every impression in the environment.
This means that the spirit, soul, and body of a small child are still undifferentiated, still interwoven as a unified whole. The soul and spirit work in the body and directly influence the circulatory and digestive processes. It is remarkable how close a child’s soul and metabolism are to each other and how closely they work together. Only later, at the change of teeth, does the soul element become differentiated from the metabolism. Every stimulation of a child’s soul is transcribed in the blood circulation, breathing, and digestion. This means that a child’s environment affects a child’s whole body.
And so, when a choleric teacher gets near a child and lets loose with fits of temper, anything done under this influence—if the teacher has not learned to deal with this—enters the child’s soul and takes root in the body. The remarkable thing is that it sinks into the foundations of the child’s being, and anything implanted in the growing human body reappears later. Just as a seed is planted in the autumn and reappears in the spring as a plant, so whatever is planted as a seed in a child of eight or nine comes out again in the adult of forty-five or fifty. And we can see the effects of an uncontrolled choleric teacher’s temperament in the form of metabolic illnesses in the adult, or even in the very old.
If we could only verify the reason this or that person suffers from arthritis, or why another has all kinds of metabolic disorders, poor digestion, or gout, there would be only one answer: many of these things can be attributed to the violent temperament of a teacher who dealt with the child at an early age.
If we achieve pedagogical understanding by looking at the whole human being and not just at the child—which is much more comfortable—it becomes clear that education and teaching play a central role in the course of human life. We see how often happiness or unhappiness in the spirit, soul, or physical life is related to a person’s education and schooling. Just consider this: doctors are asked by older people to correct the mistakes of their educators, when in fact the problems have sunk so deeply into the person that no more can be done. The impressions on the child’s soul have been transformed into physical effects, and the psychological interacts with the physical; knowing all this, we begin to pay attention in the right way, and we acquire a proper appreciation for teaching methods and what is required for a viable education according to the reality of human nature.
The Phlegmatic Temperament
Now, let us consider the phlegmatic teacher. We will assume again that this teacher makes no attempt at self-knowledge or self-education regarding temperament. It can be said of the phlegmatic that whatever comes to the child from such a person is not strong enough to meet the inner activity of the child’s soul. The inner impulses want to come out, to flow out, and the child wants to be active, but the teacher is phlegmatic and just lets things be. This teacher is unable to engage what flows out of the child, failing to encounter it with enough impressions and influences. It’s as if one were trying to breathe in a rarefied atmosphere, to use a physical analogy. The child’s soul “asphyxiates” when the teacher is phlegmatic. When we see such a child in later life, we can understand why some people are nervous or suffer from neurasthenia, and so on. By going back to their childhood, we find that it is related to the uncontrolled phlegmatic temperament of an educator who failed to do important things with the child.
We might even be able to explain widespread cultural pathologies in this way. Why is it that nervous diseases such as depression are so widespread today? You might be thinking I’m trying to convince you that, when the current generation of neurasthenic adults was being educated, the whole teaching profession was phlegmatic! I will reply that it did consist of phlegmatics—not in the usual sense of the word, but in a much deeper sense. We are speaking of the historical period of the nineteenth century when materialism rose. The materialistic worldview turns away from the human being, and develops a monstrous indifference in the teacher toward the most intimate movements of the souls of those being educated.
If, in an unbiased way, we can observe the cultural manifestations of the modern era, we find that a person may be a phlegmatic in that sense, even though that same person might angrily react to a child who spilled ink yelling: “You should not do that! You should not throw ink because you are angry; I’ll throw it back at you, you rascal!” Such outbursts of choleric temper were not the exception during the time I just described, nor am I suggesting that there was any shortage of sanguine or melancholic teachers. But in their actual teaching, they were still phlegmatics and acted phlegmatic. The materialistic worldview was uninterested in meeting the human being, and certainly not the growing human being. Phlegma became an aspect of all education in the materialistic era. And it has a lot to do with the appearance of nervous disease, or nervous disorganization, in our culture. We will look at this in detail later. Nevertheless, we see the effect of phlegmatic teachers whose very presence next to children triggers nervous disorders.
The Melancholic Temperament
If a teacher succumbs to a melancholic temperament and becomes too self-absorbed, the thread of the child’s spirit and soul nature is constantly in danger of breaking, dampening the feeling life. In this way, the melancholic teacher’s influence causes the child to suppress soul impulses. Instead of expressing them, the child retreats within.
If a teacher gives in to a melancholic temperament while with children, it can lead in later life to breathing and circulatory problems. Teachers should not educate with only childhood in mind. And doctors should look beyond the specific onset of disease to a particular age, with a capacity to observe human life as one connected whole. In this way, people can see that many cases of heart trouble between forty and forty-five began with the whole mood generated by the uncontrolled melancholic temperament of a teacher.
Obviously, when we observe the spiritual and psychic imponderables that play between the teacher’s soul and that of the child, we must ask: How should teachers and education professionals educate themselves about the various temperaments? We can understand that it is not enough for the teacher to say, “I was born with my temperament; I can’t help myself.” First of all, this is untrue, and even if it were true, the human race would have died out long ago due to wrong education.
The Sanguine Temperament
The teacher who gives full vent to a sanguine temperament is susceptible to all kinds of impressions. When a student makes a mess, the teacher looks the other way instead of getting angry. A student may whisper to a neighbor, and the teacher again looks the other way. This is typical of the sanguine temperament; impressions come quickly, but do not penetrate deeply. Such a teacher may call on a little girl to ask a brief question; but the teacher is not interested in her for long and almost immediately sends her back to her seat. This teacher is completely sanguine.
Again, if we look at the whole human life, we can trace many cases of insufficient vitality and zest for life—which may even be pathological—to the effects of a teacher’s undisciplined sanguine temperament. Without self-knowledge, a teacher’s sanguine temperament suppresses vitality, dampens the zest for life, and weakens the will that wells up from the child’s essential being.
These relationships, as revealed by a spiritual science, help us understand the human being. With this in mind, we can realize how comprehensive the real art of education is; we can see the way teaching must view the nature of the human being and the limits of looking only at what is immediately present and obvious. This is not enough, and we are faced with the essential demand of our current civilization—the civilization that has already brought enough discord to human existence.
But, given the various simple and superficial observations of research, statistics, and other ingenious methods—which form the basis of almost all education and didacticism—how can we educate in a way that equally considers the whole human experience and the eternal nature of the human being that shines through human experience? Something much deeper appears in relation to these matters. As an introduction, I have tried to show you what is at play between teacher and student just because they are there—even before anything is done consciously, but merely because the two are there. This is especially revealed in the different temperaments.
It will be argued that there comes a point where we must begin to educate. Yes, and immediately we encounter the opinion that anyone can teach someone else whatever one has already learned. If I have learned something, I am, so to speak, qualified to teach it to someone else. People frequently fail to notice that there is an inner attitude of temperament, character, and so on, behind everything a teacher brings to teaching, regardless of self-education, formal training, or assimilated knowledge. Here, too, a real knowledge of the human being leads more deeply into human nature itself.
Let’s inquire, then, about teaching an unschooled child something we have learned. Is it enough to present it to the child just as we learned it? It certainly is not. Now I will speak of an observed phenomenon, the results of a real observation of the whole life of a human being in body, soul, and spirit. It concerns the first period of life, from birth until the change of teeth.
The Teacher and the Three Stages of Childhood
When we understand the interrelationship between teacher and child in terms of the temperaments, we see that, during this first stage of life, what we have learned is relatively unimportant to teaching and educating a child. The most important considerations have to do with the kind of person one is, what impressions the child receives, and whether or not one is worthy of imitation.
As far as this life period is concerned, if a civilization never spoke of education and in its elementary, primitive way simply educated, it would have a much healthier outlook than ours. This was true of the ancient Eastern regions, which had no education in our sense of the word. There the adult’s body, soul, and spirit was allowed to affect the child so that the child could take this adult as a guide, moving a muscle when the teacher moved a muscle and blinking when the teacher blinked. The teacher was trained to do this in a way that enabled the child to imitate. Such a teacher was not as the Western “pedagogue,” but the Eastern data. A certain instinctive quality was behind this. Even today, it is obvious that what I have learned is totally irrelevant in terms of my ability to effectively teach a child before the change of teeth. After the change of teeth, the teacher’s knowledge begins to have some significance; but this is again lost, if I merely impart what I learned as it lives in me. It must all be transformed artistically and made into images, as we shall see later. I must awaken invisible forces between the child and myself.
In the second life period, between the change of teeth and puberty, it is much more important that I transform my knowledge into visual imagery and living forms, unfolding it and allowing it to flow into the child. What a person has learned is important only for children after puberty until the early twenties.
For the small child before the change of teeth, the most important thing in education is the teacher’s own being. The most important element for teaching the child between the change of teeth and puberty is the teacher who can enter living artistry. Only after the age of fourteen or fifteen can the child really claim what the teacher has learned. This continues until after the early twenties, when the child is fully grown (even though it’s true that we call the teenager a young lady or young gentleman). At twenty years, the young person can meet another human being on equal terms, even when the other is older.
Things like this enable us to look deep into the human nature—and we shall see how this is deepened in the presence of true human wisdom. We come to realize what has often been thought—that we do not become acquainted with the teacher by examining what the person knows after going through college. That would show us only a capacity for lecturing on some subject, perhaps something suitable for students between fourteen and twenty. As far as earlier stages are concerned, what the teacher does in this sense has no relevance whatever. The qualities necessary for these early periods must be assEssentialEd on a very different basis.
Thus, we see that a fundamental issue in teaching and education is the question of who the teacher is. What must really live in the children, what must vibrate and well up into their very hearts, wills, and eventually into their intellect, lives initially in the teachers. It arises simply through who they are, through their unique nature, character, and soul attitude, and through what they bring the children out of their own self-development. So we can see how a true knowledge of the human being, cultivated into embracing everything, can be the single foundation for a true art of teaching and fulfill the living needs of education.
In the lectures that follow, I want to go into these two things more fully—the pedagogy, and the living needs of education.
Erster Vortrag
Meine sehr verehrten Anwesenden! Als die Aufgabe dieser Erziehungstagung wurde eine Erörterung der Frage angenommen: Welche Stellung hat Erziehung und Unterricht im persönlichen Leben des Menschen und im Kulturleben der Gegenwart? — Es dürfte bei denjenigen Persönlichkeiten, welche in unbefangener Weise das Kulturleben der Gegenwart nach seinen verschiedenen Gestaltungen betrachten können, kaum einem Widerspruch begegnen, wenn gesagt wird, daß gerade ein solches Thema heute — das heißt in dem historischen Heute, das ja die gegenwärtigen Jahrzehnte umfaßt — ein solches ist, das im tiefsten Sinne die Rätsel berührt, die heute einem weiten Menschenkreise auf der Seele und auf dem Herzen liegen. Haben wir ja doch in der neueren Kultur eine eigentümliche Stellung des Menschen zu sich selbst sich herausbilden gesehen. Man hat innerhalb dieser Kultur seit mehr als einem Jahrhundert die großartige Entwickelung der Naturwissenschaft mit alledem, was sie für die Zivilisation der Menschheit im Gefolge hat, sehen können, und im Grunde genommen ist ja das ganze moderne Leben durchsetzt von dem, was die gewaltige, großartige Naturwissenschaft der neueren Zeit an Erkenntnissen zutage gefördert hat. Allein soweit wir auch schauen im Umkreise dieser Naturerkenntnis, so genau wir ins Auge fassen, wie wir heute hineinschauen namentlich in das Reich des Mineralischen, und von da aus uns Vorstellungen machen über die anderen Reiche der Natur, wir müssen uns eines gestehen: So nahe und intim, wie sich der Mensch in Selbstbeobachtung in früheren Kulturepochen gegenübergestanden hat, steht er sich heute nicht gegenüber. Denn alles dasjenige, was die so eindringliche Naturerkenntnis der Menschheit gebracht hat, ist ja eigentlich auf das innerste Wesen des Menschen nicht unmittelbar anzuwenden. Wir können fragen: Wie sind die Gesetze, wie ist der Verlauf der außermenschlichen Welt? — Aber alle Antworten auf diese Frage kommen eigentlich an das Wesen dessen, was in die Grenzen der menschlichen Haut eingeschlossen ist, nicht heran. Sie kommen so wenig heran, daß man heute nicht einmal eine Ahnung davon hat, welche wirklichen Veränderungen äußere Naturprozesse im lebenden Menschen in Atmung, Blutzirkulation, Ernährung und so weiter erfahren.
Daher ist man dazu gekommen, selbst in bezug auf das Seelische nicht auf dieses Seelische selbst hinzuschauen, sondern es gewissermaßen zu betrachten durch die Art und Weise, wie es sich äußert in der körperlichen Natur des Menschen. Man ist zum Experimentieren mit äußeren Maßnahmen am Menschen gekommen. Nun, es soll sich nicht etwa um Einwendungen handeln gegen eine experimentelle Psychologie oder experimentelle Pädagogik. Was nach dieser Richtung geleistet werden kann, soll durchaus anerkannt werden, aber mehr als Symptom denn seinem Inhalte nach soll dieses Experimentieren am Menschen wenigstens andeutungsweise erwähnt werden. In Zeiten, in denen man aus dem inneren Mitfühlen mit dem Geistig-Seelischen des anderen Menschen einen intuitiven Eindruck bekam von den inneren Seelenerlebnissen, da war es sozusagen selbstverständlich, daß man aus dem, was man über das innere Geistig-Seelische wußte, die äußeren körperlichen Offenbarungen deutete. Heute schlägt man den umgekehrten Weg ein. Man experimentiert an den äußerlichen Merkmalen und Vorgängen herum - verdienstvoll selbstverständlich, wie alle Naturwissenschaft verdienstvoll heute ist —, aber man zeigt damit nur, daß man sich allmählich gewöhnt hat im Laufe der neueren Lebensauffassung, als positiv in der Anschauung nur das zu betrachten, was die Sinne schauen können, was der Verstand durch das Schauen der Sinne gewinnen kann. Dadurch aber ist man eigentlich dazu gekommen, den inneren Menschen nicht mehr recht beobachten zu können und sich vielfach mit der Beobachtung der äußeren Hülle zu begnügen. Man entfernt sich vom Menschen. Diejenigen Methoden, die in so grandioser Weise hineingeleuchtet haben in das Leben der äußeren Natur, in ihr Wesen und Wirken, die aber auch auf den Menschen angewendet werden, diese Methoden nehmen uns eigentlich das unmittelbar elementarische Wirken von Seele zu Seele.
So ist es wirklich dazu gekommen, daß die sonst so wunderbar wirkende neuere Kultur, die uns gewisse Naturerscheinungen so nahe gebracht hat, uns eigentlich vom Menschen entfernt hat. Es ist leicht einzusehen, daß unter dieser Erscheinung am allermeisten derjenige Zweig unseres Kulturlebens leiden muß, welcher es mit der Bildung, mit der Entwickelung des werdenden Menschen, des Kindes in Erziehung und Unterricht zu tun hat. Denn erziehen und unterrichten kann der Mensch ebenso nur dann, wenn er dasjenige, was er zu bilden hat, was er zu gestalten hat, versteht, wie der Maler nur malen kann, wenn er die Natur, das Wesen der Farbe kennt, der Bildhauer nur arbeiten kann, wenn er das Wesen seines Stoffes kennt, und so weiter. Was für die übrigen Künste gilt, die mit äußeren Stoffen arbeiten, wie sollte es nicht gelten für diejenige Kunst, die an dem edelsten Stoffe arbeitet, der überhaupt nur dem Menschen vorgelegt werden kann, an dem Menschenwesen, seinem Werden und seiner Entwickelung selbst? Damit ist man aber im Grunde genommen schon darauf hingewiesen, daß alle Erziehung und aller Unterricht hervorquellen müssen aus wirklicher Erkenntnis des Menschenwesens. Diese Erziehungskunst, die ganz und gar auf wirklicher Erkenntnis des Menschenwesens ruht, suchen wir nun auszubilden in der Waldorfschule, und im Zusammenhange mit den Erziehungs- und Unterrichtsmethoden der Waldorfschule steht ja diese Erziehungstagung.
Menschenerkenntnis — man kann sagen: Oh, wie weit ist es ja doch gekommen mit der Menschenerkenntnis in der neueren Zeit! — Aber die Antwort darauf muß sein: Gewiß, Außerordentliches ist errungen worden in bezug auf die Erkenntnis des körperlichen Menschen; aber der Mensch ist in sich gegliedert nach Körper, Seele und Geist. Und diejenige Lebensauffassung, die der Methode, dem Erziehungswesen der Waldorfschule zugrunde liegt, die anthroposophische Geisteswissenschaft, sie ist durchaus aufgebaut auf einer gleichmäßigen Erkenntnis des Körpers, der Seele und des Geistes des Menschen, und sie will durch eine solche gleichmäßige Erkenntnis der drei Glieder der Menschennatur jede Einseitigkeit vermeiden.
Ich werde in den nächsten Vorträgen, zu denen ich heute mehr eine Einleitung geben möchte, über diese Menschenerkenntnis mancherlei zu sprechen haben. Zunächst aber möchte ich darauf aufmerksam machen, daß wahre, echte Menschenerkenntnis nicht bloß damit sich befassen kann, den einzelnen Menschen nach Leib, Seele und Geist, wie er sich vor uns stellt, aufzufassen, sondern daß sie vor allen Dingen dasjenige ins Seelenauge fassen will, was sich zwischen den Menschen im irdischen Leben abspielt. Indem Mensch dem Menschen begegnet, kann sich nicht — das wäre widersinnig — eine zum vollen Bewußtsein heraufgebrachte Menschenerkenntnis entwickeln. Wir würden uns als Menschen im sozialen Leben nie begegnen können, wenn wir uns so anschauen würden, daß wir fragen: Was sitzt, was ist in dem anderen? — Aber in den unbewußten Empfindungen und Gefühlen, vor allen Dingen in jenen Impulsen, die dem Willen zugrunde liegen, trägt der Mensch eine unbewußte Erkenntnis des anderen, der ihm im Leben begegnet. Diese Menschenerkenntnis, wir werden das noch sehen, hat allerdings in der neueren Zeit vielfach gelitten, und unsere sozialen Schäden beruhen darauf, daß sie gelitten hat. Aber sie hat sich mehr oder weniger nur zurückgezogen in noch unterbewußtere Gebiete als jene, in denen sie früher war. Sie ist aber vorhanden, sonst würden wir ja ganz verständnislos Mensch an Mensch aneinander vorbeigehen. Aber ist es denn nicht so: Wenn Mensch dem Menschen begegnet — auch wenn man sich es nicht klar macht -, Sympathien, Antipathien steigen auf, Eindrücke sind da, die uns sagen, der andere Mensch ist geeignet, uns nahezukommen, oder er ist ungeeignet dazu, wir wollen uns von ihm fernhalten. — Ja, auch andere Eindrücke können wir bekommen. Wir können nach dem ersten Eindruck etwa uns sagen: Das ist ein gescheiter Mensch, das ist ein weniger begabter Mensch. — So könnte ich vieles anführen, es würde das alles zeigen, daß Hunderte und Hunderte von Eindrücken aus den Tiefen unserer Seele heraufwollen in das Bewußtsein, aber für die Unbefangenheit des Lebens hinuntergedrückt werden, daß wir jedoch mit ihnen als mit einer Seelenverfassung einem anderen Menschen gegenüberstehen und unser eigenes Leben ihm gegenüber nach diesen Eindrücken einrichten. Auch dasjenige, was wir Mitgefühl nennen, und was im Grunde genommen einer der bedeutungsvollsten Impulse aller Moralität der Menschen ist, auch das gehört zu der unbewußten Menschenerkenntnis, von der ich hier spreche.
Nun, so wie wir im Leben als Erwachsener dem Erwachsenen gegenüberstehen und eigentlich die Menschenerkenntnis in solch unbewußter Weise üben, daß wir sie nicht bemerken, sondern nach ihr handeln, so müssen wir in einer viel bewußteren Weise als Menschenseele des Lehrers der Menschenseele des Kindes gegenüberstehen, um dieses heranzubilden, aber auch um in unserer eigenen Lehrerseele das erleben zu können, was erlebt werden muß, damit wir die rechte Stimmung, das rechte pädagogische Künstlertum, das richtige Mitfühlen mit der Seele des Kindes haben können, die notwendig sind, um Erziehung und Unterricht in entsprechender Weise zu leisten. Wir werden unmittelbar darauf gewiesen, daß eigentlich das Wichtigste sich abspielt im Erziehen und Unterrichten zwischen der Lehrerseele und der Kindesseele. Und von dieser Menschenerkenntnis lassen Sie uns zunächst ausgehen, von jener Menschenerkenntnis, die nicht scharf konturiert ist, weil sie eigentlich nicht bezogen wird auf den einen Menschen, sondern weil sie schwebt, gewissermaßen sich vielfach hin- und herwebt zwischen dem, was im Unterrichte und in der Erziehung in der Lehrerseele vor sich geht, und dem, was in der Kindesseele vor sich geht. Es ist unter Umständen schwierig zu fassen, was sich da in wirklich imponderabler Weise hinzieht von Lehrerseele zu Kindesseele und umgekehrt. Denn dasjenige, was da strömt, es verändert sich im Grunde genommen in jedem Augenblicke, während wir unterrichten und erziehen. Man muß sich einen Blick dafür aneignen, einen Seelenblick, der das Flüchtige, Feine, das von Seele zu Seele spielt, erfaßt. Vielleicht kann man erst dann, wenn man dasjenige, was so zwischen den Menschen intim geistig spielt, zu erfassen in der Lage ist, den einzelnen Menschen für sich erfassen.
Wollen wir daher an einzelnen Beispielen heute einleitungsweise sehen, wie sich in bestimmten Fällen diese Strömungen gestalten. Dabei muß allerdings eines berücksichtigt werden: Menschenerkenntnis, insbesondere dem werdenden Menschen, dem Kinde gegenüber, nur allzuoft wird sie so geübt, daß wir das Kind in einem bestimmten Zeitpunkte seines Lebens haben, uns mit ihm beschäftigen, fragen nach seinen Entwickelungskräften, fragen, wie gerade in einem bestimmten Lebensalter die Kräfte wirken und so weiter, und was wir tun sollen, um diesen Entwickelungskräften in einem bestimmten Lebensalter in der richtigen Weise entgegenzukommen. Aber Menschenerkenntnis, wie sie hier gemeint ist, geht nicht nur auf diese einzelnen Erlebnisaugenblicke; solche Menschenerkenntnis geht auf das ganze Erdenleben des Menschen. Das ist nicht so bequem, als einen engbegrenzten Zeitraum im Menschenleben zu beobachten. Aber für den Erziehenden und Unterrichtenden ist es notwendig, das ganze menschliche Erdenleben ins Auge zu fassen; denn was wir im achten oder neunten Lebensjahre im Kinde veranlagen, hat seine Wirkungen im fünfundvierzigsten, fünfzigsten Lebensjahre des erwachsenen Menschen, wie wir es noch besprechen werden. Und was ich als Lehrer in dem volksschulpflichtigen Alter an dem Kinde tue, das zieht sich tief hinein in die physische, in die psychische, in die spirituelle Menschennatur. Das west und webt gewissermaßen oft jahrzehntelang unter der Oberfläche, tritt in merkwürdiger Weise nach Jahrzehnten, manchmal am Lebensende des Menschen, zutage, während es als Keim am Lebensanfange in ihn versetzt worden ist. In der richtigen Weise kann man auf das kindliche Alter nur wirken, wenn man nicht nur dieses kindliche Alter, sondern wenn man das ganze menschliche Leben in wahrer Menschenerkenntnis vor Augen hat.
Solche Menschenerkenntnis habe ich im Auge, wenn ich jetzt an einzelnen Beispielen zeigen möchte — heute nur andeutungsweise, die Dinge werden genauer besprochen werden -, wie Lehrerseele auf Kindesseele in intimer Art wirken kann. Wir verstehen das zu tun, was wir in der Unterweisung, in der intellektuellen Unterweisung, in der Anleitung zu Willensimpulsen tun sollen, wenn wir erst wissen: Was wirkt denn da zwischen Lehrer und Kind, einfach dadurch, daß Lehrer und Kind da sind, ein jedes mit einer bestimmten Natur, mit einem bestimmten Temperamente, mit einem bestimmten Charakter, mit einer bestimmten Bildungsstufe, mit einer ganz bestimmten physischen und seelischen Konstitution? — Bevor wir irgendwie beginnen zu lehren, zu erziehen, sind wir und das Kind da. Da ist schon Wirkung zwischen beiden da. Wie der Lehrer ist gegenüber dem Kinde, das ist die erste bedeutungsvolle Frage.
Damit wir nicht im allgemein Abstrakten herumtappen, sondern Bestimmtes ins Auge fassen, gehen wir aus von einem bestimmten Charakteristikon in der Menschennatur, von dem Temperamente. Fassen wir ins Auge zunächst nicht das Kindestemperament, in dem wir ja keine Wahl haben — wir müssen jeden Menschen jedes 'Temperamentes erziehen, und von diesem Kindestemperamente kann später gesprochen werden -, sondern fassen wir zunächst einmal, um unsere Aufgabe zu umgrenzen, das Lehrertemperament ins Auge. Mit einem ganz bestimmten 'Temperamente, einem cholerischen, phlegmatischen, sanguinischen oder melancholischen Temperamente betritt der Lehrer die Schule, stellt sich der Lehrer dem Kinde gegenüber. Die Frage, was sollen wir als Erziehende tun zur Bändigung, zur Selbsterziehung vielleicht gegenüber unserem eigenen Temperamente, sie kann ja erst beantwortet werden, wenn wir die Grundfrage ins Auge fassen können: Was tut das Temperament des Lehrers an dem Kinde, einfach dadurch, daß es da ist?
Gehen wir aus von dem cholerischen Temperamente. Das cholerische Temperament des Lehrers, es kann sich darin äußern, daß der Lehrer diesem Temperament die Zügel schießen läßt, daß er sich diesem cholerischen Temperamente hingibt. Wie er sich zu beherrschen hat, werden wir später sehen, aber nehmen wir zunächst an, dieses cholerische Temperament ist einfach da. In heftigen, vehementen Lebensäußerungen gibt es sich kund. Vielleicht drängt es den Lehrer, während er erzieht, während er unterrichtet, zu Handlungen oder zur Behandlung des Kindes überzugehen, die er eben aus seinem cholerischen Temperamente heraus tut und später bereut. Vielleicht macht er allerlei in der Umgebung des Kindes, was das Kind - wir werden sehen, wie zart die Seele des Kindes wirkt - in Schreck versetzt; der Schreck kann bloß kurz vorübergehend sein, aber sich doch fortpflanzen bis in die physische Organisation des Kindes hinein. Ein cholerischer Lehrer kann auch in dem Kinde bewirken, daß es unter fortwährenden Angstgefühlen schon an den Lehrer herankommt, oder aber es kann das Kind ganz unbewußt, unterbewußt sich bedrückt fühlen. Kurz, es ist eine ganz bestimmte Wirkung des cholerischen Temperamentes in feiner, intimer, zarter Art auf das Kind ins Auge zu fassen.
Nehmen wir ein Kind, das noch im zarten Alter steht, in einem Alter, das vor der Volksschulpflicht liegt. Da ist das Kind eigentlich noch ganz und gar ein einheitliches Wesen. Die drei Glieder der Menschennatur, Leib, Seele und Geist, sie gliedern sich erst im späteren Leben auseinander. Zwischen der Geburt und dem Zahnwechsel, der einen sehr wichtigen Lebenspunkt in der Entwickelung des Menschen bedeutet, liegt eine Lebensepoche des Kindes, in der sozusagen — wir beachten das nur gewöhnlich nicht genügend - das Kind fast ganz Sinnesorgan ist. Fassen wir ein Sinnesorgan ins Auge, nehmen wir das Auge selber. Äußere Eindrücke, Farbeneindrücke kommen an das Auge heran. Dieses Auge ist in einer intimen Art daraufhin organisiert, die Farbeneindrücke mit sich zu vereinigen. Ohne daß der Mensch darauf einen Einfluß hat, wird sogleich dasjenige, was als äußerer Reiz wirkt, umgewandelt in etwas Willensartiges, was erst von der Seele, wie wir sagen, erlebt werden kann. Aber so seelisch auf Grundlage der Sinneswahrnehmung ist das ganze Leben des Kindes vor dem Zahnwechsel. Es sieht alles innere Erleben einem seelischen Wahrnehmen ähnlich. Namentlich das, was von den Eindrücken der Menschen der Umgebung kommt, ob wir uns langsam bewegen in der Umgebung des Kindes, und dadurch die Lässigkeit unseres Geistig-Seelischen offenbaren, ob wir uns stürmisch bewegen in der Umgebung des Kindes und dadurch die Wucht unseres eigenen Geistig-Seelischen offenbaren, das alles wird von dem Kinde fast mit derselben Intensität aufgenommen, mit der sonst die Eindrücke, die auf das Sinnesorgan wirken, von diesem Sinnesorgan aufgenommen werden. Das Kind ist im Ganzen Sinnesorgan. Man kann schon sagen: Wenn wir erwachsen sind, haben wir Geschmack im Munde, auf dem Gaumen, auf der Zunge. Das Kind fühlt den Geschmack viel tiefer hinunter in seinen Organismus, das Geschmacksorgan dehnt sich sozusagen durch einen großen Teil des Körpers aus. So die anderen Sinne. Die Lichteinwirkungen verbinden sich beim Kinde innig mit den Atmungsrhythmen, sie gehen hinunter in die Blutzirkulation. Dasjenige, was der Erwachsene abgesondert im Auge erlebt, erlebt das Kind durch den ganzen Leib hindurch, und ohne daß Überlegung dazwischentritt, kommen die Willensimpulse unmittelbar wie Reflexerscheinungen beim Kinde zutage. Ich erörtere das zunächst nur einleitungsweise, um das Thema anzuschlagen. So wirkt der ganze Leib des Kindes wie ein Sinnesorgan reflexartig gegenüber dem, was in der Umgebung vorgeht.
Dadurch aber sind Geist, Seele, Leib im Kinde noch nicht gegliedert, noch nicht differenziert, noch eine Einheit, ein Ineinanderweben. Das Geistige, das Seelische wirkt im Körper, indem es dessen Zirkulations- und Nahrungsvorgänge unmittelbar beeinflußt. Oh, wie ist beim Kinde die Seele in ihrer Empfindung nahe dem ganzen Stoffwechselsystem, wie wirken die zusammen! Erst später, beim Zahnwechsel, sondert sich das Seelische von dem Stoffwechsel mehr ab. Jede seelische Erregung geht beim Kinde über in die Zirkulation, in die Atmung, in die Verdauung. Leib, Seele, Geist sind noch eine Einheit. Dadurch setzt sich aber auch jeder Reiz, der von der Umgebung ausgeübt wird, bis in das Leibliche des Kindes fort. Und wenn nun ein cholerischer Lehrer, der seinem cholerischen Temperamente die Zügel schießen läßt, in der Umgebung des Kindes sich befindet, zunächst einfach da ist neben dem Kinde und sich gehen läßt, dann gehen die Ausbrüche des cholerischen Temperamentes — dasjenige, was unter dem Einflusse des Temperamentes des Lehrers getan wird, wenn er nicht solche Selbsterziehung übt, wie wir sie noch besprechen werden — über in die Seele des Kindes, setzen sich fort in das Körperliche hinein. Da liegt das Eigentümliche vor, daß es in die Untergründe des Daseins hinuntergeht und das, was in des werdenden Menschen Leib hineinversetzt wird, später zum Vorschein kommt. So wie der Same, der im Herbst in die Erde hineinversenkt wird, im Frühling in der Pflanze zum Vorschein kommt, so kommt das, was in das Kind im achten, neunten Jahre hineinversetzt wird, im fünfundvierzigsten, fünfzigsten Lebensjahre heraus, und wir sehen die Folgen des cholerischen Temperamentes des Lehrers, der sich gehen läßt, in den Stoffwechselkrankheiten nicht nur des erwachsenen, sondern des alt gewordenen Menschen zutage treten. Prüft man nur recht, warum uns dieser oder jener Mensch in seinem vierzigsten, fünfzigsten Jahre als Rheumatiker entgegentritt, als ein Mensch, der an allen möglichen Stoffwechselkrankheiten leidet, an schlechter Verdauung, prüft man, warum dieser Mensch so ist, wie er ist, warum er frühzeitig Gicht bekommt, dann bekommt man zur Antwort: Vieles von dem haben wir zuzuschreiben dem einfach in die Zügel schießenden cholerischen Temperamente eines Lehrers, der dem Kinde im Kindesalter gegenüberstand.
Wenn man so das ganze Menschenleben ins Auge faßt, nicht bloß, wie es bequemer ist, nur das kindliche Alter, um pädagogische Grundsätze, pädagogische Impulse zu bekommen, dann wird man sich erst klar darüber, welche zentrale Bedeutung im ganzen Menschenleben Unterrichts- und Erziehungswesen eigentlich haben, wie oft Glück und Unglück nach dem Geistigen, Seelischen und Leiblichen mit Unterricht und Erziehung zusammenhängen. Wenn man sieht, wie der Arzt beim altgewordenen Menschen, ohne daß er es weiß, die Erziehungsfehler korrigieren muß und es oftmals nicht mehr kann, weil sie zu gründlich in das Menschenwesen hineingegangen sind, wenn man sieht, daß das, was seelisch an das Kind herantritt, sich umwandelt zu physischen Wirkungen, wenn man dieses Ineinanderspielen von Physischem und Psychischem durchschaut, dann bekommt man erst die rechte Achtung, die richtige Schätzung für dasjenige, was Methodik des Lehrens, was die Lebensbedingungen der Erziehung eigentlich sein sollen, sein sollen einfach nach dem Wesen der Menschennatur selber.
Betrachten wir einen phlegmatischen Lehrer, der wieder sich gehen läßt und nicht durch Selbsterkenntnis, durch Selbsterziehung das phlegmatische Temperament in die Hand nimmt. Es wird bei dem Phlegmatiker, der dem Kinde gegenübertritt, so sein, daß, man möchte sagen, der inneren Regsamkeit des Kindes kein Genüge geschieht. Die inneren Impulse wollen heraus, sie strömen auch heraus, das Kind will sich betätigen. Der Lehrer ist ein Phlegmatiker, er läßt sich gehen. Er fängt dasjenige nicht auf, was aus dem Kinde herausströmt. Es begegnet das, was aus dem Kinde herauswill, nicht äußeren Eindrücken und Einflüssen. Es ist, wie wenn man in verdünnter Luft atmen soll, wenn ich einen physischen Vergleich gebrauchen soll. Die Seele des Kindes fühlt seelisch Atemnot, wenn der Lehrer phlegmatisch ist. Und wenn wir nachschauen im Leben, warum gewisse Menschen an Nervosität, an Neurasthenie und dergleichen leiden, dann finden wir wiederum, wenn wir zurückgehen in dem menschlichen Lebenslauf bis zum kindlichen Lebensalter, wie das nicht der Selbsterziehung unterworfene Phlegma eines Lehrers, der Wichtiges hätte tun sollen an dem Kinde, solchen Krankheitsneigungen zugrunde liegt. Ganze Kulturerscheinungen krankhafter Art werden so erklärlich. Warum ist denn Nervosität, Neurasthenie so ungeheuer verbreitet in der neueren Zeit? Sie werden sagen: Da müßte man ja glauben, daß die gesamte Lehrerschaft in der Zeit, in der die Menschen, die heute nervös, neurasthenisch sind, erzogen worden sind, aus Phlegmatikern bestanden hat! — Ich aber sage Ihnen, sie hat aus Phlegmatikern bestanden, nicht in dem gewöhnlichen Sinne des Wortes, aber in einem viel wahreren Sinne des Wortes. Denn es kommt in einem bestimmten Zeitalter des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts die materialistische Weltauffassung herauf. Die materialistische Weltauffassung hat Interessen, die vom Menschen ablenken, die eine ungeheure Gleichgültigkeit entwickeln bei dem Erziehenden gegenüber den eigentlichen intimeren Seelenregungen des zu erziehenden Menschen. Derjenige, der diese Kulturerscheinungen einer neueren Zeit unbefangen beobachten konnte, der konnte finden, wenn sonst auch einer ein solcher Phlegmatiker war, daß der etwa sagte, weil er den abstrakten Grundsatz hatte, seine Schüler dürften nicht vor Zorn die Tintenfässer umwerfen: So etwas darf man nicht tun, man darf nicht vor Ärger das Tintenfaß umwerfen. Kerl, ich werde dir gleich das Tintenfaß an den Kopf werfen! - Man muß also nicht sogleich denken, daß etwa alle solche Cholerik in dem Zeitalter, das ich meine, verpönt gewesen wäre, oder daß man nicht auch Sanguiniker kennengelernt hätte und Melancholiker: in bezug auf die eigentliche Erziehungsaufgabe waren sie trotzdem Phlegmatiker. Man kam mit der materialistischen Weltauffassung nicht an den Menschen heran, am wenigsten an den werdenden Menschen, und so konnte man Phlegmatiker sein, trotzdem man im Leben daneben Choleriker oder Melancholiker war. Es ist ein Phlegma eingetreten in allem Erziehen in einem gewissen Zeitalter der materialistischen Entwickelung. Und aus diesem Phlegma heraus hat sich vieles von dem, was in unserem Kulturleben aufgetreten ist als Nervosität, als Neurasthenie, als die ganze Desorganisation des Nervensystems, bei vielen Menschen herausentwickelt. Über die Einzelheiten wird noch zu sprechen sein. Aber so sehen wir das phlegmatische Temperament des Lehrers, einfach dadurch, daß der phlegmatische Lehrer da ist neben dem Kinde, in der Nervendesorganisation zutage treten.
Wenn sich der Lehrer dem melancholischen Temperamente hingibt, wenn er durch seine Melancholie zuviel mit sich selbst beschäftigt ist, so daß, man möchte sagen, der Faden des Geistig-Seelischen des Kindes fortwährend abzureißen droht, der Faden des Empfindungslebens sich erkältet, dann wirkt der melancholische Lehrer neben dem Kinde eigentlich so, daß das Kind seine Seelenregungen in sich verbirgt und statt sie nach außen auszuleben, in sich hineinsenkt. Dadurch wird das Sichgehenlassen des melancholischen Temperamentes des Lehrers für das spätere Lebensalter eines Kindes, dem der melancholische Lehrer gegenübersteht, so, daß Atmung und Blutzirkulation unregelmäßig werden. Derjenige, der nun weder als Lehrer bloß den kindlichen Zeitraum für die Pädagogik ins Auge faßt, noch als Arzt, wenn der Mensch eine bestimmte Krankheit hat, bloß das Lebensalter, das ihm nun entgegentritt, sondern im Zusammenhang das ganze menschliche Leben betrachten kann, der wird mancher Herzkrankheit Ursprung, die im vierzigsten, fünfundvierzigsten Lebensjahr auftritt, zu suchen haben in der ganzen Stimmung, die durch das sichgehenlassende melancholische Temperament des Lehrers in der einzelnen Erziehung, im Unterrichte hervorgebracht wird. Wir sehen daraus, wie die Beobachtung der Imponderabilien im Geistig-Seelischen, die da spielen zwischen Lehrerseele und Kinderseele, einfach die Frage auf die Lippen drängen muß: Wie muß zum Beispiel den Temperamenten gegenüber der Lehrer, der Erzieher Selbsterziehung üben? — Wir ahnen schon, daß es nicht so sein kann, daß einfach der Lehrende, der Erziehende sagt: Das Temperament ist angeboren, ich bleibe dabei. — Erstens ist das nicht wahr, und zweitens, wenn es wahr wäre, wäre das Menschengeschlecht längst an den Erziehungsfehlern ausgestorben.
Betrachten wir noch den Sanguiniker, der als Lehrer seinem sanguinischen Temperamente die Zügel schießen läßt. Er ist empfänglich für alle möglichen Eindrücke. Wenn irgendein Schüler einen Klecks macht, so wendet er sich hin — er wird nicht heftig —, er wendet den Blick hin. Wenn irgendein Schüler seinem Nachbar etwas ins Ohr flüstert, wendet er den Blick hin. Er ist ein Sanguiniker, die Eindrücke kommen rasch an ihn heran und machen keinen tiefen Eindruck. Er läßt irgendeine Schülerin herauskommen, fragt nur ganz kurz etwas, sie interessiert ihn nicht lange, er schickt sie gleich wieder hinein. Der Lehrer ist eben Sanguiniker. Wenn man wieder dieselben Methoden anwendet, die das ganze Menschenleben betrachten, wird man bei manchem, der an einem Mangel an Vitalität, an einem Mangel an Lebensfreude leidet — das ist ja eine krankhafte Anlage manches Menschen -, diesen Mangel als auf seine Ursache zurückzuführen haben auf die Wirkung des sanguinischen Temperamentes des Lehrers, dem dieser die Zügel schießen läßt. Das sanguinische Temperament des Lehrers ohne Selbsterziehung bewirkt eine Unterdrückung der Vitalität, eine Unterdrückung von Lebensfreude, von kraftvollem Willen, der aus der Individualität aufquillt.
Wenn man diese Zusammenhänge ins Auge faßt, die eine wirkliche Geisteswissenschaft gibt, welche auf wahre Menschenerkenntnis ausgeht, dann wird man sehen, wie umfassend im Anschauen der Menschennatur und Menschenwesenheit wirkliche Erziehungskunst, wirkliches Unterrichtswesen sein muß, wie kleinlich sich daneben ausnimmt, was oftmals nur auf das Allernächste sieht, was man gerade bequem beobachten kann. So geht es nicht, und eine Grundforderung unserer Gegenwartskultur, die ja Schäden genug an die Oberfläche des Menschendaseins gebracht hat, ist diese: Wie kommt man aus einzelnen Beobachtungen, die man mit dem Experimente oder auch mit den Statistiken macht, oder was all die schönen Dinge sind, wie kommt man aus diesen bequemen einzelnen Beobachtungen, die heute fast allein der Pädagogik und Didaktik zugrunde gelegt werden, zu einer Pädagogik und Didaktik, die gleichmäßig berücksichtigt das ganze menschliche Erleben und das Ewige im Menschen, das sich durch das menschliche Erleben nur hindurchleuchtend offenbart? Und im Zusammenhang mit solchen Fragen tut sich noch etwas viel tieferes auf.
Ich habe versucht, einleitungsweise darauf hinzuweisen, was zwischen Lehrer und Schüler, Erzieher und Kind einfach dadurch spielt, daß beide da sind, wenn noch gar nicht berücksichtigt wird irgend etwas, was wir aus dem Bewußtsein heraus tun, nur dadurch, daß wir da sind. Gerade an den verschiedenen Temperamenten zeigt sich das.
Nun wird man sagen: Man muß auch anfangen zu erziehen. — Und da ist man halt der Anschauung, daß derjenige jemandem etwas beibringen kann, der das Beizubringende gelernt hat. Habe ich selber etwas gelernt, so bin ich sozusagen berechtigt, das einem anderen beizubringen. Und oftmals sieht man gar nicht, wie jene durch Selbsterziehung des Lehrers oder auch durch Seminarerziehung, wie wir sehen werden, hervorgebrachte innere Haltung in bezug auf Temperament, Charakter und so weiter im Hintergrunde desjenigen steht, was sich der Lehrer für Unterricht und Erziehung aneignen kann durch sein eigenes Lernen, durch das, was er aufnehmen kann. Aber auch da führt Menschenerkenntnis eben tiefer in das Menschenwesen hinein. Lassen Sie deshalb die Frage an uns herantreten: Wie ist es denn mit dem Heranbringen von etwas, was ich gelernt habe, an einen anderen, an ein Kind, das noch nicht gelernt hat? Genügt es, das dem Kinde in der Art beizubringen, in der man das Beizubringende selber aufgenommen hat? — Es genügt nicht. Ich sage eine empirische Tatsache, die sich nur ergibt, wenn man den Menschen wirklich nach Leib, Seele und Geist durch das ganze Leben hindurch beobachtet.
Eine solche Beobachtung ergibt für die erste Lebensepoche vor dem Zahnwechsel, von der Geburt bis zum Zahnwechsel, folgendes. Wenn man das gegenseitige Verhältnis des Lehrenden zum Kinde ins Auge zu fassen weiß, so wie ich es für die Temperamente getan habe, so kommt man darauf: Für diese Lebensepoche hat das, was ich gelernt habe, in bezug auf Lehren und Erziehen an dem Kinde die allergeringste Bedeutung. Da hat die allergrößte Bedeutung, was ich für ein Mensch bin, welche Eindrücke es durch mich bekommt, ob es mich nachahmen kann.
Wahrhaftig, gerade für dieses Lebensalter hat eine Kultur, die eigentlich noch gar nicht von Pädagogik sprach, sondern in elementar-primitiver Weise Pädagogik tat, gesünder gedacht als wir heute vielfach denken; eine Kultur, wie wir sie in orientalischen Gegenden in älteren Zeiten hatten, wo noch nicht der nach unserer Auffassung Pädagoge zu Nennende wirkte, sondern wo namentlich wirken sollte der Mensch auf das kindliche Lebensalter, der Mensch mit dem, was er in seinem Charakter physisch, seelisch und geistig war; der einfach neben dem Kinde sein sollte, so daß das Kind sich nach ihm richten konnte, so daß das Kind mit einem Muskel zuckte, wenn er mit dem Muskel zuckte, das Kind mit den Augen blinzelte, wenn er mit den Augen blinzelte. Aber er hatte sich trainiert, daß er solche Dinge so machte, daß das Kind sie nachmachen konnte. Das war nicht der orientalische Pädagoge, sondern der orientalische Dätä. Da lag etwas Instinktives noch zugrunde. Wir können es aber auch heute sehen: Was ich gelernt habe, hat gar keine Bedeutung für das, was ich dem Kinde bis zum Zahnwechsel als Erzieher bin. Nach dem Zahnwechsel beginnt es schon eine gewisse Bedeutung zu haben. Aber es verliert alle Bedeutung, wenn ich es so beibringe, wie ich es in mir trage. Man muß es künstlerisch umsetzen, alles ins Bild bringen, wie wir noch sehen werden. Ich muß wiederum imponderable Kräfte zwischen mir und dem Kinde wachrufen. Und für die zweite Lebensepoche, für die Lebensepoche vom Zahnwechsel bis zur Geschlechtsreife, hat viel mehr als die Fülle des Stoffes, die ich gelernt habe, viel mehr als das, was ich in mir, in meinem Kopfe trage, Bedeutung, ob ich in anschauliche Bildlichkeit, in lebendiges Gestalten umsetzen kann, was ich um das Kind entwickle und in das Kind hineinwellen lassen soll. Und erst für diejenigen, die schon durch die Geschlechtsreife gegangen sind, und für diese dann bis zum Anfang der zwanziger Jahre, bekommt eine Bedeutung, was man selber gelernt hat. Für das kleine Kind bis zum Zahnwechsel ist das Wichtigste im Erziehen der Mensch. Für das Kind vom Zahnwechsel bis zur Geschlechtsreife ist das Wichtigste im Erziehen der in lebendige Lebenskünstlerschaft übergehende Mensch. Und erst mit dem vierzehnten, fünfzehnten Lebensjahre fordert das Kind für den erziehenden Unterricht und das unterrichtende Erziehen dasjenige, was man selber gelernt hat, und das dauert so bis über das zwanzigste, einundzwanzigste Jahr hin, wo dann das Kind ganz erwachsen ist — es ist ja schon vorher eine junge Dame und ein junger Mann -, und wo eben der Zwanzigjährige dann als Gleichberechtigter dem anderen Menschen, auch wenn er älter ist, gegenübersteht.
Wiederum läßt uns — wir werden sehen, wie solche Erkenntnisse sich vertiefen gegenüber einer wirklichen Menschenweisheit — so etwas tief hineinblicken in das Menschenwesen. Wir lernen erkennen, daß was man oftmals geglaubt hat - man den Lehrer nicht erkennt, indem man ihn, nachdem er die Seminarbildung durchgemacht hat, examiniert, ob er etwas weiß; da lernt man nur erkennen, ob er vortragen kann in einer solchen Weise, wie man vorträgt, wenn man die Sache selber kann, ob er vortragen kann für das Lebensalter vom vierzehnten, fünfzehnten bis zum zwanzigsten Lebensjahre. Für frühere Lebensalter kommt das gar nicht in Betracht, was der Lehrer zeigen kann. Da muß die Qualität nach ganz anderen Grundlagen beurteilt werden. Und so handelt es sich darum, daß als eine Grundlage der Pädagogik und Didaktik auftritt die Lehrerfrage. Und was eigentlich leben muß in einer Kinderschar, fortvibrieren, fortwellen bis in das Herz, bis in die Willensregungen und zuletzt in den Verstand, das ist dasjenige, was zunächst im Lehrer lebt, zunächst in ihm lebt einfach dadurch, daß er mit einer bestimmten Menschennatur, mit einem bestimmten 'Temperamente, einem bestimmten Charakter, mit einer bestimmten Seelenverfassung vor dem Kinde steht; dann erst, daß er sich selber in einer gewissen Weise gebildet hat, und daß er das in sich Erbildete wieder an die Kinder heranbringen kann.
So sehen wir, wie Menschenerkenntnis, umfassend betrieben, einzig und allein sein kann die Grundlage zum Erfassen einer wirklichen Didaktik des Lehrens und der Lebensbedingungen des Erziehens. Und über diese beiden, über die Didaktik des Lehrens und die Lebensbedingungen des Erziehens, möchte ich gerne in diesen Vorträgen weiter sprechen.
First Lecture
Ladies and gentlemen! The task of this education conference was to discuss the question: What place do education and teaching have in people's personal lives and in contemporary cultural life? — Those who are able to view contemporary cultural life in all its various forms with an open mind there will hardly be any contradiction when it is said that such a topic today — that is, in the historical present, which encompasses the current decades — is one that touches in the deepest sense on the mysteries that lie on the souls and hearts of a wide circle of people today. For we have seen a peculiar position of the human being in relation to himself develop in recent culture. For more than a century, we have witnessed the magnificent development of natural science within this culture, with all that it has brought to human civilization, and basically, all of modern life is permeated by the discoveries that the powerful, magnificent natural science of recent times has brought to light. However far we look within the sphere of this knowledge of nature, however closely we examine it, how we look into it today, especially into the mineral kingdom, and from there form ideas about the other kingdoms of nature, we must admit one thing: humans today do not face themselves as closely and intimately as they did in earlier cultural epochs through self-observation. For everything that humanity's intense knowledge of nature has brought us cannot actually be directly applied to the innermost essence of human beings. We can ask: What are the laws, what is the course of the non-human world? — But all the answers to this question actually fall short of the essence of what is enclosed within the boundaries of human skin. They fall so short that today we do not even have an idea of the real changes that external natural processes undergo in living humans in terms of respiration, blood circulation, nutrition, and so on.
This has led to a situation where, even with regard to the soul, we do not look at the soul itself, but rather observe it, as it were, through the way it manifests itself in the physical nature of human beings. People have come to experiment with external measures on human beings. Now, this is not meant to be an objection to experimental psychology or experimental pedagogy. What can be achieved in this direction should certainly be recognized, but this experimentation on human beings should be mentioned at least in passing, more as a symptom than in terms of its content. In times when one's inner empathy with the spiritual and emotional life of another person gave one an intuitive impression of their inner soul experiences, it was, so to speak, self-evident that one interpreted the outer physical manifestations from what one knew about the inner spiritual and emotional life. Today, the opposite approach is taken. People experiment with external characteristics and processes — commendable, of course, as all natural science is commendable today — but in doing so they only show that, in the course of the newer view of life, they have gradually become accustomed to considering as positive only what the senses can see, what the mind can gain through the seeing of the senses. As a result, however, we have actually reached a point where we are no longer able to observe the inner human being properly and are often content with observing the outer shell. We are distancing ourselves from the human being. Those methods that have shed such magnificent light on the life of outer nature, on its essence and workings, but which are also applied to human beings, actually rob us of the immediate, elementary interaction from soul to soul.
This is how it has come to pass that the otherwise wonderfully effective modern culture, which has brought us so close to certain natural phenomena, has actually distanced us from human beings. It is easy to see that this phenomenon has had the greatest impact on that branch of our cultural life which deals with the education and development of the growing human being, the child in upbringing and schooling. For human beings can only educate and teach if they understand what they are to form and shape, just as painters can only paint if they know nature and the essence of color, sculptors can only work if they know the essence of their material, and so on. What applies to the other arts that work with external materials, how could it not apply to the art that works with the noblest material that can be presented to human beings, the human being, their becoming and their development itself? This basically points to the fact that all education and all teaching must spring from a real understanding of the human being. We now seek to develop this art of education, which is based entirely on a real knowledge of the human being, in the Waldorf school, and this education conference is connected with the educational and teaching methods of the Waldorf school.
Knowledge of human beings — one might say: Oh, how far we have come in our knowledge of human beings in recent times! — But the answer to that must be: Certainly, extraordinary things have been achieved in terms of knowledge of the physical human being; but the human being is structured according to body, soul, and spirit. And the view of life that underlies the method and educational system of the Waldorf School, anthroposophical spiritual science, is based entirely on an equal understanding of the body, soul, and spirit of the human being, and it seeks to avoid any one-sidedness through such an equal understanding of the three members of human nature.
In the next lectures, which I would like to introduce today, I will have various things to say about this understanding of the human being. First, however, I would like to point out that true, genuine knowledge of the human being cannot merely concern itself with understanding the individual human being in terms of body, soul, and spirit as he or she appears before us, but that it must above all seek to grasp with the soul's eye what takes place between human beings in earthly life. When human beings encounter one another, it is impossible — indeed, it would be absurd — to develop a fully conscious understanding of human nature. We would never be able to encounter one another as human beings in social life if we looked at each other and asked: What is inside the other person? But in unconscious sensations and feelings, especially in those impulses that underlie the will, human beings carry an unconscious knowledge of the others they encounter in life. This knowledge of human beings, as we shall see, has suffered greatly in recent times, and our social ills are based on the fact that it has suffered. But it has more or less only retreated into areas that are even more subconscious than those in which it used to be. However, it is still there, otherwise we would pass each other by without any understanding at all. But isn't it true that when people encounter each other—even if they don't realize it—sympathies and antipathies arise, impressions are formed that tell us that the other person is suitable to get close to, or that they are unsuitable and we want to keep our distance from them? Yes, we can also get other impressions. After our first impression, we might say to ourselves: This is an intelligent person, this is a less gifted person. — I could cite many examples, all of which would show that hundreds and hundreds of impressions rise up from the depths of our soul into our consciousness, but are suppressed for the sake of impartiality in life, that we nevertheless face another person with them as a state of mind and arrange our own life in relation to that person according to these impressions. Even what we call compassion, which is basically one of the most significant impulses of all human morality, also belongs to the unconscious knowledge of human nature that I am talking about here.
Now, just as we face adults in our adult lives and actually practice human knowledge in such an unconscious way that we do not notice it, but act according to it, so we must face the human soul of the child in a much more conscious way as the human soul of the teacher in order to educate it, but also to be able to experience in our own teacher soul what must be experienced so that we can have the right mood, the right pedagogical artistry, the right empathy with the child's soul, which are necessary to provide education and instruction in an appropriate manner. We are immediately reminded that the most important thing actually takes place in education and instruction between the teacher's soul and the child's soul. And let us start from this knowledge of human nature, this knowledge of human nature that is not sharply defined, because it does not actually relate to one person, but because it floats, so to speak, weaving back and forth between what is going on in the teacher's soul in teaching and education and what is going on in the child's soul. It can be difficult to grasp what is happening in a truly imponderable way between the teacher's soul and the child's soul and vice versa. For what flows there is, in fact, changing every moment while we teach and educate. One must acquire a vision for this, a vision of the soul that grasps the fleeting, the subtle, that which plays from soul to soul. Perhaps only when we are able to grasp what is happening intimately between people on a spiritual level can we grasp the individual person for who they are.
Let us therefore take a look at some individual examples today to see how these currents take shape in certain cases. However, one thing must be taken into account: Knowledge of human beings, especially of the developing human being, the child, is all too often practiced in such a way that we have the child at a certain point in its life, we deal with it, ask about its developmental powers, ask how these powers work at a certain age, and so on, and what we should do to respond to these developmental powers in the right way at a certain age. But knowledge of human nature, as meant here, does not only refer to these individual moments of experience; such knowledge of human nature refers to the whole earthly life of the human being. This is not as convenient as observing a narrowly defined period of time in human life. But for the educator and teacher, it is necessary to consider the whole of human life on earth; for what we lay down in the child at the age of eight or nine has its effects in the adult human being at the age of forty-five or fifty, as we shall discuss later. And what I do as a teacher to a child of compulsory school age has a profound effect on the physical, psychological, and spiritual nature of the human being. It often weaves its way beneath the surface for decades, emerging in a remarkable way after decades, sometimes at the end of a person's life, even though it was planted as a seed at the beginning of their life. One can only influence childhood in the right way if one has not only childhood in mind, but the whole of human life in true human knowledge.
I have this knowledge of human nature in mind when I now want to show, using individual examples — only hinting at them today, as the things will be discussed in more detail later — how the soul of a teacher can have an intimate effect on the soul of a child. We understand what we should do in teaching, in intellectual instruction, in guiding impulses of the will, once we know: What is it that works between teacher and child, simply by the fact that teacher and child are there, each with a certain nature, a certain temperament, a certain character, a certain level of education, a very specific physical and mental constitution? — Before we begin to teach or educate in any way, we and the child are there. There is already an effect between the two. How the teacher relates to the child is the first significant question.
So that we do not grope around in general abstractions, but rather focus on something specific, we start from a certain characteristic of human nature, namely temperament. Let us not focus initially on the child's temperament, over which we have no choice — we must educate every human being of every temperament, and we can talk about the child's temperament later — but let us first focus on the teacher's temperament in order to define our task. With a very specific temperament, whether choleric, phlegmatic, sanguine, or melancholic, the teacher enters the school and faces the child. The question of what we as educators should do to control, perhaps even educate ourselves in relation to our own temperaments, can only be answered once we have considered the fundamental question: What effect does the teacher's temperament have on the child simply by being there?
Let's start with the choleric temperament. The teacher's choleric temperament can manifest itself in the teacher giving free rein to this temperament, surrendering to this choleric temperament. We will see later how he can control himself, but let us first assume that this choleric temperament is simply there. It manifests itself in violent, vehement expressions of life. Perhaps it urges the teacher, while he is educating, while he is teaching, to take actions or treat the child in a way that he does out of his choleric temperament and later regrets. Perhaps he does all sorts of things in the child's environment that frighten the child – we will see how sensitive the child's soul is –; the fright may be only temporary, but it can nevertheless spread to the child's physical organization. A choleric teacher can also cause the child to approach the teacher with constant feelings of fear, or the child may feel oppressed quite unconsciously, subconsciously. In short, it is possible to discern a very specific effect of the choleric temperament on the child in a subtle, intimate, delicate way.
Let us take a child who is still at a tender age, before compulsory elementary school. At this age, the child is actually still a completely unified being. The three elements of human nature, body, soul, and spirit, only separate in later life. Between birth and the change of teeth, which is a very important point in human development, there is a period of the child's life in which, so to speak — we usually do not pay enough attention to this — the child is almost entirely a sensory organ. Let us consider a sensory organ, let us take the eye itself. External impressions, color impressions, come to the eye. This eye is organized in an intimate way to unite the color impressions with itself. Without the human being having any influence on it, what acts as an external stimulus is immediately transformed into something like a will, which can only be experienced by the soul, as we say. But the whole life of the child before the change of teeth is so soul-based on the basis of sensory perception. It sees all inner experience as similar to soul perception. Namely, what comes from the impressions of the people around us, whether we move slowly in the child's environment, and thereby reveal the laxity of our mental and spiritual life, or whether we move stormily in the child's environment and thereby reveal the force of our own mental and spiritual life, all this is absorbed by the child with almost the same intensity with which impressions that affect the sensory organ are otherwise absorbed by that sensory organ. The child is a sensory organ as a whole. One can already say: when we are adults, we have taste in our mouths, on our palates, on our tongues. The child feels taste much deeper down in its organism; the taste organ extends, so to speak, through a large part of the body. The same is true of the other senses. The effects of light are intimately connected with the child's breathing rhythms; they go down into the blood circulation. What adults experience separately in the eye, children experience throughout their entire body, and without any deliberation, the impulses of the will emerge immediately in children as reflex phenomena. I am only discussing this by way of introduction, in order to introduce the topic. Thus, the child's entire body acts as a sensory organ, reacting reflexively to what is happening in the environment.
As a result, however, the spirit, soul, and body in the child are not yet structured, not yet differentiated, but still a unity, an interweaving. The spiritual and the soul work in the body by directly influencing its circulation and nutritional processes. Oh, how close the soul is in its perception to the entire metabolic system in the child, how they work together! Only later, when the teeth change, does the soul separate more from the metabolism. Every emotional excitement in the child passes into the circulation, into the breathing, into the digestion. Body, soul, and spirit are still one. But this also means that every stimulus exerted by the environment continues into the child's physical being. And if a choleric teacher who gives free rein to his choleric temperament is in the child's environment, simply being there next to the child and letting himself go, then the outbursts of the choleric temperament — that is, what is done under the influence of the teacher's temperament when he does not practice the kind of self-education that we will discuss later — into the child's soul and continue into the physical realm. The peculiar thing here is that it sinks down into the foundations of existence, and what is transferred into the body of the developing human being later comes to the surface. Just as the seed that is sunk into the earth in autumn appears in the plant in spring, so what is transferred into the child in the eighth or ninth year emerges in the forty-fifth or fiftieth year of life, and we see the consequences of the choleric temperament of the teacher who lets himself go, manifesting themselves in metabolic diseases not only in adults but also in the elderly. If we examine closely why this or that person in their forties or fifties is suffering from rheumatism, from all kinds of metabolic disorders, from poor digestion, if we examine why this person is the way they are, why they develop gout at an early age, then we find the answer: Much of this can be attributed to the choleric temperament of a teacher who was simply out of control when faced with a child in childhood.
When you look at a person's entire life, rather than just their childhood, as is more convenient, in order to gain pedagogical principles and pedagogical impulses, then you begin to understand the central importance of teaching and education in a person's entire life, how often happiness and unhappiness are related to teaching and education in terms of the spiritual, mental, and physical. When we see how doctors have to correct the mistakes made in the education of elderly people, without them knowing it, and how they are often unable to do so because these mistakes have become too deeply ingrained in the human being; when we see how what affects the child's soul is transformed into physical effects; when we understand this interplay between the physical and the psychological, then one gains the right respect, the right appreciation for what teaching methodology and the conditions of education should actually be, simply according to the nature of human nature itself.
Let us consider a phlegmatic teacher who lets himself go and does not take control of his phlegmatic temperament through self-knowledge and self-education. When the phlegmatic person faces the child, it will be the case that, one might say, the child's inner liveliness is not satisfied. The inner impulses want to come out, they also flow out, the child wants to be active. The teacher is phlegmatic, he lets himself go. He does not catch what flows out of the child. What wants to come out of the child does not encounter external impressions and influences. It is like having to breathe in thin air, if I may use a physical comparison. The child's soul feels spiritual breathlessness when the teacher is phlegmatic. And when we look at life and ask why certain people suffer from nervousness, neurasthenia, and the like, we find, when we go back in the course of human life to childhood, that the phlegmatic nature of a teacher who should have done important things for the child, but who was not subject to self-education, is at the root of such tendencies toward illness. Entire cultural phenomena of a pathological nature can thus be explained. Why are nervousness and neurasthenia so incredibly widespread in modern times? You might say: One would have to believe that the entire teaching profession at the time when the people who are nervous and neurasthenic today were educated consisted of phlegmatic individuals! But I tell you, they consisted of phlegmatic people, not in the usual sense of the word, but in a much truer sense of the word. For in a certain age of the nineteenth century, the materialistic worldview emerged. The materialistic worldview has interests that distract from human beings, that develop an enormous indifference in the educator towards the actual, more intimate soul stirrings of the person being educated. Anyone who was able to observe these cultural phenomena of a more recent era with an open mind could see that, even if someone was such a phlegmatic person, he might say, because he had the abstract principle that his students should not knock over inkwells in anger: You must not do such a thing, you must not knock over the inkwell in anger. “Hey, I'm going to throw the inkwell at your head!” So one must not immediately think that all such choleric behavior was frowned upon in the age I am referring to, or that one would not have encountered sanguine and melancholic people as well: in relation to the actual task of education, they were nevertheless phlegmatic. A materialistic worldview did not allow one to get close to people, least of all to the developing human being, and so one could be phlegmatic even though one was choleric or melancholic in other areas of life. A certain phlegmatic attitude crept into all education during a certain era of materialistic development. And out of this phlegmatic attitude, much of what has occurred in our cultural life has developed in many people as nervousness, neurasthenia, and the complete disorganization of the nervous system. The details will be discussed later. But we see the phlegmatic temperament of the teacher manifesting itself in the nervous disorganization simply because the phlegmatic teacher is there next to the child.
If the teacher indulges in melancholic temperament, if he is too preoccupied with himself because of his melancholy, so that one might say, the thread of the child's mental and emotional life is constantly in danger of being broken, the thread of the child's feeling life becomes cold, then the melancholic teacher actually has the effect on the child that the child hides its soul stirrings within itself and, instead of expressing them outwardly, sinks into itself. As a result, the teacher's melancholic temperament, which is allowed to run its course, has such an effect on the later life of a child who is confronted with the melancholic teacher that their breathing and blood circulation become irregular. Those who, as teachers, do not merely consider the child's period of education, nor, as doctors, when a person has a specific illness, merely the age that now confronts him, but can view the whole of human life in context, will have to seek the origin of many heart diseases that occur in the fortieth or forty-fifth year of life in the whole mood that is produced by the teacher's melancholic temperament, which is allowed to run its course in individual education and teaching. We can see from this how the observation of the imponderables in the spiritual-soul realm that play between the teacher's soul and the child's soul simply begs the question: How, for example, should the teacher, the educator, practice self-education in relation to temperaments? We already suspect that it cannot be the case that the teacher or educator simply says: Temperament is innate, I will stick to it. Firstly, this is not true, and secondly, if it were true, the human race would have long since died out due to educational mistakes.
Let us consider the sanguine person who, as a teacher, gives free rein to his sanguine temperament. He is receptive to all kinds of impressions. If a student makes a mistake, he turns away — he does not become angry — he just looks away. If any student whispers something in their neighbor's ear, they turn their gaze in that direction. They are sanguine, impressions come to them quickly and do not make a deep impression. They let a student come out, ask them a quick question, they are not interested in them for long, they send them back in right away. The teacher is simply sanguine. If we apply the same methods that consider the whole of human life, we will find that in some people who suffer from a lack of vitality, a lack of joie de vivre – which is a pathological condition in some people – this deficiency can be traced back to the effect of the teacher's sanguine temperament, which he allows to run wild. The sanguine temperament of the teacher without self-education causes a suppression of vitality, a suppression of joy of life, of powerful will that springs from individuality.
If one considers these connections, which are provided by a true spiritual science based on genuine knowledge of human nature, one will see how comprehensive the art of education and teaching must be in its view of human nature and human beings, and how petty in comparison are those approaches that often focus only on the immediate, on what is convenient to observe. This is not the way to go about it, and a fundamental requirement of our contemporary culture, which has already caused enough damage to the surface of human existence, is this: How can we move from individual observations made through experiments or statistics, or whatever other wonderful things there may be, how can we move from these convenient individual observations, which today form almost the sole basis of pedagogy and didactics, to a pedagogy and didactics that takes equal account of the whole of human experience and the eternal in human beings, which is revealed only through human experience? And in connection with such questions, something much deeper opens up.
I have tried to point out, by way of introduction, what plays out between teacher and student, educator and child, simply by the fact that both are there, without taking into account anything we do consciously, simply by the fact that we are there. This is particularly evident in the different temperaments.
Now one might say: One must also begin to educate. — And here one is simply of the opinion that someone who has learned what is to be taught can teach it to someone else. If I have learned something myself, I am, so to speak, entitled to teach it to someone else. And often we do not see how the inner attitude toward temperament, character, and so on, brought about by the teacher's self-education or by seminar education, as we shall see, stands in the background of what the teacher can acquire for teaching and education through his own learning, through what he can absorb. But here, too, knowledge of human nature leads us deeper into the human being. So let us consider the question: How can I impart something I have learned to someone else, to a child who has not yet learned it? Is it enough to teach the child in the same way that I myself absorbed what I wanted to impart? — It is not enough. I am stating an empirical fact that only emerges when one truly observes human beings in body, soul, and spirit throughout their entire lives.
Such observation yields the following for the first phase of life before the change of teeth, from birth to the change of teeth. If one considers the mutual relationship between the teacher and the child, as I have done for the temperaments, one comes to the conclusion that for this stage of life, what I have learned has the least significance in terms of teaching and educating the child. What is of the utmost importance is what kind of person I am, what impressions it receives through me, whether it can imitate me.
Truly, especially for this age, a culture that did not actually speak of pedagogy at all, but practiced pedagogy in an elementary, primitive way, thought more healthily than we often think today; a culture such as we had in Oriental regions in earlier times, where what we would call a pedagogue did not yet exist, but where it was the person themselves who was supposed to have an effect on the child's age, the person with what they were in their character, physically, emotionally, and spiritually; who was simply supposed to be there alongside the child, so that the child could follow his example, so that the child would twitch a muscle when he twitched a muscle, blink an eye when he blinked an eye. But he had trained himself to do such things in such a way that the child could imitate them. This was not the Oriental pedagogue, but the Oriental Dätä. There was still something instinctive underlying this. But we can also see it today: what I have learned has no significance whatsoever for what I am as an educator to the child until it loses its baby teeth. After the baby teeth are lost, it begins to have a certain significance. But it loses all significance if I teach it as I carry it within me. It must be translated artistically, everything must be brought into the picture, as we shall see. I must again evoke imponderable forces between myself and the child. And for the second phase of life, from when they get their permanent teeth until they hit puberty, it's way more important than all the stuff I've learned, way more than what I've got in my head, whether I can turn what I'm developing around the kid and letting flow into them into vivid images and lively creations. And only for those who have already passed through puberty, and for them then until the beginning of their twenties, does what one has learned oneself become significant. For the small child up to the change of teeth, the most important thing in education is the human being. For the child from the change of teeth to puberty, the most important thing in education is the human being who is transitioning into a living artist of life. And only at the age of fourteen or fifteen does the child demand what one has learned oneself for educational instruction and instructive education, and this continues until beyond the age of twenty or twenty-one, when the child is fully grown — they are already a young lady and a young man before that — and where the twenty-year-old then stands as an equal to other people, even if they are older.
Once again, we will see how such insights deepen in relation to real human wisdom, allowing us to look deeply into human nature. We learn to recognize that what has often been believed — that you cannot recognize a teacher by examining them after they have completed their seminar training to see if they know anything — that only teaches us to recognize whether they can present in the same way as someone who can do the thing themselves, whether they can present for the age group from fourteen to twenty years old. What the teacher can demonstrate is not relevant for younger ages. There, quality must be assessed on entirely different grounds. And so it is that the question of the teacher arises as a fundamental issue in pedagogy and didactics. And what must actually live in a group of children, vibrate and ripple through to their hearts, to their impulses of will, and finally to their minds, is what first lives in the teacher, first lives in him simply by virtue of the fact that he stands before the child with a certain human nature, with a certain temperament, a certain character, with a certain state of mind; only then, that he has educated himself in a certain way, and that he can bring what he has learned within himself to the children.
Thus we see how a comprehensive understanding of human nature can be the sole basis for grasping a true didactics of teaching and the living conditions of education. And I would like to continue talking about these two things, the didactics of teaching and the living conditions of education, in these lectures.