The Essentials of Education
GA 308
9 April 1924, Stuttgart
Lecture Two
Yesterday I spoke of the teacher’s encounter with the children. Today I will try to describe the child, as a growing being, and the experience of encountering the teacher. A more exact observation of the forces active in the development of the human being shows that at the beginning of a child’s earthly life we must distinguish three distinct stages of life. After we have gained a knowledge of the human being and the ability to perceive the characteristics of these three stages, we can begin to educate in a way that is true to the facts—or rather, an education that is true to the human being.
The Nature of Proof in Spiritual Matters
The first stage of life ends with the change of teeth. Now I know that there is a certain amount of awareness these days concerning the changes that occur in the body and soul of children at this stage of life. Nevertheless, it is not sufficient to enable perception of all that happens in the human being at this tender age; we must come to understand this in order to become educators. The appearance of teeth—not the inherited, baby teeth—is merely the most obvious sign of a complete transformation of the whole human being. Much more is happening within the organism, though not as perceptible outwardly; its most radical expression is the appearance of the second teeth.
If we consider this we can see that contemporary physiology and psychology simply cannot penetrate the human being with any real depth, since their particular methods (excellent though they may be) were developed to observe only outer physical nature and the soul as it manifests in the body. As I said yesterday, the task of anthroposophic spiritual science is to penetrate in every way the whole human development of body, soul, and spirit.
First, however, we must eliminate a certain assumption. This preconception is inevitably a stumbling block to anyone who approaches the Waldorf education movement without a basic study of anthroposophy. I do not mean for a moment that we simply ignore objections to this kind of education. On the contrary. Those who have a spiritual foundation such as anthroposophy cannot be the least bit fanatical; they will always fully consider any objections to their viewpoints. Consequently, they fully understand the frequent argument against anthroposophic education. But, these things still must be proven.
Now, people have a lot to say about proofs with no clear idea of what that means. I cannot present a detailed lecture on the methods of proof in the various spheres of life and knowledge; but I would like to be clear about a certain comparison.
What do people mean when they say that something requires “proof”? The whole trend of human evolution since the fourteenth century has been to validate judgments through visual observation—that is to say, through sense perception. It was a very different matter before the current era, or before the fourteenth century. But we fail to realize today that our ancestors had a very different view of the world. In a certain sense we feel proud when we consider the development that has occurred in recent centuries. We look condescendingly at what people did during the Middle Ages, for example, considering them childish and primitive. But it is an age about which we really know nothing and call the “Dark Ages.” Try to imagine how our successors will speak of us—if they are as arrogant in their thinking as we are! If they turn out to be so conceited, we will seem just as childish to them as medieval people appear to us.
During the ages before the fourteenth century, humans perceived the world of the senses, and also comprehended with the intellect. The intelligence of the medieval monastic schools is too often underestimated. The inner intelligence and conceptual faculty was much more highly developed than the modern and chaotic conceptual faculty, which is really driven by, and limited to, natural phenomena; anyone who is objective and impartial can observe this. In those days, anything that the intellect and senses perceived in the universe required validation from the divine, spiritual realm. The fact that sense revelation had to be sanctioned by divine revelation was not merely an abstract principle; it was a common, very human feeling and observation. A manifestation in the world of the senses could be considered valid only when knowledge of it could be proven and demonstrated in terms of the divine, spiritual world.
This situation changed, gradually at first, one mode of knowledge replacing the other. Today, however, it has come to the point where we only acknowledge the validity of something—even in the spiritual world—when it can be proven through the senses. Something is validated when statements about spiritual life can be confirmed by experiment and observation. Why does everyone ask for a demonstration of matters that are really related to spirit? People ask you to make an experiment or sense observation that provides proof.
This is what people want, because they have lost faith in the reality of the human being’s inner activity; they have lost faith in the possibility that intuitions can emerge from the human being when looking at ordinary life, at sensory appearances and the intellect. Humanity has really weakened inwardly, and is no longer conscious of the firm foundation of an inner, creative life. This has had a deep influence on all areas of practical life, and most of all on education.
Proofs, such as external sensory appearances, through observation and experiment, may be compared to a man who notices that an unsupported object falls, and that it is attracted by the Earth’s gravity and therefore must be supported until it rests on solid ground. And then this man says, “Go ahead, tell me that the Earth and the other heavenly bodies hover freely in space, but I cannot understand it. Everything must be supported or it will fall.” Nevertheless, the Earth, Sun, and other heavenly bodies do not fall. We must completely change our way of thinking, when we move from earthly conditions into the cosmos. In cosmic space, heavenly bodies support one another; the laws of Earth do not apply there.
This is also true of spiritual facts. When we speak of the material nature of plants, animals, minerals, or human beings, we must prove our statements through experiment and sense observation. This kind of proof, like the example mentioned, suggests that an object must be supported. In the free realm of the spirit, however, truths support one another. The only validation required is their mutual support. Thus, in representing spiritual reality, every idea must be placed clearly within the whole, just as Earth or any other heavenly body moves freely in cosmic space. Truths must support one another. Anyone who tries to understand the spiritual realm must first examine truths coming from other directions, and how they support the one truth through the free activity of their “gravitational force” of proof, as it were. In this way, that single truth is kept free in the cosmos, just as a heavenly body is supported freely in the cosmos by the countering forces of gravity. A capacity to conceive of the spiritual in this way must become an essential inner quality of human beings; otherwise, though we may be able to understand and educate the soul aspect, we will be unable to understand and educate the spirit that also lives and moves in the human being.
The Individual’s Entry into the World
When human beings enter the physical world of sensation, their physical body is provided by the parents and ancestors. Even natural science knows this, although such discoveries will become complete only in the remote future. Spiritual science teaches that this is only one aspect of the human being; the other part unites with what arises from the father and mother; it descends as a spirit and soul being from the realm of spirit and soul.
Between the previous earthly life and the present one, this being passed through a long period of existence from the previous death to rebirth; it had experiences in the spiritual world between death and rebirth, just as on Earth, between birth and death, we have bodily experiences communicated through the senses, intellect, feelings, and will. The essence of these spiritual experiences descends, unites at first only loosely with the physical nature of the human being during the embryonic period, and hovers around the person, lightly and externally like an aura, during the first period of childhood between birth and the change of teeth. This being of spirit and soul who comes down from the spiritual world—a being just as real as the one who comes from the body of the mother—is more loosely connected with the physical body than it is later in human life. This is the why the child lives much more outside the body than an adult does.
This is only another way of expressing what I said in yesterday’s lecture, namely, that during the first period of life the child is in the highest degree and by its whole nature a being of sense. The child is like a sense organ. The surrounding impressions ripple, echo and sound through the whole organism because the child is not so inwardly bound up with its body as is the case in later life, but lives in the environment with its freer spiritual and soul nature. Hence the child is receptive to all the impressions coming from the environment.
Now, what is the relation between the human being as a whole and what we receive from the father and mother strictly through heredity? If we study the development of the human being with vision that truly creates ideas instead of mere proofs as described—a vision that looks at the spiritual and the evolution of the human being—we find that everything in the organism depends on hereditary forces in exactly the same way as the first, so-called baby teeth do. We only need to perceive, with precise vision, the difference in the ways the second teeth and the first are formed. In this way, we have a tangible expression of the processes occurring in the human being between birth and the change of teeth.
During this stage the forces of heredity hold sway in the physical body, and the whole human being becomes a kind of model with which the spirit and soul element work, imitating the surrounding impressions. If we place ourselves in the soul of a child relative to the environment and realize how every spiritual impulse is absorbed into the whole being—how with every movement of the hand, every expression, every look in the eyes of another the child senses the spirit inherent in the adult and allows it to flow in—then we will also perceive how, during the first seven years, another being is building itself on the foundation of the model provided by heredity. As human beings, the earthly world actually gives us, through hereditary forces, a model on which to build the second human being, who is really born with the change of teeth. The first teeth in the body are eliminated by what wants to replace them; this new element, which belongs to the human being’s individuality, advances and casts off heredity. This is true of the whole human organism. During the first seven years of life, the organism was a product of earthly forces and a kind of model. As such it is cast off, just as we get rid of the body’s outgrowths by cutting our nails, hair, and so on. The human being is molded anew with the change of teeth just as our outer form is perpetually eliminated. In this case, however, the first being, or product of physical heredity, is completely replaced by a second, who develops under the influence of the forces that the human being brings from pre-earthly life. Thus, during the period between birth and the change of teeth, the human hereditary forces related to the physical evolutionary stream fight against the forces of a pre-earthly existence, which accompany the individuality of each human being from the previous earthly life.
The Religious Nature of Childhood
It is essential not to merely understand these things theoretically, which is the habitual way of thinking today. This is the kind of fact that must be understood by the whole inner human being from the perspective of the child, and only then from the standpoint of the educator. If we understand what is happening from the perspective of a child, we find that the soul-being of the child—with everything brought from preearthly life from the realm of soul and spirit—is entirely devoted to the physical activities of human beings in the surroundings. This relationship can be described only as a religious one. It is a religious relationship that descends into the sphere of nature and moves into the outer world. It is important, however, to understand what is meant by such term.
Ordinarily, one speaks of “religious” relationships today in the sense of a consciously developed adult religion. Relevant to this is the fact that, in religious life, the spirit and soul elements of the adult rise into the spiritual element in the universe and surrender to it. The religious relationship is a self-surrendering to the universe, a prayer for divine grace in the surrender of the self. In the adult, it is completely immersed in a spiritual element. The soul and spirit are yielded to the surroundings.
To speak of the child’s body being absorbed by the environment in terms of a religious experience thus seems like we are turning things around the wrong way. Nevertheless, it is a truly religious experience—transposed into the realm of nature. The child is surrendered to the environment and lives in the external world in reverent, prayerful devotion, just as the eye detaches itself from the rest of the organism and surrenders to the environment. It is a religious relationship transferred to the natural realm.
If we want a picture, or symbol, of the spirit and soul processes in the adult’s religious experience, we should form a real idea in our souls of the child’s body up to the change of teeth. The life of the child is “religious,” but religious in a way that refers to the things of nature. It is not the soul of the child that is surrendered to the environment, but the blood circulation, breathing activities, and the nutritional process through the food taken in. All of these things are surrendered to the environment—the blood circulation, breathing, and digestive processes pray to the environment.
The Priestly Nature of Teaching
These expressions may seem contradictory, but their very contradiction represents the truth. We must observe such things with our whole being, not theoretically. If we observe the struggle unfolding in the child before us—within this fundamental, natural religious element—if we observe the struggle between the hereditary forces and what the individual’s forces develop as the second human being through the power brought from pre-earthly life, then, as teachers, we also develop a religious mood. But, whereas the child with a physical body develops the religious mood of the believer, the teacher, in gazing at the wonders that occur between birth and the change of teeth, develops a “priestly” religious attitude. The position of teacher becomes a kind of priestly office, a ritual performed at the altar of universal human life—not with a sacrificial victim to be led to death, but with the offering of human nature itself, to be awakened to life. Our task is to ferry into earthly life the aspect of the child that came from the divine spiritual world. This, with the child’s own forces, forms a second organism from the being that came to us from the divine spiritual life.
Pondering such things awakens something in us like a priestly attitude in education. Until this priestly feeling for the first years of childhood has become a part of education as a whole, education will not find the conditions that bring it to life. If we merely try to understand the requirements of education intellectually, or try to rationally design a method of education based on external observations of a child’s nature, at best we accomplish a quarter education. A complete educational method cannot be formulated by the intellect alone, but must flow from the whole human nature—not merely from the part that observes externally in a rational way, but the whole that deeply and inwardly experiences the secrets of the universe.
Few things have a more wonderful effect on the human heart than seeing inner spirit and soul elements released day to day, week to week, month to month, year to year, during the first period of childhood. We see how, beginning with chaotic limb movements, the glance filled with rapture by the outer, the play of expressions that do not yet seem to belong to the child, something develops and impresses itself on the surface of the human form that arises from the center of the human being, where the divine spiritual being is unfolding in its descent from pre-earthly life. When we can make this divine office of education a concern of the heart, we understand these things in such a way that we say: “Here the Godhead Who has guided the human being until birth is revealed again in the impression of the human organism; the living Godhead is there to see; God is gazing into us.” This, out of the teacher’s own individuality, will lead, not to something learned by rote, but to a living method of education and instruction, a method that springs from the inner being.
This must be our attitude to the growing human being; it is essential to any educational method. Without this fundamental attitude, without this priestly element in the teacher (this is said, of course, in a cosmic sense), education cannot be continued. Therefore, any attempt to reform the methods of education must involve a return of the intellectual element, which has become dominant since the fourteenth century, to the domain of soul and feelings, to move toward what flows from human nature as a whole, not just from the head. If we look at the child without preconceptions, the child’s own nature will teach us to read these things.
The Effects of a Teacher’s Inner Development on the Child
Now, what has been the real course of civilization since the fourteenth century? As a result of the great transition, or cultural revolution, that has occurred since then, we can only perceive what is exprEssentialEd, as it were, from internal to external existence. Grasping at externals has become a matter of course for modern human beings to the degree that we are no longer aware of any other possibility. We have arrived at a condition in historical evolution that is considered “right” in an absolute sense—not merely a condition that suits our time.
People can no longer feel or perceive in a way that was possible before the fourteenth century. In those days, people observed matters of the spirit in an imbalanced way, just as people now observe the things of nature. But the human race had to pass through a stage in which it could add the observation of purely natural elements to an earlier human devotion to the world of spirit and soul that excluded nature. This materializing process, or swing downward, was necessary; but we must realize that, in order that civilized humanity not be turned into a wasteland in our time, there must be a new turn, a turning toward spirit and soul. The awareness of this fact is the essence of all endeavors such as that of Waldorf school education, which is rooted in what a deeper observation of human evolution reveals as necessary for our time. We must find our way back to the spirit and soul; for this we must first clearly recognize how we removed ourselves from them in the first place. There are many today who have no such understanding and, therefore, view anything that attempts to lead us back to the spirit as, well, not really the point, shall we say.
We can find remarkable illustrations of this attitude. I would like to mention one, but only parenthetically. There is a chapter (incidentally, a very interesting chapter in some ways) in Maurice Maeterlinck’s new book The Great Riddle. Its subject is the anthroposophic way of viewing the world. He describes anthroposophy, and he also describes me (if you will forgive a personal reference). He has read many of my books and makes a very interesting comment. He says that, at the beginning of my books, I seem to have a level-headed, logical, and shrewd mind. In the later chapters, however, it seems as if I had lost my senses. It may very well appear this way to Maeterlinck; subjectively he has every right to his opinion. Why shouldn’t I seem levelheaded, logical and scientific to him in the first chapters, and insane in later ones?
Of course, Maeterlinck has a right to think this way, and nobody wants to stop him. The question is, however, whether such an attitude is not really absurd. Indeed, it does become absurd when you consider this: I have, unfortunately, written a great many books in my life (as you can see from the unusual appearance of the book table here). No sooner have I finished writing one, than I begin another. When Maurice Maeterlinck reads the new book, he will discover once again that, in the first chapters I am shrewd, levelheaded and scientific, and lose my senses later on. Then I begin to write a third book; the first chapters again are reasonable and so forth. Consequently, if nothing else, I seem to have mastered the art of becoming at will a completely reasonable human being in the early part of a book and—equally by choice—a lunatic later, only to return to reason when I write the next book. In this way, I take turns being reasonable and a lunatic. Naturally, Maeterlinck has every right to find this; but he misses the absurdity of such an idea. A modern man of his importance thus falls into absurdities; but this, as I say, is only an interpolation.
Many people are completely unaware that their judgments do not spring from the source of human nature but from elements implanted in our outer culture since the fourteenth century as a result of the materialistic system of life and education. The duty of teachers, of educators—really the duty of all human beings that have anything to do with children—is to look more deeply into the human being. In other words, we need to become more aware of how anything acting as a stimulus in the environment continues to vibrate in the child. We must be very clear that, in this sense, we are dealing with imponderables.
Children are aware, whenever we do something in their environment, of the thoughts behind a hand-gesture or facial expression. Children intuit them: they do not, obviously, interpret facial features, since what operates instead is a much more powerful inner connection between the child and adult than will exist later between adults. Consequently, we must never allow ourselves to feel or think anything around children that should not be allowed to ripple on within the child. The rule of thumb for all relationships in early education must be this: Whether in perception, feeling, or thought, whatever we do around children must be done in such a way that it may be allowed to continue vibrating their souls.
The psychologist, the observer of souls, the person of broad practical experience, and the doctor thus all become a unity, insofar as the child is concerned. This is important, since anything that makes an impression on the child, anything that causes the soul’s response, continues in the blood circulation and digestion, becoming a part of the foundation of health in later years. Due to the imitative nature of the child, whenever we educate the spirit and soul of the child, we also educate the body and physical nature of the child. This is the wonderful metamorphosis—that whatever approaches children, touching their spirit and soul, becomes their physical, organic organization, and their predisposition to health or illness in later life.
Consequently, we can say that if Waldorf schools educate out of spirit and soul, it is not because we choose to work in an unbalanced way with only the soul and spirit; rather, it is because we know that this is how we physically educate the inner being in the highest sense of the word. The physical being exists within the envelope of the skin.
Perhaps you recall yesterday’s examples. Beginning with the model supplied by the human forces of heredity, the person builds a second human being, experienced in the second phase of life between the change of teeth and puberty. During the initial phase of life, human beings win for themselves a second being through what resulted of a purely spiritual life between death and rebirth. During the second stage of life, however, between the change of teeth and puberty, the influences of the outer world struggle with what must be incorporated into the individuality of the human being.
During this second stage, external influences grow more powerful. The inner human being is strengthened, however, since at this point it no longer allows every influence in the environment to continue vibrating in the body organization as though it were mainly a sense organ. Sensory perception begins to be more concentrated at the surface, or periphery, of the being. The senses now become more individual and autonomous, and the first thing that appears in the human being is a way of relating to the world that is not intellectual but compares only to an artistic view of life.
The Teacher as Artist
Our initial approach to life had a religious quality in that we related to nature as naturally religious beings, surrendered to the world. In this second stage, however, we are no longer obligated to merely accept passively everything coming from our environment, allowing it to vibrate in us physically; rather, we transform it creatively into images. Between the change of teeth and puberty, children are artists, though in a childish way, just as in the first phase of life, children were homo religiosus—naturally religious human beings.
Now that the child demands everything in a creative, artistic way, the teachers and educators who encounter the child must present everything from the perspective of an artist. Our contemporary culture demands this of teachers, and this is what must flow into the art of education; at this point, interactions between the growing human being and educators must take an artistic form. In this respect, we face great obstacles as teachers. Our civilization and the culture all around us have reached the point where they are geared only to the intellect, not to the artistic nature.
Let us consider the most wonderful natural processes—the description of embryonic life, for example, as portrayed in modern textbooks, or as taught in schools. I am not criticizing them, merely describing them; I know very well that they had to become the way they are and were necessary at a certain point in evolution. If we accept what they offer from the perspective of the spiritual force ready to reawaken today, something happens in our feeling life that we find impossible to acknowledge, because it seems to be a sin against the maturity attained by humanity in world-historical evolution. Difficult as it may be, it would be a good thing if people were clear about this.
When we read modern books on embryology, botany, or zoology, we feel a sense of despair in finding ourselves immediately forced to plunge into a cold intellectuality. Although the life and the development of nature are not essentially “intellectual,” we have to deliberately and consciously set aside every artistic element. Once we have read a book on botany written according to strict scientific rules, our first task as teachers is to rid ourselves of everything we found there. Obviously, we must assimilate the information about botanical processes, and the sacrifice of learning from such books is necessary; but in order to educate children between the change of teeth and puberty, we must eliminate what we found there, transforming everything into artistic, imaginal forms through our own artistic activity and sensibility. Whatever lives in our thoughts about nature must fly on the wings of artistic inspiration and transform into images. They must rise in the soul of the child.
Artistically shaping our instruction for children between the change of teeth and puberty is all that we should be concerned with in the metamorphosis of education for our time and the near future. If the first period of childhood requires a priestly element in education, the second requires an artistic element. What are we really doing when we educate a person in the second stage of life? The I-being journeying from an earlier earthly life and from the spiritual world is trying gradually to develop and permeate a second human being. Our job is to assist in this process; we incorporate what we do with the child as teachers into the forces that interwove with spirit and soul to shape the second being with a unique and individual character. Again, the consciousness of this cosmic context must act as an enlivening impulse, running through our teaching methods and the everyday conditions of education. We cannot contrive what needs to be done; we can only allow it to happen through the influence of the children themselves on their teachers.
Two extremes must be avoided. One is a result of intellectualizing tendencies, where we approach children in an academic way, expecting them to assimilate sharply outlined ideas and definitions. It is, after all, very comfortable to instruct and teach by definitions. And the more gifted children learn to parrot them, allowing the teacher to be certain that they retain what has been taught them in the previous lesson, whereas those who don’t learn can be left behind.
Such methods are very convenient. But it’s like a cobbler who thinks that the shoes made for a three-year-old girl should still fit the ten-year-old, whereas only her toes fit into the shoes but not the heels. Much of a child’s spiritual and psychic nature is ignored by the education we give children. It is necessary that, through the medium of flexible and artistic forms, we give children perceptions, ideas, and feelings in pictorial form that can metamorphose and grow with the soul, because the soul itself is growing. But before this can happen, there must be a living relationship between child and teacher, not the dead relationship that arises from lifeless educational concepts. Thus, all instruction given to children between approximately seven and fifteen must be permeated with pictures.
In many ways, this runs counter to the ordinary tendencies of modern culture, and we of course belong to this modern culture. We read books that impart much significant substance through little squiggles we call a, b, c, and so on. We fail to realize that we have been damaged by being forced to learn these symbols, since they have absolutely no relationship to our inner life. Why should a or b look the way they do today? There is no inner necessity, no experience that justifies writing an h after an a to express a feeling of astonishment or wonder.
This was not always the situation, however. People first made images in pictographic writing to describe external processes, and when they looked at the sheet or a board on which something had been written, they received an echo of that outer object or process. In other words, we should spare the child of six or seven from learning to write as it is done today. What we need instead is to bring the child something that can actually arise from the child’s own being, from the activities of his or her arms and fingers. The child sees a shining, radiant object and receives an impression; we then fix it with a drawing that represents the impression of radiance, which a child can understand.
If a child strokes a stick from top to bottom and then makes a stroke on the paper from top to bottom, the meaning is obvious. I show a fish to a child, who then follows the general direction of the form, followed by the front and back fins that cross in the opposite direction. I draw the general form of the fish, and this line across it, and say to the child, “Here, on the paper, you have something like a fish.” Then I go into the child’s inner experience of the fish. It contains an f, and so I draw a line crossed by another line, and thus, out of the child’s feeling experience, I have a picture that corresponds to the sound that begins the word fish. All writing can be developed in this way—not a mere copying of the abstract now in use, but a perception of the things themselves as they arise from a child’s drawing and painting. When I derive writing from the drawing and painting, I am working with the living forces of an image.
It would be enough to present the beginning of this artistic approach; we can feel how it calls on the child’s whole being, not just an intellectual understanding, which is overtaxed to a certain extent. If we abandon the intellectual element for imagery at this age, the intellect usually withdraws into the background. If, on the other hand, we overemphasize the intellect and are unable to move into a mode of imagery, the child’s breathing process is delicately and subtly disrupted. The child can become congested, as it were, with weakened exhalation. You should think of this as very subtle, not necessarily obvious. If education is too intellectual between the ages of seven and fourteen, exhalation becomes congested, and the child is subjected to a kind of subconscious nightmare. A kind of intimate nightmare arises, which becomes chronic in the organism and leads in later life to asthmas and other diseases connected with swelling in the breathing system.
Another extreme occurs when the teacher enters the school like a little Caesar, with the self-image of a mighty Caesar, of course. In this situation, the child is always at the mercy of a teacher’s impulsiveness. Whereas extreme intellectualism leads to congested exhalation, the metabolic forces are thinned by overly domineering and exaggerated assertiveness in the teacher. A child’s digestive organs are gradually weakened, which again may have chronic effects in later life. Both of these excesses must be eliminated from education—too much intelectualizing and extreme obstinateness.
We can hold a balance between the two by what happens in the soul when we allow the will to pass gently into the child’s own activity and by toning down the intellect so that feelings are cultivated in a way that does not suppress the breathing, but cultivates feelings that turn toward imagery and express the buoyant capacity I described. When this is done, the child’s development is supported between the change of teeth and puberty.
Thus, from week to week, month to month, year to year, a true knowledge of the human being will help us read the developing being like a book that tells us what needs to be done in the teaching. The curriculum must reproduce what we read in the evolutionary process of the human being. Specific ways that we can do this will be addrEssentialEd in coming lectures.
Zweiter Vortrag
Gestern erlaubte ich mir, über den Lehrer zu sprechen, der vor den Kindern steht. Heute werde ich versuchen, zunächst das Kind zu charakterisieren in seinem Werden, wie es vor dem Lehrer steht. Man hat im kindlichen Lebensalter bei einer genaueren Beobachtung aller für die Entwickelung des Menschen in Betracht kommenden Kräfte zunächst für den Beginn des Erdenlebens drei deutlich voneinander getrennte Lebensepochen zu unterscheiden. Und nur, wenn man Menschenerkenntnis übt in der Weise, daß man hinschaut auf die Eigentümlichkeiten einer jeden dieser Epochen, ist Unterricht und Erziehung in sachgemäßer, man möchte lieber sagen, in menschengemäßer Weise wirklich möglich.
Die erste Lebensepoche des Kindes schließt mit dem Zahnwechsel. Nun wird ja, das verkenne ich durchaus nicht, Rücksicht genommen in den Anschauungen, die heute üblich sind, auf die Verwandlung des kindlichen Körpers, der kindlichen Seele auch in diesem Lebensalter, aber nicht in so durchgreifender Weise, daß man dadurch hineinschauen würde in alles dasjenige, was mit dem Menschen in diesem zarten Alter vor sich geht und was durchaus erfaßt und ergriffen werden muß, wenn man den Menschen erziehen will. Das Hervorbrechen der Zähne, die nicht mehr die vererbten Zähne der ersten Jahre sind, ist ja nur das alleräußerste Symptom für eine gesamte Umwandlung der ganzen menschlichen Wesenheit. Vieles, vieles geht im Organismus, wenn auch nicht äußerlich so sichtbar, vor sich, was eben in diesem Hervorbrechen der zweiten Zähne nur seinen radikalsten Ausdruck findet.
Wenn man auf diese Dinge hinschaut, dann muß man sich schon klar darüber sein, daß die Physiologie und auch die Psychologie der Gegenwart gar nicht in der Lage sind, ganz tief in den Menschen hineinzuschauen, aus dem Grunde, weil sie gerade ihre in ihrer Art vorzüglichen Methoden herangebildet haben an der Beobachtung desjenigen, was nur nach außen in dem Körperlichen liegt und was sich vom Seelischen in diesem Körper zur Offenbarung bringt. Anthroposophische Geisteswissenschaft hat vor allen Dingen die Aufgabe, wie ich schon gestern sagte, in das Ganze der menschlichen Entwickelung nach Leib, Seele und Geist hineinzuschauen. Nun muß aber gleich vom Anfange an ein Vorurteil hinweggeräumt werden, über welches alle diejenigen — auch das verkenne ich nicht — stolpern müssen, die sich ohne eine gründliche Beschäftigung mit Anthroposophie an die Waldorfschulpädagogik und -didaktik machen. Glauben Sie nicht, daß es mir einen Augenblick einfällt, zu behaupten, das, was eingewendet werden kann gegen diese Waldorfschulpädagogik, werde von uns einfach in den Wind geschlagen. Das ist durchaus nicht der Fall. Im Gegenteil, wer auf einem geistigen Boden steht, wie es der der Anthroposophie ist, der kann in keiner Beziehung ein einseitiger Fanatiker sein; der wird in der gründlichsten Weise alles das erwägen, was an Einwendungen gegen seine Ansichten sich erheben läßt. Und daher erscheint es ihm auch durchaus begreiflich, wenn immer wieder und wiederum gegen das, was aus anthroposophischen Untergründen heraus auch in der Pädagogik gesagt wird, eingewendet wird: Ja, das müßt ihr erst beweisen.
Sehen Sie, dieses Beweisen, das wird sehr häufig so gesagt, ohne daß man einen klaren, deutlichen Begriff mit dem verbindet, was man eigentlich damit meinen könne. Ich kann ja hier nicht einen ausführlichen Vortrag halten über die Methodik des Beweisens auf den verschiedenen Lebens- und Erkenntnisgebieten, aber ich möchte es durch folgenden Vergleich klarmachen. Was meint man denn heute, wenn man davon spricht, es solle etwas bewiesen werden? Nun, die ganze Bildung der Menschheit seit dem vierzehnten Jahrhundert ist darauf ausgegangen, alle Einsicht zu rechtfertigen aus dem Augenschein heraus, das heißt aus der sinnlichen Wahrnehmung heraus. Vor diesem Zeitabschnitt, vor dem vierzehnten Jahrhundert, war es ja ganz anders. Nur sieht der Mensch heute nicht mehr darauf hin, wie seine Vorfahren in bezug auf die ganze Welteneinrichtung eben andere Gesichtspunkte eingenommen haben. Denn der Mensch ist in gewisser Beziehung heute hochmütig in seinem Bewußtsein von der in den letzten Jahrhunderten errungenen Bildung, und er sieht leicht von oben her hin auf dasjenige, was zum Beispiel im finsteren Mittelalter, das er ja eigentlich gar nicht kennt, aber finster nennt, die Menschen in kindlicher Weise, wie er meint, getrieben hätten. Man sollte dabei nur bedenken, was unsere Nachfahren, wenn sie ebenso hochmütig denken würden, über uns sagen werden! Sie werden uns von einem solchen Gesichtspunkte ebenso kindlich finden, wie wir heute die mittelalterlichen Menschen kindlich finden wollen.
In jener Zeit, die dem vierzehnten Jahrhundert vorangegangen ist, sah man die Welt der Sinne, faßte sie auch auf mit dem Verstande. Und der Verstand, der heute so vielfach unterschätzt wird, der in den mittelalterlichen Klosterschulen geherrscht hat, er war innerlich als Verstand, als Begriffsvermögen viel höher ausgebildet, als das chaotische Begriffsvermögen, das am Gängelbande der Naturerscheinungen geführt wird, sich heute vielfach ausnimmt für den, der diese Dinge objektiv und unbefangen bedenkt. Dazumal war es so, daß alles das, was Verstand und Sinne in der Welt sahen, gerechtfertigt werden mußte aus der göttlich-geistigen Weltordnung heraus. Sinnesoffenbarung ist zu rechtfertigen aus der göttlich-geistigen Offenbarung heraus: das war dazumal nicht etwa bloß abstraktes Prinzip, sondern allgemein-menschliches Gefühl und Empfindung. Erst dann kann etwas gelten in der Sinneswelt, wenn man es so erkannt hat, daß man es beweisen, erweisen kann aus der göttlich-geistigen Weltenordnung heraus.
Das wurde anders, anfangs langsam, indem die eine Auffassung in die andere überging. Aber bis in unsere Zeit herein ist es so weit gekommen, daß eigentlich alles, auch in der göttlich-geistigen Weltenordnung, nur dann gelten soll, wenn man es aus der Sinneswelt heraus beweisen kann, wenn man Experiment und Sinnesbeobachtung so machen kann, daß man damit die Dinge, die über das Geistige gesagt werden, belegen kann. Wonach fragt einen denn heute eigentlich jemand, der da sagt: Beweise mir eine Sache, die das Geistige betrifft? — Er fragt um folgendes: Hast du ein Experiment gemacht, hast du eine sinnliche Beobachtung gemacht, die das erweist? — Warum fragt er so? Er fragt so aus dem Grunde, weil er das Vertrauen verloren hat zu der eigenen inneren Aktivität des Menschen, zu dem Hervorbrechenkönnen von Einsichten, die aus dem Menschen selber kommen, gegenüber dem, was man erhält, wenn man auf das äußere Leben, auf den Sinnenschein und die Verstandeserkenntnis hinschaut. Man möchte sagen: Im Inneren schwach ist die Menschheit geworden; sie fühlt nicht mehr die starke Stütze eines innerlich produktiven Lebens. Und tief beeinflußt alle praktischen Tätigkeiten, vor allen Dingen die Erziehertätigkeit, hat dasjenige, was ich eben gesagt habe. Beweisen in diesem Sinne, durch äußeren Sinnenschein, durch Beobachtung oder Experiment, läßt sich damit vergleichen, daß jemand hingewiesen wird auf irgendeinen Gegenstand, der herunterfällt, wenn er nicht unterstützt wird; die Schwere der Erde zieht ihn an, er muß unterstützt werden, bis er auf einem festen Grund steht. Wenn nun jemand kommt und sagt: Ja, du redest uns davon, daß die Erde und die anderen Himmelskörper im Weltenraum frei schweben; das begreife ich nicht; jeder Gegenstand muß doch unterstützt werden, damit er nicht herunterfällt - so muß man sagen: Aber die Erde fällt doch nicht herunter, die Sonne auch nicht und ebensowenig die anderen Himmelskörper. Man muß vollständig umdenken, wenn man von den Erdenverhältnissen hinausgeht in den kosmischen Raum. Man muß sagen: Da tragen sich die Himmelskörper untereinander, da hören die Gesetze, die für die unmittelbare Umgebung der Erde gelten, auf.
So ist es mit den geistigen Wahrheiten. Wenn man irgend etwas behauptet über das Sinnliche von Pflanze, Tier, Mineral oder den physischen Menschen, so muß man es durch Experiment und Sinnesbeobachtung beweisen. Das heißt in diesem Fall, man muß den Gegenstand unterstützen. Wenn man sich begibt in das freie Reich des Geistes, da müssen sich die Wahrheiten untereinander tragen. Da kann man nur dadurch einen Beweis für die Dinge finden, daß die Wahrheiten sich untereinander tragen. Daher handelt es sich bei der Darstellung des Geistigen ebenso um die klare Hineinstellung irgendeiner Einsicht in den ganzen Zusammenhang, wie die Erde oder ein anderer Himmelskörper frei in den Weltenraum hineingestellt ist. Da müssen sich die Wahrheiten untereinander tragen. So daß derjenige, der da strebt nach Einsichten in die geistige Welt, zunächst suchen muß, wie von anderen Seiten her Wahrheiten kommen, die gewissermaßen mit den freien Gravitationskräften des Beweises die eine Wahrheit ebenso frei im Weltenraum ohne Unterstützung halten, wie ein Himmelskörper durch die gegenseitig wirkenden Gravitationskräfte frei im kosmischen Raum gehalten wird. Das muß gründliche innere Gesinnung werden, so über das Geistige denken zu können, sonst wird man im Menschen zwar das Seelische, nicht aber den Geist, der in ihm ebenso lebt und west wie das Seelische, ergreifen, erziehen und unterrichten können.
Wenn der Mensch hereintritt in die physisch-sinnliche Welt, so wird ihm ja durch Eltern, Voreltern der physische Leib überantwortet. Darüber gibt es heute, wenn auch noch nicht vollständig - sie werden erst in sehr viel späterer Zeit vollendet werden -, doch schon in gewisser Beziehung überschaubare Naturerkenntnisse. Das ist für die Geisteswissenschaft ein Teil der menschlichen Wesenheit. Denn die andere menschliche Wesenheit, die sich vereinigt mit demjenigen, was von Vater und Mutter kommt, die steigt herab als geistig-seelisches Wesen aus der geistig-seelischen Welt. Sie hat zwischen dem früheren Erdenleben und dem gegenwärtigen eine längere Zeit zwischen dem Tod und einer neuen Geburt durchgemacht. Sie hat Erlebnisse gehabt im Geistigen in diesem Lebenslauf zwischen Tod und einer neuen Geburt, ebenso wie wir durch unsere Sinne, durch unseren Verstand, durch unsere Empfindungen, durch unseren Willen körperlich vermittelt zwischen Geburt und Tod unsere Erlebnisse auf Erden haben. Diese Wesenheit mit den Erlebnissen, die geistig durchgemacht worden sind, die steigt herunter, verbindet sich zunächst in einer losen Weise mit dem Physischen des Menschen während der Embryonalzeit und ist im Grunde genommen noch in loser Weise, gewissermaßen äußerlich als Aura den Menschen umschwebend, in dem ersten kindlichen Zeitalter zwischen der Geburt und dem Zahnwechsel gegenwärtig. Und man darf sagen: Deshalb, weil dasjenige, was heruntersteigt aus der geistigen Welt als ein geistig-seelisches Wesen und ebenso real ist, als was wir mit Augen aus dem Mutterkörper hervorgehend schauen, weil das noch loser mit der physischen Körperlichkeit verbunden ist, als es später beim Menschen der Fall ist, deshalb lebt das Kind noch viel mehr als der spätere erwachsene Mensch außerhalb seines Leibes.
Und damit ist nur in anderer Art ausgedrückt, was ich schon gestern sagte: Das Kind ist im allerhöchsten Grade seinem ganzen Wesen nach in dieser ersten Zeit ein Sinneswesen. Es ist wie ein Sinnesorgan. Durch den ganzen Organismus rieselt dasjenige, was an Eindrücken aus der Umgebung kommt, klingt nach, tönt nach, weil das Kind noch nicht so innig wie später der Mensch mit seinem Körper verbunden ist, sondern in der Umgebung lebt mit dem loseren GeistigSeelischen. Daher wird alles aufgenommen, was an Eindrücken aus dieser Umgebung kommt.
Wie verhält sich nun das, was der Mensch durch die reine Vererbung im Physischen durch Vater und Mutter erhält, zu seiner Gesamtwesenheit? Wenn man mit dem Blick, der da darstellen muß und nicht schlechthin in dem Sinne beweisen will, wie ich das eben charakterisiert habe, wenn man mit dem Blick, der das Geistige anschauen will, die Entwickelung des Menschen betrachtet, dann wird man finden, daß alles im Organismus ebenso auf Vererbungskräften beruht wie die ersten Zähne, die sogenannten Milchzähne. Man schaue sich nur einmal an, aber mit wirklich exaktem Blick, wie anders sich die zweiten Zähne gestalten als die ersten, und wie es da, ich möchte sagen, mit Händen zu greifen ist, was eigentlich am Menschen geschieht von der Geburt bis zum Zahnwechsel. Der ganze Mensch ist nämlich von der Geburt bis zum Zahnwechsel, indem in seinem Physischen die Vererbungskräfte walten, wie eine Art Modell, an dem das GeistigSeelische arbeitet nach den Eindrücken der Umgebung als rein nachahmendes Wesen. Und wenn man sich versetzt in das Gemüt des Kindes in bezug auf sein Verhältnis zur Umgebung, wie das Kind jede Regung des Seelischen auf sein Ganzes hin betrachtet, wie das Kind in jeder Handbewegung, in jeder Miene, in jeglichem Blick des Auges das dahinterstehende Geistige des Erwachsenen wittert und in sich fortrieseln läßt, wenn man das alles beobachtet, dann findet man eben, wie nach dem Modell, das durch die Vererbung dem Menschen übergeben wird, sich nun im Verlaufe der ersten sieben Lebensjahre ein anderes bildet. Wir bekommen wirklich als Menschen von der Erdenwelt durch die Vererbungskräfte ein Modell mit, nach welchem wir den zweiten Menschen, der eigentlich erst geboren wird mit dem Zahnwechsel, ausbilden. Geradeso wie das Zähnchen, das Milchzähnchen, das im Körper sitzt, herausgestoßen wird durch dasjenige, was an die Stelle sich setzen will, wie man sieht, wie da ein der Individualität des Menschen Angehöriges sich hervorschiebt und das Vererbte abstößt, so ist es mit dem ganzen menschlichen Organismus. Er war in den ersten sieben Lebensjahren das modellhafte Ergebnis der Erdenkräfte. Er wird abgestoßen, ebenso abgestoßen, wie wir die äusseren Ranken unseres Körpers abstoßen, die Fingernägel wegschneiden, die Haare schneiden und so weiter. So wie fortwährend das Äußere abgestoßen wird, wird der Mensch erneuert mit dem Zahnwechsel. Nur ist dieser zweite Mensch, der ganz den ersten ersetzt, den wir durch die physische Vererbung erhalten, nunmehr gebildet unter dem Einfluß derjenigen Kräfte, die sich der Mensch mitbringt aus seinem vorirdischen Leben. Und so kämpfen eigentlich in der Lebensepoche, die zwischen der Geburt und dem Zahnwechsel liegt, die Vererbungskräfte, die der physischen Entwickelungsströmung der Menschheit angehören, mit den Kräften, die sich die Individualität eines jeden einzelnen Menschen herunterbringt aus dem vorirdischen Leben als die Ergebnisse seiner früheren individuellen Erdenleben.
Nun handelt es sich darum, eine solche Tatsache nicht allein aufzufassen mit dem theoretischen Verstande, wie die meisten nach den heutigen Denkgewohnheiten das tun, sondern es handelt sich darum, eine solche Tatsache mit der ganzen inneren menschlichen Wesenheit auch zu erfassen, zu erfassen von Seite des Kindes, zu erfassen von Seite des Erziehenden aus. Wenn wir es von Seite des Kindes erfassen, was da vorliegt, dann finden wir, wie das Kind mit seinem innerlichen Seelenwesen, mit dem, was es sich heruntergebracht hat aus dem vorirdischen Leben, aus der geistig-seelischen Welt, ganz hingegeben ist an das Physische der Auswirkungen der anderen Menschen, die es umgeben. Und dieses Verhältnis ist, ins Naturhafte herunterversetzt, ins Äußere hineinversetzt, ein Verhältnis, das wir nicht anders bezeichnen können denn als ein religiöses. Wir müssen uns nur verständigen über die Art und Weise, wie solche Ausdrücke gemeint sind. Natürlich, wenn man heute von einem religiösen Verhältnisse spricht, so sieht man hin auf das bewußt entwickelte religiöse Empfinden des Erwachsenen. Es ist das Wesentliche, daß das Geistig-Seelische des erwachsenen Menschen im religiösen Leben in dem Geistigen der Welt aufgeht, sich hingibt an dieses Geistige der Welt. Das religiöse Verhältnis ist ein Sichhingeben, ein gnadeerflehendes Sichhingeben an die Welt, aber es ist beim erwachsenen Menschen durchaus in ein Geistiges getaucht. Die Seele, der Geist sind hingegeben an die Umgebung. Daher scheint es, wie wenn man ein Ding in das Gegenteil. verkehren würde, wenn man von der Art, wie der Körper des Kindes an die Umgebung hingegeben lebt, spricht als von einem religiösen Erleben. Aber es ist ein naturhaft-religiöses Verhältnis. Das Kind ist hingegeben an die Umgebung, es lebt in der Außenwelt wie das Auge, das sich absondert von der übrigen Organisation und hingegeben ist an die Umgebung in Verehrung, in Gnadeerflehen; es ist ein religiöses Verhältnis ins Naturhafte herunterversetzt. Und wollen wir gewissermaßen ein sinnliches Bild desjenigen haben, was auf geistig-seelische Art im Erwachsenen vorgeht, wenn er religiös erlebt, dann brauchen wir nur den Leib des Kindes bis zum Zahnwechsel richtig ins Seelenauge zu fassen. Das Kind lebt religiös, aber eben naturhaft religiös. Es ist nicht die Seele hingegeben, sondern die Zirkulation seines Blutes, sein Atmungsprozeß, die Art und Weise, wie es sich ernährt durch die aufgenommene Nahrung. Alle diese Dinge sind hingegeben an die Umgebung. Die Blutzirkulation, die Atmungstätigkeit, die Ernährungstätigkeit beten an die Umgebung.
Natürlich klingt ein solcher Ausdruck paradox, aber in seiner Paradoxie stellt er gerade die Wahrheit dar. Wenn wir eben nicht mit dem theoretischen Verstande, sondern mit unserer ganzen Menschlichkeit ein solches erfassen, hinschauen auf den Kampf, den in dieser religiös naturhaften Grundstimmung das Kind vor uns entwickelt, den Kampf zwischen den Vererbungskräften und demjenigen, was für einen zweiten Menschen die individuellen Kräfte erbilden durch die Macht, die sie heruntergetragen hat aus dem vorirdischen Leben, dann verfällt man als der Erziehende auch in eine religiöse Stimmung. Aber ich möchte sagen: Während das Kind mit seinem physischen Körper in die religiöse Stimmung des Gläubigen verfällt, verfällt derjenige, der erziehen soll, indem er hinblickt auf dasjenige, was in so wunderbarer Weise zwischen Geburt und Zahnwechsel sich abspielt, in die religiöse Gesinnung des Priesters. Und es wird der Erzieherdienst zu einem priesterlichen Dienst, wie zu einer Art von Kultus, der sich am Weihealtar des allgemeinen Menschenlebens nicht mit dem zum Tode zu führenden Opfer, sondern mit dem zum Leben zu erweckenden Opfer der Menschlichkeit selbst vollzieht. Denn dem irdischen Leben haben wir zu übergeben, was aus der göttlich-geistigen Welt uns zugekommen ist in dem Kinde, das sich durch seine Kräfte einen zweiten menschlichen Organismus bildet aus einer Wesenheit, die durch eine Gabe des göttlich-geistigen Lebens zu uns gekommen ist.
Wenn wir diese Verhältnisse bedenken, dann erwacht in uns etwas wie das priesterliche Erziehergefühl. Und so lange dieses priesterliche Erziehergefühl für die ersten Lebensjahre nicht aufgenommen wird in alles dasjenige, was Erziehung heißt, so lange hat die Erziehung nicht ihre Lebensbedingungen gefunden. Mit dem Verstande beherrschen wollen, was zum Erziehen notwendig ist, Pädagogiken gestalten mit dem Verstande aus äußerer Anschauung der kindlichen Natur, das gibt höchstens Viertelpädagogiken. Ganze Pädagogiken dürfen nicht aus dem Verstande heraus geschrieben sein, ganze Pädagogiken müssen der Ausfluß sein auch der ganzen Menschennatur; nicht nur der äußerlich verstandesmäßig beobachtenden, sondern der innerlich die Geheimnisse des Weltenalls tief erlebenden ganzen Menschennatur. Es gibt wenig, was so wunderbar auf das menschliche Gemüt wirken kann, als wenn wir sehen, wie von Tag zu Tag, von Woche zu Woche, von Monat zu Monat, von Jahr zu Jahr in dem ersten kindlichen Lebensalter das innerliche Geistig-Seelische hervorbricht, wie aus den chaotischen Bewegungen der Gliedmaßen, aus dem am Äußeren hängenden Blick, aus dem Mienenspiel, von dem wir fühlen, es gehört eigentlich der Individualität des Kindes noch nicht ganz an, sich alles das herausentwickelt und an der Oberfläche der menschlichen Gestalt zur Ausprägung kommt, was aus dem Zentrum, aus dem Mittelpunkte des Menschen kommt, wo dasjenige in seiner Wirksamkeit sich entfaltet, was vom vorirdischen Leben als göttlich-geistige Wesenheit herabsteigt. Kann man das so auffassen, daß man verehrend, hingebungsvoll sich sagt: Da offenbart sich die Gottheit, die den Menschen geleitet hat bis zu seiner Geburt, weiter in der Ausprägung des menschlichen Organismus, da sehen wir die wirkende Gottheit, da empfinden wir, wie der Gott zu uns hereinschaut -, kann man diesen Gottesdienst der Erziehung zu einer Angelegenheit seines Herzens machen, dann ist dies dasjenige, was aus unserer eigenen Lehrerindividualität heraus nicht in angelernter, sondern in innerlich hervorquellender, lebendiger Methodik alles Erziehen und Unterrichten leiten kann.
Diese Stimmung dem werdenden Menschen gegenüber, die brauchen wir als etwas, was zu aller erzieherischen Methodik dazugehört. Ohne diese Gemütsstimmung, ohne dieses - im Weltensinne sei es gesagt — Priesterliche im Erzieher läßt sich Erziehung überhaupt nicht durchführen. Daher wird alles, was angestrebt werden soll an Umwandlung der Methodik, gerade darin bestehen müssen, das seit dem vierzehnten Jahrhundert zu stark intellektuell, zu stark verstandesmäßig Gewordene wieder zurückzuführen in das Gemüthafte, in dasjenige, was aus der ganzen Menschennatur, nicht bloß aus dem Kopf hervorquillt. Denn das lesen wir aus dem ab, was uns die Natur des Kindes, wenn wir sie unbefangen betrachten können, lesen lehrt.
Denn welchen Gang hat denn eigentlich unser Zivilisationsleben seit dem vierzehnten Jahrhundert angenommen? Man hat bei dem großen Kulturübergang, Kulturumschwung, der sich mit dem vierzehnten Jahrhundert vollzogen hat, zunächst nur hinschauen können auf dasjenige, was einen von der Innerlichkeit, ich möchte sagen, zur Außerlichkeit drängte. Es ist das Haften an der Äußerlichkeit so sehr zu etwas Selbstverständlichem für die heutige Menschheit geworden, daß man gar nicht mehr gewahr wird, wie in dieser Beziehung etwas anders werden kann. Man betrachtet den Zustand, in den man gekommen ist in der geschichtlichen Entwickelung, als einen absolut richtigen, nicht bloß als einen solchen, wie er den Bedingungen der Zeitkultur angehört. So wie die Menschen vor dem vierzehnten oder fünfzehnten Jahrhundert empfunden haben, so konnte man eben nicht mehr empfinden. Man hat dazumal in einer ebenso einseitigen Art das Geistige betrachtet, wie man heute in einseitiger Weise das Naturhafte betrachtet. Aber es mußte einmal die Betrachtung des rein Naturhaften beim Menschengeschlecht hinzukommen zu dem, was die frühere Menschheit in ihrer Hingabe an das naturlose GeistigSeelische hatte. Die Vermaterialisierung, der Umschwung war notwendig. Aber erkennen muß man, daß im gegenwärtigen Zeitpunkte, wenn die Menschheit der zivilisierten Welt nicht in Unkultur hinuntersinken will, ein neuerlicher Umschwung, eine Hinwendung zu dem Geistig-Seelischen notwendig ist. In dem Bewußtsein dieser Tatsache liegt eigentlich das Wesentliche aller solcher Bestrebungen, wie die Waldorfschulpädagogik eine ist. Eine solche Bestrebung will wurzeln in demjenigen, was sich für eine tiefere Beobachtung der Menschheitsentwickelung in unserer Zeit als das Notwendige offenbart. Wir müssen wiederum zurück zum Geistig-Seelischen. Dazu müssen wir erst ein deutliches Bewußtsein davon haben, wie wir aus ihm herausgekommen sind. Das haben heute viele eben noch nicht. Daher betrachten sie dasjenige, was wiederum zurückführen will zum Geistigen, wie ein, ja, nicht ganz Gescheites, könnte man sagen.
In dieser Beziehung bekommt man ja merkwürdige Proben zu hören. Nur wie in Parenthese, wie in der Klammer, möchte ich von einer interessanten Probe sprechen. Sehen Sie, da ist über die anthroposophische Methode, die Welt zu betrachten, auch ein im übrigen sehr interessantes Kapitel enthalten in dem neuen Buch von Maurice Maeterlinck «Das große Rätsel». Er bespricht da auch die Anthroposophie und — verzeihen Sie, daß ich persönlich werde - er bespricht mich. Er hat manche Bücher von mir gelesen, und er sagt folgendes — sehr interessant —, er sagt: Wenn man anfängt, meine Bücher zu lesen, dann stelle ich mich dar als ein abwägender, logischer, vorsichtiger Geist; wenn man weiter meine Bücher liest, in den späteren Kapiteln, dann erscheint es, als ob ich wahnsinnig geworden wäre. — Sehen Sie, das mag ja Maurice Maeterlinck so erscheinen, er hat natürlich das Recht dazu, subjektiv hat er das Recht dazu, denn warum sollte ich ihm nicht in den ersten Kapiteln als abwägend, logisch, wissenschaftlich erscheinen und in den späteren Kapiteln als verrückt? Das ist sein gutes Recht selbstverständlich, das wird ihm niemand abstreiten wollen. Aber es handelt sich darum, ob so etwas nicht zugleich absurd ist. Und es stellt sich als absurd heraus, wenn man folgendes bedenkt. Ich habe leider, Sie können dies an der sonderbaren Ausgestaltung des Büchertisches sehen, in meinem Leben recht viel geschrieben, und man kann schon sagen, wenn ich ein Buch aufgehört habe zu schreiben, fange ich wiederum an, ein neues zu schreiben. Wenn dann Maurice Maeterlinck dieses liest, so wird er wieder finden, daß ich in den ersten Kapiteln vorsichtig, abwägend, wissenschaftlich bin, bei den späteren Kapiteln werde ich wiederum wahnsinnig; dann gehe ich daran, ein drittes Buch zu schreiben, dann muß ich in den ersten Kapiteln wieder vernünftig sein und so weiter. Nun sehen Sie, ich muß also die Kunst verstehen, in den ersten Kapiteln des Buches durch Willkür ein ganz vernünftiger Mensch zu werden und ebenso durch Willkür wahnsinnig zu werden, um mich dann gleich wieder zurückzuversetzen in die Vernünftigkeit, wenn ich darangehe, das nächste Buch zu schreiben! Ich müßte also abwechselnd ein vernünftiger Mensch und dann wieder wahnsinnig werden. Er hat natürlich sein gutes Recht, das zu finden, aber auf die Absurdität einer solchen Anschauung aufmerksam zu werden, das vergißt er. Und so wird ein solcher bedeutender Mensch der Gegenwart eben absurd. Das soll nur, wie gesagt, ein Einschiebsel sein.
Es werden sich viele Menschen eben gar nicht bewußt, daß sie nicht aus dem ursprünglichen Quell der Menschennatur heraus urteilen, sondern aus demjenigen, was der äußeren Kultur seit dem vierzehnten Jahrhundert eingeprägt worden ist durch die äußere materialistische Lebensgestaltung und Bildung. Tiefer in den Menschen hineinzuschauen, das ist vor allen Dingen die Aufgabe des Pädagogen, des Erziehers, und damit eigentlich aller Menschen, die irgendwie mit Kindern etwas zu tun haben. Daher handelt es sich darum, durchaus sich bewußt zu sein, wie alles, was als Regung in der Umgebung lebt, im Kinde fortvibriert. Man muß sich schon klar darüber sein, daß in dieser Beziehung tatsächlich Imponderabilien, wie ich gestern sagte, herrschen. Das Kind wittert aus demjenigen, was wir in seiner Umgebung tun, heraus, welche Gedanken einer Handbewegung, einer Gebärde zugrunde liegen. Es wittert sie heraus, nicht dadurch selbstverständlich, daß es die Gebärden deutet, sondern durch ein viel regsameres inneres Verbundensein des Kindes mit dem Erwachsenen, als das später der Fall ist beim Erwachsenen gegenüber dem erwachsenen Menschen. Und so kommt es, daß wir uns nicht gestatten dürfen, in der Umgebung des Kindes anderes zu empfinden und zu denken als dasjenige, was in dem Kinde weitervibrieren kann. Im erzieherischen Verhalten gegenüber den ersten Jahren des Kindes muß durchaus der Grundsatz herrschen: Du mußt bis in deine Empfindung, Gefühl, Gedanke hinein in der Umgebung des Kindes so erleben, daß es in dem Kinde weitervibrieren kann. Und dann werden für das kindliche Alter der Psychologe, der Seelenbetrachter, der lebenserfahrene Mensch und der Arzt eine Einheit. Denn alles dasjenige, was auf das Kind einen Eindruck macht, so daß das Kind seelisch reagiert, setzt sich fort in seiner Blutzirkulation, in der Art und Weise wie es verdaut, bildet sich aus als Anlage desjenigen, was die Gesundheitsverfassung des späteren Lebens ist. Indem wir geistig-seelisch erziehen, rechnend auf die Nachahmefähigkeit des Kindes, erziehen wir zu gleicher Zeit körperlich-physisch. Denn das ist die wunderbare Metamorphose dessen, was an das Kind geistig und seelisch herantritt, um zur physischen Konstitution, zur organischen Verfassung, zur Gesundheits- oder Krankheitsanlage für das spätere Leben zu werden.
So kann man sagen: In der Waldorfschulpädagogik erziehen wir nicht deshalb geistig-seelisch, weil wir in einseitiger Weise auf das Geistig-Seelische wirken wollen, sondern wir erziehen geistig-seelisch aus dem Grunde, weil wir wissen, daß wir damit im eminentesten Sinne das Innere des Menschen, das innerhalb seiner Haut gelegen ist, physisch erziehen. Das wird sich Ihnen an den Beispielen zeigen, die ich gestern vorbrachte. Nach dem Modell, das die Vererbungskräfte dem Menschen geliefert haben, baut er seinen zweiten Menschen auf, der dann da ist zum Erleben in der zweiten Lebensepoche zwischen dem Zahnwechsel und der Geschlechtsreife. Ebenso wie in der ersten Lebensepoche der Mensch sich einen zweiten Leib gewissermaßen erkämpft durch dasjenige, was in ihm aus früheren Erdenleben unvererbt in dem rein geistigen Leben zwischen dem Tod und einer neuen Geburt in der Individualität vorhanden ist, ebenso kämpfen in der zweiten Epoche zwischen Zahnwechsel und Geschlechtsreife die Einflüsse der Außenwelt gegen dasjenige, was der Mensch sich in seine Individualität eingliedern will. Jetzt werden die Einflüsse in der Außenwelt mächtig. Und der Mensch wird innerlich gefestigt, weil er nicht mehr wie ein Sinnesorgan so fortvibrieren läßt in seiner Organisation alles das, was in der Außenwelt da ist. Das sinnliche Erfassen konzentriert sich mehr an die Oberfläche des Menschen, an die Peripherie. Die Sinne nehmen erst jetzt ihre Selbständigkeit an, und als erstes tritt einem dann entgegen am Menschen etwas, was nicht intellektualistische Beziehung zur Welt ist, was eine Beziehung zur Welt ist, die sich nur vergleichen läßt mit der künstlerischen Lebensauffassung. Während unsere erste Lebensauffassung eine religiöse ist, in der wir als naturhaft religiöse Geschöpfe der Natur gegenüberstehen, hingegeben sind an die Umgebung, wird es jetzt zu unserem inneren Bedürfnis, alles dasjenige, was uns in der Umgebung entgegentritt, nun nicht mehr bloß hinzunehmen und es passiv fortvibrieren zu lassen in der Leiblichkeit, sondern es bildhaft umzugestalten. Das Kind ist zwischen dem Zahnwechsel und der Geschlechtsreife ein Artist, wenn eben auch in kindlicher Weise, wie es in der ersten Lebensepoche bis zum Zahnwechsel in naturhafter Weise ein Homo religiosus, ein religiöses Geschöpf ist. Da das Kind jetzt fordert, alles in bildhaft-künstlerischer Weise zu bekommen, hat ihm der Lehrende, Erziehende gegenüberzustehen als ein solcher, der alles, was er an das Kind heranbringt, als ein künstlerisch Formender an das Kind heranbringt. Das ist dasjenige, was als eine Forderung an den Erziehenden und Unterrichtenden unserer heutigen Kultur gestellt werden muß, was in die Erziehungskunst einfließen muß. Künstlerisches muß sich abspielen zwischen dem Zahnwechsel und der Geschlechtsreife zwischen dem Unterrichtenden und Erziehenden und dem heranwachsenden Menschen. In dieser Beziehung haben wir als Lehrer gar mancherlei zu überwinden. Denn unsere Zivilisation und Kultur, die uns äußerlich zunächst umgeben, sind ja so geworden, daß sie nur noch auf den Intellekt berechnet sind, daß sie auf das Künstlerische noch nicht berechnet sind.
Wenn wir in unseren heutigen Handbüchern die wunderbarsten Naturvorgänge, sagen wir, die Darstellung des embryonalen Lebens lesen, oder wenn wir die diesbezüglichen Lehren an unseren Schulen aufnehmen - ich kritisiere das nicht, ich charakterisiere es nur, denn ich weiß sehr gut, daß das so werden mußte und daß es in einem bestimmten Zeitpunkte der Menschheitsentwickelung eine Notwendigkeit war -—, wenn wir mit der Kraft, die heute wieder erwachen will, das aufnehmen, was sich uns da darbietet, dann geschieht etwas im Fühlen des Menschen, was man sich gar nicht gestehen mag, weil man glaubt, man sündigt gegen die Reife, die das Menschengeschlecht in der weltgeschichtlichen Entwickelung erlangt hat. Und es wäre gut, wenn man sich ein diesbezügliches Geständnis machen würde. Lesen Sie heute Bücher über Embryologie, über Botanik, Zoologie: es ist ja zum Verzweifeln, wie man sofort in intellektualistische Kälte untertauchen muß, und wie alles Künstlerische — denn es gibt nichts Intellektualistisches, was im Werden der Natur lebt - da ganz bewußt methodisch ausgetrieben wird. Wenn wir als Lehrer ein heutiges Botanikbuch zur Hand nehmen, das nach ganz exakten Regeln der Wissenschaft geformt ist, so haben wir als Lehrer die Aufgabe, zunächst alles das aus uns auszuschalten, was wir in diesem Buche finden. Wir müssen es natürlich aufnehmen, weil wir sonst auf keine andere Weise zur Kenntnis dessen kommen, was in der Pflanzenwelt vorgeht. Wir müssen uns schon opfern, durch die heutigen Bücher das kennenzulernen. Aber wir müssen sie ausschalten, sobald wir als Lehrende oder Erziehende an das Kind zwischen dem Zahnwechsel und der Geschlechtsreife herantreten. Da muß sich durch uns selber, durch unsere künstlerische Lebendigkeit, durch unseren künstlerischen Sinn alles ins KünstlerischBildhafte umgestalten. Da muß sich das, was in meinen Gedanken lebt über die Natur, in dasjenige verwandeln, was auf den Flügeln menschlicher artistischer Begeisterungsfähigkeit zum Bilde wird und als Bild vor die kindliche Seele hintritt. Künstlerisch gestalten den Unterricht zwischen dem Zahnwechsel und der Geschlechtsreife, das ist dasjenige, um was es sich nur handeln kann bei einer Metamorphose unserer pädagogischen Grundansichten von der Gegenwart in die nächste Zukunft hinein. Wie wir ein Priesterliches brauchen für die erste kindliche Lebensepoche, so brauchen wir ein Artistisches, ein Künstlerisches für die zweite Lebensepoche des Menschen, für die Epoche zwischen dem Zahnwechsel und der Geschlechtsreife. Denn was tun wir denn eigentlich, wenn wir an dem Menschen bilden in dieser Lebensepoche? Da will die Individualität, die aus früheren Erdenleben und aus der geistigen Welt heraus kommt, sich einen zweiten Menschen allmählich gestalten und will ihn durchdringen, und wir stehen Pate bei diesem Durchdringen, wir einverleiben dasjenige, was wir neben dem Kinde lehrend, erziehend tun, den Kräften, die sich in das Geistig-Seelische hineinweben sollen, um den zweiten Menschen, den Menschen gerade in seiner Eigenart zu gestalten. Wiederum muß es das Bewußtsein von dieser Weltstellung sein, was wie ein innerlich belebender Impuls dasjenige durchdringt, was Unterrichtsmethodik und Lebensbedingungen des Erziehens sein sollen. Nachdenken kann man gar nicht über das, was man da tun soll; man kann es nur werden lassen unter dem lebendigen Eindruck, den das Kind auf den Lehrenden und Erziehenden macht.
Denn in zwei Extreme kann man in dieser Lebensepoche beim Unterrichten und Erziehen verfallen. Das erste Extrem wird darin bestehen, daß wir aus der intellektualistischen Anlage zu intellektuell an das Kind herantreten, von dem Kinde fordern, daß es zum Beispiel scharfkonturierte Begriffe aufnimmt, Definitionen, wie man sagt. Es ist ja so bequem, zu erziehen und zu unterrichten mit Definitionen. Denn die Begabteren lernen die Definitionen nachsagen, und man kann dann sich die Bequemlichkeit verschaffen, in den nächsten Stunden das gewußt zu sehen von den Kindern, was man ihnen in den vorhergehenden Stunden beigebracht hat. Und die es dann nicht wissen nach einer gewissen Zeit, die läßt man sitzenbleiben. Das ist eine sehr bequeme Methode. Aber sie läßt sich vergleichen mit der Methode, die ein Schuster entwickeln würde, wenn er für ein dreijähriges Kind Schuhe machen müßte und nun verlangt, daß sie das zehnjährige noch tragen soll; sie sind scharf konturiert, die Schuhe, aber sie passen dem Kinde nicht mehr. So ist es mit dem, was das Kind aufnimmt. Was das Kind im siebten, achten Lebensjahre aufnimmt, im zwölften Lebensjahre paßt es nicht mehr zu seiner Seele, es kann es ebensowenig brauchen wie die Schuhe, die zu klein geworden sind. Nur bemerkt man das beim Seelischen nicht. Der Lehrer, der im zwölften Jahre des Kindes noch die Definitionen verlangt, die früher gebracht worden sind, der gleicht dem Schuster, der dem zehnjährigen Kinde die Schuhe des dreijährigen noch anziehen will. Es kommt bloß mit den Zehen hinein, die Schuhe umfassen die Fersen nicht mehr. Ein großes Stück des Geistig-Seelischen bleibt außerhalb des Unterrichtens und Erziehens. Was notwendig ist, das ist, durch ein künstlerisch Biegsames, das wachsen kann, dem Kinde solche Empfindungen und Vorstellungen und Vorstellungsempfindungen im Bilde zu geben, die Metamorphosen durchlaufen können, die einfach dadurch, daß die Seele wächst, mitwachsen können. Dazu gehört aber ein lebendiges Verhältnis des Lehrers, des Erziehers zu dem Kinde, nicht ein totes, das man aus toten pädagogischen Begriffen sich aneignet. Und deshalb muß auch der ganze Unterricht zwischen dem ungefähr siebenten, achten und dem vierzehnten, fünfzehnten Lebensjahre in dieser Weise von Bildhaftigkeit durchdrungen werden.
Das widerstrebt in vieler Beziehung dem Äußeren unserer heutigen äußerlichen Kultur. Gewiß sind wir in diese heutige Kultur hineingestellt. Wir lesen Bücher; da sind sinnvolle Inhalte vermittelt durch solche kleine Zeichen, die wir a, b, c und so weiter nennen. Wir denken gar nicht daran, wie wir malträtiert worden sind, um diese Zeichen zu lernen, denn sie stehen in gar keinem Verhältnis zu unserem inneren Leben. Warum sollte denn ein A oder ein E so sein, wie es heute ist? Es gibt keine innere Notwendigkeit. Man kann es nicht erleben, wenn man das, was man als Verwunderung, als ah! ausspricht, so aufschreiben soll, noch gar ein h dazu machen soll. Das war auch noch nicht vorhanden in einer älteren Menschheit. Da verbildlichte man in der äußeren Bilderschrift dasjenige, was äußere Vorgänge waren. Da hatte man, wenn man hinsah auf das Blatt, auf die Tafel, auf der man so etwas vergegenwärtigte, einen Nachklang des äußeren Prozesses oder äußeren Dinges. Es handelt sich darum, daß wir vor allen Dingen das sechs-, siebenjährige Kind mit dem Erlernen der Schriftgestaltung, wie sie heute ist, verschonen; es handelt sich darum, daß wir an das Kind heranbringen dasjenige, was aus dem Kinde selber kommen kann, aus der Betätigung seiner Arme, aus der Betätigung seiner Finger. Es schaut mit seinen Augen irgendeinen glänzenden Gegenstand an. Es wird, wenn es den glänzenden Gegenstand anschaut, einen Eindruck haben, und man läßt es den Glanz durch eine Art glänzende Zeichnung fixieren. Dann weiß das Kind, worum es sich handelt. Streift das Kind von oben nach unten über einen Stab, und ich lasse es dann einen Strich machen, der von oben nach unten geht, dann weiß das Kind wieder, worum es sich handelt. Ich zeige ihm einen Fisch. Ich lasse das Kind die Hauptrichtung des Fisches verfolgen. Dann lasse ich die Hinter- und Vorderflosse verfolgen; das durchquert das Vorige. Ich lasse die Hauptrichtung und dann dieses Durchqueren aufzeichnen und sage: Was du da auf dem Papier hast, das kommt vom Fisch. Du hast ihn ja angegriffen. — Und jetzt führe ich hinüber in das innere Erleben des Wortes Fisch. Da ist darinnen das F. Das lasse ich jetzt auch so machen: einen Strich und durchqueren. Ich hole mir den Laut, mit dem das Wort Fisch beginnt, aus dem heraus, was erfühlt wird von dem Kinde. So kann ich das Ganze der Schrift hervorgehen lassen nicht aus abstraktem Nachahmen der Zeichen, wie sie heute sind, sondern aus dem Erfassen der Dinge selber, die im zeichnenden Malen, im malenden Zeichnen der Kinder entstehen. So kann ich die Schrift hervorholen aus dem zeichnenden Malen, aus dem malenden Zeichnen. Dann stehe ich in der lebendigen Bildhaftigkeit darinnen.
Ich brauche nur hinzudeuten auf ein solches künstlerisches Beginnen, und man wird schon fühlen können, wie es das ganze Kind in Anspruch nimmt, nicht bloß einseitig das Verstehen, das man bei dem einen Extrem zu sehr in Anspruch nimmt. Geht man so aus dem Intellektuellen in das Bildhafte hinein, so tritt das Intellektualistische ganz zurück für das kindliche Alter. Übertreibt man das Intellektualistische, ist man nicht imstande, auf das Bildhafte überzugehen, dann kommt beim Kinde in einer feinen, intimen Weise der Atmungsprozeß in Unordnung. Ich möchte sagen, es verdichtet sich in einem ohnmächtig werdenden Ausatmungsprozeß. Das müssen Sie sich nicht gleich grob vorstellen, sondern in feiner Weise, in differentieller Weise. Es verdichtet sich der Ausatmungsvorgang, und das Kind hat ein unterbewußtes Alpdrücken, wenn der Intellektualismus zwischen dem siebenten und vierzehnten Jahre zu stark an es herangebracht wird. Es kommt ein innerlich, ich möchte sagen, intimes Alpdrücken zustande, das der Organisation bleibt und das in einem späteren Alter zu asthmatischen Zuständen oder allerlei Krankheiten treibt, welche zusammenhängen mit einem nicht flotten Atmungsprozeß,.
Treibt man dagegen das andere Extrem zu weit, stellt man sich in die Schule hinein wie ein kleiner Cäsar, indem man natürlich glaubt, man sei ein großer Cäsar, dann stellt sich heraus, daß das Kind sich fortwährend an den Willensimpulsen des Lehrers spießt. Ebenso wie man die Ausatmung verdichtet durch das Extrem des Intellektualistischen, verdünnt man die Kräfte, welche den Stoffwechsel besorgen sollen, durch ein einseitiges Befehlen, ein einseitiges Entwickeln der Willensimpulse als Lehrer. Es entwickeln sich im Kinde die Schwächen der Verdauungsorgane, die dann im späteren Alter zum Vorschein kommen können. Beides ist eine Unmöglichkeit in der Erziehung: das Intellektualistische auf der einen Seite, und das vom Lehrer ausgehende übertriebene Willenshafte auf der anderen Seite. In dem Waagehalten, in dem Gleichgewichthalten zwischen beiden, in dem, was sich im Gemüte vollzieht, wenn der Wille sanft übergeht in die eigene Tätigkeit des Kindes, und dem, wo der Intellekt sich abmildert, so daß er den Atmungsprozeß nicht bedrückt, in der Gemütsbildung, die nach dem Bilde hinneigt und die sich äußert in einem solchen Schwebenkönnen, wie ich es charakterisiert habe, da liegt das Heil der kindlichen Entwickelung zwischen dem Zahnwechsel und der Geschlechtsreife.
So kann man ablesen an der Menschenentwickelung aus wahrer Menschenerkenntnis heraus dasjenige, was man von Woche zu Woche, von Monat zu Monat, von Jahr zu Jahr mit dem Kinde erzieherisch und unterrichtend zu vollbringen hat. Der Lehrplan muß sein eine Kopie desjenigen, was man in der Menschenentwickelung lesen kann. Wie das geschieht, werde ich mir erlauben, in allen Einzelheiten in den nächsten Vorträgen zu entwickeln.
Second Lecture
Yesterday, I took the liberty of talking about the teacher who stands before the children. Today, I will first try to characterize the child in its development as it stands before the teacher. Upon closer observation of all the forces that come into play in human development during childhood, one must first distinguish between three clearly separate stages of life at the beginning of earthly existence. And only if one practices human knowledge in such a way that one looks at the peculiarities of each of these stages is teaching and education in an appropriate, or rather, in a humane way really possible.
The first stage of a child's life ends with the change of teeth. Now, I do not fail to recognize that consideration is given in today's common views to the transformation of the child's body and soul at this age, but not in such a thorough way that one would be able to see everything that is going on with the human being at this tender age and that must be understood and grasped if one wants to educate the human being. The eruption of teeth that are no longer the inherited teeth of the first years is only the most extreme symptom of a complete transformation of the whole human being. Much, much more is going on in the organism, even if it is not so visible externally, and it is only in the eruption of the second teeth that it finds its most radical expression.
When we look at these things, we must be clear that contemporary physiology and psychology are not in a position to look deeply into the human being, because they have developed their methods, which are excellent in their own way, by observing only what lies externally in the physical body and what is revealed by the soul in this body. As I said yesterday, the primary task of anthroposophical spiritual science is to look into the whole of human development in terms of body, soul, and spirit. But right from the start, we must dispel a prejudice that inevitably trips up all those — and I do not deny this — who approach Waldorf school pedagogy and didactics without a thorough understanding of anthroposophy. Do not think for a moment that I would claim that we simply ignore the objections that can be raised against Waldorf education. That is certainly not the case. On the contrary, anyone who stands on spiritual ground such as that of anthroposophy cannot be a one-sided fanatic in any respect; they will thoroughly consider all the objections that can be raised against their views. And so it seems perfectly understandable to them when, time and again, objections are raised against what is said in education from an anthroposophical perspective: Yes, you must first prove that.
You see, this proving is very often said without connecting it to a clear, distinct concept of what it actually means. I cannot give a detailed lecture here on the methodology of proving in the various areas of life and knowledge, but I would like to clarify it with the following comparison. What do people mean today when they say that something should be proven? Well, the entire education of humanity since the fourteenth century has been based on justifying all insight from what we see, that is, from sensory perception. Before this period, before the fourteenth century, things were quite different. But today, people no longer see how their ancestors had different perspectives on the entire structure of the world. For in a certain sense, people today are arrogant in their awareness of the education they have acquired over the last few centuries, and they easily look down on what they believe to be the childish behavior of people in the Dark Ages, for example, which they do not really know anything about but call dark. We should just consider what our descendants will say about us if they think just as arrogantly! From such a point of view, they will find us just as childish as we want to find medieval people childish today.
In the period preceding the fourteenth century, people saw the world of the senses and also understood it with their intellect. And the intellect, which is so often underestimated today, which prevailed in medieval monastery schools, was internally much more highly developed as intellect, as conceptual ability, than the chaotic conceptual ability that is led by the hand of natural phenomena, which today often stands out for those who consider these things objectively and impartially. At that time, everything that the intellect and senses saw in the world had to be justified from the divine-spiritual world order. Sensory revelation must be justified from divine-spiritual revelation: at that time, this was not merely an abstract principle, but a general human feeling and sensation. Only then can something be valid in the sensory world, when it has been recognized in such a way that it can be proven and demonstrated from the divine-spiritual world order.
This changed, slowly at first, as one view gave way to another. But by our time, it has come to the point where everything, even in the divine-spiritual world order, is only supposed to be valid if it can be proven from the sensory world, if experiments and sensory observations can be carried out in such a way that they can be used to substantiate the things that are said about the spiritual. What is someone actually asking today when they say: Prove to me something that concerns the spiritual? — They are asking the following: Have you conducted an experiment, have you made a sensory observation that proves this? Why do they ask this? They ask this because they have lost confidence in the inner activity of human beings, in the ability to gain insights that come from within, as opposed to what one obtains by looking at external life, sensory appearances, and intellectual knowledge. One might say that humanity has become weak on the inside; it no longer feels the strong support of an inwardly productive life. And what I have just said has a profound influence on all practical activities, especially on the work of educators. Proving in this sense, through external sensory perception, through observation or experiment, can be compared to someone being pointed to an object that falls down if it is not supported; the gravity of the earth attracts it, it must be supported until it stands on solid ground. Now if someone comes and says: Yes, you tell us that the earth and the other heavenly bodies float freely in space; I don't understand that; every object must be supported so that it does not fall down — then one must say: But the earth does not fall down, nor does the sun, nor do the other heavenly bodies. One must completely rethink when one moves from earthly conditions into cosmic space. One must say: There, the heavenly bodies support each other; there, the laws that apply to the immediate surroundings of the earth cease to apply.
So it is with spiritual truths. If one asserts anything about the sensory nature of plants, animals, minerals, or physical human beings, one must prove it through experimentation and sensory observation. In this case, that means one must support the object. When one enters the free realm of the spirit, the truths must support each other. There, one can only find proof of things by means of the truths supporting each other. Therefore, the representation of the spiritual is just as much a matter of clearly placing some insight into the whole context as the Earth or another celestial body is freely placed in outer space. The truths must support each other. So that those who strive for insights into the spiritual world must first seek how truths come from other sides, which, in a sense, with the free gravitational forces of proof, hold the one truth just as freely in space without support, as a celestial body is held freely in cosmic space by the mutually acting gravitational forces. This must become a thorough inner conviction in order to be able to think about the spiritual, otherwise one will be able to grasp, educate, and teach the soul in human beings, but not the spirit that lives and breathes in them just as much as the soul.
When a human being enters the physical-sensory world, the physical body is entrusted to them by their parents and ancestors. Today, there is already a certain amount of knowledge about nature, although it is not yet complete—it will only be perfected much later. For spiritual science, this is part of the human being. For the other part of the human being, which unites with what comes from the father and mother, descends as a spiritual-soul being from the spiritual-soul world. Between the previous earthly life and the present one, it has undergone a long period between death and a new birth. It has had experiences in the spiritual realm during this life between death and a new birth, just as we have our experiences on earth between birth and death, mediated physically through our senses, our intellect, our feelings, and our will. This being, with the experiences it has undergone spiritually, descends and initially connects itself in a loose manner with the physical body of the human being during the embryonic period. It is still present in a loose manner, hovering around the human being as an aura, so to speak, during the first childhood age between birth and the change of teeth. And one may say: because what descends from the spiritual world as a spiritual-soul being is just as real as what we see emerging from the mother's body with our eyes, because it is even more loosely connected to physical corporeality than is later the case with human beings, the child lives even more outside its body than the later adult human being.
And this is just another way of expressing what I said yesterday: in this early period, the child is, to the highest degree, a sensory being in its entire being. It is like a sensory organ. Impressions from the environment trickle through the whole organism, resonate, and echo, because the child is not yet as intimately connected to its body as the human being later on, but lives in the environment with the looser spiritual-soul. Therefore, everything that comes as impressions from this environment is absorbed.
How does what a person receives through pure heredity in the physical realm from their father and mother relate to their overall being? If one looks at human development with a view to describing it, and not simply to prove it in the sense I have just characterized, if one looks at it with a view to observing the spiritual, then one will find that everything in the organism is based on hereditary forces, just like the first teeth, the so-called milk teeth. One need only look, but with a truly precise gaze, at how differently the second teeth are formed from the first, and how it is, I would say, palpable what actually happens to human beings from birth to the change of teeth. From birth to the change of teeth, the whole human being, in which the forces of heredity are at work in the physical realm, is like a kind of model on which the spiritual-soul works according to the impressions of the environment as a purely imitative being. And when you put yourself in the child's mind in relation to its environment, how the child views every movement of the soul in its entirety, how the child senses the spiritual behind the adult in every hand movement, in every expression, in every glance of the eye, senses the spiritual behind the adult and lets it trickle into itself, when one observes all this, then one finds that, according to the model handed down to the human being through heredity, another model is now formed in the course of the first seven years of life. As human beings, we really do receive a model from the earthly world through the forces of heredity, according to which we form the second human being, who is actually only born when the teeth change. Just as the little tooth, the milk tooth, that sits in the body is pushed out by the one that wants to take its place, just as we see how something belonging to the individuality of the human being pushes forward and rejects what has been inherited, so it is with the whole human organism. During the first seven years of life, it was the model result of the forces of the earth. It is rejected, just as we reject the outer tendrils of our body, cut away our fingernails, cut our hair, and so on. Just as the outer is constantly being rejected, the human being is renewed with the change of teeth. Only this second human being, who completely replaces the first, which we receive through physical heredity, is now formed under the influence of the forces that the human being brings with them from their pre-earthly life. And so, in the period of life between birth and the change of teeth, the forces of heredity, which belong to the physical stream of human development, struggle with the forces that each individual human being brings down from their pre-earthly life as the results of their previous individual earthly lives.
Now it is a matter of not only understanding such a fact with the theoretical mind, as most people do according to today's habits of thinking, but of also grasping such a fact with the whole inner human being, grasping it from the child's side, grasping it from the educator's side. When we grasp what is present from the child's perspective, we find that the child, with its inner soul being, with what it has brought down from its pre-earthly life, from the spiritual-soul world, is completely devoted to the physical effects of the other people around it. And this relationship, translated into the natural world, into the external world, is a relationship that we can only describe as religious. We just have to agree on the way in which such expressions are meant. Of course, when we speak of a religious relationship today, we look at the consciously developed religious feeling of the adult. The essential thing is that the spiritual and soul life of the adult human being is absorbed in the spiritual life of the world, surrenders itself to this spiritual life of the world. The religious relationship is a surrender, a surrender to the world imploring grace, but in the adult human being it is completely immersed in the spiritual. The soul and spirit are devoted to the environment. Therefore, it seems as if one were turning something into its opposite when one speaks of the way in which the child's body lives devoted to the environment as a religious experience. But it is a natural-religious relationship. The child is devoted to its surroundings; it lives in the outside world like the eye, which separates itself from the rest of the organism and is devoted to its surroundings in reverence, in supplication for grace; it is a religious relationship brought down to the natural level. And if we want to have a sensual image of what goes on in the adult's mind and soul when he experiences religion, then we need only to grasp the child's body with the eye of the soul until the change of teeth. The child lives religiously, but in a natural way. It is not the soul that is devoted, but the circulation of its blood, its breathing process, the way it nourishes itself through the food it eats. All these things are devoted to the environment. Blood circulation, breathing, and nutrition worship the environment.
Of course, such an expression sounds paradoxical, but in its paradox it represents the truth. If we grasp this not with our theoretical mind, but with our whole humanity, look at the struggle that the child develops before us in this religious, natural mood, the struggle between the inherited forces and what forms the individual forces for a second human being through the power that it has carried down from its pre-earthly life, then as the educator one also falls into a religious mood. But I would like to say: while the child falls into the religious mood of the believer with its physical body, the one who is to educate, by looking at what takes place in such a wonderful way between birth and the change of teeth, falls into the religious mood of the priest. And the task of the educator becomes a priestly service, like a kind of cult, which is performed at the altar of consecration of general human life, not with a sacrifice leading to death, but with the sacrifice of humanity itself, which is to be awakened to life. For we must hand over to earthly life what has come to us from the divine-spiritual world in the child, who through his or her own powers forms a second human organism from a being that has come to us through a gift of divine-spiritual life.
When we consider these circumstances, something like the priestly feeling of the educator awakens in us. And as long as this priestly feeling of education is not incorporated into everything that education means for the first years of life, education has not found its conditions for life. Wanting to control with the intellect what is necessary for education, shaping pedagogies with the intellect from an external view of child nature, produces at best a quarter of a pedagogy. Complete pedagogies must not be written from the intellect; complete pedagogies must also be the outflow of the whole of human nature, not only of the outwardly intellectual observation, but of the whole of human nature that deeply experiences the mysteries of the universe. There is little that can have such a wonderful effect on the human mind as when we see how, day by day, week by week, month by month, year by year, in the first years of childhood, the inner spiritual and soul life bursts forth, how from the chaotic movements of the limbs, from the gaze fixed on the outside world, from the facial expressions, we feel it does not yet quite belong to the child's individuality, develops and comes to the surface of the human form, what comes from the center, from the center of the human being, where that which descends from the pre-earthly life as a divine-spiritual being unfolds in its effectiveness. Can we understand this in such a way that we say to ourselves with reverence and devotion: Here is revealed the divinity that has guided the human being until his birth, further in the expression of the human organism, there we see the working divinity, there we feel how God looks in upon us — can we make this worship of education a matter of our heart, then this is what can guide all education and teaching out of our own individuality as teachers, not in a learned way, but in a living methodology that springs forth from within.
We need this attitude toward the developing human being as something that belongs to all educational methodology. Without this attitude, without this—in the worldly sense, let it be said—priestly quality in the educator, education cannot be carried out at all. Therefore, everything that is to be striven for in terms of transforming methodology must consist precisely in bringing back what has become too intellectual, too rational since the fourteenth century, back to the heart, to that which springs from the whole of human nature, not just from the head. For this is what we learn from the nature of the child, when we are able to observe it impartially.
For what course has our civilized life actually taken since the fourteenth century? During the great cultural transition, the cultural upheaval that took place in the fourteenth century, people were initially only able to look at what pushed them from inwardness, I would say, to outwardness. Clinging to outward appearances has become so much a matter of course for humanity today that people are no longer aware of how things could be different in this respect. People regard the state they have reached in historical development as absolutely right, not merely as one that belongs to the conditions of the culture of the time. It was no longer possible to feel as people did before the fourteenth or fifteenth century. At that time, people viewed the spiritual in just as one-sided a way as we view the natural today. But the human race had to add the consideration of the purely natural to what earlier humanity had in its devotion to the unnatural spiritual-soul life. The materialization, the reversal, was necessary. But we must recognize that at the present moment, if humanity in the civilized world does not want to sink into barbarism, a new reversal, a turning toward the spiritual-soul realm, is necessary. The essence of all such endeavors, such as Waldorf education, lies in the awareness of this fact. Such an endeavor wants to take root in what is revealed as necessary for a deeper observation of human development in our time. We must return to the spiritual and soul-related. To do this, we must first have a clear awareness of how we have strayed from it. Many people today do not yet have this awareness. Therefore, they regard anything that seeks to lead us back to the spiritual as something that is, one might say, not entirely sensible.
In this regard, one hears some curious examples. Just as an aside, I would like to mention an interesting example. You see, there is a very interesting chapter on the anthroposophical method of viewing the world in Maurice Maeterlinck's new book, “The Great Mystery.” He also discusses anthroposophy and — forgive me for getting personal — he discusses me. He has read some of my books, and he says the following — very interesting — he says: When you start reading my books, I present myself as a thoughtful, logical, cautious mind; when you continue reading my books, in the later chapters, it seems as if I have gone mad. — You see, that may appear that way to Maurice Maeterlinck, and of course he has the right to think so, subjectively he has the right to think so, because why shouldn't I appear to him in the first chapters as thoughtful, logical, scientific, and in the later chapters as crazy? That is his right, of course, no one would deny that. But the question is whether this is not also absurd. And it turns out to be absurd when you consider the following. Unfortunately, as you can see from the strange arrangement of the book table, I have written quite a lot in my life, and it's fair to say that when I finish writing one book, I start writing a new one. When Maurice Maeterlinck reads it, he will find that in the first chapters I am cautious, thoughtful, scientific, but in the later chapters I go mad again; then I start writing a third book, and in the first chapters I have to be reasonable again, and so on. So you see, I have to master the art of becoming a perfectly reasonable person in the first chapters of the book, and then, just as arbitrarily, going mad, only to return to reason again when I start writing the next book! So I would have to alternate between being a reasonable person and then going mad again. Of course, he has every right to think that, but he fails to notice the absurdity of such a view. And so such an important person of the present day becomes absurd. As I said, this is just an aside.
Many people are simply not aware that they do not judge from the original source of human nature, but from what has been imprinted on external culture since the fourteenth century by the external materialistic way of life and education. To look deeper into human beings is above all the task of the teacher, the educator, and thus actually of all people who have anything to do with children. Therefore, it is important to be aware of how everything that lives as a stimulus in the environment continues to vibrate in the child. We must be clear that, as I said yesterday, imponderables do indeed prevail in this regard. Children sense from what we do in their environment what thoughts underlie a hand movement or a gesture. They sense this, not of course by interpreting the gestures, but through a much more active inner connection between the child and the adult than is later the case between adults. And so it is that we must not allow ourselves to feel and think anything in the child's environment other than what can continue to resonate in the child. In our educational behavior toward the child in its early years, the principle must prevail: you must experience your feelings, emotions, and thoughts in the child's environment in such a way that they can continue to resonate in the child. And then, for the child's age, the psychologist, the observer of the soul, the person experienced in life, and the doctor become one. For everything that makes an impression on the child, so that the child reacts emotionally, continues in its blood circulation, in the way it digests, and forms the basis of what will be its state of health in later life. By educating spiritually and emotionally, counting on the child's ability to imitate, we are at the same time educating physically. For this is the wonderful metamorphosis of what approaches the child spiritually and emotionally, becoming the physical constitution, the organic constitution, the predisposition to health or illness for later life.
So we can say: in Waldorf school education, we do not educate spiritually and emotionally because we want to influence the spiritual and emotional in a one-sided way, but we educate spiritually and emotionally because we know that in doing so we are educating the inner being of the human being, which lies within their skin, in the most eminent sense. This will become clear to you from the examples I gave yesterday. According to the model provided by hereditary forces, the human being builds up his or her second human being, which is then there to experience the second phase of life between the change of teeth and sexual maturity. Just as in the first phase of life, the human being, in a sense, fights for a second body through what is present in him from previous earthly lives, inherited in the purely spiritual life between death and a new birth in individuality, so in the second phase between the change of teeth and sexual maturity, the influences of the outside world fight against what the human being wants to integrate into his individuality. Now the influences of the outside world become powerful. And the human being becomes internally strengthened because he no longer allows everything that is in the outside world to vibrate in his organization like a sensory organ. Sensory perception concentrates more on the surface of the human being, on the periphery. Only now do the senses assume their independence, and the first thing that confronts us in human beings is something that is not an intellectual relationship to the world, but a relationship to the world that can only be compared to an artistic view of life. While our first view of life is a religious one, in which we face nature as naturally religious creatures, devoted to our surroundings, it now becomes our inner need to no longer simply accept everything that confronts us in our surroundings and let it vibrate passively in our physicality, but to transform it pictorially. Between the change of teeth and sexual maturity, the child is an artist, albeit in a childlike way, just as in the first phase of life up to the change of teeth, it is a natural homo religiosus, a religious creature. Since the child now demands to receive everything in a pictorial and artistic way, the teacher and educator must face the child as someone who brings everything he or she brings to the child as an artistic shaper. This is what must be demanded of educators and teachers in our culture today, what must flow into the art of education. Artistic activity must take place between the change of teeth and sexual maturity, between the teacher and educator and the growing human being. In this relationship, we as teachers have many things to overcome. For our civilization and culture, which initially surround us externally, have become so that they are only calculated for the intellect, that they are not yet calculated for the artistic.
When we read about the most wonderful natural processes in our current textbooks, for example, the description of embryonic life, or when we absorb the relevant teachings in our schools—I am not criticizing this, I am merely characterizing it, because I know very well that it had to be this way and that it was a necessity at a certain point in human development— — when we take in what is presented to us with the power that wants to reawaken today, something happens in human feeling that one does not want to admit, because one believes that one is sinning against the maturity that the human race has attained in world historical development. And it would be good to make a confession in this regard. Read today's books on embryology, botany, zoology: it is exasperating how one must immediately immerse oneself in intellectual coldness, and how everything artistic — for there is nothing intellectual that lives in the becoming of nature — is quite consciously and methodically expelled. When we as teachers pick up a modern botany book that is structured according to the exact rules of science, we have the task of first eliminating everything we find in this book from our own minds. Of course, we have to absorb it, because otherwise we have no other way of learning about what is going on in the plant world. We must sacrifice ourselves in order to learn this from today's books. But we must switch it off as soon as we, as teachers or educators, approach children between the ages of tooth replacement and sexual maturity. Through ourselves, through our artistic vitality, through our artistic sense, everything must be transformed into artistic imagery. What lives in my thoughts about nature must be transformed into something that takes shape on the wings of human artistic enthusiasm and appears as an image before the child's soul. Artistic teaching between the change of teeth and sexual maturity is the only thing that can be involved in a metamorphosis of our basic educational views from the present into the near future. Just as we need a priestly approach for the first epoch of childhood, so we need an artistic approach for the second epoch of human life, for the epoch between the change of teeth and sexual maturity. For what are we actually doing when we educate people in this epoch of life? The individuality that comes from previous earthly lives and from the spiritual world wants to gradually form a second human being and wants to permeate it, and we act as godparents in this permeation, we incorporate what we do in teaching and educating the child into the forces that are to be woven into the spiritual and soul life in order to form the second human being, the human being precisely in his or her own individuality. Once again, it must be the awareness of this world position that permeates, like an inner invigorating impulse, what should be the teaching methodology and living conditions of education. One cannot even think about what one should do there; one can only let it happen under the living impression that the child makes on the teacher and educator.
For in this phase of life, one can fall into two extremes in teaching and education. The first extreme consists in approaching the child too intellectually, based on an intellectualistic disposition, demanding that the child, for example, absorb sharply defined concepts, definitions, as they say. It is so convenient to educate and teach with definitions. The more gifted children learn to repeat the definitions, and then you can make it easy for yourself by expecting the children to know in the next lessons what you taught them in the previous lessons. And those who don't know after a certain time are left behind. This is a very convenient method. But it can be compared to the method a shoemaker would develop if he had to make shoes for a three-year-old child and then demanded that a ten-year-old wear them; the shoes are sharply contoured, but they no longer fit the child. The same is true of what the child absorbs. What the child absorbs at the age of seven or eight no longer fits its soul at the age of twelve; it has as little use for it as it does for shoes that have become too small. Only, one does not notice this in the soul. The teacher who, in the child's twelfth year, still demands the definitions that were given earlier, is like the cobbler who wants to put the shoes of a three-year-old on a ten-year-old child. Only the toes fit into the shoes; they no longer cover the heels. A large part of the spiritual and emotional remains outside of teaching and education. What is necessary is to use an artistically flexible approach that can grow to give the child such feelings, ideas, and imaginative feelings in images that can undergo metamorphoses, that can simply grow along with the soul as it grows. This requires a living relationship between the teacher or educator and the child, not a dead one acquired from dead pedagogical concepts. And that is why all teaching between the ages of about seven or eight and fourteen or fifteen must be imbued with this kind of imagery.
In many respects, this is contrary to the outward appearance of our present-day culture. Certainly, we are placed in this present-day culture. We read books; there is meaningful content conveyed by such small symbols that we call a, b, c, and so on. We do not even think about how we were mistreated in order to learn these symbols, because they bear no relation to our inner life. Why should an A or an E be as it is today? There is no inner necessity. One cannot experience it when one has to write down what one expresses as wonder, as ah!, or even add an h to it. This was not yet present in an older humanity. In the external pictorial script, one depicted what were external processes. When one looked at the sheet of paper or the blackboard on which one had recorded something, one had an echo of the external process or external thing. The point is that we should spare the six- or seven-year-old child, above all, from learning to write as it is today; it is a matter of introducing the child to what can come from the child itself, from the activity of its arms, from the activity of its fingers. It looks at some shiny object with its eyes. When it looks at the shiny object, it will have an impression, and we let it fix the shine through a kind of shiny drawing. Then the child knows what it is. If the child strokes a stick from top to bottom, and I then let it make a line that goes from top to bottom, the child again knows what it is. I show it a fish. I let the child follow the main direction of the fish. Then I let it follow the rear and front fins; this crosses the previous line. I let them draw the main direction and then this crossing and say: What you have there on the paper comes from the fish. You attacked it, after all. — And now I lead them into the inner experience of the word fish. There is the F in it. I let them do that now too: draw a line and cross it. I take the sound with which the word fish begins from what the child feels. In this way I can bring forth the whole of the writing, not from an abstract imitation of the signs as they are today, but from the grasping of the things themselves that arise in the children's drawing-painting, in their painting-drawing. In this way, I can bring out the writing from the drawing-painting, from the painting-drawing. Then I stand in the living pictoriality within it.
I need only point to such an artistic beginning, and one will already be able to feel how it engages the whole child, not just one-sidedly the understanding, which is overused at one extreme. If one moves from the intellectual to the pictorial in this way, the intellectualistic recedes completely for the child's age. If one exaggerates the intellectualistic, one is unable to move on to the pictorial, and then the child's breathing process becomes disordered in a subtle, intimate way. I would say that it condenses into a weakening exhalation process. You should not imagine this in a crude way, but in a subtle, differentiated way. The exhalation process condenses, and the child has a subconscious feeling of oppression if intellectualism is brought to bear too strongly on them between the ages of seven and fourteen. An inner, I would say intimate, feeling of oppression arises, which remains in the organism and at a later age leads to asthmatic conditions or all kinds of illnesses related to a sluggish breathing process.
If, on the other hand, one goes too far in the other extreme, presenting oneself in school like a little Caesar, naturally believing oneself to be a great Caesar, then it turns out that the child is constantly impaled on the teacher's impulses of will. Just as one condenses the exhalation through intellectual extremes, one dilutes the forces that are supposed to take care of the metabolism through one-sided commands and one-sided development of the impulses of the will as a teacher. The child develops weaknesses in the digestive organs, which can then become apparent in later life. Both are impossible in education: intellectualism on the one hand, and exaggerated willfulness on the part of the teacher on the other. In maintaining a balance between the two, in what takes place in the mind when the will gently merges into the child's own activity, and where the intellect softens so that it does not oppress the breathing process, in the formation of the mind, which tends toward the image and expresses itself in a kind of floating ability, as I have characterized it, there lies the salvation of child development between the change of teeth and sexual maturity.
Thus, based on a true understanding of human nature, one can discern from human development what needs to be accomplished in the child's education and instruction from week to week, month to month, year to year. The curriculum must be a copy of what can be read in human development. I will take the liberty of elaborating on how this happens in detail in the next lectures.