The Essentials of Education
GA 308
10 April 1924 p.m., Stuttgart
Lecture Four
Teaching Writing before Reading
This morning I attempted to describe the way knowledge itself must be transformed inwardly from mere knowledge about nature into higher forms of cognition. This allows our understanding of the whole human being and the growing child to be translated into an artistic approach to education and instruction. I can imagine that a certain question may arise: Assuming that a teacher thoroughly understands the physical body through pure observation and intellect, the etheric body through shaping activity, the astral body through the concept of music, and the I-being through insight into the true nature of speech, what practical application does this have?
Certainly, if we must describe education and instruction as a whole—as we have for Waldorf methods in these lectures—then we would have to say that the most important aspect of a teacher’s perspective on life and the world is not what we generally understand as a “worldview”—that would be completely theoretical. Instead, it is an aspect that, as a soul force, can enter the whole activity of the human being. Any teacher who tries to acquire the principles of education from today’s recognized knowledge of the human being would have to look elsewhere for the necessary inspiration. Hence the continual references to educational ideals that, however convincing they appear, always remain ineffective, because they are rooted in abstractions.
Nevertheless, true insight that penetrates the nature of the world and the human being will, by its very nature, enkindle inspiration in the human heart. While practicing their profession, teachers can always draw inspiration from the feeling of their relationship to the world and to their own being—like artists, whose work seems to live in their very marrow. The artist doesn’t need to go anywhere else for inspiration—it comes from the thing itself. Similarly, the inspiration found by teachers in their worldview, experienced internally and constantly renewed, is carried into the soul constitution of the children entrusted to them. Such inspiration lives in everything the teacher does at school.
Those who have insight into the human being have the ability to perceive that a musical element flows into harmony with the formative processes in the inner being of the child during the elementary years, between the change of teeth and puberty. Such a person will never be likely to stray from the right way of teaching, writing, and reading to children. They have a living understanding that writing—particularly as described here—mobilizes the whole being; it uses the arms and hands and permeates them with spirit that exercises the whole person.
These are the very aspects of the human being that will be perceived in a living way if we begin with a view of the world such as I described this morning. It also helps to become clear that reading is merely a pursuit of the head, an unbalanced activity for the human being. The teacher will sense that such onesidedness is suitable only for children whose whole being has become active. Thus, teachers who take hold of this insight into the human being will be careful to develop writing from painting and drawing (as I described) until children can write what they experience in their deepest being in words or sentences.
When children have reached a certain level of development, they can speak and then write what they have said. This is when it becomes appropriate to teach reading. Reading is easy to teach once writing has been somewhat developed. After children have begun work within their own being—in the nervous system and limbs, in the substance of their writing and reading, and in their inner participation in producing reading material—only then are they ready for one-sided activity. Then, without any danger to their development as human beings, the head can become active, and what they first learned by writing is turned into reading.
It really comes down to this: week after week and month after month, the germinating human being must be promoted to activity that suits the developing forces of the human organization. It is important to decide what should be done at each stage by reading the particular way each human being tries to evolve. It doesn’t work to use schedules that limit some activity to an hour or forty-five minutes, then jump to something else, and again to a third lesson, and so on. Consequently, we have introduced a system of instruction into the Waldorf school where the same subject is taught during the early morning hours for several weeks at a time. In this approach to teaching—so-called “block” teaching, which is characteristic of Waldorf education—students immerse themselves in the subject; they are not torn away as soon as they meet it.
In everything that must be presented to children between the change of teeth and puberty we have to discover ways of reading what is needed through the demands of human nature itself. When it is a matter of gradually leading children into a real relationship to their own being and the world, it is most important that the teachers themselves have a real relationship to the world. In contemporary culture, of course, no matter how educated people may be, they cannot really acquire an inwardly alive and rich relationship to the world and their own being. This is yet another radical statement, but we must not be afraid of real insight into what must be gradually introduced into our civilization.
Understanding Cosmic Forces
Above all, it is necessary that the teachers themselves should not, in their own development, fall into what might be called a “cosmic parochialism,” but rather look beyond what is strictly earthly and realize that, as human beings, they depend on nourishment not only from their immediate environment, but from the whole cosmos. Naturally, it is very difficult to speak of these things today in an unbiased way, since our culture offers little support for people’s attempts to look beyond their dependence on the earthly elements. Consequently, old teachings emanating from earlier instinctive concepts are often carried into the present without any understanding, which leads to superstition. In reality, all that the modern mainstream culture can offer is no more than a kind of “cosmic parochialism,” because this culture has not as yet produced ideas that would extend from Earth into the cosmos. We have calculations, or at least spectrum analysis, to teach us (or purport to teach us) about the course and position of the stars, their substance, and so on. Nevertheless, the intimate knowledge that comes from entering into a close relationship with the essential nature of the Earth cannot be acquired—in terms of the extraterrestrial cosmos—from the mainstream culture of today. The concepts that human beings formulate about such things as cabbage, spinach, venison, and so on, are completely different from those acquired through abstract, intellectual science. We eat those things, and abstract thought has nothing to do with eating! We do not eat to gain practical experience in what modern science tells us about the hare, for example; we get a much more concrete and intimate experience of it through taste and digestion.
In terms of the surrounding cosmos beyond Earth, our knowledge is such that we have no intimate relationships at all. If everything we knew about the hare were equivalent to what astronomy and spectrum analysis know about the extraterrestrial universe, and if we only knew the results of calculations of the relative positions of the bones and relative proportions of various substances within the hare, our relationship to it would be merely scientific; we would never find our way into any human relationship. It could never give us what the experienced human relationship to the hare can provide. People do not realize these days that in a more ancient, instinctive wisdom, people had an equally intimate relationship with the cosmos. If only they could acquire a true concept of that ancient wisdom, they would, at this more advanced stage of their soul’s growth, again receive the impulse to look for a new wisdom in this area, a wisdom that can be as intimate in the human sense as the science of the natural objects in the earthly realm.
I would like to illustrate this with an example to show how important it is that teachers acquire a living relationship to the world. Teachers derive from that relationship the necessary enthusiasm to translate what should exist in the teacher’s own soul into simple, visual pictures for the child. A teacher needs a truly consecrated relationship to the world. In the presence of the active child, this becomes the world of imagery that a child needs for help in progressing properly in harmony with the demands of human evolution. For example, we are surrounded by the world of plants; to ordinary sense-perception it presents many enigmas.
Goethe encountered many of these questions. He followed the growing plant forms in their various metamorphoses, and through observing the plants’ growth he was led to a remarkable principle that pours new life into all our knowledge of the plant world. His principle may be described in this way: Let’s begin by observing the seed, which we place in the ground and from which the plant grows. Seen from the outside, the life of the plant is comprEssentialEd to a point in the seed. We then see the seed unfold, and life spreads out farther and farther, until it has fully unfolded in the first budding leaves. Then it contracts into the narrow channel of the stem, continues to the next leaf connection, and there it spreads out again, only to contract again into the stem toward the next leaf cluster, and so on. Eventually there is a final contraction when a new germ, or seed, is formed, and within that, the whole life of the plant again contracts to a single physical point. This is Goethe’s contribution—how the growing plant shows an alternation: expansion, contraction, expansion, contraction.
Goethe looked deep into plant formation as an effluence of the plant’s own life. However, the time was not ripe for him to relate to the world as a whole the formula he found for plant life, since the whole world and its forces are always involved in the ways any being lives and has its own being. With the help of contemporary spiritual science, or anthroposophic science, however, we now can extend Goethe’s formula, as you can see for yourself in the spiritual scientific literature (and here I will only touch on this).
One will find there that what lives in the expansion of the plant’s being is what comes from the Sun. The Sun is not merely what is described by astronomy and spectrum analysis; with the Sun’s rays, spiritual forces stream and interweave down to the Earth. In this ensoulment of sunlight we have the element that, for example, determines expansion in the growth of the plant. It is not just that the Sun shines on the plant and causes it to expand; rather, the forces of growth in the plant itself have a sun-like quality that plants reflect back. On the other hand, whenever we witness contraction—whenever plant growth contracts back to a point in the passage from one leaf bud to the next, or in the formation of the seed—these are being influenced by the Moon’s forces. Just as we see a rhythmic interchange of sunlight and moonlight in the cosmos, so we also see it reflected in the budding plant that responds to the activity of the Sun in the expansion of the leaves, and the Moon activity in the phenomena of contraction. Expansion and contraction in the plant are the reflected image of what pours down to Earth from cosmic, etheric space in an interchange of forces coming from Sun and Moon.
Here we have expanded our gaze from the Earth to etheric, cosmic spaces, and we get an impression of how the Earth, in a certain sense, nourishes her forces of fruitfulness and growth from what flows to her from the cosmos. We come to feel how, by making a detour through the plants, we grow together with the spirit of Sun and Moon. Here we are brought into contact with things that are usually left to the domain of calculation or spectrum analysis. The inspiration necessary for teaching growing children anything about humankind’s relationship to the universe cannot be gotten from mere abstract observation—that a leaf is or isn’t indented at its edges, or has this or that appearance. No inspiration will flow from this. Such inspiration does come, however, when the rhythmic reflection of Sun and Moon is revealed to us in the growth of various plants.
How wonderful the perception of surrounding nature becomes when we observe a plant that has a regular growth—for example, the buttercup. Here we find something sent up by the Earth as it surrenders itself lovingly to cosmic Sun and Moon forces, paying homage equally to both. Or look at a plant, such as the cactus, with its stalk portion widened out. What does this reveal? In the contraction manifested elsewhere by the stalk, we perceive Moon forces. When the stalk itself wants to expand, we see a struggle between Sun and Moon influences. The form of each plant reveals how Sun and Moon act together within it. Each individual plant is a “miniature world,” a reflection of the greater world. Just as we see our own image in a mirror, in the mirror of growth on Earth, we see what is happening beyond in the cosmos.
Ancient, instinctive wisdom was conscious of such things, and what follows offers proof of this. In the plant life that buds from the Earth in spring, people saw a cosmic reflection of the relationship between Sun forces and Moon forces. Thus, spring was celebrated with the Easter festival, whose date was determined by the relationship between Sun and Moon. The Easter festival occurs on the first Sunday after the spring full moon. The time of the Easter festival is therefore determined in reference to the cosmos—the relationship between Sun and Moon. What people of those ancient times might have implied was this: When we see plants budding in spring, we are faced with the enigma of why they appear sometimes earlier and sometimes later. The fact that the time of the spring full moon plays an essential role in all these processes of budding and sprouting allows us to get to the heart of this riddle.
There are other factors, of course, but it is generally apparent that the interplay between Sun and Moon is exprEssentialEd in what happens in spring, when one year the plants appear earlier and another, later. What might people say, however, if they acknowledge only parochial, scientific thinking about the Earth’s dependence on the cosmos? They will say: The reason plants appear earlier in a particular year is due to less snow or because the snow melted more quickly; or that the delayed appearance of plants means that there was more snow. This is, of course, an easy explanation, but in fact it is not an explanation at all. Real insight comes only when we perceive that plant growth depends on the activity of Sun and Moon forces, and then go on to recognize that a shorter or longer duration of snow also depends on the Sun and Moon. The timing of the plants’ appearance is determined by the same thing that determines the duration of the snow; the climatic and meteorological conditions in any given year are themselves subject to cosmic influences.
By continuing to develop these matters, we gain insights into the life of the Earth on her journey through the cosmos. We say that human beings thrive when there are plenty of cows, and they get a lot of milk, because we can point to the obvious human dependence on the immediate earthly environment. When we consider this connection, we are looking at human life from a nutritional perspective. Things come alive for us only when we perceive their relationship to their surroundings and how they transform what they receive from their environment.
When we behold the Earth wandering through cosmic space and taking into herself elements flowing from the Sun, Moon, and stars, we see the Earth as alive in the cosmos. We do not evolve a dead geology or geography but raise what these dead sciences have to offer into a description of the Earth’s life in the cosmos; the Earth becomes a living being before our spiritual vision. In the plants springing from the Earth, we see the Earth reproducing what she received from the cosmos. The Earth and her plant growth become a unity; we realize what nonsense it is to tear a plant out of the Earth and then examine it from root to blossom, imagining that we are viewing reality. It is no more reality than a hair torn from a human head. The hair belongs to the whole organism, and it can be understood only as a part of the whole organism. To tear out a hair and study it in isolation is just as absurd as uprooting a plant to study it in isolation. The hair must be studied in connection with the human organism and the plant in connection with the whole living Earth.
In this way a person’s own being is woven with the living Earth; an individual no longer goes around feeling subjected only to the Earth’s forces, but also perceives in the environment what is working in from etheric distances. We have a living perception of the way forces from the cosmos are active everywhere—drawing the etheric body to themselves just as the physical body is drawn to the Earth. We then acquire a natural perception of the etheric body’s tendency to pass into cosmic space, just as we sense gravity drawing our physical body down to Earth. Our vision continues to expand so that knowledge becomes inner life and can become truly effective. Having believed the Earth to be a lifeless body in the cosmos, such knowledge now gives life to her. We must return again to a living cognition, just as we still see the after-effects in such things as the determination of Easter time. But such insight into the cosmos must result from consciously developed knowledge—not from the instinctive knowledge of earlier ages.
The Child’s Need for Imagery in the Tenth Year
This cosmic insight lives in us in such a way that we can artistically shape it into the pictures we need. Someone who, when confronting the cosmos, sees the Sun and Moon determining all plant growth, feels the inspiration that can arise from these living intuitions; and that person’s story of the plants is very different from the story of someone else who absorbs and elaborates the abstract concepts of modern texts on botany. The concept can grow rich in feeling and be communicated artistically to the child.
At around the tenth year, children are ready for what the teacher can make of this far-reaching vision. If one shows in living pictures how the Earth as a whole is a living being—how it has plants the way a person has hair, though in greater complexity—and if one builds a living unity between the living being Earth and the plants growing here or there, a kind of expansion occurs in the child’s soul. Whenever we communicate something about the nature of the plants in this way, it is like bringing fresh air to someone who had been living until now in a stifling atmosphere—one can breathe freely in this fresh air. This expansion of the soul is the real result of this kind of knowledge—a knowledge that is truly equal to the task of understanding the mysteries of the universe.
Do not say that children are too immature for ideas such as this. Any teacher in whom these ideas are alive, and who is backed by this worldview, will know how to express them in ways children are prepared for, in ways that their whole being can agree with. Once such things are internalized by the teacher, the capacity to simplify them pictorially is also present, Whatever a teacher gives to the child must flow from this background, and thus a relationship between the child and the world is truly established. This leads the teacher to transform everything naturally into living pictures, since it simply becomes impossible to explain abstractly what I have said about the plant realm. The only way to convey this to children is to unfold it in vivid pictures, which appeal to the whole human being and not merely to the intellect.
You will quickly see the animation in children as they grasp something presented to them pictorially. They will not answer with a concept that merely comes from the lips—one that cannot be really formed yet—but they will tell a story using their arms and hands and all kinds of body language. Children will act in a way that uses the whole being; above all, these actions and signals will reveal the children’s inner experience and their difficulty in understanding a subject. The best and most noble thing in acquiring knowledge is the feeling that it is difficult, that it costs effort to get hold of things. Those who imagine they can get to the heart of something—insofar as it is necessary—merely through clever words have no reverence for the things of the world, and such reverence is a part of what makes a whole and perfect human being—to the degree that perfection is possible in earthly existence.
The only way human beings can build a right relationship to the world is by feeling how helpless they are when they want to arrive at the real essence of things, and how the whole being must be brought into play. Only when the teacher has a proper relationship to the world can the child also establish one. Pedagogy must be alive. It involves more than just applying oneself; it must come to flower from the very life situations of education. And it can do this when it grows from the teachers’ living experience of their own being in the cosmos.
The Human Being as a Symphony of the Tones in Animals
If musical understanding—which I mentioned this morning—has truly taught the teacher about the reality of the human astral body, providing a concept of the human being itself as a wonderful, inwardly organized musical instrument, such an understanding of the astral body will open an even broader understanding of the whole relation between the human being and the world. Naturally, this cannot be conveyed to children in the way I am going to express it, but it can be presented in pictures.
Teachers who have a knowledge of their own astral body, sounding inwardly in musical forms, should view the human being and the various animal forms that exist in the world. They can then understand the deep meaning contained in an old instinctual wisdom, which represented the human being as a coalescence of four beings—three lower and one higher: lion, bull, eagle, and angel. The bull represents an unbalanced development of the lowest forces of human nature. Picture the forces in the human metabolic-limb system without any balancing forces in the head and rhythmic systems; in other words, imagine an unbalanced and prevailing development of the metabolic-limb system. Here we have a one-sided formation that presents itself to us as the bull. We can thus imagine that if this bull nature were toned down by the human head organization, it would develop into something like the human being. If the central rhythmic system is developed in an unbalanced way—for example, through a contraction of the abdominal system or a stunting of the head system—we can picture it as lion nature.
If, however, there is one-sided development of the head organism in such a way that the forces otherwise existing in the inner part of the head push out into “feathers,” we get a bird, or eagle nature. If we imagine forces that enable these three qualities to harmonize as a unity that can manifest by adding the angelic fourth, we get a synthesis of the three—the human being. This is a schematic way of presenting these things, but it shows our human relationship to the surrounding animal world. In this sense; human beings are not related just to the bull, eagle, and lion, but to all earthly animal forms. In each animal form we can find an unbalanced development of one of the organic systems of the human being. These things were alive in the instinctive wisdom of ancient times.
There was still a tradition in later times that was exprEssentialEd paradoxically, because people themselves no longer had such vision but created intellectual elaborations of the old perceptions. In an odd passage, Oken asks us to suppose that the human tongue were developed in a one-sided way. Actually, it is toned down, or moderated, by the forces of the head, because the tongue serves the stomach (regardless of its spatial distance from it), and so on. Suppose, however, that it were developed one-sidedly. If a being were only tongue and all the rest only appendage, what would the tongue be then—a cuttlefish; the tongue is a cuttlefish! Now, of course, this is an exaggeration, but it retains something of the ancient perception translated into modern intellectualism. It is nonsense, but it originated with something that once had deep meaning. The soul attitude that underlies ancient knowledge can be rediscovered; we can rediscover how to conceive of the human being as divided, as it were, into all the various animal forms that exist on Earth. And if we bring them all together—so that each is harmonized by the others—we get the human being.
Thus, when we determine humankind’s relationship to the animal kingdom through observation, we find the relationship between the astral body and the outer world. We must apply a musical understanding to the astral body. I gaze into the human being, and out toward the myriad animal forms. It’s as if we were to take a symphony where all the tones sound together in a wonderful, harmonious, and melodious whole and, over the course of time, separated each tone from the others and juxtaposed them.
As we look out into the animal world, we have the single tones. As we look into the human astral body and what it builds in the physical and etheric bodies, we have the symphony. If we go beyond an intellectual view of the world and have enough cognitive freedom to rise to artistic knowledge, we develop an inner reverence, permeated with religious fervor, for the invisible being—the marvelous world composer—who first arranged the tones in the various animal forms, and then created the human being as a symphony of the phenomena of animal nature. This is what we must carry in our souls as teachers. If I understand my relationship to the world in this way, a true enthusiasm in the presence of world creation and world formation will flow into my descriptions of the animal forms. Every word and gesture in my teaching as a whole will be permeated by religious fervor—not just abstract concepts and natural laws.
Such things show us that instruction and education must not come from accumulated knowledge, which is then applied, but from a living abundance. A teacher comes into the class with the fullness of this abundance, and when dealing with children, it’s as though they found before them a voice for the world mysteries pulsating and streaming through the teacher, as though merely an instrument through which the world speaks to the child. There is then a real inner, enlivening quality in the method of instruction, not just superficial pedantry. Enthusiasm must not be artificially produced, but blossom like a flower from the teacher’s relationship to the world; this is the important thing.
In our discussion of a genuine method for teaching and the living foundations of education, we must speak of enthusiasm stimulated not by theoretical, abstract insight, but by true insight into the world. When we approach children who are between the change of teeth and puberty in this way, we can guide them in the right way toward puberty. As soon as puberty arrives, the astral body begins to unfold its independence. What was previously absorbed as the “music of the world” continues to develop within them. It is remarkable that the intellect now comprehends what has been developed in pictures and what was appropriated by the soul in an inwardly musical, sculptural sense and in living pictures during the period between the change of teeth and puberty. The human intellect does not absorb anything of what we force on it intellectually from outside; before the intellect can receive anything, it must first develop within the individual in a different way.
An important fact then comes into play. Something that one had all along is understood in an inwardly directed way—something that was prepared and supports puberty in the person who developed in a healthy way. All that was understood through images now arises from the inner wellspring. Proceeding to intellectual activity involves the human being looking into the self. I now take hold of my own being within myself and through myself. The astral body with its musical activity beats in rhythm with the etheric body with its shaping activity. In a healthy person, after puberty, a chord is sounded within the human being; it results in an awareness of one’s self. And when there is this concordance between the two sides of an individual’s nature, after puberty the person truly experiences inner freedom as a result of understanding for the first time what was merely perceived earlier.
The most important thing for which we can prepare a child is the experience of freedom, at the right moment in life, through the understanding of one’s own being. True freedom is an inward experience and is developed only when the human being is viewed in this way. As a teacher, I must say that I cannot pass on freedom to another human being—each must experience it individually. Nevertheless, I must plant something within the person—something intact because I have left it untouched—to which that person’s own intact being feels attracted and into which it may become immersed. This is the wonderful thing I have accomplished. I have educated within the human being what must be educated. In reverence to the Godhead in every individual human being, I have left untouched those things that may only be taken hold of by the self. I educate everything in the human being except what belongs to the self, and then I wait for it to take hold of what I have invoked. I do not coarsely handle the development of the human I, but prepare the soil for its development, which takes hold after puberty.
If I educate intellectually before puberty—if I offer abstract concepts or ready-made, sharply outlined observations instead of growing, living pictures—I am violating the human being and crudely handling the I within. I truly educate only when I leave the I untouched and wait until it can grasp what I have prepared through education. In this way, together with the child, I look forward to a time when I can say, “Here the I is being born in freedom; I have only prepared the ground so that the I may become conscious of its own being.
If I have educated the child this way until puberty, I find before me a human being who may say, “When I was not yet fully human, you gave me something that, now that it is possible, enables me to become fully human myself.” In other words, I have educated so that, with every look, every movement, the human being says to me, “You have accomplished something with me; and my freedom has been left whole. You have made it possible for me to grant myself my own freedom at the right moment in life. You have done something that enables me to stand before you now, shaping myself as a human being from my individuality, which you left reverently untouched.”
This may never be said in so many words, but it lives, nonetheless, in the human being who has received the right kind of education during the elementary school years.
The next lecture will show that there is much more to be done so that education and teaching may accommodate what the human being encounters after puberty.
Vierter Vortrag
Heute morgen versuchte ich darzustellen, wie sich die Erkenntnis des Menschen selber in sich umgestalten muß aus der bloßen Naturerkenntnis in gewissermaßen höhere Erkenntnisformen, wenn der ganze Mensch, also auch der ganze werdende Mensch, das Kind, so begriffen werden soll, daß dieses Begreifen übergehen kann in eine künstlerische Handhabung des Erziehens und Unterrichtens. Ich könnte mir nun denken, daß die Frage entstehe: Ja, handelt es sich denn überhaupt darum, daß derlei Dinge wie das Begreifen des physischen Leibes durch bloßes Beobachten und Intellektualisieren, das Begreifen des Ätherleibes des Menschen durch plastische Übung, das Begreifen des astralischen Leibes durch musikalisches Verständnis, das Begreifen der IchOrganisation durch Einsicht in das Sprache-Wesen, daß solche Einsicht in den Menschen, wenn sie beim Lehrer und Erzieher vorhanden ist, irgendwie praktisch werden kann? — Ja, wenn man das ganze Wesen des Erziehens und Unterrichtens so zu charakterisieren hat, wie das in diesen Vorträgen hier für die Waldorfschulpädagogik geschehen ist, dann muß man sagen: Es ist sogar das Allerwichtigste, was beim Lehrer, beim Erzieher vorhanden sein muß, die Lebensauffassung, die Weltanschauung; nicht dasjenige, was man gewöhnlich heute unter Weltanschauung versteht, denn das ist etwas durch und durch Theoretisches, sondern etwas, was wie eine Seelenkraft in das ganze tätige Wesen des Menschen, also auch des erziehenden Menschen übergehen kann. Man möchte sagen: Wenn sich der Lehrer oder Erzieher Erziehungsprinzipien aneignen möchte aus dem, was die neueste anerkannte Einsicht in den Menschen gewähren kann, so muß er sich die Begeisterung, die er einmal braucht als Lehrer oder Erzieher, erst von anderswo herholen. Daher die fortwährenden Anweisungen über erzieherische Ideale, die dann doch unwirksam bleiben, weil sie aus irgendwelchen Abstraktionen herausklingen, wenn sie noch so vollberechtigt scheinen. Dagegen wird eine wirkliche, in das Wesen der Welt und des Menschen eindringende Einsicht durch ihr eigenes Dasein im Herzen des Menschen in Begeisterung ausbrechen und den Erzieher und Unterrichter so hineinstellen in seinen Beruf, daß er aus dem, was er in seinem Verhältnis zur Welt und zu sich selbst fühlt, selber Begeisterung schöpfen kann, wie der Künstler, wenn ihm das Kunstwerk in den Gliedern liegt. Da braucht er sich auch nicht erst die Begeisterung von etwas anderem herzuholen: er holt sie sich von der Sache her. Und jene Begeisterung, die beim Lehrenden und Erziehenden aus einer innerlich erlebten und immer neu zu erlebenden Weltanschauung kommt, jene innerliche Begeisterung, die wird sich übertragen auf die Seelenverfassung der Kinder, die dem Lehrer anvertraut sind. Diese Begeisterung wird leben in alledem, was der Lehrer in der Schule erzieherisch machen kann. So wird es jemandem, der so hineinschaut in das Wesen des Menschen, daß er sieht, wie zusammenklingt gerade in dem volksschulmäßigen Alter, in dem Alter zwischen dem Zahnwechsel und der Geschlechtsreife, das Musikalische mit dem plastischen Bilden im Innern der Menschenwesenheit, ganz und gar nicht einfallen können, unrechte Wege zu wählen, um Schreiben und Lesen in der richtigen Weise an das Kind, an den werdenden Menschen heranzubringen. Er wird eine lebhafte Empfindung dafür haben: Schreiben, besonders wenn es so getrieben wird, wie es hier geschildert worden ist, das beschäftigt den ganzen Menschen, das geht über in die Handhabung namentlich von Armen und Händen, durchgeistigt Arme und Hände und ist eine Übung für den ganzen Menschen.
Gerade solches im Menschen wird lebhaft empfunden, wenn man von einer solchen Weltanschauung ausgeht, wie ich sie heute morgen beschrieben habe. Und ebenso wird man dann empfinden, wie das Lesen-Üben eine einseitige Beschäftigung des Kopfes ist und den Menschen vereinseitigt, und man wird fühlen: Zu solcher Einseitigkeit ist das Kind erst geeignet, wenn es zuerst in Anspruch genommen worden ist in bezug auf seine Totalität, in bezug auf sein ganzes Menschenwesen. Daher wird ein Lehrer, der in dieser Weise mit Menscheneinsicht sich verbindet, darauf achten, aus dem zeichnenden Malen und malenden Zeichnen, wie ich es angedeutet habe, das Schreiben zu entwickeln, bis das Kind so weit ist, daß es dasjenige, was es innerlich als Wort, als Satz empfindet, aufschreiben kann.
Nun ist das Kind bei einer bestimmten Entwickelung angelangt. Es spricht, und dasjenige, was es spricht, kann es schriftlich fixieren. Dann erst ist die Zeit gekommen, wo man zu Leseübungen übergeht, wo man anfängt, das Lesen zu lehren. Und es wird sich dieses Lesen leicht lehren lassen, wenn man zuerst das Schreiben bis zu einer wirklich in gewissem Sinne vollkommenen Stufe ausgebildet hat. Dann, wenn das Kind dasjenige, was Inhalt des Geschriebenen und Gelesenen ist, erst in Übung gebracht hat bei sich selber, in seinem Menschenwesen, in dem motorischen System, in dem Bewegungssystem, wenn es innerlich beteiligt war an dem Entstehen dessen, was dann gelesen werden soll, dann ist es reif, vereinseitigt zu werden; dann kann der Kopf, ohne daß eine Gefahr eintritt für die menschliche Entwickelung, in Anspruch genommen werden, um nun dasjenige, was man erst selbst schreibend fixieren gelernt hat, umzusetzen in das Lesen.
Sie sehen, worauf es ankommt, ist dieses, daß man wirklich sachgemäß Woche für Woche, Monat für Monat den werdenden Menschen so in Betätigung versetzt, wie das die in ihm sich entwickelnden Kräfte der menschlichen Organisation verlangen. Es kommt also darauf an, daß man abliest aus der Art und Weise, wie sich die menschliche Wesenheit entwickeln will, was man in jedem Lebensalter mit dem Kinde zu machen hat. Da geht es dann allerdings nicht, daß man arbeitet mit jenen Stundenplänen, die irgendeine Betätigung durch eine Stunde oder dreiviertel Stunden einschlagen, dann sofort zu einer anderen überspringen, dann zur dritten und so weiter. Daher wurde in der Waldorfschule jener Unterricht eingeführt, der eine gewisse Zeit hindurch, ein paar Wochen hindurch für die ersten Morgenstunden den gleichen Lehrgegenstand bringt, so daß der Schüler sich ganz hineinlebt in diesen Lehrgegenstand, daß er wirklich nicht gleich, wenn er die Hand angelegt hat, wiederum herausgerissen wird. Ein sogenannter Epochenunterricht also ist die Art, die in der Waldorfschule geübt wird.
Nun handelt es sich darum, bei allem, was dem Kinde gerade beizubringen ist zwischen dem Zahnwechsel und der Geschlechtsreife, die Methode zu finden, wie das Beizubringende herauszulesen ist aus den Anforderungen der Menschennatur selber. Da ist vor allen Dingen notwendig, wenn man das Kind allmählich in ein Verhältnis zu sich selbst und zur Welt einführen will, daß man als Lehrender und Erziehender selbst ein solches Verhältnis zur Welt hat. Nun ist es allerdings in unserer gegenwärtigen Zivilisation eigentlich nicht möglich, wenn man ein noch so gelehrter Mensch geworden ist, innerhalb dieser Zivilisation ein innerlich belebtes, inhaltserfülltes Verhältnis zur Welt und zu sich selbst zu gewinnen. Wiederum ein radikaler Ausspruch. Aber man darf heute nicht zurückschrecken vor wirklichen Einsichten in dasjenige, was der Zivilisation allmählich eingefügt werden muß. Vor allen Dingen ist es nötig, daß der Lehrende und Erziehende selbst wirklich nicht bloß sozusagen kosmische Kirchturmpolitik verfolgt in seiner eigenen Bildung, sondern daß er hinausschaut über das bloße Irdische und weiß, wie er abhängig ist als Mensch nicht nur von den Nahrungsmitteln in der nächsten Umgebung, sondern von dem ganzen Weltenall. Gewiß, in dieser Beziehung ist heute sogar eine große Schwierigkeit vorhanden, unbefangen zu reden. Denn wenn heute die Menschen versuchen, hinauszublicken über ihre Abhängigkeit vom bloß Irdischen, dann findet sich in der Zeitbildung wenig, um Anhaltspunkte für ein solches Hinausblicken zu geben. Daher werden vielfach alte Lehren, die aus alten instinktiven Einsichten herrühren, unverstanden herübergenommen in die Gegenwart. Da kommt dann Aberglaube zustande. Und eigentlich haben wir innerhalb der gegenwärtig anerkannten Zivilisation nur kosmische Kirchturmpolitik des Menschen, weil diese Zivilisation noch nicht Einsichten hergibt, die sich von der Erde aus in den Weltenraum verbreiten. Da haben wir ja nur Rechnung oder höchstens Spektralanalyse, die uns unterrichten über der Gang und die Stellung der Sterne, uns unterrichten — wenigstens vermeintlich unterrichten — über die Substanz der Sterne und dergleichen. Aber eine so intime Erkenntnis, wie wir sie dadurch gewinnen, daß wir mit den Erdenwesen recht nahe Verhältnisse eingehen, können wir ja in bezug auf das Außerirdisch-Kosmische gar nicht aus der anerkannten Zivilisation heraus gewinnen. Nicht wahr, in bezug auf Kohl und Spinat und Wildbret hat der Mensch noch ganz andere Einsichten als die, welche er durch eine abstrakte, intellektualistische Wissenschaft gewinnt, denn er ißt diese Dinge, und beim Essen spielt ja nicht der bloß abstrakte Gedanke eine Rolle. Man ißt ja nicht bloß, um dasjenige in sich zu erfahren, was die heutige Wissenschaft über den Hasen zu sagen hat, sondern man erlebt vom Hasen im Geschmack, in der Art und Weise der Verdauung viel Konkreteres, viel Intimeres, möchte ich sagen. Aber unsere Kenntnis vom außerirdischen Weltenall ist ja so geartet, daß wir diese intimeren Beziehungen durchaus nicht haben. Denn wenn wir nur dasjenige, was Astronomie und Spektralanalyse vom außerirdischen Weltenall wissen, vom Hasen wissen würden und jene Rechnungsergebnisse, die wir haben können über die gegenseitige Lagerung der Knochen beim Hasen, über die Verhältniszahl der Substanzen, die sich im Hasen befinden, wenn wir nur so eine Beziehung zum Hasen eingehen würden, so würden wir uns gar nicht in dem menschlichen Verhältnis, das wir zum Hasen haben, zurechtfinden können. Es würde für uns nichts werden, was ein erlebtes menschliches Verhältnis zum Hasen ist. Der Mensch weiß nur heute nicht, daß solche intimen Verhältnisse auch zu dem außerirdischen Weltenall in einer älteren instinktiven Weisheit vorhanden waren. Sieht man nur in der richtigen Weise auf jene alte Weisheit hin, dann bekommt man auch schon wiederum den Impuls, aus unserem vorgerückteren Stande der Seelenverfassung eine neue Weisheit auf diesen Gebieten zu suchen, die uns dann ebenso menschlich nahegebracht werden kann wie die Wissenschaft von den Naturobjekten, die im Irdischen um uns herum sind.
Ich will das an einem Beispiele erläutern, an dem ich zeigen möchte, wie sehr es darauf ankommt, daß der Lehrer wirklich ein lebendiges Verhältnis zur Welt gewinnt, um aus diesem den Enthusiasmus zu trinken, den er braucht, wenn er das, was allerdings als ein anderes in der Seele des Erziehers liegend leben soll, umsetzen soll in die einfach anschaulichen Bilder für das Kind. Aber ist er selber eingeweiht in sein Verhältnis zur Welt, so setzt es sich im Anblick des Kindes und der kindlichen Betätigung um in jene Bilderwelt, die notwendig ist, um das Kind wirklich so vorwärtszubringen, wie es die Menschheitsentwickelung erfordert. Sehen Sie, wir haben um uns herum die Pflanzenwelt. Sie enthält tatsächlich für ein sinngemäßes Anschauen recht viele Rätsel. Solche Rätsel sind Goethe aufgefallen. Er hat die sich bildenden Pflanzenformen in ihren verschiedenen Metamorphosen verfolgt und kam dabei in diesem Anschauen, wie die Pflanze wächst, zu einer merkwürdigen Formel, die, ich möchte sagen, die Pflanzenerkenntnis mit Leben übergießt. Er kam zu der Formel, daß er sagte: Sehen wir zuerst den Keim an, den wir in die Erde versenken, aus dem heraus die Pflanze erwächst. Da ist das Leben der Pflanze äußerlich physisch wie in einen Punkt zusammengedrängt. Dann sehen wir, wie der Keim sich entfaltet, wie sich immer mehr und mehr das Leben ausbreitet, endlich in den ersten Keimblättern ganz ausgebreitet ist. Dann zieht es sich wieder zusammen, bleibt in der Enge des Stengels, geht bis zu dem nächsten Blattansatz, breitet sich wieder aus, um wiederum sich zusammenzuziehen und im Stengel zu verharren und beim nächsten Blattansatz sich wiederum auszubreiten und so weiter, bis die letzte Zusammenziehung dann da ist, wenn in der neuen Keimbildung, in der Samenbildung das ganze Pflanzenleben in einen physischen Punkt wiederum zusammengenommen wird. So sprach Goethe davon, wie dieses Pflanzenwachstum in seinem Werden Abwechslung zeigt von Ausdehnung, Zusammenziehung, Ausdehnung, Zusammenziehung.
Nun, Goethe hat damit einen tiefen Blick getan in das innere, das aus dem eigenen Pflanzenleben herausquellende Gestalten der Pflanze. Er konnte aber noch nicht, weil die Zeit dazu noch nicht gekommen war, dieses Pflanzenleben, für das er die Formel gefunden hat, nun beziehen auf die ganze Welt. Denn die ganze Welt ist mit ihren Kräften immer beteiligt an der Art und Weise, wie ein Wesen lebt und west. Mit Hilfe der heutigen Geisteswissenschaft, der anthroposophischen Geisteswissenschaft, wie Sie sie verfolgen können in der geisteswissenschaftlichen Literatur — ich möchte diese Dinge nur andeuten -, kann man aber weit über diese Formel hinauskommen. Und dann wird man finden, wie in dem Ausdehnen des Pflanzenwesens dasjenige lebt, was von der Sonne kommt. Denn in der Sonne lebt nicht bloß dasjenige, was verzeichnet wird durch Astronomie und Spektralanalyse, mit den Sonnenstrahlen wellen und weben geistige Kräfte zur Erde hernieder, und in dieser inneren Beseelung des Sonnenlichtes lebt dasjenige, was zum Beispiel im Pflanzenwachstume die Ausbreitung bedingt. Da kommt es dann nicht darauf an, daß diese Ausbreitung nur dann geschieht, wenn die Sonne auf die Pflanzen scheint, sondern Pflanzenwachstumskraft erhält sich in ihrem Sonnenhaften auch über das äußerlich Angeschienenwerden hinaus. Dagegen alles dasjenige, was sich zusammenzieht, wo das ganze Pflanzenwachstum wiederum in den Punkt sich zusammenzieht bei dem Übergang von dem einen Blattansatz zum anderen, bei der Bildung des Samens, das steht unter dem Einfluß der Mondenkräfte. Und wie wir im rhythmischen Wechsel Sonnenschein und Mondenschein im Kosmos sehen, so sehen wir die Widerspiegelung desjenigen, was uns im rhythmischen Wechsel von Sonnenschein und Mondenschein vom Himmel herunter sich offenbart, in der aufsprossenden Pflanze, die der Wirkung der Sonne entgegensetzt die Ausbreitung in die Blattbreite hin, und wir sehen die Mondenkräfte in der Zusammenziehung der Pflanze. Ausdehnung und Zusammenziehung ist das Spiegelbild in der Pflanze von demjenigen, was aus Weltenweiten, aus Ätherfernen herunterwirkt auf die Erde in den Kräften von Sonne und Mond in ihrem Wechsel.
Jetzt weitet sich schon der Blick hinaus von der Erde in die Weltenweiten, in die Ätherfernen. Wir bekommen einen Eindruck davon, wie die Erde sich gewissermaßen in bezug auf ihre Fruchtbarkeit und ihre Wachstumskräfte von demjenigen nährt, was zu ihr aus dem Kosmos hereinfließt. Wir bekommen ein Gefühl, wie wir auf dem Umweg über die Pflanze zusammenwachsen mit dem Geist von Sonne und Mond. Jetzt wird dasjenige, was sonst bloß errechnet oder spektralanalytisch verfolgt wird, schon an den Menschen herangebracht. Braucht man Begeisterung, um über das menschliche Verhältnis zur Welt etwas an den werdenden Menschen heranzubringen, dann kann das nicht fließen aus dem bloß abstrakten Verfolgen dessen, daß sich ein Blatt gezackt oder ungezackt in seinen Rändern darbietet oder daß die Blätter sich so oder so geformt zeigen. Das gibt nicht Begeisterung. Begeisterung gibt es aber dann, wenn sich uns die Widerspiegelung von Sonne und Mond in dem Wachstum dieser oder jener Pflanze zeigt. Wie wunderbar bildet sich einem das Anschauen der umgebenden Natur, wenn man meinetwillen irgendeine Pflanze beobachtet, die regelmäßig aufwächst wie der Hahnenfuß: Man findet in ihr etwas, was die Erde entgegensendet, indem sie sich in einer, ich möchte sagen, liebevollen Art an das Sonnen- und Mondenhafte des Kosmos hingibt, was beiden in der gleichen Weise huldigt. Wir wenden unseren Blick auf eine Pflanze wie etwa die Kaktuspflanze, die das, was Stamm ist, ausweitet: Was schauen wir da? Im Zusammenziehen, das sonst der Stengel zeigt, sehen wir die Mondenkräfte; wenn sich dieser Stengel selber ausweiten will, sehen wir den Kampf zwischen Sonnen- und Mondenwirkungen. Wir sehen es der Form jeder Pflanze an, wie Sonne und Mond in ihr zusammenwirken. Wir sehen in jeder Pflanze eine kleine Welt, ein Abbild der großen Welt. Ich möchte sagen, wie wir sonst im Spiegel unser eigenes Bild sehen, sehen wir im Spiegel des Erdenwachstums dasjenige, was im Weltenall draußen geschieht.
In der alten instinktiven Weisheit waren solche Dinge gewußt, vorhanden. Dafür ist ein Beweis das Folgende: Die Leute haben gesehen, in dem im Frühling aus der Erde heraussprießenden Pflanzenleben spiegelt sich aus dem Kosmos herein die Art und Weise, wie Sonnen- und Mondenkräfte zueinander stehen. Daher wurde der Frühling gefeiert durch das Osterfest, dessen zeitliche Bestimmung heruntergenommen wurde von dem Verhältnis der Sonne zum Mond. Ostern ist das Fest, das da angesetzt wird am ersten Sonntag nach dem Frühlingsvollmond. Es ist also die Zeitbestimmung für das Osterfest aus dem Kosmischen genommen, gerade aus dem Verhältnis von Sonne und Mond. Was wollte man damit sagen? Damit wollte man sagen: Sehen wir hin, wie im Frühling die Pflanzen sprießen. Wir haben hier ein Rätsel, warum sie manchmal früher, manchmal später kommen. Aber wir schauen in dieses Rätsel hinein, wenn wir im betreffenden Jahre darauf schauen, wie die Zeitbestimmung des Frühlingsvollmondes überall in allem Sprießen und Sprossen darinnensteckt. — Nun, gewiß gibt es andere Faktoren, welche das beeinträchtigen, aber im allgemeinen wird man schon bemerken, daß tatsächlich in dem, was sich im Frühling abspielt, indem die Pflanzen das eine Jahr früher, das andere Jahr später herauskommen, sich ausdrückt, was sich abspielt zwischen Sonne und Mond. Wie wird man aber sagen, wenn man bloß die wissenschaftliche Kirchturmpolitik des Abhängigseins von der Erde beachtet? Da wird man sagen: Nun ja, in einem Jahre, wo die Pflanzen früher herauskommen, kommt dies daher, weil es weniger lange geschneit hat, weil der Schnee früher weggeschmolzen ist, und in einem Jahre, wo die Pflanzen später kommen, da hat es halt länger geschneit. —- Gewiß, eine Erklärung, die sehr naheliegt, die aber eigentlich gar nichts erklärt. Eine wirkliche Einsicht bekommt man erst, wenn man sich zu sagen weiß aus der Anschauung, wie von der Wirkung von Sonnen- und Mondenkräften das Pflanzenwachstum abhängt, und wenn man aus dieser Anschauung heraus weitergehen kann und sagt: Daß der Schnee sich länger oder kürzer hält im Jahr, hängt nun auch von der Sonnen- und Mondenkonstellation ab. Dasselbe, was die Pflanzen bestimmt hervorzukommen, bestimmt auch schon den Schnee in seiner Dauer. So daß die klimatischen Verhältnisse, die meteorologischen Verhältnisse eines Jahres auf diese Weise auch unter den kosmischen Einfluß gestellt werden.
Ja, indem man solche Dinge immer weiter und weiter fortsetzt, bekommt man eine Einsicht in das Leben der Erde, das diese Erde auf ihrer Wanderung durch den Kosmos führt. Wir sagen: Ein Mensch kann gedeihen, wenn die Kühe in seinem Stall zahlreich sind und er viel Milch bekommt - weil wir da hinweisen können auf eine uns bekannte Abhängigkeit des Menschen von seiner unmittelbaren Erdenumgebung. Wir verfolgen einmal das Nahrungsleben des Menschen, indem wir in dieses Verhältnis hineinschauen. Erst dadurch erscheint uns etwas als lebendig, daß wir das Verhältnis zu seiner Umgebung sehen, das Verarbeiten desjenigen, was es aus der Umgebung bekommt. Schauen wir die Erde durch den Weltenraum wandern, indem sie dasjenige aufnimmt, was von Sonne und Mond und den anderen Sternen kommt, so sehen wir sie leben im Weltenall. Wir bilden nicht eine tote Geologie und Geognosie aus, sondern wir erheben das, was uns die tote Geologie und Geognosie zu bieten haben, zu einer Beschreibung des Lebens der Erde im Kosmos draußen. Die Erde wird ein Lebewesen vor unserem geistigen Anblick. Wenn wir jetzt die Pflanzen heraussprießen sehen aus der Erde, so sehen wir, wie die Erde das Leben, das sie aus dem Kosmos aufnimmt, weitergibt an das, was in ihr ist, und Erde und Pflanzenwachstum werden uns eine Einheit. Und wir werden gewahr: Es ist Unsinn, eine Pflanze aus der Erde auszureißen und sie dann ausgerissen zu betrachten von der Wurzel bis zur Blüte und zu glauben, das wäre eine Realität. Das ist ebensowenig eine Realität wie ein menschliches Haar, das ausgerissen ist; es gehört zum ganzen Organismus und ist nur zu verstehen als zugehörig zum ganzen Organismus. Und ein Haar auszureißen und für sich zu betrachten, ist ebenso ein Unsinn, wie eine Pflanze auszureißen und für sich zu betrachten. Das Haar ist im Zusammenhang mit dem menschlichen Organismus, die Pflanze im Zusammenhang mit der ganzen lebendigen Erde.
Auf diese Art verwebt man sein eigenes Wesen mit der lebendigen Erde, so daß man sich nicht nur auf ihr herumgehen fühlt, unterworfen den Kräften, die aus ihr hervorkommen, sondern man schaut auch in der Umgebung dasjenige, was aus Ätherfernen hereinwirkt. Man bekommt eine lebendige Anschauung und Empfindung davon, wie überall aus dem Kosmos her die Kräfte wirken, die, wie ich sagte, den Ätherleib auseinanderziehen, geradeso wie der physische Leib zur Erde hingezogen wird. Und man bekommt so eine natürliche Empfindung des Ätherzuges nach den Weiten, wie man bezug auf den physischen Körper eine Empfindung bekommt für die Schwere, die einen zur Erde hinzieht. Damit weitet sich immer mehr und mehr der Blick des Menschen, so daß seine Erkenntnis innerliches Leben wird, daß er durch seine Erkenntnis sich wirklich etwas erringt. Früher glaubte er, die Erde wäre ein Totes im Weltenall. Durch Erkenntnis belebt er sie. Wir müssen wiederum zurück zu einer solchen lebendigen Erkenntnis, deren Nachwirkungen wir noch sehen in solchen Zeitbestimmungen wie die zu Ostern. Aber wir müssen aus der entwickelten besonnenen Erkenntnis, nicht aus dem Instinkte heraus, wie es in alten Zeiten der Fall war, wiederum zu kosmischen Einsichten kommen. Diese kosmischen Einsichten werden in uns so leben, daß wir sie zu künstlerischen Bildern formen können, die wir brauchen. Ein Mensch, der walten sieht Sonne und Mond in allem Pflanzenwachstum, der fühlt, was an Begeisterung für das Weltenall aus solcher lebendiger Einsicht hervorgehen kann, der vermittelt wahrhaft anders, was Pflanzen sind, als einer, der die abstrakten Anschauungen der heutigen Botanikbücher aufnimmt und verarbeitet. Da wird alles so, daß der Begriff reich an Gefühl und künstlerisch vermittelt werden kann an den werdenden Menschen, an das Kind. Und das Kind wird reif für dasjenige, was dann der Erzieher machen kann aus einer solchen in die Weite gehenden Einsicht, etwa gegen das zehnte Lebensjahr hin. Und vermittelt man ihm da in anschaulich lebendigen Bildern, wie die ganze Erde ein Lebewesen ist, wie sie die Pflanzen nur in komplizierterer Art trägt wie der Mensch die Haare, macht man in der Anschauung eine Einheit, aber eine lebendige Einheit zwischen dem Lebewesen Erde und dem oder jenem Gebiet der aufwachsenden Pflanzen, dann geht etwas auf wie ein Weiten in der Seele des Kindes. Da ist es so in der Seele des Kindes, daß man ihm, wenn man ihm etwas von Pflanzenwesen vorführt, entgegenkommt wie einem, der in dumpfer Luft ist und dem man nun frische Luft zuführt, daß sich der Atem weitet in der frischen Luft. Dieses Weiten der Seele, das ist es, was eintritt durch eine solche, den Geheimnissen des Kosmos wirklich angemessene Erkenntnis.
Sagen Sie nicht, das Kind sei nicht reif für solche Anschauungen. Derjenige, der sie hat, bei dem diese Weltanschauung im Hintergrunde steht, der weiß sie in solche Formen zu prägen, für welche eben das Kind reif ist, so daß das Kind mit seinem ganzen Menschen mitgerissen wird. Anschaulich zu vereinfachen, das ergibt sich schon, wenn man die Sache zunächst hat. Und aus solchen Hintergründen muß alles dasjenige fließen, was vom Lehrenden und Erziehenden an das Kind herangebracht wird. Dann begründet sich wirklich ein Verhältnis des werdenden Menschen zur Welt. Und dann wird man geradezu wie von selbst darauf geführt, alles in lebendige Bilder zu bringen, denn es läßt sich das nicht abstrakt erklären, was ich Ihnen jetzt vorgebracht habe über die Pflanzenwelt, es läßt sich das nur an das Kind heranbringen, indem man es in anschaulichen Bildern entwickelt, indem man nicht bloß das intellektualistische Erkenntnisvermögen in Anspruch nimmt, sondern den ganzen Menschen. Und man wird schon sehen, wie beim Begreifen von einer solchen Sache, die man ins Bild gebracht hat, das Kind merkwürdig auftaut. Es ist dann gar nicht mehr der Fall, daß das Kind einem dann bloß mit dem Munde antworten wird mit einem Begriff, den es doch noch nicht prägen kann, sondern es will erzählen und wird seine Arme, seine Hände zu Hilfe nehmen, es wird allerlei machen, was aus dem ganzen Menschen herauskommt, und es wird vor allen Dingen in diesem Machen und Anzeigen offenbaren, wie es ein innerliches Erlebnis davon hat, daß es Mühe macht, an eine Sache heranzukommen. Und das Schönste und Edelste, was man sich im Erlernen erringen kann, ist, daß man das Gefühl, die Empfindung hat: Es ist schwierig, mühevoll, an eine Sache heranzukommen. — Wer da glaubt, daß er immer nur mit gescheiten Worten das Wesen einer Sache treffen kann, soweit es notwendig ist, der hat überhaupt keine Ehrfurcht vor den Dingen der Welt, und Ehrfurcht vor den Dingen der Welt ist dasjenige, was zum ganzen, vollendeten Menschen gehört, soweit der Mensch vollendet und ganz werden kann innerhalb des irdischen Daseins. Etwas empfinden davon, wie hilflos man ist, wenn man an das Wesen der Dinge heranwill, wie man da alles zusammennehmen muß, was man in seinem ganzen Menschen hat, das gibt erst die wahre Stellung des Menschen zur Welt. Die kann man dem Kinde nur vermitteln, wenn man sie selber hat. Methodik des Lehrens, die muß leben, die kann nicht bloß ausgeübt werden. Methodik des Lehrens muß erblühen aus den Lebensbedingungen des Erziehens. Und sie kann erblühen aus den Lebensbedingungen des Erziehens, wenn sie erwächst aus einem lebendigen Sich-Erfühlen des Lehrenden, des Erziehenden im ganzen Weltenall.
Und hat man das andere, wovon ich heute morgen gesprochen habe, in sich erfaßt und den astralischen Leib des Menschen durch Musikverständnis in seiner Wirklichkeit ergriffen, den Menschen selber angesehen wie ein inneres wunderbar organisiertes Musikinstrument, hat man das für den astralischen Leib des Menschen ergriffen, dann ergibt sich daraus wiederum ein weiteres Verständnis für das ganze Verhältnis des Menschen zur Welt. Natürlich kann man das in der Form, wie ich es jetzt wieder aussprechen werde, nicht dem Kinde unmittelbar mitteilen, aber man kann es schon in Bilder bringen. Aber der Lehrer schaue nun selbst darauf hin mit seinem in musikalischen Formen innerlich erklingenden Menschenverständnis des astralischen Leibes, schaue hin auf den Menschen, schaue hin auf die verschiedenen in der Welt ausgebreiteten Tierformen. Dann wird man finden, wie es doch in der alten instinktiven Weisheit einen tiefen Sinn hatte, den Menschen vorzustellen wie einen synthetischen Zusammenfluß von vier Wesenheiten, drei niederen und einer höheren: Löwe, Stier, Adler, Engel — der Mensch. Denn dasjenige, was der Stier ist, ist die einseitige Ausbildung der niedrigsten Kräfte der Menschennatur. Wenn man sich denkt, daß alles, was der Mensch in seinem Verdauungs- und Gliedmaßensystem an Kräften hat, nicht ein Gegengewicht, Gegenkräfte hat an dem Kopfsystem, an dem rhythmischen System, wenn man sich das einseitige Schwergewicht auf dem Stoffwechsel-Gliedmaßensystem liegend denkt, dann bekommt man die einseitige Bildung, wie sie sich uns entgegenstellt bei dem Rinde. So daß man sich vorstellen kann, wenn dieses Rind gemildert wäre durch ein menschliches Hauptessystem, so würde sich das, was in ihm ist, so ausbilden wie der Mensch selber. Wird aber einseitig durch Verkürzung des Darmsystems und durch ein Zurückbleiben des Kopfsystems das rhythmische System ausgebildet, das System des mittleren Menschen, so bekommt man in der Tat ein einseitiges Bild davon in der Löwennatur. Und wird einseitig das Kopfsystem ausgebildet, so daß das, was sonst in unserem Kopf an Kräften im Inneren vorhanden ist, nach außen schießt in die Federn, dann bekommt man die Vogel- oder Adlernatur. Und wenn man sich die Kräfte, die diese drei zu einer Einheit zusammenklingen lassen, so denkt, daß sie sich eben als Einheit auch äußerlich offenbaren können, wenn man sich das engelhafte Vierte dazu vorstellt, dann bekommt man die synthetische Einheit der drei, den Menschen. Das ist schematisch vorgestellt, aber es gibt eine Einsicht in die Art und Weise, wie der Mensch sich zu seiner tierischen Umgebung verhält, und er verhält sich so nicht bloß zum Stier, Adler, Löwen, er verhält sich so zu den gesamten Tierformen, die auf der Erde ausgebreitet sind. Und in jeder einzelnen Tierform können wir eine einseitige Ausbildung eines gewissen Organsystems des Menschen finden. Solche Dinge lebten in der alten instinktiven Weisheit.
In den späteren Zeiten gab es noch Traditionen davon. Die Leute drückten das in paradoxen Redensarten aus, weil sie selber keine Anschauung mehr davon hatten und daher die alten Anschauungen in intellektualistischer Weise verarbeiteten. Oken sagte ja den grotesken Satz: Wenn man auf die Zunge des Menschen hinschaut und annimmt, daß sie einseitig ausgebildet wäre, wenn also dasjenige, was in ihr gemildert ist durch die Kräfte des Kopfes und dadurch, daß die Zunge dem Magen und so weiter dient, der weit von ihr entfernt ist, einseitig ausgebildet wäre, wenn ein Wesen zunächst nur Zunge wäre und alles andere nur Anhängsel daran, was würde die Zunge sein? Ein Tintenfisch. Die Zunge ist ein Tintenfisch. — Nun, es ist gewiß ein grotesker Ausdruck, aber es ist etwas, was in modern-intellektualistischer Art auf eine alte wesenhafte Anschauung zurückblicken läßt. Es war natürlich Unsinn, was so gesagt wird, aber es quoll hervor aus dem, was einmal einen tiefen Sinn hatte. Es kann wiederum gefunden werden, was als Seelenverfassung der alten Erkenntnis zugrunde lag; es kann wiederum gefunden werden, wie man den Menschen in einer gewissen Beziehung aufgeteilt denken kann in all die verschiedenen Tierformen, Tiergestaltungen, die sich auf der Erde finden. Und wenn man sie zusammenfügt, so daß das eine durch das andere harmonisiert wird, dann bekommt man den Menschen.
So findet man des Menschen Verhältnis zur Außenwelt in bezug auf seinen astralischen Leib, wenn man anschaulich entwickelt sein Verhältnis zur Tierwelt. Und ein musikalisches Verständnis muß es sein, das sich auf den astralischen Leib bezieht. Ich schaue hinein in den Menschen, ich schaue hinaus in die ausgebreiteten mannigfaltigen Tierformen: es ist so, als ob ich eine Symphonie wahrnähme, in der alle Töne zusammenklingen zu einem wunderbar harmonisch melodiösen Ganzen, und ich würde dann in längerer Entwickelung einen Ton von dem anderen lösen und einen Ton neben den anderen stellen aus dieser Symphonie. Ich schaue hinaus in die Tierwelt: es sind die einzelnen Töne. Ich schaue hinein in den menschlichen astralischen Leib und in das, was der menschliche astralische Leib erbildet im physischen und Ätherleib: ich sehe die Symphonie. Und bleibt man nicht in philiströser Weise beim intellektualistischen Erfassen der Welt stehen, sondern hat man Freiheit der Erkenntnisgesinnung genug, um sich in künstlerischem Erkennen heraufzuerheben, dann kommt man zu einer innigen, von religiöser Inbrunst durchzogenen Verehrung jenes unsichtbaren Wesens, jenes wunderbaren Weltenkomponisten, der sich zuerst die Töne in den verschiedenen Tierformen auseinandergelegt hat, um daraus den Menschen in bezug auf dasjenige, was seine Animalität offenbart, symphonisch zu komponieren. Das muß man in der Seele tragen, so muß man verstehen zur Welt zu stehen, dann wird sich hineinergießen in dasjenige, was man als die Tierformen zu beschreiben hat, nicht nur etwas von abstrakten Begriffen und Naturgesetzen, sondern etwas von wahrer Inbrunst gegenüber Weltenschaffen und Weltengestalten. Und dann wird in jedem Worte, in der Art wie man es spricht, etwas von religiöser Inbrunst im ganzen Unterrichte leben.
Das sind die Dinge, die einem belegen können, wie Unterrichten und Erziehen nicht auszugehen haben von irgendeinem Erlernen, das man dann anwendet, sondern wie Unterricht und Erziehung auszugehen haben von einem lebendigen Durchdrungensein, das einen so hineinstellt in die Klasse, wie wenn man etwas wäre, das in diesem Wirken auf die Kinder, ich möchte sagen, nach vorne sich äußert, indem von hinten her die Weltengeheimnisse pulsierend den Menschen durchströmen; wie wenn man das bloße Werkzeug dafür wäre, daß die Welt zu dem Kinde sprechen könne. Dann liegt ein wirklicher, nun nicht äußerlich pedantischer, sondern ein innerlich lebenskräftiger methodischer Zug im Unterrichte. Daß nicht eine Begeisterung erkünstelt werde, sondern eine Begeisterung erblühe, wie die Blüte erblüht aus der ganzen Pflanze, aus dem, was der Lehrer in sich trägt als sein Verhältnis zur Welt, darauf kommt es an.
Man muß sprechen, wenn man von der Methodik des Lehrens und den Lebensbedingungen des Erziehens spricht, von dem Enthusiasmus, der angeregt werden kann von wirklicher Einsicht in die Welt, nicht von theoretisch-abstrakter Einsicht. Dann, wenn man in diesem Stil herantritt an das Kind zwischen dem Zahnwechsel und der Geschlechtsreife, dann führt man es in der richtigen Art bis zur Geschlechtsreife. Und in dem Moment des Lebens, wo die Geschlechtsreife eintritt, da entwickelt sich dann der astralische Leib im Menschen in seiner Selbständigkeit. Dasjenige, was zuerst gewissermaßen als die Musik der Welt aufgenommen worden ist, das entwickelt sich im Inneren weiter. Das Merkwürdige tritt ein, daß das, was in Bildern entwickelt worden ist im kindlichen Alter zwischen Zahnwechsel und Geschlechtsreife, was in lebendigen Bildern innerlich musikalisch-plastisches Eigentum der Seele geworden ist, dann erfaßt wird von dem Intellekt. Und der Mensch nimmt mit seinem Intellekt nicht etwas auf von dem, was man ihm zwangsmäßig von außen intellektualistisch beibringt, sondern der Mensch nimmt dasjenige auf mit dem Intellekt, was erst selber in ihm auf andere Art gewachsen ist als durch den Intellekt. Und dann tritt das Bedeutsame ein: Man hat vorbereitet, was hinter der Geschlechtsreife bei den gesund sich entwickelnden Menschen liegen muß, das Selbst-Begreifen dessen, was man schon hat. Alles, was man in Bildern begriffen hat, lebt aus dem eigenen inneren Hervorquellen verständnisvoll jetzt auf. Der Mensch schaut in sich, indem er zum Intellekt übergehen will. Das ist ein Ergreifen des Menschenwesens in sich selber durch sich selber. Da findet ein Zusammenschlagen statt des astralischen Leibes, der musikalisch wirkt, mit dem ätherischen Leibe, der plastisch wirkt. Da schlägt etwas im Menschen zusammen, und durch dieses Zusammenschlagen wird der Mensch sein eigenes Wesen nach der Geschlechtsreife in einer gesunden Weise gewahr. Und indem so zusammenschlägt, was zwei Seiten seiner Natur darstellt, kommt der Mensch nach der Geschlechtsreife durch dieses nun erst erfolgende Begreifen desjenigen, was er früher nur angeschaut hat, zum richtigen inneren Erlebnis der Freiheit.
Das Größte, was man vorbereiten kann in dem werdenden Menschen, in dem Kinde, das ist, daß es im rechten Momente des Lebens durch das Verstehen seiner selbst zu dem Erleben der Freiheit kommt. Wahre Freiheit ist inneres Erleben, und wahre Freiheit kann nur dadurch im Menschen entwickelt werden, daß man als Erzieher und Unterrichter so auf den Menschen hinschaut. Da sagt man sich: Freiheit kann ich dem Menschen nicht geben, er muß sie an sich selbst erleben. Dann muß ich aber etwas in ihn verpflanzen, zu dem sein eigenes Wesen, das ich unangetastet lasse, nachher einen Zug verspürt, so daß es untertaucht in das Verpflanzte. Und ich habe das Schöne erreicht, daß ich im Menschen erzogen habe, was zu erziehen ist, und unangetastet habe ich gelassen in scheuer Ehrfurcht vor der göttlichen Wesenheit in jedem einzelnen individuellen Menschen, was dann selber zum Begreifen seiner selbst kommen muß. Ich warte, indem ich alles das im Menschen erziehe, was nicht sein Eigenes ist, bis sein Eigenes ergreift, was ich in ihm erzogen habe. So greife ich nicht brutal ein in die Entwickelung des menschlichen Selbstes, sondern bereite dieser Entwickelung des menschlichen Selbstes, die nach der Geschlechtsreife eintritt, den Boden. Gebe ich dem Menschen vor der Geschlechtsreife eine intellektualistische Erziehung, bringe ich an ihn abstrakte Begriffe heran oder fertig konturierte Beobachtungen, nicht wachsende, lebenssprühende Bilder, dann vergewaltige ich ihn, dann greife ich brutal in sein Selbst ein. Wahrhaft erziehen werde ich ihn nur, wenn ich nicht eingreife in sein Selbst, sondern abwarte, bis dieses Selbst selbst eingreifen kann in das, was ich in der Erziehung veranlagt habe. Und so lebe ich mit dem Kinde demjenigen Zeitpunkte entgegen, wo ich sagen kann: Da wird das Selbst in seiner Freiheit geboren; ich habe ihm nur den Boden bereitet, daß es sich selber gewahr werden kann. — Und ich sehe mir entgegenkommen, wenn ich so bis zur Geschlechtsreife erzogen habe, den Menschen, der mir sagt: Du hast anmir, als ich noch kein voller Mensch war, dasjenige getan, was mir gestattet, daß ich mich jetzt, wo ich es kann, selber zum vollen Menschen machen kann! — Ich sehe mir entgegenkommen den Menschen, der mir mit jedem Blick, mit jeder Regung offenbart: Du hast etwas getan an mir, aber meine Freiheit damit nicht beeinträchtigt, sondern mir die Möglichkeit geboten, diese meine Freiheit mir im rechten Lebensaugenblicke selber zu geben. Du hast das getan, was mir jetzt möglich macht, vor dir zu erscheinen, mich selber gestaltend als Mensch aus meiner Individualität heraus, die du in scheuer Ehrfurcht unangetastet gelassen hast.
Das wird vielleicht nicht ausgesprochen, es lebt aber in dem Menschen, wenn man ihn in der richtigen Weise erziehend und unterrichtend durch das Volksschulalter hindurchgebracht hat. Wie manches noch zu gestalten ist, damit man in solcher Weise erfahren kann, ob die Erziehung und der Unterricht demjenigen Rechnung tragen, dem der Mensch nach der Geschlechtsreife entgegentritt, das soll dann noch der morgige Vortrag zeigen.
Fourth Lecture
This morning I attempted to describe how human knowledge must transform itself from mere knowledge of nature into, in a sense, higher forms of knowledge, if the whole human being, including the developing human being, the child, is to be understood in such a way that this understanding can be translated into an artistic approach to education and teaching. I can imagine that the question might arise: Yes, is it really a question of whether things such as understanding the physical body through mere observation and intellectualization, understanding the etheric body of the human being through plastic exercises, understanding the astral body through musical understanding, understanding the ego organization through insight into the nature of language, whether such insight into the human being, if it is present in the teacher and educator, can somehow be put into practice? — Yes, if one has to characterize the whole essence of education and teaching as has been done in these lectures on Waldorf school pedagogy, then one must say: It is in fact the most important thing that a teacher or educator must possess: a view of life, a worldview; not what is commonly understood today as a worldview, for that is something thoroughly theoretical, but something that can pass into the whole active being of the human being, including the educator, like a soul force. One might say: if the teacher or educator wants to acquire educational principles from the latest recognized insights into human nature, he must first obtain the enthusiasm he needs as a teacher or educator from elsewhere. Hence the constant instructions about educational ideals, which nevertheless remain ineffective because they sound like abstractions, however justified they may seem. In contrast, a genuine insight that penetrates the essence of the world and of human beings will, through its very existence in the human heart, burst forth in enthusiasm and place the educator and teacher in his profession in such a way that he can draw enthusiasm from what he feels in his relationship to the world and to himself, like the artist when the work of art is in his limbs. He does not need to seek inspiration from something else: he draws it from the subject matter itself. And that enthusiasm, which comes from a worldview experienced inwardly and constantly renewed by the teacher and educator, that inner enthusiasm, will be transferred to the souls of the children entrusted to the teacher. This enthusiasm will live in everything the teacher can do educationally at school. Thus, someone who looks so deeply into the nature of human beings that he sees how, especially at the elementary school age, the age between the change of teeth and sexual maturity, the musical and the plastic arts resonate within the human being, cannot possibly think choose the wrong methods for teaching writing and reading to children, to the developing human being, in the right way. They will have a vivid sense that writing, especially when taught in the way described here, engages the whole person, involves the use of the arms and hands, spiritualizes the arms and hands, and is an exercise for the whole person.
It is precisely this in the human being that is vividly felt when one starts from a worldview such as the one I described this morning. And one will also feel how reading practice is a one-sided activity of the head and makes people one-sided, and one will feel that children are only ready for such one-sidedness when they have first been engaged in relation to their totality, in relation to their whole human being. Therefore, a teacher who combines this with insight into human nature will take care to develop writing from drawing and painting, as I have indicated, until the child is ready to write down what it feels inwardly as a word or a sentence.
Now the child has reached a certain stage of development. It speaks, and it can write down what it says. Only then has the time come to move on to reading exercises, to begin teaching reading. And this reading will be easy to teach if writing has first been developed to a level that is, in a certain sense, truly perfect. Then, when the child has first practiced what is written and read within themselves, in their human nature, in their motor system, in their movement system, when they have been internally involved in the creation of what is to be read, then they are ready to be one-sided; then the head can be used, without any danger to human development, to translate what one has first learned to fix in writing into reading.
You see, what matters is that, week after week, month after month, the developing human being is really set in motion in the way that the developing powers of the human organization within him require. It is therefore important to read from the way in which the human being wants to develop what needs to be done with the child at each stage of life. It is certainly not possible to work with timetables that assign one activity for an hour or three quarters of an hour, then immediately jump to another, then to a third, and so on. That is why Waldorf schools have introduced a form of teaching that covers the same subject for a certain period of time, a few weeks, during the first hours of the morning, so that the student can really immerse themselves in this subject and is not immediately torn away from it once they have started. This is known as block teaching, and it is the method practiced in Waldorf schools.
Now, when it comes to everything that needs to be taught to children between the change of teeth and sexual maturity, it is a matter of finding a method for discerning what needs to be taught from the requirements of human nature itself. Above all, if one wants to gradually introduce the child to a relationship with itself and with the world, it is necessary that the teacher and educator himself has such a relationship with the world. Now, however, in our present civilization, it is actually impossible, no matter how learned a person may have become, to gain an inner, lively, meaningful relationship with the world and with oneself within this civilization. Again, a radical statement. But today we must not shy away from real insights into what must gradually be incorporated into civilization. Above all, it is necessary that teachers and educators themselves do not merely pursue a kind of cosmic parochialism in their own education, but that they look beyond the merely earthly and know how dependent they are as human beings not only on the food in their immediate surroundings, but on the entire universe. Certainly, in this regard, it is very difficult today to speak impartially. For when people today try to look beyond their dependence on the merely earthly, they find little in contemporary education to give them points of reference for such a view. Therefore, old teachings, which stem from ancient instinctive insights, are often taken over into the present without being understood. This is how superstition comes about. And actually, within the currently recognized civilization, we only have the cosmic parochialism of human beings, because this civilization does not yet provide insights that extend from the earth into outer space. We only have calculations or, at most, spectral analysis, which teach us about the course and position of the stars, teach us — at least supposedly teach us — about the substance of the stars and the like. But we cannot gain such intimate knowledge of extraterrestrial and cosmic matters from within our current civilization as we do by entering into close relationships with earthly beings. Isn't it true that when it comes to cabbage, spinach, and venison, humans have insights that go far beyond those gained through abstract, intellectual science, because they eat these things, and when eating, it is not merely abstract thought that plays a role. One does not eat merely to experience what modern science has to say about rabbits, but one experiences something much more concrete, much more intimate, I would say, from the rabbit in its taste and in the way it is digested. But our knowledge of the extraterrestrial universe is such that we do not have these more intimate relationships at all. For if we knew only what astronomy and spectral analysis know about extraterrestrial space, what we know about rabbits, and the calculations we can make about the mutual arrangement of bones in rabbits, about the ratio of substances found in rabbits, if we only entered into such a relationship with rabbits, we would not be able to find our way into the human relationship we have with the rabbit. We would not be able to experience a human relationship with the rabbit. People today simply do not know that such intimate relationships also existed with the extraterrestrial universe in an older instinctive wisdom. If we look at that ancient wisdom in the right way, we will be inspired to seek new wisdom in these areas from our more advanced state of soul, which can then be brought closer to us as human beings, just like the science of the natural objects that surround us on Earth.
I would like to illustrate this with an example that shows how important it is for the teacher to really develop a living relationship with the world in order to draw from it the enthusiasm he needs when he has to translate what is actually something else in the educator's soul into simple, vivid images for the child. But if he himself is initiated into his relationship with the world, then in the presence of the child and the child's activities, this is transformed into the world of images that is necessary to really advance the child in the way that human development requires. You see, we have the plant world around us. It actually contains quite a few mysteries for meaningful observation. Such mysteries caught Goethe's attention. He followed the developing plant forms in their various metamorphoses and, in observing how the plant grows, arrived at a remarkable formula which, I would say, pours life into the knowledge of plants. He arrived at the formula that he said: Let us first look at the seed that we sink into the earth, from which the plant grows. There, the life of the plant is physically compressed into a single point. Then we see how the seed unfolds, how life spreads more and more, until it is finally fully spread out in the first cotyledons. Then it contracts again, remains in the confines of the stem, goes to the next leaf base, spreads out again, only to contract again and remain in the stem, and then spread out again at the next leaf base, and so on, until the final contraction occurs when, in the new seed formation, the entire life of the plant is once again concentrated into a physical point. Goethe spoke of how this plant growth shows alternation in its development between expansion, contraction, expansion, contraction.
Goethe thus took a deep look into the inner structure of the plant, which springs from its own plant life. However, because the time had not yet come, he was not yet able to relate this plant life, for which he had found the formula, to the whole world. For the whole world, with its forces, is always involved in the way a being lives and exists. With the help of today's spiritual science, anthroposophical spiritual science, as you can follow it in spiritual scientific literature — I would just like to hint at these things — one can go far beyond this formula. And then one will find how that which comes from the sun lives in the expansion of the plant being. For it is not only that which is recorded by astronomy and spectral analysis that lives in the sun; spiritual forces wave and weave down to the earth with the sun's rays, and in this inner animation of sunlight lives that which, for example, causes the expansion in plant growth. It is not important that this spreading only occurs when the sun shines on the plants, but rather that the power of plant growth is maintained in its sun-like nature even beyond the external shining of the sun. On the other hand, everything that contracts, where the entire plant growth contracts again at the point of transition from one leaf base to another, during the formation of the seed, is under the influence of the lunar forces. And just as we see the rhythmic alternation of sunshine and moonlight in the cosmos, we see the reflection of what is revealed to us in the rhythmic alternation of sunshine and moonlight from the sky in the sprouting plant, which counters the effect of the sun with expansion into leaf width, and we see the forces of the moon in the contraction of the plant. Expansion and contraction are the reflection in the plant of what works down onto the earth from the vastness of the worlds, from the distant ether, in the forces of the sun and moon in their alternation.
Now our gaze expands beyond the earth into the vastness of the worlds, into the distant ether. We get an impression of how the earth, in terms of its fertility and growth forces, nourishes itself from what flows into it from the cosmos. We get a feeling of how, via the plant, we grow together with the spirit of the sun and moon. Now what is otherwise only calculated or tracked spectrally is brought closer to human beings. If enthusiasm is needed to convey something about the human relationship to the world to the developing human being, then this cannot flow from the mere abstract pursuit of whether a leaf has serrated or smooth edges or whether the leaves are shaped in one way or another. That does not inspire enthusiasm. But enthusiasm arises when we see the reflection of the sun and moon in the growth of this or that plant. How wonderful it is to observe the surrounding nature when, for my sake, one observes any plant that grows regularly, such as the buttercup: one finds in it something that the earth sends forth by surrendering itself in a, I would say, loving way to the sun and moon of the cosmos, paying homage to both in the same way. We turn our gaze to a plant such as the cactus, which extends what is its trunk: what do we see there? In the contraction that the stem otherwise shows, we see the forces of the moon; when this stem wants to extend itself, we see the struggle between the effects of the sun and the moon. We see in the form of each plant how the sun and moon interact within it. We see in every plant a small world, a reflection of the greater world. I would say that just as we see our own image in a mirror, we see in the mirror of the earth's growth what is happening in the universe outside.
In ancient instinctive wisdom, such things were known and present. The following is proof of this: People saw that the plant life sprouting from the earth in spring reflects the relationship between the forces of the sun and the moon in the cosmos. That is why spring was celebrated with Easter, the timing of which was determined by the relationship between the sun and the moon. Easter is the festival that takes place on the first Sunday after the spring full moon. The timing of Easter is therefore taken from the cosmos, specifically from the relationship between the sun and the moon. What was the intention behind this? The intention was to say: Let us observe how plants sprout in spring. We are faced with a mystery as to why they sometimes appear earlier and sometimes later. However, we can examine this mystery when we observe how the timing of the spring full moon is reflected in all sprouting and budding in the relevant year. — Well, there are certainly other factors that influence this, but in general one will notice that what happens in spring, with the plants coming out earlier one year and later the next, actually expresses what is happening between the sun and the moon. But what will people say if they only consider the scientific parochialism of dependence on the earth? One would say: Well, in a year when the plants come out earlier, this is because it snowed for a shorter period of time, because the snow melted earlier, and in a year when the plants come out later, it simply snowed for longer. — Certainly, this is a very obvious explanation, but one that does not actually explain anything. One only gains real insight when one understands from observation how plant growth depends on the effects of the forces of the sun and moon, and when one can go further from this observation and say: whether the snow lasts longer or shorter in the year also depends on the constellation of the sun and moon. The same forces that cause plants to sprout also determine how long the snow lasts. In this way, the climatic conditions, the meteorological conditions of a year, are also subject to cosmic influences.
Yes, by continuing to explore such things further and further, we gain insight into the life of the Earth, which guides this Earth on its journey through the cosmos. We say: a person can thrive if there are many cows in his barn and he gets a lot of milk — because we can point to a known dependence of humans on their immediate earthly environment. We follow the nutritional life of humans by looking into this relationship. Only when we see the relationship to its environment, the processing of what it receives from its environment, does something appear alive to us. When we watch the earth wander through space, absorbing what comes from the sun and moon and other stars, we see it living in the universe. We do not form a dead geology and geognosy, but we elevate what dead geology and geognosy have to offer us to a description of the life of the earth in the cosmos outside. The earth becomes a living being before our spiritual eyes. When we now see plants sprouting from the earth, we see how the earth passes on the life it receives from the cosmos to what is within it, and the earth and plant growth become one to us. And we realize: it is nonsense to pull a plant out of the earth and then look at it uprooted, from root to blossom, and believe that this is reality. This is just as little a reality as a human hair that has been pulled out; it belongs to the whole organism and can only be understood as belonging to the whole organism. And pulling out a hair and looking at it on its own is just as nonsensical as pulling out a plant and looking at it on its own. The hair is connected to the human organism, the plant to the whole living earth.
In this way, one weaves one's own being into the living earth, so that one not only feels oneself walking around on it, subject to the forces that emerge from it, but also sees in one's surroundings that which works in from the etheric distances. One gains a living insight and feeling of how forces from the cosmos are at work everywhere, forces which, as I said, pull the etheric body apart, just as the physical body is drawn to the earth. And so one gains a natural feeling for the etheric pull toward the vastness, just as one gains a feeling for the heaviness that pulls one toward the earth in relation to the physical body. In this way, the human gaze expands more and more, so that one's knowledge becomes inner life, so that one truly achieves something through one's knowledge. In the past, people believed that the earth was a dead object in the universe. Through knowledge, he enlivens it. We must return to such living knowledge, the after-effects of which we still see in such seasonal observances as Easter. But we must arrive at cosmic insights again from developed, thoughtful knowledge, not from instinct, as was the case in ancient times. These cosmic insights will live in us in such a way that we can form them into the artistic images we need. A person who sees the sun and moon ruling over all plant growth, who feels the enthusiasm for the universe that can arise from such living insight, conveys what plants are in a truly different way than someone who absorbs and processes the abstract views of today's botany books. Everything becomes so that the concept can be conveyed richly and artistically to the developing human being, to the child. And the child becomes ready for what the educator can then do with such a far-reaching insight, around the age of ten. And if you convey to them in vivid, lively images how the whole earth is a living being, how it carries plants in a more complicated way than humans carry hair, if you create a unity in their perception, but a living unity between the living being that is the earth and this or that area of growing plants, then something opens up like a vastness in the soul of the child. It is so in the soul of the child that when you show them something about plant life, you meet them like someone who is in stuffy air and to whom you now bring fresh air, so that their breath expands in the fresh air. This expansion of the soul is what occurs through such knowledge, which is truly appropriate to the mysteries of the cosmos.
Do not say that the child is not ready for such views. Those who have them, who have this worldview in the background, know how to shape them into forms that the child is ready for, so that the child is carried away with their whole being. To simplify things vividly is something that comes naturally once you have grasped the matter. And everything that is brought to the child by the teacher and educator must flow from such a background. Then a relationship between the developing human being and the world is truly established. And then one is led almost automatically to express everything in vivid images, for what I have now told you about the plant world cannot be explained abstractly; it can only be brought to the child by developing it in vivid images, by appealing not only to the intellectual capacity for knowledge, but to the whole human being. And you will see how, when understanding such a thing that you have brought into the picture, the child thaws strangely. It is then no longer the case that the child will merely respond with a word, with a concept that it cannot yet grasp, but it will want to tell you and will use its arms and hands to help, it will do all sorts of things that come from the whole person, and above all, in doing and showing these things, it will reveal how it has an inner experience of how difficult it is to approach a subject. And the most beautiful and noble thing one can achieve in learning is to have the feeling, the sensation: it is difficult, laborious, to approach a subject. — Anyone who believes that they can always grasp the essence of a thing with clever words, as far as is necessary, has no reverence for the things of the world, and reverence for the things of the world is what belongs to the whole, perfect human being, insofar as the human being can become perfect and whole within earthly existence. To feel something of how helpless one is when one wants to approach the essence of things, how one must gather together everything one has in one's whole being, that is what gives man his true position in the world. One can only convey this to a child if one has it oneself. The methodology of teaching must be alive; it cannot merely be practiced. The methodology of teaching must blossom from the living conditions of education. And it can blossom from the living conditions of education if it arises from a living sense of the teacher, the educator, in the whole universe.
And once you have grasped the other thing I spoke about this morning and understood the astral body of the human being in its reality through an understanding of music, once you have regarded the human being itself as a wonderfully organized musical instrument, once you have grasped this for the astral body of the human being, then this in turn leads to a further understanding of the whole relationship of the human being to the world. Of course, you cannot communicate this directly to the child in the form in which I am now going to express it, but you can put it into pictures. But let the teacher now look at it himself with his understanding of the astral body, which resounds inwardly in musical forms, let him look at the human being, let him look at the various animal forms spread throughout the world. Then one will find how it had a deep meaning in the ancient instinctive wisdom to represent the human being as a synthetic confluence of four beings, three lower and one higher: lion, bull, eagle, angel — the human being. For what the bull is, is the one-sided development of the lowest forces of human nature. If one imagines that everything that man has in his digestive and limb systems in terms of forces has no counterbalance, no counterforces in the head system, in the rhythmic system, if one imagines the one-sided emphasis on the metabolic-limb system, then one gets the one-sided development that we see in the crust. So one can imagine that if this bovine nature were tempered by a human head system, what is within it would develop like the human being himself. But if, through a shortening of the intestinal system and a lagging behind of the head system, the rhythmic system, the system of the middle human being, is developed one-sidedly, then one indeed gets a one-sided picture of this in the lion nature. And if the head system is developed in a one-sided way, so that what is otherwise present in our head as inner forces shoots outwards into the feathers, then we get the nature of a bird or eagle. And if we consider the forces that bring these three together into a unity, and think that they can also manifest themselves externally as a unity, if we imagine the angelic fourth added to them, then we get the synthetic unity of the three, the human being. This is presented schematically, but it gives an insight into the way human beings relate to their animal environment, and they do not relate in this way only to the bull, eagle, and lion, but to all the animal forms that are spread across the earth. And in each individual animal form, we can find a one-sided development of a certain organ system of the human being. Such things lived in the ancient instinctive wisdom.
In later times, there were still traditions of this. People expressed this in paradoxical sayings because they themselves no longer had any conception of it and therefore processed the old conceptions in an intellectualistic way. Oken said the grotesque sentence: If you look at the human tongue and assume that it is developed one-sidedly, that is, if what is moderated in it by the powers of the head and by the fact that the tongue serves the stomach and so on, which is far away from it, were developed one-sidedly, if a being were initially only a tongue and everything else were only appendages to it, what would the tongue be? A squid. The tongue is an octopus. — Now, it is certainly a grotesque expression, but it is something that, in a modern intellectualistic way, allows us to look back on an ancient essential view. What is said in this way was, of course, nonsense, but it sprang from what once had a deep meaning. It is possible to rediscover what lay at the heart of the ancient understanding; it is possible to rediscover how, in a certain sense, human beings can be divided into all the different animal forms and animal shapes that are found on earth. And when you put them together so that one harmonizes with the other, you get the human being.
Thus, one finds the human being's relationship to the outside world in relation to his astral body when one vividly develops his relationship to the animal world. And it must be a musical understanding that relates to the astral body. I look into the human being, I look out into the diverse forms of animals spread out before me: it is as if I were perceiving a symphony in which all the tones blend together into a wonderfully harmonious, melodious whole, and then, in a longer development, I would separate one tone from the other and place one tone next to the other from this symphony. I look out into the animal world: there are the individual tones. I look into the human astral body and into what the human astral body forms in the physical and etheric bodies: I see the symphony. And if one does not remain stuck in a philistine intellectual understanding of the world, but has enough freedom of mind to rise to artistic recognition, then one arrives at an intimate reverence, imbued with religious fervor, for that invisible being, that wonderful composer of worlds, who first laid out the tones in the various animal forms in order to compose symphonically from them the human being in relation to that which reveals his animal nature. One must carry this in one's soul, one must understand how to relate to the world, then what one has to describe as animal forms will be infused not only with abstract concepts and natural laws, but also with true fervor for world creation and world formation. And then, in every word, in the way it is spoken, something of religious fervor will live in the whole teaching.
These are the things that can prove to you how teaching and education should not proceed from some kind of learning that you then apply, but how teaching and education should proceed from a living imbuedness that places you in the classroom as if you were something that, in this work on the children, I would say, by pulsating from behind, the secrets of the world flowing through human beings; as if one were merely the instrument through which the world could speak to the child. Then there is a real, not outwardly pedantic, but inwardly vital methodological trait in teaching. It is important that enthusiasm is not artificial, but blossoms like a flower from the whole plant, from what the teacher carries within himself as his relationship to the world.
When talking about teaching methodology and the conditions of education, one must speak of the enthusiasm that can be stimulated by a real insight into the world, not by a theoretical, abstract insight. Then, when one approaches the child between the change of teeth and sexual maturity in this way, one leads it in the right way to sexual maturity. And at the moment in life when sexual maturity occurs, the astral body in the human being develops its independence. What was first absorbed, as it were, as the music of the world, continues to develop inwardly. The remarkable thing is that what has been developed in images during childhood between the change of teeth and sexual maturity, what has become the soul's inner musical and plastic property in living images, is then grasped by the intellect. And the human being does not take in with his intellect something that is forcibly taught to him from outside in an intellectualistic way, but rather takes in with his intellect that which has first grown within him in a different way than through the intellect. And then the significant thing happens: one has prepared what must lie behind sexual maturity in healthy developing human beings, the self-comprehension of what one already has. Everything that one has comprehended in images now lives up from one's own inner wellspring with understanding. The human being looks within himself as he seeks to transition to the intellect. This is a grasping of the human being within himself by himself. There is a merging of the astral body, which has a musical effect, with the etheric body, which has a plastic effect. Something merges within the human being, and through this merging, the human being becomes aware of his own being in a healthy way after puberty. And as these two sides of their nature come together, human beings, after reaching sexual maturity, through this new understanding of what they had previously only observed, arrive at a true inner experience of freedom.
The greatest thing that can be prepared in the developing human being, in the child, is that at the right moment in life, through understanding themselves, they come to experience freedom. True freedom is an inner experience, and true freedom can only be developed in the human being if, as educators and teachers, we look at the human being in this way. One says to oneself: I cannot give freedom to the human being; he must experience it for himself. But then I must implant something in him to which his own nature, which I leave untouched, will subsequently feel drawn, so that it submerges into what has been implanted. And I have achieved the beautiful thing of educating in the human being what is to be educated, and I have left untouched, in shy reverence for the divine essence in each individual human being, what must then come to understand itself. I wait, educating in the human being everything that is not his own, until his own takes hold of what I have educated in him. In this way, I do not brutally intervene in the development of the human self, but prepare the ground for this development of the human self, which occurs after puberty. If I give a person an intellectual education before puberty, if I introduce them to abstract concepts or ready-made observations, rather than growing, life-giving images, then I am violating them, brutally interfering with their self. I will only truly educate them if I do not interfere with their self, but wait until this self can itself intervene in what I have laid down in their education. And so I live with the child towards the point in time when I can say: Here the self is born in its freedom; I have only prepared the ground for it to become aware of itself. — And when I have educated the child in this way until it reaches sexual maturity, I see the person coming towards me who says to me: When I was not yet a fully-fledged human being, you did something for me that allows me now, when I am able to do so, to make myself a fully-fledged human being! — I see the person coming towards me who reveals to me with every glance, with every emotion: You did something for me, but you did not interfere with my freedom; rather, you gave me the opportunity to give myself this freedom at the right moment in my life. You did what now makes it possible for me to appear before you, shaping myself as a human being out of my individuality, which you left untouched in shy reverence.
This may not be expressed in words, but it lives in the human being if he has been brought through elementary school age in the right way, with the right education and teaching. Tomorrow's lecture will show how much still needs to be done to find out whether education and teaching take into account what the human being encounters after reaching sexual maturity.