The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Rudolf Steiner: Several questions have been handed in and I will try to answer as many as possible in the short time available.

First Question: This question has to do with the relationship between sensory and motor nerves and is, primarily, a matter of interpretation. When considered only from a physical point of view, one’s conclusion will not differ from the usual interpretation, which deals with the central organ. Let me take a simple case of nerve conduction. Sensation would be transmitted from the periphery to the central organ, from which the motor impulse would pass to the appropriate organ. As I said, as long as we consider only the physical, we might be perfectly satisfied with this explanation. And I do not believe that any other interpretation would be acceptable, unless we are willing to consider the result of suprasensory observations, that is, all-inclusive, real observation.

As I mentioned in my discussions of this matter over the past few days, the difference between the sensory and motor nerves, anatomically and physiologically, is not very significant. I never said that there is no difference at all, but that the difference was not very noticeable. Anatomical differences do not contradict my interpretation. Let me say this again: we are dealing here with only one type of nerves. What people call the “sensory” nerves and “motor” nerves are really the same, and so it really doesn’t matter whether we use sensory or motor for our terms. Such distinctions are irrelevant, since these nerves are (metaphorically) the physical tools of undifferentiated soul experiences. A will process lives in every thought process, and, vice versa, there is an element of thought, or a residue of sensory perception, in every will process, although such processes remain mostly unconscious.

Now, every will impulse, whether direct or the result of a thought, always begins in the upper members of the human constitution, in the interplay between the I-being and the astral body. If we now follow a will impulse and all its processes, we are not led to the nerves at all, since every will impulse intervenes directly in the human metabolism. The difference between an interpretation based on anthroposophic research and that of conventional science lies in science’s claim that a will impulse is transmitted to the nerves before the relevant organs are stimulated to move.

In reality, this is not the case. A soul impulse initiates metabolic processes directly in the organism. For example, let’s look at a sensation as revealed by a physical sense, say in the human eye. Here, the whole process would have to be drawn in greater detail. First a process would occur in the eye, then it would be transmitted to the optic nerve, which is classified as a sensory nerve by ordinary science. The optic nerve is the physical mediator for seeing.

If we really want to get to the truth of the matter, I will have to correct what I just said. It was with some hesitation that I said that the nerves are the physical instruments of human soul experiences, because such a comparison does not accurately convey the real meaning of physical organs and organic systems in a human being. Think of it like this: imagine soft ground and a path, and that a cart is being driven over this soft earth. It would leave tracks, from which I could tell exactly where the wheels had been. Now imagine that someone comes along and explains these tracks by saying, “Here, in these places, the earth must have developed various forces that it.” Such an interpretation would be a complete illusion, since it was not the earth that was active; rather, something was done to the earth. The cartwheels were driven over it, and the tracks had nothing to do with an activity of the earth itself.

Something similar happens in the brain’s nervous system. Soul and spiritual processes are active there. As with the cart, what is left behind are the tracks, or imprints. These we can find. But the perception in the brain and everything retained anatomically and physiologically have nothing to do with the brain as such. This was impressed, or molded, by the activities of soul and spirit. Thus, it is not surprising that what we find in the brain corresponds to events in the sphere of soul and spirit. In fact, however, this is completely unrelated to the brain itself. So the metaphor of physical tools is not accurate. Rather, we should see the whole process as similar to the way I might see myself walking. Walking is in no way initiated by the ground I walk on; the earth is not my tool. But without it, I could not walk. That’s how it is. My thinking as such—that is, the life of my soul and spirit—has nothing to do with my brain. But the brain is the ground on which this soul substance is retained. Through this process of retention, we become conscious of our soul life.

So you see, the truth is quite different from what people usually imagine. There has to be this resistance wherever there is a sensation. In the same way that a process occurs (say in the eye) that can be perceived with the help of a so-called sensory nerve, in the will impulses (in one’s leg, for example), a process occurs, and it is this process that is perceived with the help of the nerve. The so-called sensory nerves are organs of perception that spread out into the senses.

The so-called motor nerves spread inward and convey perceptions of will force activities, making us aware of what the will is doing as it works directly through the metabolism. Both sensory and motor nerves transmit sensations; sensory nerves spread outward and motor nerves work inward. There is no significant difference between these two kinds of nerves. The function of the first is to make us aware, in the form of thought processes, of processes in the sensory organs, while the other “motor” nerves communicate processes within the physical body, also in form of thought processes.

If we perform the well-known and common experiment of cutting into the spinal fluid in a case of tabes dorsalis, or if one interprets this disorder realistically, without the usual bias of materialistic physiology, this illness can be explained with particular clarity. In the case of tabes dorsalis, the appropriate nerve (I will call it a sensory nerve) would, under normal circumstances, make a movement sense-perceptible, but it is not functioning, and consequently the movement cannot be performed, because movement can take place only when such a process is perceived consciously. It works like this: imagine a piece of chalk with which I want to do something. Unless I can perceive it with my senses, I cannot do what I want. Similarly, in a case of tabes dorsalis, the mediating nerve cannot function, because it has been injured and thus there is no transmission of sensation. The patient loses the possibility of using it. Likewise, I would be unable to use a piece of chalk if it were lying somewhere in a dark room where I could not find it. Tabes dorsalis is the result of a patient’s inability to find the appropriate organs with the help of the sensory nerves that enter the spinal fluid.

This is a rather rough description, and it could certainly be explained in greater detail. Any time we look at nerves in the right way, severing them proves this interpretation. This particular interpretation is the result of anthroposophic research. In other words, it is based on direct observation. What matters is that we can use outer phenomena to substantiate our interpretation. To give another example, a so-called motor nerve may be cut or damaged. If we join it to a sensory nerve and allow it to heal, it will function again. In other words, it is possible to join the appropriate ends of a “sensory” nerve to a “motor” nerve, and, after healing, the result will be a uniform functioning. If these two kinds of nerves were radically different, such a process would be impossible.

There is yet another possibility. Let us take it in its simplest form. Here a “sensory” nerve goes to the spinal cord, and a “motor” nerve leaves the spinal cord, itself a sensory nerve (see drawing). This would be a case of uniform conduction. In fact, all this represents a uniform conduction. And if we take, for example, a simple reflex movement, a uniform process takes place. Imagine a simple reflex motion; a fly settles on my eyelid, and I flick it away through a reflex motion. The whole process is uniform. What happens is merely an interpretation. We could compare it to an electric switch, with one wire leading into it and another leading away from it. The process is really uniform, but it is interrupted here, similar to an electric current that, when interrupted, flashes across as an electric spark. When the switch is closed, there is no spark. When it is open, there is a spark that indicates a break in the circuit. Such uniform conductions are also present in the brain and act as links, similar to an electric spark when an electric current is interrupted. If I see a spark, I know there is a break in the nerve’s current. It’s as though the nerve fluid were jumping across like an electric spark, to use a coarse expression. And this makes it possible for the soul to experience this process consciously. If it were a uniform nerve current passing through without a break in the circuit, it would simply pass through the body, and the soul would be unable to experience anything.

This is all I can say about this for the moment. Such theories are generally accepted everywhere in the world, and when I am asked where one might be able to find more details, I may even mention Huxley’s book on physiology as a standard work on this subject.

There is one more point I wish to make. This whole question is really very subtle, and the usual interpretations certainly appear convincing. To prove them correct, the so-called sensory parts of a nerve are cut, and then the motor parts of a nerve are cut, with the goal of demonstrating that the sensations we interpret as movement are no longer possible. If you take what I have said as a whole, however, especially with regard to the interrupt switch, you will be able to understand all the various experiments that involve cutting nerves.

Question: How can educators best respond to requests, coming from children between five and a half and seven, for various activities?

Rudolf Steiner: At this age, a feeling for authority has begun to make itself felt, as I tried to indicate in the lectures here. Yet a longing for imitation predominates, and this gives us a clue about what to do with these children. The movable picture books that I mentioned are particularly suitable, because they stimulate their awakening powers of fantasy.

If they ask to do something—and as soon as we have the opportunity of opening a kindergarten in Stuttgart, we shall try to put this into practice—if the children want to be engaged in some activity, we will paint or model with them in the simplest way, first by doing it ourselves while they watch. If children have already lost their first teeth, we do not paint for them first, but encourage them to paint their own pictures. Teachers will appeal to the children’s powers of imitation only when they want to lead them into writing through drawing or painting. But in general, in a kindergarten for children between five and a half and seven, we would first do the various activities in front of them, and then let the children repeat them in their own way. Thus we gradually lead them from the principle of imitation to that of authority.

Naturally, this can be done in various ways. It is quite possible to get children to work on their own. For instance, one could first do something with them, such as modeling or drawing, which they are then asked to repeat on their own. One has to invent various possibilities of letting them supplement and complete what the teacher has started. One can show them that such a piece of work is complete only when a child has made five or ten more such parts, which together must form a whole. In this way, we combine the principle of imitation with that of authority. It will become a truly stimulating task for us to develop such ideas in practice once we have a kindergarten in the Waldorf school. Of course, it would be perfectly all right for you to develop these ideas yourself, since it would take too much of our time to go into greater detail now.

Question: Will it be possible to have this course of lectures published in English?

Rudolf Steiner: Of course, these things always take time, but I would like to have the shorthand version of this course written out in long hand as soon as it can possibly be done. And when this is accomplished, we can do what is necessary to have it published in English as well.

Question: Should children be taught to play musical instruments, and if so, which ones?

Rudolf Steiner: In our Waldorf school, I have advocated the principle that, apart from being introduced to music in a general way (at least those who show some special gifts), children should also learn to play musical instruments technically. Instruments should not be chosen ahead of time but in consultation with the music teacher. A truly good music teacher will soon discover whether a child entering school shows specific gifts, which may reveal a tendency toward one instrument or another. Here one should definitely approach each child individually. Naturally, in the Waldorf school, these things are still in the beginning stage, but despite this, we have managed to gather very acceptable small orchestras and quartets.

Question: Do you think that composing in the Greek modes, as discovered by Miss Schlesinger, means a real advance for the future of music? Would it be advisable to have instruments, such as the piano, tuned in such modes? Would it be a good thing for us to get accustomed to these modes?

Rudolf Steiner: For several reasons, it is my opinion that music will progress if what I call “intensive melody” gradually plays a more significant role. Intensive melody means getting used to the sound of even one note as a kind of melody. One becomes accustomed to a greater tone complexity of each sound. This will eventually happen. When this stage is reached, it leads to a certain modification of our scales, simply because the intervals become “filled” in a way that is different from what we are used to. They are filled more concretely, and this in itself leads to a greater appreciation of certain elements in what I like to call “archetypal music” (elements also inherent in Miss Schlesinger’s discoveries), and here important and meaningful features can be recognized. I believe that these will open a way to enriching our experience of music by overcoming limitations imposed by our more or less fortuitous scales and all that came with them. So I agree that by fostering this particular discovery we can advance the possibilities of progress in music.

Question: Is it also possible to give eurythmy to physically handicapped children, or perhaps curative eurythmy to fit each child?

Rudolf Steiner: Yes, absolutely. We simply have to find ways to use eurythmy in each situation. First we look at the existing forms of eurythmy in general, then we consider whether a handicapped child can perform those movements. If not, we may have to modify them, which we can do anyway. One good method is to use artistic eurythmy as it exists for such children, and this especially helps the young children—even the very small ones. Ordinary eurythmy may lead to very surprising results in the healing processes of these children.

Curative eurythmy was worked out systematically—initially by me during a supplementary course here in Dornach in 1921, right after the last course to medical doctors. It was meant to assist various healing processes. Curative eurythmy is also appropriate for children suffering from physical handicaps. For less severe cases, existing forms of curative eurythmy will be enough. In more severe cases, these forms may have to be intensified or modified. However, any such modifications must be made with great caution.

Artistic eurythmy will not harm anyone; it is always beneficial. Harmful consequences arise only through excessive or exaggerated eurythmy practice, as would happen with any type of movement. Naturally, excessive eurythmy practice leads to all sorts of exhaustion and general asthenia, in the same way that we would harm ourselves by excessive efforts in mountain climbing or, for example, by working our arms too much. Eurythmy itself is not to blame, however, only its wrong application. Any wholesome activity may lead to illness when taken too far.

With ordinary eurythmy, one cannot imagine that it would harm anyone. But with curative eurythmy, we must heed a general rule I gave during the curative eurythmy course. Curative eurythmy exercises should be planned only with the guidance and supervision of a doctor, by the doctor and curative eurythmist together, and only after a proper medical diagnosis.

If curative exercises must be intensified, it is absolutely essential to proceed on a strict medical basis, and only a specialist in pathology can decide the necessary measures to be taken. It would be irresponsible to let just anyone meddle with curative eurythmy, just as it would be irresponsible to allow unqualified people to dispense dangerous drugs or poisons. If injury were to result from such bungling methods, it would not be the fault of curative eurythmy.

Question: In yesterday’s lecture we heard about the abnormal consequences of shifting what was right for one period of life into later periods and the subsequent emergence of exaggerated phlegmatic and sanguine temperaments. First, how does a pronounced choleric temperament come about? Second, how can we tell when a young child is inclined too much toward melancholic or any other temperament? And third, is it possible to counteract such imbalances before the change of teeth?

Rudolf Steiner: The choleric temperament arises primarily because a person’s I-being works with particular force during one of the nodal points of life, around the second year and again during the ninth and tenth years. There are other nodal points later in life, but we are interested in the first two here. It is not that one’s I-being begins to exist only in the twenty-first year, or is freed at a certain age. It is always present in every human being from the moment of birth—or, more specifically, from the third week after conception. The I can become too intense and work with particular strength during these times. So, what is the meaning and nature of such nodal points?

Between the ninth and tenth years, the I works with great intensity, manifesting as children learn to differentiate between self and the environment. To maintain normal conditions, a stable equilibrium is needed, especially at this stage. It’s possible for this state of equilibrium to shift outwardly, and this becomes one of many causes of a sanguine temperament. When I spoke about the temperaments yesterday, I made a special point in saying that various contributing factors work together, and that I would single out those that are more important from a certain point of view.

It is also possible for the center of gravity to shift inward. This can happen even while children are learning to speak or when they first begin to pull themselves up and learn to stand upright. At such moments, there is always an opportunity for the I to work too forcefully. We have to pay attention to this and try not to make mistakes at this point in life—for example, by forcing a child to stand upright and unsupported too soon. Children should do this only after they have developed the faculty needed to imitate the adult’s vertical position.

You can appreciate the importance of this if you notice the real meaning of the human upright position. In general, animals are constituted so that the spine is more or less parallel to the earth’s surface. There are exceptions, of course, but they may be explained just on the basis of their difference. Human beings, on the other hand, are constituted so that, in a normal position, the spine extends along the earth’s radius. This is the radical difference between human beings and animals. And in this radical difference we find a response to strict Darwinian materialists (not Darwinians, but Darwinian materialists), who deny the existence of a defining difference between the human skeleton and that of the higher animals, saying that both have the same number of bones and so on. Of course, this is correct. But the skeleton of an animal has a horizontal spine, and a human spine is vertical. This vertical position of the human spine reveals a relationship to the entire cosmos, and this relationship means that human beings bear an I-being. When we talk about animals, we speak of only three members—the physical body, the ether body (or body of formative forces), and the astral body. I-being incarnates only when a being is organized vertically.

I once spoke of this in a lecture, and afterward someone came to me and said, “But what about when a human being sleeps? The spine is certainly horizontal then.” People often fail to grasp the point of what I say. The point is not simply that the human spine is constituted only for a vertical position while standing. We must also look at the entire makeup of the human being—the mutual relationships and positions of the bones that result in walking with a vertical spinal column, whereas, in animals, the spine remains horizontal. The point is this: the vertical position of the human spine distinguishes human beings as bearers of I-being.

Now observe how the physiognomic character of a person is expressed with particular force through the vertical. You may have noticed (if the correct means of observation were used) that there are people who show certain anomalies in physical growth. For instance, according to their organic nature, they were meant to grow to a certain height, but because another organic system worked in the opposite direction, the human form became compressed. It is absolutely possible that, because of certain antecedents, the physical structure of a person meant to be larger was compressed by an organic system working in the opposite direction. This was the case with Fichte, for example. I could cite numerous others—Napoleon, to mention only one. In keeping with certain parts of his organic systems, Fichte’s stature could have become taller, yet he was stunted in his physical growth. This meant that his I had to put up with existing in his compressed body, and a choleric temperament is a direct expression of the I. A choleric temperament can certainly be caused by such abnormal growth.

Returning to our question—How can we tell when a young child is inclined too much toward melancholic or another temperament?—I think that hardly anyone who spends much time with children needs special suggestions, since the symptoms practically force themselves on us. Even with very naive and unskilled observation, we can discriminate between choleric and melancholic children, just as we can clearly distinguish between a child who “just sits” and seems morose and miserable and one who wildly romps around. In the classroom, it is very easy to spot a child who, after having paid attention for a moment to something on the blackboard, suddenly turns to a neighbor for stimulation before looking out the window again. This is what a sanguine child is like. These things can easily be observed, even on a very naive level.

Imagine a child who easily flies into a fit of temper. If, at the right age, an adult simulates such tantrums, it may cause the child to tire of that behavior. We can be quite successful this way. Now, if one asks whether we can work to balance these traits before the change of teeth, we must say yes, using essentially the same methods we would apply at a later age, which have already been described. But at such an early age, these methods need to be clothed in terms of imitation.

Before the change of teeth, however, it is not really necessary to counteract these temperamental inclinations, because most of the time it works better to just let these things die off naturally. Of course, this can be uncomfortable for the adult, but this is something that requires us to think in a different way. I would like to clarify this by comparison. You probably know something of lay healers, who may not have a thorough knowledge of the human organism but can nevertheless assess abnormalities and symptoms of illnesses to a certain degree. It may happen that such a healer recognizes an anomaly in the movements of a patient’s heart. When asked what should be done, a possible answer is, “Leave the heart alone, because if we brought it back to normal activity, the patient would be unable to bear it. The patient needs this heart irregularity.” Similarly, it is often necessary to know how long we should leave a certain condition alone, and in the case of choleric children, how much time we must give them to get over their tantrums simply through exhaustion. This is what we need to keep in mind.

Question: How can a student of anthroposophy avoid losing the capacity for love and memory when crossing the boundary of sense-perceptible knowing?

Rudolf Steiner: This question seems to be based on an assumption that, during one’s ordinary state of consciousness, love and the memory are both needed for life. In ordinary life, one could not exist without the faculty of remembering. Without this spring of memory, leading back to a certain point in early childhood, the continuity of one’s ego could not exist. Plenty of cases are known in which this continuity has been destroyed, and definite gaps appear in the memory. This is a pathological condition. Likewise, ordinary life cannot develop without love.

But now it needs to be said that, when a state of higher consciousness is reached, the substance of this higher consciousness is different from that of ordinary life. This question seems to imply that, in going beyond the limits of ordinary knowledge, love and memory do not manifest past the boundaries of knowledge. This is quite correct. At the same time, however, it has always been emphasized that the right kind of training consists of retaining qualities that we have already developed in ordinary consciousness; they stay alive along with these new qualities. It is even necessary (as you can find in my book How to Know Higher Worlds) to enhance and strengthen qualities developed in ordinary life when entering a state of higher consciousness. This means that nothing is taken away regarding the inner faculties we developed in ordinary consciousness, but that something more is required for higher consciousness, something not attained previously. To clarify this, I would like to use a somewhat trivial comparison, even if it does not completely fit the situation.

As you know, if I want to move by walking on the ground, I must keep my sense of balance. Other things are also needed to walk properly, without swaying or falling. Well, when learning to walk on a tightrope, one loses none of the faculties that serve for walking on the ground. In learning to walk on a tightrope, one meets completely different conditions, and yet it would be irrelevant to ask whether tightrope walking prevents one from being able to walk properly on an ordinary surface. Similarly, the attainment of a different consciousness does not make one lose the faculties of ordinary consciousness—and I do not mean to imply at all that the attainment of higher consciousness is a kind of spiritual tightrope walking. Yet it’s true that the faculties and qualities gained in ordinary consciousness are fully preserved when rising to a state of enhanced consciousness.

And now, because it is getting late, I would like to deal with the remaining questions as quickly as possible, so I can end our meeting by telling you a little story.

Question: What should our attitude be toward the ever-increasing use of documentary films in schools, and how can we best explain to those who defend them that their harmful effects are not balanced by their potential educational value?

Rudolf Steiner: I have tried to get behind the mysteries of film, and whether or not my findings make people angry is irrelevant, since I am just giving you the facts. I have to admit that the films have an extremely harmful effect on what I have been calling the ether, or life, body. And this especially true in terms of the human sensory system. It is a fact that, by watching film productions, the entire human soul-spiritual constitution becomes mechanized. Films are external means for turning people into materialists. I tested these effects, especially during the war years when film propaganda was made for all sorts of things. One could see how audiences avidly absorbed whatever was shown. I was not especially interested in watching films, but I did want to observe their effects on audiences. One could see how the film is simply an intrinsic part of the plan to materialize humankind, even by means of weaving materialism into the perceptual habits of those who are watching. Naturally, this could be taken much further, but because of the late hour there is only time for these brief suggestions.

Question: How should we treat a child who, according to the parents, sings in tune at the age of three, and who, by the age of seven, sings very much out of tune?

Rudolf Steiner: First we would have to look at whether some event has caused the child’s musical ear to become masked for the time being. But if it is true that the child actually did sing well at three, we should be able to help the child to sing in tune again with the appropriate pedagogical treatment. This could be done by studying the child’s previous habits, when there was the ability to sing well. One must discover how the child was occupied—the sort of activities the child enjoyed and so on. Then, obviously, with the necessary changes according to age, place the child again into the whole setting of those early years, and approach the child with singing again. Try very methodically to again evoke the entire situation of the child’s early life. It is possible that some other faculty may have become submerged, one that might be recovered more easily.

Question: What is attitude of spiritual science toward the Montessori system of education and what would the consequences of this system be?

Rudolf Steiner: I really do not like to answer questions about contemporary methods, which are generally backed by a certain amount of fanaticism. Not that I dislike answering questions, but I have to admit that I do not like answering questions such as, What is the attitude of anthroposophy toward this or that contemporary movement? There is no need for this, because I consider it my task to represent to the world only what can be gained from anthroposophic research. I do not think it is my task to illuminate other matters from an anthroposophic point of view. Therefore, all I wish to say is that when aims and aspirations tend toward a certain artificiality—such as bringing to very young children something that is not part of their natural surroundings but has been artificially contrived and turned into a system—such goals cannot really benefit the healthy development of children. Many of these new methods are invented today, but none of them are based on a real and thorough knowledge of the human being. Of course we can find a great deal of what is right in such a system, but in each instance it is necessary to reduce also the positive aspects to what accords with a real knowledge of the human being.

And now, ladies and gentlemen, with the time left after the translation of this last part, I would like to drop a hint. I do not want to be so discourteous as to say, in short, that every hour must come to an end. But since I see that so many of our honored guests here feel as I do, I will be polite enough to meet their wishes and tell a little story—a very short story. There once lived a Hungarian couple who always had guests in the evening (in Hungary, people were very hospitable before everything went upside down). And when the clock struck ten, the husband used to say to his wife, “Woman, we must be polite to our guests. We must retire now because surely our guests will want to go home.”

What I have to say today concerns primarily the physical education of children. It is in the nature of this subject that I can talk about it only aphoristically, mainly because people tend to have already formed their opinions in these matters. When it comes to talking about physical development, everyone seems to have definite likes and dislikes that too often strongly color people’s theories on this subject. But anything arising from personal sympathies or antipathies easily leads to fanaticism, which is far from the real goals and activities of spiritual science. Any form of fanaticism or agitation for some particular cause is entirely alien to the nature of the anthroposophic movement, which simply wants to point out the effects of various attitudes and actions in life and leave everyone free to relate personal sympathies and antipathies to the matter.

Just consider the fanaticism that argues for or against vegetarianism today, each using unassailable, scientific proofs. And yet we cannot help noticing that never before has superficiality flourished so much as when people defend various movements of a similar nature. It is a fact that anthroposophy does not have the slightest leaning toward extremism in any form. It cannot go along with ardent vegetarians who wish to enforce their views on others whose attitudes differ, and who, in their fanaticism, go so far as to deny meat eaters a fully human status in society. If fanaticism occasionally creeps into the anthroposophic movement, it does not at all reflect the true nature of spiritual science.

Now, there is another aspect we must consider within the context of these lectures. Perhaps you have noticed that until now we have emphasized appropriate educational methods in the realm of children’s soul and spirit, which also allows the best possibility for physical development in a natural, healthy way. One could say that we are studying an educational system that—if it is practiced correctly and effectively—offers the best means toward healthy physical development. So the fundamentals of a sound physical education have already been presented. Nevertheless, it will be useful to review and summarize them again, although we must do this aphoristically because of a shortage of time. To do justice to this subject I would have to devote a whole lecture cycle to it.

Our theme falls naturally into three main parts: the way we feed children; the way we relate children to warmth or coldness; and our approach to gymnastics. Fundamentally, these three categories comprise everything important for the physical education of children.

Modern methods of knowledge, based as they are on an intellectualistic approach, do not offer the possibility of coming to terms with the complex nature of the human organism. Despite the scientific attitude that people are so proud of today, we need to acquire a certain instinctive knowledge of what nurtures or damages health and includes the whole spectrum between these two poles. A healthy instinct for such matters is immensely important. After all, isn’t it true that our natural science is generally becoming more dyed-in-the-wool materialistic? Consider how many secrets have been drawn from nature through research under the microscope or by dissecting various lower animals to investigate the functions of their parts. How many times has human behavior been determined by observing animal behavior, without considering the fact that the human organization in its most important characteristic differs radically from that of all lower animal species? In any case, there has not been enough emphasis placed on this significant difference, primarily because science today depends on investigating every detail separately, thus getting only a partial view of life.

Let me try to illustrate this by a comparison. Imagine that I meet two people at nine o’clock one morning. They are sitting on a bench, and I stop for a while to talk to them about various things, thus gaining a general impression of their characters. Then I go on my way again. At three o’clock in the afternoon I see them still sitting on that bench. Now, there are various possibilities of what may have happened in the meantime. It may be that they have been sitting there talking the whole time. Or, according to the different ways that people of various ethnic groups or nationalities behave, other things may have happened. Perhaps they sat together in silence. Or, unknown to me, one of them might left right after I did, while the other stayed on the bench. The first may have returned just before I reappeared, and so on. Externally, nothing appears to have changed between 9 A.M. and 3 P.M., despite the fact that the two seemed very different in temperament and lifestyle.

Life will never reveal its secrets if we observe only outer appearances. Yet, with today’s scientific methods, this happens far more frequently than is generally realized, as anyone can discover. Present scientific attitudes can indeed lead to a situation such as I witnessed not long ago. In my youth, I had a friend whom I knew lived a normal and healthy life. Later, we went our different ways and did not meet for many years. Then, one day, I visited him again. When he sat down to his midday meal, the food was served in an unusual way, and a scale was placed on the table. He weighed the meat and the vegetables, because he had begun to eat “scientifically.” He had complete faith in a science that prescribed the correct amounts of various foods one eats to be healthy. Needless to say, such a method may be perfectly justified under certain conditions, but it thoroughly undermines one’s healthy instincts.

An instinct for what is wholesome or damaging to health is an essential quality for any teacher worthy of the calling. Such teachers surely know how to elaborate and use all that was given in the previous lectures, and this includes the physical education of children.

We have seen, for instance, that before the change of teeth children live entirely in the physical organism. This applies especially to babies, particularly with regard to nourishment. As you know, when babies begin to take in food, they are completely satisfied with a totally uniform diet. If we, as adults, had to live every day on exactly the same kind of food for breakfast, lunch, and any other meal, we would find it intolerable, both physically and mentally. Adults like to vary their food with a mixed diet. Babies, on the other hand, do not get a change of food at all. And yet, only a few people realize the bliss with which babies receive their “monotonous” diet; the whole body becomes saturated with intense sweetness from the mother’s milk. Adults have the possibility of tasting food only with the taste buds and adjacent organs. They are unfortunate, since all their sensations of taste are confined to the head and thus they are very different a baby, whose entire body becomes one great organ for the sense of taste.

At the end of the baby stage, tasting with the whole body ceases and is soon forgotten for the rest of life. People who live with ordinary degrees of consciousness are completely unaware of how different their sensations of tasting food were during infancy. And, sure enough, later life does its best to wipe out this memory. For example, I once took part in a conversation between an “abstainer” and a person of the opposite position. (I won’t tell you the whole story, since it would take us too far from our theme.) The abstainer, like so many of these people, was inclined to be a fanatic and tried to convert the gourmand, who replied, “But I was completely temperate for two full years.” Greatly surprised, the abstainer asked him when this was, to which the other answered, “During the first two years of my life.” In this humorous, though rather frivolous way, important facts of life were discussed. Few people have a deeper and correct knowledge of these things.

Babies are related to the physical body in such a way that they can eat only with their entire physical organization, deriving the greatest benefit and pleasure from this condition. The gradual transition to the next stage involves forces that begin to concentrate in the head and finally lead to the change of teeth. These forces are so powerful that they can force out the milk teeth as the second teeth push through. This slow and gradual process takes place between birth and second dentition, affecting various other regions. After babyhood, the sense of taste withdraws into the head. Children no longer eat only with their physical organization, but with their soul forces as well. They learn to distinguish various tastes through their soul forces. At this stage it is important to watch carefully children’s reactions to different foods. Their likes and dislikes are valuable indicators of their inner health. But, to judge such matters, we need at least an basic knowledge of nutrition.

When talking about this today, people typically think of the aspect of weight. But this is not so important. What really matters is the fact that each kind of food contains a certain amount of forces. Each item of food holds a specific amount of forces through which it has adapted to the conditions of the outer world. But what takes place within the human organism is something entirely different. The human organism must completely transform the food it takes in. It must transform the processes that various foods have gone through while growing—forces that will become active within the human organism. What occurs there is a continual conflict, during which the dynamic forces in food are completely changed. We experience this inner reaction to the substances we eat as stimulating and life sustaining. Consequently, it is no good to merely ask how many ounces of this or that we should eat. Rather, we should ask how our organism will react to even the smallest amounts of a certain food. The human organism needs forces that generate resistance to outer natural processes.

Though somewhat modified, processes in certain areas of the human organism (between the mouth and the stomach) can still be compared to forces in the external world. However, those in the stomach and in the subsequent stages of digestion are very different from what we find outside the human being. When it comes to what happens in the head, however, we find exactly the opposite processes from those in outer nature. This shows how the human organism, in its totality, must be stimulated in the right way through the food we eat.

I must be brief, so there is no time to get into the terminology of the deeper aspects of this subject. For now, however, a less specialized and more popular terminology will do. As you know, in ordinary life there are foods we consider rich in nutrition, and others considered poor in nutrients. It is possible to live on food of poor nutritional value—just think of how many people are fed mainly on bread and potatoes, both of which are certainly low in nutritional value. On the other hand, you have to remember that, in cases of ill health, one must take great care not to overburden the digestion with foods having little nourishment. Bread and potatoes make great demands on the digestive system, with the effect that very little energy is left for the remaining functions. Consequently, a diet of bread and potatoes is not likely to promote physical growth. So we look for other foods that do not put unnecessary strain on the digestive system, foods that work the digestive system very little. If these things are taken to extremes, however, an abnormal activity begins in the brain, which in turn begins other processes that have absolutely no resemblance to those of outer nature. These again affect the rest of the human organism, and as a result the digestive system will become sluggish and too slack. All this is extremely complicated, and it is very difficult to understand all the ramifications of what happens. It is one of the most difficult tasks of a thorough scientific investigation—not the kind so common today—to know what really happens when, for instance, a potato or a piece of roast beef is taken into a human mouth. Each of these two processes is very complex, and each is very different from the other. To investigate the subsequent stages of digestion with scientific precision, a great deal of specialized knowledge is needed.

A mere indication of what happens there must be enough. Imagine that a boy eats a potato. First the potato is tasted in his head, the location of one’s organs of taste, and then the sensation of taste induces further responses. Although the sense of taste no longer permeates the boy’s whole organism, it nevertheless affects it in certain ways. A potato does not have an especially stimulating taste and, consequently, leaves the organism somewhat indifferent and inactive. The organs are not particularly interested in what happens with the potato in the child’s mouth. Then, as you know, the potato passes into the stomach. The stomach, however, does not receive it with alacrity either, because it has not been stimulated by the sensation of taste. Taste always determines whether the stomach takes in food with sympathy or aversion. In this case, the stomach will not exert itself to incorporate the potato with its dynamic forces. Yet, this must happen, since the potato cannot be left there in the stomach. If the stomach has the strength, it will absorb the dynamic forces of the potato and work on them with a certain distaste. It allows the potato to enter without developing any significant response to it, because the potato has not stimulated it. This process continues through the rest of the digestive tract, in which the remains of the potato are again worked on with a certain reluctance. Very little of what was once the potato reaches the head organization.

These few indications—which ought to be deepened considerably for any proper understanding—are intended as a mere suggestion of the complex processes that occur in the human organism. Nevertheless, educators should acquire a working knowledge of these things, and to do this I believe it is necessary to go into the whys and wherefores. I can imagine that some listeners might think it good enough just to be told what they should give children to eat and which foods to avoid. But this is not enough, because to do the right things—especially when physical matters are involved—teachers must have sufficient understanding of the problems. There are so many approaches to these things that one needs guidance to see what each case requires. And for this, teachers need at least a simplified picture of how children should be fed.

In physical education, we see in particular how far educational principles have deviated from prevailing social conditions. Unless students happen to live in boarding schools, where it is possible to practice what I have been indicating, it will be necessary to win the cooperation of parents or others in charge of children, and, as we all know, this can cause considerable difficulties. It may not be possible to implement measures one deems right and beneficial for students until tremendous resistance has been overcome.

Let me give you an example. Imagine you have a student in your class who has an excessively melancholic disposition. Extreme symptoms of this kind always indicate an abnormality in the physical organization. Abnormalities in the soul region always originate with physical abnormalities of one kind or another, and physical symptoms are a manifestation of the soul and spiritual life. So let us imagine such a child in a day school. In a boarding school, of course, one would deal with such a problem in cooperation with the dormitory. So what would I have to do? First I must contact the child’s parents and—if I am absolutely certain about the real causes of the problem—I may ask them to increase the child’s sugar consumption by at least 150 percent, or in some cases by as much as 200 percent, compared to what one gives a child who behaves normally. I would advise the parents not to withhold this additional sugar, which could be given, for instance, as sweets.

Why would I do this? Perhaps the opposite example will make it clearer to you. Imagine that I have to deal with a pathologically sanguine child. If I am to make sense, we must assume this is an excessively sanguine child. Again, the symptoms betray an abnormality in the physical organization, and here I would have to ask the parents to decrease the amount of sugar given to the child. I would ask them to greatly reduce the amount of sweets given to the child.

What are my reasons? One discovers whether to increase or decrease the amount of sugar only by becoming aware of these facts; all milk and milk products, but mother’s milk in particular, spread their effect uniformly throughout the entire human organism, so that each organ receives what it needs in a harmonious way. Other foods, however, have more influence on a particular organic system. Please note that I am not saying other foods exercise an exclusive influence, but that they influence some organs more than others. The way a child or an adult responds to a specific taste or a certain food depends on the general condition of a particular organic system. In this respect, certain luxury foods play as important a part, as do ordinary foods.

Milk affects the entire human being, whereas other nutrients affect a particular organic system. With regard to sugar, we must look at activity in the liver. So, what am I doing by giving an abnormally melancholic child lots of sugar? I diminish the activity of the liver, because sugar, in a certain sense, takes over the activity of the liver. This causes the liver to direct its activity more toward something extraneous, and thus the activity is reduced. Under certain circumstances, pronounced melancholic symptoms may be the result of a child’s liver activity, so it is possible, purely through diet, to decrease an overly melancholic tendency in a child—which can also manifest as a tendency toward anemia. And why, in the case of an overly sanguine child, do I recommend a reduction of sugar intake? Here I try to decrease the stimulating effect of sugar and cause the liver to become a little more active on its own. In this way, I stimulate the child’s I-being, which helps the child overcome the physical symptoms of an excessively sanguine temperament.

If we pay close attention over a period of time, we generally discover the necessary preventive measures. As a rule, this faculty develops only when it has become second nature in alert and dedicated teachers to spot even slightly unusual symptoms in students. Obviously, we must never allow abnormalities to deteriorate too much before taking action. To achieve this ability, teachers must be willing to continually deepen their understanding and to overcome numerous personal hindrances. Otherwise, I am afraid that teachers will not gain the necessary thoroughness until they reach retirement.

This example illustrates the possibility of counteracting certain abnormalities if we observe the human physical organization as a whole. Thus, the whys and wherefores are important. Naturally, we must always contend with countless details, but it is not impossible to relate these to the broader aspects that generally lead to polarities. Truly good teachers (even better than those who already exist), through close contact with their students, know instinctively and beforehand how to handle children when specific circumstances present themselves. In any case, if they are to take the appropriate action, it is extremely important for teachers to perceive any deviation from the normal, healthy behavior of children.

We must watch very closely how children—as beings of body, soul, and spirit—show an interest not only in themselves, but also in their environment. We have to develop an instinctive awareness of the children’s interest, or their lack of it. This represents the one side. The other is a teacher’s awareness of the first signs of fatigue in students.

What is the source of each child’s characteristic interest? It arises in the metabolic and limb system, but mainly in the metabolism. I will know that there is a problem of improper diet if I see that a child is losing interest, for example, in mental activities (and this is the most obvious sign); or if a child shows little interest in outer activities and no longer wants to participate in games or similar pursuits; or if I see that a child has lost interest in food (which is the worst sign of all, since children are naturally interested in various tastes and should learn to distinguish between the various flavors); or if a child suffers from lack of appetite (since a lost appetite also means a lack of interest in food). Here, food demands too much of the child’s digestive system. So, I must find out what food this child is being given that has relatively little nutritive value, since such food burdens the digestive system. Just as I can determine the weather by reading the barometer, similarly I can deduce an improper diet when I see a marked lack of interest in a child. Interest and apathy are the most important indicators with regard to a correct diet for children.

Now let’s take a look at the opposite pole. If I notice that a child tires too quickly because of mental or physical activities, again I can trace the cause to physical conditions. In this case, a child may eat with a normal appetite, but after eating, such a child may become drowsy, not unlike a snake after feeding. If a child has an abnormal desire to curl up on the sofa after eating, it shows an inability to cope with digestion, which causes the child to become tired. It is a sign that a child has been given too much of the sort of food that does not stimulate the digestion enough, with the result that the unfulfilled demands of the digestive system now enter the child’s head region, causing fatigue.

So, I must give food having concentrated nutritional value to a child who shows a noticeable lack of interest. But there is no need to become a fanatic about these things. Fanatical vegetarians will say that this lack of interest in children is caused by a diet of meat, and that they must now get used to a diet of raw fruits, so they can recover a normal interest in the world. This may be true. But those who believe in giving meat to children will maintain that, if they tire too easily, we must stimulate them with a meat diet.

These things should not provoke too much discussion, simply because it is possible to balance various foods through appropriate combinations that, in this case, might very well take the place of meat. Nor is it essential to turn children into vegetarians. The important thing is to recognize that, on the one hand, children who lack a healthy interest can be helped by an improved diet, one that contains especially nutritious foods and, on the other, that a tendency toward fatigue can be overcome by working in the opposite direction. This is one way to simplify and easily understand a very complex subject. If, for example, I find that a child tires too easily, I must realize that the digestion is not sufficiently engaged, and so I alter the diet accordingly. We must develop a kind of human symptomatology that helps us in a concrete and practical way. It is not always necessary to go into all the details. In matters of nutrition, if we interpret certain symptoms correctly, we begin to see through the situation and recognize what steps to take.

Closely related to all this (though opposite in a certain sense) is the whole question of warmth in childhood. Here, external phenomena guide us even more clearly than does nutrition; we just need the correct interpretation. On the other hand, they easily lead to extremes and become harmful. I am referring to “hardening,” or “toughening.” Under certain circumstances, this can be good, and much has been done in its favor. Yet, if we are well grounded in our knowledge of the human being, we cannot help feeling a sense of alarm when we see adults who were systematically hardened as children, and now cannot cross a hot and sunlit square without feeling oppressed by the heat. This can reach a point where both their psychological and physical makeup prevents them from ever crossing a sunny, open square. Surely, hardening is inappropriate if does not enable a person to endure any kind of physical hardship.

When considering the question of warmth or cold, two facts need to be kept in mind. First, nature has given us a clear directive; we have a sense of well-being only so long as we are unaware of the temperature surrounding us. If we are exposed to too much heat or cold, we quickly lose our sense of wellbeing. Obviously, we need our sensory perception of outer temperatures, but this must not adversely affect our whole organism. To protect ourselves from heat and cold, we neutralize their effects by the use of clothing. When exposed to too much cold, a person loses the ability to maintain normal functioning in certain inner organs. If, on the other hand, outer temperatures are too high, the body reacts with an excessive functioning of those organs. So we can say that, if a person is exposed to very low temperatures, the inner organs tend to coat themselves with a layer of mucus, giving rise to the type of illnesses I would call (in the vernacular) internal mucositis. Organs become lined with metabolic excesses, and this results in a hypersecretion of mucus. If, on the other hand, a person is exposed to too much heat, those organs respond by drying up. A tendency develops to form crusts, while the organs themselves ossify and become quite anemic.

This way of looking at the human organism provides the correct indications for moving ahead in matters of education. Every symptom and phenomenon teaches us something. For example, as human beings, it is safe to expose our faces to much colder temperatures than we could other parts of our bodies. And because the face is exposed to colder temperatures, it prevents other organs from drying out by stimulating them. There is a continuous interplay between the face, which readily accepts certain degrees of cold, and the other members of the human physical organization. However, we must not confuse the face with a very different part of the human anatomy. Forgive me for putting it so crudely, but we must not confuse people’s faces with their calves. This is the sort of mischief we encounter so frequently today, because in cold weather children are allowed to walk around with their legs bare up to their knees, and sometimes even higher. This truly confuses the two ends of the physical human body. If people were only aware of the hidden connections here, they would realize how many cases of appendicitis develop later on because of this confusion between the two human extremities.

On the other hand, it also needs to be said that we should not be too sensitive to minor changes of temperature, and that children should be brought up to bear them with equanimity. When children overreact to slight changes of temperature, again we must know that we can help by making corresponding changes in the diet. These things show us that warmth and nutrition must work together, for eating and keeping warm complement each other. Those who are oversensitive to temperature changes should be given food with a high caloric content, which generates the inner strength needed to withstand these changes. Again, you can see how a real knowledge of the human being also helps in such situations, and how, fundamentally, not only must everything in the human organism work harmoniously together, but mostly those entrusted with educating young people must be able to recognize this cooperation among the various organs.

The third major aspect of physical education involves various forms of movement. The human makeup is such that we must be active in more than our bodily functions; we must also participate in the outer world. People must be able to experience a connection with the outer world. It is true that not one human organ can be understood when considered only in a state of rest. We must relate it to the inherent activities and movements of its functions; then we can understand an organ even in a state of rest. This is true whether it is an outer organ—whose form, even at rest, indicates its normal movements—or an inner organ, whose shape and configuration express the function and movement that make it part of the overall human organic processes. All this is considered when we introduce various forms of movement to children in the right way. Again, bear in mind the wholeness of the human being. We must try to give the physical, soul, and spiritual aspects their due. With children, we do this only by allowing them to perform the right kinds of movements, which bring satisfaction because they are in harmony with children’s innate intentions. Such movements are always accompanied by a sense of well-being.

In an education based on knowledge of the human being, the first step in this direction is to learn the particular ways children want to move when given freedom. Typical games with their inhibiting rules are quite alien to the nature of young children, because they suppress what should remain freely mobile in children. Organized games gradually dull their inner activity, and children lose interest in such externally imposed movements. We can clearly see this by observing what happens when the free movements of playing children are channeled too much into fixed gymnastic exercises. As I said, I do not wish to condemn gymnastic lessons as such, but in general it must be said that when young students are doing gym exercises, their movements are being determined externally. Anyone working out of a real knowledge of the human being would much rather see young children play freely on parallel bars, on a horizontal bar, or on rope ladders, instead of having to follow the exact commands of a gym instructor shouting “one two three” as the children step on the first, second, and third rungs of a rope ladder or perform precise movements on gym apparatus—movements that tend to impose stereotyped forms on their bodies.

I realize that these remarks go a little beyond the general trend of modern gymnastics, whose advocates are often a bit fanatic. One easily rouses antipathy by shedding light on the kind of gymnastic exercises that are imposed externally, and by comparing them with the natural movements of children arising from their own involvement in free play. Yet it is exactly this free play that we should observe and study. One must get to know children intimately, and then one sees what to do to stimulate the right kind of free play, in which boys and girls should, of course, participate together.

In this way, through the inner flexibility that accompanies children’s outer movements, their organic functions work together harmoniously. This method also opens our eyes to what lies behind certain symptoms, such as those indicating anemia in young girls. In most cases such symptoms are simply the result of having been artificially separated from the boys, because it was considered unseemly for them to romp with the boys during free play. Girls, as well as boys, should be allowed to be boisterous when they play, although perhaps in slightly different ways. Conventional notions of what is “ladylike” are often are held up to young girls, but they frequently contribute to anemia in later life. However, I must ask you not to take this remark as a personal criticism of an established way of life, but simply as an objective observation. We can obviate a tendency toward anemia simply by allowing young girls to engage in the right kind of free play. In this way, we safeguard their inner functions from becoming so sluggish that they can no longer form the right kind of blood from their digestive activity.

These days, it has become difficult to fully understand these matters, simply because the kind of knowledge fostered today is not the outcome of observing inner human nature, but comes from collecting detailed data. Through so-called induction, these facts are then turned into a hodge podge of general knowledge. Of course, by following this method it is possible to discover all kinds of interesting facts, but it is more important to observe what has real significance for life. Otherwise, an ardent admirer of modern science might argue by saying, “You told us that anemia can manifest because young girls have not been allowed to play freely; yet I have encountered several cases of anemia in a village where young girls had never been restrained in their play.” One would have to look into the causes of anemia in this particular situation; perhaps as a child, one of these girls nibbled an autumn crocus (Colchicum autumnale), thus developing a tendency toward anemia in later life.

Another important aspect of our theme concerns the consequences of mental strain in children. If we overburden their mental powers, we definitely exert a harmful influence on their general health. If we prevent children from discovering their natural tendency toward movement and play, the metabolic organization will not be sufficiently stimulated. By burdening children with too much knowledge of the world, we artificially increase metabolic activity in the head. Although human beings have a threefold nature, any activity that dominates one of the three spheres is, to a certain extent, also present in the other two systems. When we overload students with facts about the external material realm instead of with spiritual matters, we divert some of the normal digestive activity from the metabolism into the head, thus causing abnormal activity in the whole metabolic system.

This, too, can cause anemia during puberty. Someone might argue that, in a certain village, students were never subjected to intellectual stress, but there were nevertheless cases of anemia in that town. Again we would have to look at the particular situation. For instance, we might discover that one of the houses in this village was covered by Virginia creeper (Parthenocissus quinquefolia), and that a child whose curiosity had been roused by its black, glistening berries had eaten a few that were overripe, in this way increasing an innate tendency toward anemia.

To conclude, I would like to say this: It might be correct to collect separate data from which one then extracts general knowledge. But if we want to gain the kind of knowledge that is closely allied to practical life, we have to observe real life carefully, so that we can discover where and how to tackle problems as they arise. Only a real knowledge of the human being offers educators this kind of insight. It enables them to fulfill their task by guiding children into the right forms of movement and by guarding against stressing the mental capacities of the children in their care. The realization of these possibilities is our first and foremost task.

Of course, we cannot necessarily prevent a child from sucking on an autumn crocus or eating black berries from a Virginia creeper, but we can infuse intuitions into children—and at the right time. And this will enable them to develop physical powers in a well-rounded way and to cultivate greater flexibility.

Dr. Steiner: I have tried to picture the way our friends in Austria appear to themselves. Everyone has something in a corner of their soul that reveals itself as pre-Maria Theresa. There, people have become educated by becoming “monks.” What we need is that we also become “monks.” Kolisko would have been a Dominican somewhere, Stein a Cistercian, and our dear friend Schubert, a Piarist.

I would like to hear about the things weighing upon your souls. There is, however, one thing I want to say. In teaching religion, you need to bring in all the things we have developed so far. When you teach, you must bring the children into a prayerful attitude, beginning with the lowest grades. You need to slowly develop a strongly prayerful attitude in the children. Children need to find the mood of prayer. We need to carry out “Not my will, but thine be done.” We must raise the children into divine experience. Religious instruction should not appeal simply to pictures, it must be completely oriented toward elevating attitude. You need to teach the children an attitude connected with the Sunday services, and allow them to feel a prayerful mood.

I mentioned to the Protestant teacher that I would like to visit his class. He said that he would need some time to think about it. I will also tell the Catholic teacher the same.

We also make an error here. I noticed it today in the way that the students answered your question about what their religion is. The answers arose out of the feeling that we are still not united within the school. We should be aware that we should take seriously that the Catholic children go to the Catholic priest, and we need to feel among ourselves that this only relates to religious confession and has nothing to do with the remaining instruction. We must certainly maintain that, otherwise an unpedagogical principle will creep into this school. It seems to me necessary that we not teach the Catholic children that they are not welcome here. That was seen in the way that the other children made faces, something that was quite characteristic. That brings disharmony into the school, and we must overcome it. We must seriously undertake allowing each religious confession to exist in its own right. It is much less important to me that the religion teachers perceive themselves as a foreign body here in the school. I don’t think that you trouble yourselves much about the religious instruction of the Catholic and Protestant children. You do not seem to care much about that.

A teacher: The child says, “He doesn’t teach us anything about Jesus.”

Dr. Steiner: All the more reason. For some children that is of still more value. That is really too bad. It is terrible that they need to keep a stiff upper lip. That is often the case, but we have to accept that. It would help if you were to exchange a few words with the Protestant religion teacher. As we were standing in the hallway today, I was wondering when Mr. S. would introduce me to the vicar. He did not do it. This is something intangible and really should not continue.

I do not find that it hurts children to go to Catholic mass. We do nothing wrong when we encourage them. I am not against having the Protestant children develop a desire to attend mass, either. The mass is certainly nothing terrible. It is impersonal and has an effect through its content. You can quite ignore the priest. The mass has a grand effect, but it is more to see the mass than participate in it as a high sacrament. The way the Church does the Missa Solemnis, the mass itself disappears behind all the pomp. The mass has only four parts: the gospel, the offertory, the transubstantiation, and the communion. It is most effective when the priest does it with two servers. We cannot make the Protestant children go to mass, but they would get something from it.

I regret I was unable to visit more classes.

A question is asked about whether W.E. and M.G. should go into the remedial class.

Dr. Steiner: The way the situation is now, he is not moving forward and his attitude is damaging the other children. We might be able to carry the girl along. She is simply a burden, but he is difficult. He is always disturbing the other children. Today, he started up again. It would be good for him to go into the remedial class. Everything indicates he needs special attention. He is very nervous and is not moving forward when he is with the other children.

There are some questions about other children.

Dr. Steiner: That is the problem. If you have to do something different with every child in the class, you cannot teach even a class of ten. It is obvious that we will not reach our goals, and that we have not now reached them. That is clear. We cannot even artificially achieve the goals we have set. On the whole, it does not matter whether we achieve the learning goals set in other schools. We must keep to what we decided earlier. In general, it does not matter whether we heed the goals set outside. We must, however, take our own learning goals into account in a special way, much more than we have done.

A teacher questions whether a child should be held back.

Dr. Steiner: We have decided against that.

A teacher: In my class, there was a boy who was absent all the time.

Dr. Steiner: If he was hardly there during the year, it would be good for him. Keeping children back is something we have decided against, and, whenever possible, we should not do it.

We don’t want to bring the Dutchman here, otherwise people will say that our methods are the same as those used for learningdisabled children.

A teacher asks a question about the Sunday service.

Dr. Steiner: We need five services. It is a difficult question about who will do it and where.

A teacher: We need long drapes.

Dr. Steiner: You can do things as they are now. We cannot achieve perfection, so we can do it as it is.

We need more women for the services.

I cannot write the gospel text here. I will try to write a text as quickly as possible.

A question is asked about astronomy in the eighth-grade class.

Dr. Steiner: If the question concerns how to create the proper feeling, that can be achieved through a true picture of the heavens. However, try to do what you did in the lower grades—bring forth a memory of that picture. The children develop a certain respect if you occasionally take them out to see the stars and say what is necessary. It is more difficult to achieve that respect if you place a map before them instead of the stars. Maps deaden respect.

With the Latin course, things are not so bad. There are major differences between the individual children. The disruptive children play a role, but you should avoid them. On the other hand, there are some gaps in what the children can do. The answers they give are appropriate for approximately the eighth or ninth grade. I don’t think you would have gotten such mature answers from the seventh grade. You could expect some of the answers from the ninth grade. The only problem is that there are such tremendous gaps, but they answered with understanding. To go into further detail would take freedom from your teaching. I don’t think we should be so confining.

A teacher asks whether foreign language grammar should be discussed in dialogue. One of the teachers is against that.

Dr. Steiner: You could do it that way. You would not teach the way they do in France. I do not know why using a French phrase would present a difficulty. I think that might even be good, since they would learn more vocabulary. If you do not teach grammar pedantically, but see it as a way of learning to feel the language, then I do not understand how you could complain about it. In speaking of German grammar, we use very little German. We use Latin when we teach grammar. That certainly happens, and it is quite useful. The terminology is such that it cannot be understood if it is translated. I do not want to push the point. What I mean is not that you should teach grammar in French. You should separate out the material taught in class, the conversation. If you find it technically necessary to explain things in German, that is not undesirable. You can do things in the way you think is right.

If you bring the analytical perspective into a picture, that is good. You should always work toward developing a picture, and analysis is part of that picture. A high-school graduate is too oriented toward thinking of “man” as “homo.” That is actually nonsense, since the picture is missing. “Man” derives from the soul of the stream of the generations. “Homo” arises from the physical form of the human being, so that we can say that “man” is incarnated in “homo.” It is just the same as with Adam. If people do not understand the pictures, the soul loses everything. I think that is the sort of thing you should strive for in Latin.

That is what Mrs. X. wanted to do in the days when she had such great plans for the future of Magyar, something quite good for primitive languages. There is a living fact behind the fact that the Englishman says “Mr. Smith” and the Hungarian says, “Tanito Ur.” Namely, “ur”—“the master.” In other words, “the master” speaks this primitive language. There is an entirely different life in it. “Kávéház” is a borrowed word. You arrive at quite different pictures depending upon whether you look at a man from the front or the back. No hour should pass without the child experiencing something pictorially.

A teacher presents a draft reader.

A teacher: We thought it would contain some legends.

Dr. Steiner: You could do that. Why don’t you include them? We need to write a good Jesus legend. This will be a very exciting reading book, and we should discuss these pictures a lot with the children. If you were to print it, I do not think it could be done for less than 20,000 marks. It would have to be very expensive. It is a reading book and would have to cost at least 100 marks.

A teacher: Is it possible to have a period for teaching shop?

Dr. Steiner: We could think about having a period for that, but it would not be possible to include it in the morning. We would have to see if we could leave out some of the foreign language periods and thus gain a period there. That would be a certain relief for the faculty without hurting the instruction. Leaving out a foreign language period would hurt nothing. We could certainly interrupt the foreign languages occasionally. The teaching of foreign languages does not depend upon having every period.

A teacher: How long should such a period be? What grade could we begin with?

Dr. Steiner: We could begin with the ninth grade and do it for two weeks during the language period. It would also be possible to do it every six weeks perhaps and divide it throughout the year.

The teachers asked Dr. Steiner to give a speech at a parent evening.

Dr. Steiner: I could do that if I have enough time. It’s been a terribly long time since the last one. Three or four per year would be best. To have none is really not enough.

A teacher: There will be a pedagogical course in Jena from Sunday to Sunday, October 8-15. We want to ask you to give a cycle of lectures in the evening.

Dr. Steiner: I could give the same themes I presented in Oxford and do it in the mornings. Two lectures in the morning and a discussion in the afternoon.

A teacher: We would also like to ask Mrs. Steiner if she could include two or three eurythmy performances.

Dr. Steiner: Actually, it would be better to include the holidays. We could begin one week earlier and then have the fall holidays. When school is in session, we could not send all the children to Jena. If there were no school, then we could speak with the parents to see if they would agree.

Marie Steiner: If we took the Ariel scenes, we could do twelve performances. However, the children would have to do some show pieces. They could do exercises with the rods and also rhythm. Several things in the same performance.

Dr. Steiner: We certainly cannot send them there simply because of the Ariel scenes. The children could prepare something else. We cannot send them when school is in session and we can send them only if the parents agree.

Marie Steiner: It would have to be something people know. We could do something like a scene with gnomes and fairies, or Olaf Åsteson.

Dr. Steiner: It might be good if we spoke more about the experiences the teachers have had both in their own teaching and as a whole. Perhaps you could extend your Vienna presentation about your own experiences. We would also have to try to overcome the opinion some people have that they already have everything. That is something we need to overcome. It would also be good for someone to speak to the question of how poorly anthroposophy is treated by our contemporaries. It would be very good to speak about that. The Waldorf teachers should speak.

I also believe it would be good if some students spoke about their understanding of the youth movement. They should not be fanatics. They should be reasonable people. Some one-sided people have said things at various anthroposophical meetings. Other people would not get much from them, but on the other hand, we have also experienced some quite good things. The main thing would be to allow some of the younger people to speak.

A teacher: We thought we would all go.

Dr. Steiner: Then we will have to plan a school holiday at that time. Is it possible to shorten some of the other holidays? That would be nice if it is possible. We would then begin school on August 29. Quite a number of children would have to go so that the rod exercises are not too sparse. It should be half boys and half girls. Maybe we could also include two or three from Leipzig.

That would be a relief. Right now we always have to use the same people for everything. Something I noticed often was that it was very detrimental that the Waldorf School was overburdened with rushing from one project to another during the past year. If you add up all of the different activities in which some of the Waldorf School teachers participated, then you would see it is quite a bad thing. We cannot even say that it was relieved by the Vienna conference occurring during the school holiday, since a large number of you returned half dead at the beginning of the school year. That is certainly not acceptable, and now we have this course in Jena in the fall.

We need to gradually awaken a feeling here that our relationship to the world should be more open, so that we do not always tend to be defensive, but to draw people in. For example, all the suggestions I made in Vienna to use the conference were pushed aside. In general, the conference in Vienna was a great success from beginning to end. It was the largest we have had and was done in such a way that it could have quite decidedly resulted in major damage had it not been properly followed up. It was undertaken publicly, and we should have no illusions that it has resulted in considerable opposition. The damage that could result if we do not know how to follow it up could be greater than the success.

That is something we cannot do if we encapsulate ourselves, if we do not get new blood. Among the actively working people, we have a strong inbreeding of related souls that will lead to an impossible situation in the long run. We need to expand our circle, but each time someone is mentioned who we have met, and who is something, we reject that person. We must bring in new blood. In general, our movement requires that we not feel that we need to defend ourselves against everyone, but that we welcome people.

I would like to tell you about something. I was told you had invited someone to create a connection to medicine, and that you had begun to speak. In the third sentence, you said to him, “Professor, you are an immoral human being”! That is something I cannot understand. You simply offend them. I think this comes from too much zeal, but we need to find a way to work with people. You cannot work with people if you tell them straight off that they are immoral.

I was in the same situation myself when I wanted to explain the art in Dornach to a famous chemist. He then told me that there are colors of light that really shine. I could have said, “You are an idiot,” but I did not. We offend people too easily. That was his scientific conviction.

We cannot make such announcements in the Threefold News as one I saw there. We need to formulate the announcements that appear there so that people think we are only dilettantes.

It is natural in the anthroposophical realm to have a cooperative working between the Waldorf School and an association of physicians. Teachers from the Waldorf School would have much to say, and such interactions within the anthroposophical movement would result in an all-round improvement. I did not say that the groups should completely fuse together so that people could argue and fight. What I meant was that it is natural that such a symbiosis occurs.

A teacher: We have formed a group of that sort. We meet on Saturdays and give lectures.

Dr. Steiner: Has that significant neighborliness of the Gänsheide and the Kanonenweg been fruitful?6 I haven’t noticed anything. What I said before was meant esoterically and was directed toward every human heart. It must arise naturally. I cannot say that I believe some bureaucratic institution is necessarily positive. Something will result only through a living interaction, not through bureaucracy.

Dr. Steiner: We should talk about everything that has happened during this long period.

They discuss a letter to the Ministry of Education about the students who will take the final examination.

Dr. Steiner: Why was it necessary to add that it lies in the nature of block instruction that some subjects have not been taught? In such official things, the smartest thing to do is not to get people upset by telling them things they don’t want to hear. What still needs to be done in literature?

You need to proceed efficiently. Some of the things you want to teach should be taught, but for the examination you do not need to teach the students anything about Goethe as a natural scientist, nor will they be asked questions about his letters on aesthetic education. His poetry will cause them some pain because it is not so easy. Hauptmann’s Hannele is better than Die Weber. They don’t have any idea about Goethe as a natural scientist. For such examinations it would be a mistake to feel you need to set up such a curriculum. Those things are not expected even for someone who is working toward a doctorate. They cannot be done in two years in school. Look here, here we have Faust, Part I.

I would like to know how you could do all that in school. Do you think you will find some themes for German in them? You need to cover what will come up in written examinations.

If you go to the ministry too often, they will think you have a bad conscience, and will get the feeling that things are not going right here. You should not go into such things so much, but only answer when the ministry writes. We will see how things go, we can always withdraw.

In the last part of school, you need to be sure that the students write and answer as much as possible themselves. They need to be much more active individually. If a student does not already know something, you should not be so quick to help. They need to develop their will and find the answers themselves. This is much better than it was before, when the students had to do nothing more than listen. I need to go through all the classes again and will do so at the next opportunity.

They present a letter inviting the Waldorf School to present some student work in Berlin.

Dr. Steiner: It would be good if we had more exact information. You need to find out what he wants. Exhibits of student work have a real purpose only when a course is being undertaken, that is, when the entire context and content of the Waldorf School are presented. But just displaying work? As long as people do not know exactly what the goals of the Waldorf School are, those who look at the work will not know what we expect of the students. It is the same as if we said we want to present only the pictures from an illustrated book of children’s tales. People will not understand anything. The people in Berlin need to say whether they will support the Waldorf School.

They discuss C.H. in the eleventh grade.

Dr. Steiner: His relationship to the class needs to come from his character. You should have him draw what is on the object, not the object itself. How light affects the object. The illuminated side and the shadow side. Not the table, but the light upon the table and the table’s shadow. He lacks a sense of perspective in painting. It is a clear defect, and it is good to work on his deficiencies. Let him try to draw a human face, but he should not draw a nose, only the light upon it and the shadows from it. You need to try to speak with him about things. He is disturbed. You need to make him imagine things sculpturally. He will be better in arithmetic than geometry, so you will need to make sure he understands geometry and isn’t just doing it from memory.

Cliques in the eleventh grade are discussed.

Dr. Steiner: Give them “Outsiders and Sociable People” as an essay topic, so that they have to think things through.

A teacher asks about eleventh-grade English. They have read Macaulay’s Warren Hastings.

Dr. Steiner: You could also read some English poetry, for example “The Sea School.” In addition, you could give them some characteristic prose, for example a chapter by Emerson such as the ones about Shakespeare and Goethe. Have them read that and then try to show the abrupt changes in the style of his thoughts. Discuss aphoristic and nonaphoristic styles and things in between, and show the relationships of those styles, how they arise. You should discuss that with the students and bring in a little psychology also. Emerson’s method of writing was to take all the books out of his library and spread them in front of himself. He then went around, walked around the room, read a sentence here or there, and wrote it down. He did the same thing again and then wrote down another sentence, independent of the first, and so forth. He found his inspiration in the library, and you can see the resulting jumps in his writing. Nietzsche wrote about the things he read by Emerson, for instance about Nature. In his own copy, Nietzsche circled certain things and then numbered them. Anyway, read poetry and Emerson.

A teacher: What should we read in tenth-grade French? Could we read Poincaré? A number of students want to leave.

Dr. Steiner: That is still a dangerous, a strange thing. In principle, you could do that, but not with Poincaré because there is so much untruth in it.

For those who want to leave, perhaps you should choose something that appears to be foreign to life, but actually leads to it. Something like Bulwer-Lytton’s Vril. That could be read in the tenth grade.

There is a collection of French essays by Hachette that contain essays by the other Poincaré, the mathematician. There is also a second part about technical thinking. That is something that might be useful.

For twelfth-grade English, you might also consider MacKenzie’s Humanism. We cannot go along with dropping French as they are doing in public schools.

A eurythmy teacher asks about difficulties with the upper grades. Some of the students want a different teacher.

Dr. Steiner: You need to treat that with some humor. Appear to agree and then develop it ad absurdum. There are always some students who want a different teacher. You need to be firm in your position and take it with some humor. You could perhaps ask, “What do you have against me? I am really a very nice lady; there is no reason for you to hate me.” Sometimes, you can quiet things in a couple of minutes that way.

A teacher asks about P.Z. in gymnastics class.

Dr. Steiner: He does not align the main direction of his body with gravity. You should try having him do exercises on the high bar so that he hangs. I mean that literally. Such an exercise would free his astral body. Sometimes you have children who look as though their astral body is too large, so that it is like a loose-fitting cloak around their I. Through such exercises, the astral body will become more firmly connected with the I. They feel good when their feet are off the floor, for instance, when they climb a ladder and sit there quietly. With such children, you will usually notice that they have something like oily or fatty skin when they hang their astral body. It will be like that in some way. Or, they may have wrinkled and loose skin.

Perhaps you can arrange gymnastics class so that groups of children do what is necessary according to their temperaments.

A teacher asks about the dramatic presentations done by the children at Miss MacMillan’s school.

Dr. Steiner: They do many things there that are not appropriate for the age of the children. It is impossible to put on dramas with children younger than ten, though afterward that goes quite well. It is not the method, but Miss MacMillan’s strength and spontaneity, that is effective. The method is strongly affected by the English tendency to do things too soon. That arises from the unusual relationship English people have to their experience of themselves as human beings. They want to be seen as human beings, and that is something taught them through such things. Such people have a strongly developed astral body, which limits their I to a certain level. That is not the case in other European countries. Spiritually, Englishmen look like human beings who go around not fully clothed, who do not have a collar. That is how their I lives within them and how they are in their surroundings. They have a certain human sociality in their character that makes up their national character. They like dramatic presentations of the human being, also Bernard Shaw. They want to do something that has validity, something others will recognize.

A teacher: S.T. in the ninth grade is very clumsy in his written expression. Should I have him do some extra work in writing essays?

Dr. Steiner: You should work with his handwriting, very basically, through exercises. As an extra task, you could have him write a quarter page while paying attention to how each letter is formed. If he would do that, if he would pay attention to forming each letter, it would affect his entire character.

Aside from that, his lines of vision converge at the wrong place. His eyes do not properly fix upon the object. We should correct that. Remind him often so that his eyes look in parallel. You can also have him read as though he were shortsighted, although he is not. His eyes droop just like he droops when he walks. He does not walk properly, he drags his feet. Have you ever noticed, for example, that when he is at the playground and wants to run from one place to another, he never does it in a straight line, but always in some kind of zigzag. You should also look at how his hair always falls across his forehead. He also has no sense of rhythm. If he has to read something rhythmic in class, he gets out of breath. In gymnastics, you could have him move firmly, stamp his steps along.

Karmically, it is as though he has two different incarnations mixed together. In his previous incarnation, his life was cut off forcefully. Now, he is living through the second part of that incarnation and the first part of the present incarnation at the same time. Nothing fits. He has already read Kant. He cannot do things any other child can do, but he asks very unusual questions that show he has a very highly developed soul life. Once, he asked me if it is true that the distance between the Sun and the Earth is continually decreasing. He asked whether the Sun was coming closer to us. He asked such questions without any real reason.

You need to show him other perspectives, and have him do odd things in a disciplined way, for instance, some mathematical things that pique his curiosity, that are not immediately clear to him. You could, for example, have him make knots with a closed loop. Oskar Simony discusses that in his paper on forming knots with closed loops.

Since this was unknown to most of the teachers, Dr. Steiner showed how a strip of paper pasted together to form a closed loop crossed itself in the middle when twisted one, two, or three times. One twist resulted in a large ring; two twists resulted in two rings, one within the other. With three twists, the result was a ring knotted in itself. While doing this Dr. Steiner discussed Oskar Simony in detail.

Dr. Steiner: Simony counted the prime numbers. He once said that in order to bear occult events, you need a great deal of humor. That is certainly true.

Simony was like S.T. He drags himself around, has little sense of rhythm and needs to learn to observe what he does. Everything he does that causes him to think about what he has done is good. St.B. should do eurythmy exercises in which he has to pay attention to forming the letters with his arms toward the rear. He should pay attention to doing the exercise without it becoming a habit. He cannot integrate his etheric body into the periphery of the astral body.

We cannot consider K.F. a Latin student. Perhaps it is quite good for him to sit there like a deserted island. Sitting there in isolation may not be bad at all. I just now am clear that it is good if he is isolated.

A report is given about L.K. in the first grade. She does not like fairy tales or poetry.

Dr. Steiner: She should make the letter i with her whole body, u with her ears and forefinger, and e with her hair, so that she does all three exercises with some sensitivity. She needs to awaken the sensitivity of her body, so she should do that for a longer period of time.

A teacher: S.J. in the seventh grade is doing better writing with her left hand than with her right.

Dr. Steiner: You should remind her that she should write only with her right hand. You could try having her lift her left leg so that she hops around on her right leg, that is, have her jump around on her right leg with her left leg drawn up close to her. She is ambidextrous.

If there are children who are clearly left-handed, you will need to decide. That is something you can observe. You need to look at the left hand. With real left-handed children the hands appear as though exchanged; the left hand looks like the right hand in that it has more lines than the right hand.

This could also be done through the eyes. You could have children who are really left-handed raise the right hand and look at it with both eyes. Observe how their eyes cross as they move their gaze up their arm until they reach the right hand and then move their gaze back. Then have them stretch their arm. Do that three times.

The importance for the educator of knowing man as a whole is seen particularly clearly when we observe the development of boys and girls between their eleventh and twelfth years. Usually only what we might call the grosser changes are observed, the grosser metamorphoses of human nature, and we have no eye for the finer changes. Hence we believe we can benefit the child simply by thinking: what bodily movements should the child make to become physically strong P But if we want to make the child's body strong, capable and free from cramping repressions we must reach the body during childhood by way of the soul and spirit.

Between the 11th and 12th year a very great change takes place in the human being. The rhythmic system—breathing system and system of blood circulation—is dominant between the change of teeth and puberty. When the child is nearly ten years old the beat and rhythm of the blood circulation and breathing system begin to develop and pass into the muscular system. The muscles become saturate with blood and the blood pulses through the muscles in intimate response to man's inner nature—to his own heart. So that between his 9th and 11th years the human being builds up his own rhythmic system in the way which corresponds to its inner disposition. When the 11th or 12th year is reached, then what is within the rhythmic system and muscular system passes over into the bone system, into the whole skeleton. Up to the 11th year the bone system is entirely embedded in the muscular system. It conforms to the muscular system. Between the 11th and 12th years the skeleton adapts itself to the outer world. A mechanic and dynamic which is independent of the human being passes into the skeleton. We must accustom ourselves to treating the skeleton as though it were an entirely objective thing, not concerned with man.

If you observe children under eleven years old you will see that all their movements still come out of their inner being. If you observe children of over 12 years old you will see from the way they step how they are trying to find their balance, how they are inwardly adapting themselves to the leverage and balance, to the mechanical nature of the skeletal system. This means: Between the 11th and 12th year the soul and spirit nature reaches as far as the bone-.system. Before this the soul and spirit nature is much more inward. And only now that he has taken hold on that remotest part of his humanity, the bone-system, does man's adaptation to the outer world become complete. Only now is man a true child of the world, only now must he live with the mechanic and dynamic of the world, only now does he experience what is called Causality in life. Before his 11th year a human being has in reality no understanding of cause and effect. He hears the words used. We think he under-stands them. But he does not, because he is controlling his bone system from out of his muscular system. Later, after the 12th year, the bone system, which is adjusting itself to the outer world, dominates the muscular system, and through it, influences spirit and soul. And in consequence man now gets an understanding of cause and effect based on inner experience,—an understanding of force, and of his own experience of the perpendicular, the horizontal, etc.

For this reason, you see, when we teach the child mineralogy, physics, chemistry, mechanics before his 11th year in too intellectual a way we harm his development, for he cannot as yet have a corresponding experience of the mechanical and dynamical within his whole being. Neither, before his 11th year can he inwardly participate in thy causal connections in history.

Now this enlightens us as to how we should treat the soul in children, before the bone system has awakened. While the child still dwells in his muscular system, through the intermediary of his blood system, he can inwardly experience biography; he can always participate when we bring before him some definite historical picture which can please or displease him, and with which he can feel sympathy or antipathy. Or when we give him a picture of the earth in the manner I described yesterday. He can grasp in picture everything that belongs to the plant kingdom, because his muscular system is plastic, is inwardly mobile. Or if we show him what I said of the animal kingdom, and how it dwells in man—the child can go along with it because his muscular system is soft. But if before his 11th year we teach the child the principle of the lever or of the steam engine he can experience nothing of it inwardly because as yet he has no dynamic or mechanic in his own body, in his physical nature. When we begin physics, mechanics and dynamics at the right time with the child, namely about his 11th or 12th year, what we present to him in thought goes into his head and it is met by what comes from his inner being,—the experience the child has of his own bone-system. And what we say to the child unites with the impulse and experience which comes from the child's body. Thus there arises, not an abstract, intellectual understanding, but a psychic understanding, an understanding in the soul. And it is this we must aim at.

But what of the teacher who has to make this endeavour? What must he be like? Suppose for example, a teacher knows from his anatomy and physiology that “the muscle is in that place, the bones here; the nerve cells look like this”:—it is all very fine, put it is intellectual; all this leaves the child out of account, the child is, as it were, impermeable to our vision. The child is like black coal, untransparent. We know what muscles and nerves are there; we know all that. But we do not know how the circulation system plays into the blood system, into the bone-system. To know that, our conception of the build of a human being, of man's inner configuration must be that of an artist. And the teacher must be in a position to experience the child artistically, to see him as an artist would. Everything within the child must be inwardly mobile to him.

Now, the philosopher will come and say: “Well, if a thing is to be known it must be logical.” Quite right, but logical after the manner of a work of art, which can be an inner artistic representation of the world we have before us. We must accept such an inward artistic conceiving—we must not dogmatise: The world shall only be conceived logically. All the teacher's ideas and feelings must be go mobile that he can realise: If I give the child ideas of dynamics and mechanics before his 11th year they clog his brain, they congest, and make the brain hard, so that it develops migraine in the latter years of youth, and later still will harden;—if I give the child separate historical pictures or stories before his 11th year, if I give him pictures of the plant kingdom which shows the plants in connection with the country-side where they grow, these ideas go into his brain, but they go in by way of the rest of his nervous system into his whole body. They unite with the whole body, with the soft muscular system. I build up lovingly what is at work within the child. The teacher now sees into the child, what to one who only knows anatomy and physiology is opaque black coal now becomes transparent. The teacher sees everything, sees what goes on in the rows of children facing him at their desks, what goes on in the single child. He does not need to cogitate and have recourse to some didactic rule or other, the child himself shows him what needs to be done with it. The child leans back in his chair when something has been done which is unsuitable to him; he becomes inattentive. When you do something right for the child he becomes lively.

Nevertheless one will sometimes have great trouble in controlling the children's liveliness. You will succeed in controlling it if you possess a thing not sufficiently appreciated in this connection, namely humour. The teacher must bring humour into the class room as he enters the door. Some-times children can be very naughty. A teacher in the Waldorf School found a class of older children, children over 12 years old, suddenly become inattentive to the lesson and begin writing to one another under their desks. Now a teacher without humour might get cross at this, mightn't he? There would be a great scene. But what did our Waldorf School teacher do? He went along with the children, and explained to them the nature of—the postal service. And the children saw that he understood them. He entered right into this matter of their mutual correspondence. They felt slightly ashamed, and order was restored.

The fact is, no art of any kind can be mastered without humour, especially the art of dealing with human beings. This means that part of the art of education is the elimination of ill-humour and crossness from the teachers, and the development of friendliness and a love full of humour and fantasy for the children, so that the children may not see portrayed in their teacher the very thing he is forbidding them to be. On no account must it happen in a class that when a child breaks out in anger the teacher says: I will beat this anger out of you! That is a most terrible thing! And he seizes the inkpot and hurls it to the ground where it smashes. This is not a way to remove anger from a child. Only when you show the child that his anger is a mere object, that for you it hardly exists, it is a thing to be treated with humour, then only will you be acting educationally.

Up till now I have been describing how the human being is to be understood in general by the teacher or educator. But man is not only something in general. And even if we can enter into the human being in such detail that the very activity of the muscular system before the 11th year is transparent to us, and that of the bone system after the 11th year, there will yet remain something else—a thing of extraordinary vitality where education is an art—namely the human individuality. Every child is a different being, and what I have hitherto described only constitutes the very first step in the artistic comprehension and knowledge of the child.

We must be able to enter more and more into what is personal and individual. We are helped provisionally by the fact that the children we have to educate are differentiated according to temperaments. A true understanding of temperaments has, from the very first, held a most important place in the education I am here describing, the education practised at the Waldorf School.

Let us take to begin with the melancholic child; a particular human type. What is he like? He appears externally a quiet, withdrawn child. But these outward characteristics are not much help to us. We only begin to comprehend the child with a disposition to melancholy when we realise that the melancholic child is most powerfully affected by its purely bodily, physical nature; when we know that the melancholy is due to an intense depositing of salt in the organism. This causes the child of melancholic temperament to feel weighed down in his physical organism. For a melancholic child to raise a leg or an arm is quite a different matter than for another child. There are hindrances, impediments to this raising of the leg or arm. A feeling of weight opposes the intention of the soul. Thus it gradually comes about that the child of melancholic disposition turns inward and does not take to the outside world with any pleasure, because his body obtrudes upon his attention, because he is so much concerned with his own body. We only gain the right approach to a melancholic child when we know how his soul which would soar, and his spirit which would range are burdened by bodily deposits continuously secreted by the glands, which permeate his other bodily movements and encumber his body. We can only help him when we rightly understand this encroaching heaviness of the body which takes the attention prisoner.

It is often said: Well, a melancholic child broods inwardly, he is quiet and moves little. And so one purposely urges him to take in lively ideas. One seeks to heal a thing by its opposite. One's treatment of the melancholic is to try and enliven him by telling him all sorts of amusing things. This is a completely false method. We can never reach the melancholic child in this way.

We must be able, through our sympathy and sympathetic comprehension of his bodily gravity, to approach the child m the mood which is his own. Thus we must give him, not lively and, comical ideas, but serious ideas like those which he produces himself. We must give him many things which are in harmony with the tone of his own weighted organism.

Further, in an education such as this, we must have patience; the effect is not seen from one day to the next, but it takes years. And the way it works is that when the child is given from outside what he has within himself he arouses in himself healing powers of resistance. If we bring him something quite alien, if we bring comic things to a serious child—he will remain indifferent to the comic things. But if we confront him outwardly with his own sorrow and trouble and care he perceives from this outward meeting what he has in himself. And this calls out the inner action, the opposite. And we heal pedagogically by following in modern form the ancient golden rule: Not only can like be known by like, like can be treated and healed by like.

Now when we consider the child of a more phlegmatic temperament we must realise: this child of more phlegmatic temperament dwells less in his physical body and more in what I have called, in my descriptions here, the etheric body, a more volatile body. He dwells in his etheric body. It may seem a strange thing to say about the phlegmatic child that he dwells in his etheric body, but so it is. The etheric body prevents the processes of man's organic functions, his digestion, and growth, from coming into his head. It is not in the power of the phlegmatic child to get ideas of what is going on in his body. His head becomes inactive. His body becomes ever more and more active by virtue of the volatile element which tends to scatter his functions abroad in the world. A phlegmatic child is entirely given up to the world. He is absorbed into the world. He lives very little in himself hence he meets what we try to do with him with a certain indifference. We cannot reach the child because immediate access to him must be through the' senses. The principle senses are in the head. The phlegmatic child can make little use of his head. The rest of his organism functions through interplay with the outer world.

Once again, as in the case of the melancholic child, we can only reach the phlegmatic child when we can turn ourselves into phlegmatics of some sort at his side, when we can transpose ourselves, as artists, into his phlegmatic mood. Then the child has at his side what he is in himself, and in good time what he has beside him seems too boring. Even the phlegmatic finds it too boring to have a phlegmatic for a teacher at his side! And if we have patience we shall presently see how something lights up in the phlegmatic child if we give him ideas steeped in phlegma, and tell him phlegmatically of indifferent events.

Now the sanguine child is particularly difficult to handle. The sanguine child is one in whom the activity of the rhythmic system predominates in a marked degree. The rhythmic system, which is the dominant factor between the change of teeth and puberty, exercises too great a dominion over the sanguine child. Hence the sanguine child always wants to hasten from impression to impression. His blood circulation is hampered if the impressions do not change quickly. He feels inwardly cramped if impressions do not quickly pass and give way to others. So we can say: The sanguine child feels an inner constriction when he has to attend long to anything; he feels he cannot dwell on it, he turns away to quite other thoughts. It is hard to hold him.

Once more the treatment of the sanguine child is similar to that of the others: one must not try to heal the sanguine child by forcing him to dwell a long time on one impression, one must do the opposite. Meet the sanguine nature, change impressions vigorously and see to it that the child has to take in impression after impression in rapid succession. Once again, a reaction will be called into play. And this cannot fail to take the form of antipathy to the hurrying impressions, for the system of circulation here dominates entirely. With the result that the child himself is slowed down.

The choleric child has to be treated in yet a different way. The characteristic of the choleric child is that he is a stage behind the normal in his development. This may seem strange. Let us take an illustration. A normal child of 8 or 9 of any type moves his limbs quickly or slowly in response to outer impressions. But compare the 8 or 9-year old child with a child of 3 or 4 years. The 3- or 4-year old child still trips and dances through life, he controls his movements far less. He still retains something of the baby within him. A baby does not control its movements at all, it kicks—its mental powers are not developed. But if tiny babies all had a vigorous mental development you would find them all to be cholerics. Kicking babies—and the healthier they are the more they kick—kicking babies are all choleric. A choleric child comes from a body made restless by choler.

Now the choleric child still retains something of the rompings and ragings of a tiny baby. Hence the baby lives on in the choleric child of 8 or 9, the choleric boy or girl. This is the reason the child is choleric and we must treat the child by trying gradually to subdue the “baby” within him.

In the doing of this, humour is essential. For when we confront a real choleric of 8, 9, 10 years or even older, we shall affect nothing with him by admonition. But if I get him to re-tell me a story I have told him, which requires a show of great choler and much pantomime, so that he feels the baby in himself, this will have [For further descriptions of the alternation between sympathy and antipathy in children and its place in education see Steiner's educational writings passim.] the effect little by little of calming this “tiny baby.” He adapts it to the stage of his own mind. And when I act the choleric towards the choleric child—naturally, of course, with humour and complete self-control—the choleric child at my side will grow calmer. When the teacher begins to dance—but please do not misunderstand me—the raging of the child near him gradually subsides. But one must avoid having either a red face or a long face when dealing with a choleric child, one must enter into this inner raging by means of artistic sensibility. You will see the child will become quieter and quieter. This utterly subdues the inner raging.

But there must be nothing artificial in all this. If there is anything forced or inartistic in what the teacher gives the child it will have no result. The teacher must indeed have artist's blood in him so that what he enacts in front of the child shall have verisimilitude and can be accepted unquestioningly; otherwise it is a false thing in the teacher, and that must not be. The teacher's relation to the child must be absolutely true and genuine.

Now when we enter into the temperaments in this manner it helps us also to keep a class in order, even quite a large one. The Waldorf teacher studies the temperaments of the children confided to him. He knows: I have melancholies, phlegmatics, sanguines and cholerics. He places the melancholies together, unobtrusively, without its being noticed of course. He knows he has them in this corner. Now he places the cholerics together, he knows he has them in that corner; similarly with the sanguinis and the phlegmatics. By means of this social treatment those of like temperament rub each other's corners off reciprocally. For example the melancholic becomes cheerful when he sits among melancholies. As for the cholerics, they heal each other thoroughly, for it is the very best thing to let the cholerics work off their choler upon one another. If bruises are received, mutually it has an exceedingly sobering effect. So that by a right social treatment the—shall we say—hidden relationship between man and man can be brought into a healthy solution.

And if we have enough sense of humour to send out a boy when he is overwrought and in a rage—into the garden, and see to it that he climbs trees and scrambles about until he is colossally tired,—when he comes in again he will have worked off his choleric temper on himself and in company with nature. When he has worked off what is in him by overcoming obstacles, he will come back to us, after a little while, calmed down.

Now the point is, you see, to come by way of the temperaments into ever closer and closer touch with the individuality of the child, his personality. To-day many people say you must educate individually. Yes, but first you must discover the individual. First you must know man; next you must know the melancholic—Actually the melancholic is never a pure melancholic, the temperaments are always mixed. One temperament is dominant—But only when you rightly understand the temperament can you find your way to the individuality.

Now this shows you indeed that the art of education is a thing that must be learned intimately. People to-day do not start criticising a clock—at least I have not heard it—they do not set up to criticise the works of a clock. Why? Because they do not understand it, they do not know the inner working of a clock. Thus you seldom hear criticism of the working of a clock in ordinary conversation. But criticism of education—you hear it on all hands. And frequently it is as though people were to talk of the works of a clock of which they haven't the slightest inkling. But people do not believe that education must be intimately learned, and that it is not enough to say in the abstract: we must educate the individuality. We must erst be able to find the individuality by going intimately through a knowledge of man and a knowledge of the different dispositions and temperaments. Then gradually we shall draw near to what is entirely individual in man. And this must become a principle of life, particularly for the artist teacher or educator.

Everything depends upon the contact between teacher and child being permeated by an artistic element. This will bring it about that much that a teacher has to do at any moment with an individual child comes to him intuitively, almost instinctively. Let us take a concrete illustration for the sake of clarity. Suppose we find difficulty in educating a certain child because all the images we bring to him, the impressions we seek to arouse, the ideas we would impart, set up so strong a circulation in his head system and cause such a disturbance to his nervous system that what we give him cannot escape from the head into the rest of his organism. The physical organism of his head becomes in a way partially melancholic. The child finds it difficult to lead over what he sees, feels or otherwise experiences, from his head to the rest of his organism. What is learned gets stuck, as it were, in the head. It cannot penetrate down into the rest of the organism. An artist in educating will instinctively keep such a thing in view in all his specifically artistic work with the child. If I have such a child I shall use colours and paint with him in quite a different way than with other children. Because it is of such importance, special attention is given to the element of colour in the Waldorf School from the very beginning. I have already explained the principle of the painting; but within' the painting lesson one can treat each child individually. We have an opportunity of working individually with the child because he has to do everything himself.

Now suppose I have by me such a child as I described. I am taking the painting lesson. If there is the right artistic contact between teacher and child—under my guidance this child will produce quite a different painting from another child.

I will draw you roughly on the black-board what should come on the paper painted on by the child whose ideas are stuck in his head. Something of this sort should arise:

Here a spot of this colour (yellow), then further on a spot of some such colour as this (orange), for we have to keep in mind the harmony of colours. Next comes a transition (violet), the transition may be further differentiated, and in order to make an outer limit the whole may be enclosed with blue. This is what we shall get on the paper of a child whose ideas are congested in his head.

Now suppose I have another child whose ideas, far from sticking in his head, sift through his head as through a sieve; where everything goes into the body, and the child grasps nothing because his head is like a sieve—it has holes, it lets things through. It sifts everything down. One must be able to feel that in the case of this child the circulation system of the other part of the organism wants to suck everything into itself.

Then instinctively, intuitively, it will occur to one to get the child to do something quite different. In the case of such a child you will get something of this sort on the painting paper; You will observe how much less the colours go into curves, or rounded forms; rather you will find the colours tend to be drawn out, painting is approximating to drawing, we get loops which are proper to drawing. You will also notice that the colours are not much differentiated; here (in the first drawing) they are strongly differentiated: here in this one they are very little differentiated.

If one carries this out with real colours—and not with the nauseating substance of chalk, which cannot give an idea of the whole thing—then through the experience of pure colour in the one case, and of more formed colour in the other, one will be able to work back upon the characteristics of the child which I described.

Similarly when you go into the gymnasium with a boy or girl whose ideas stick in his head and will not come out of it, your aim will be different from that with which yon would go into it with a child whose head is like a sieve, who lets everything through into the rest of his body and into the circulation of the rest of his body. You take both kinds of children into the gymnasium with you. You get the one kind,—whose heads are like a sieve, where everything falls through—to alternate their gymnastic exercises with recitation or singing. The other gymnastic—group—those whose ideas are stuck fast in their heads—should be got to do their movements as far as possible in silence. Thus you make a bridge between bodily training and psychic characteristics from out the very nature of the child himself. A child which has stockish ideas must be got to do gymnastics differently from the child whose ideas go through his head like a sieve.

Such a thing as this shows how enormously important it is to compose the education as a whole. It is a horrible thing when first the teacher instructs the children in class and then they are sent off to the gymnasium—and the gymnastic teacher knows nothing of what has gone on in class and follows his own scheme in the gymnastic lesson. The gymnastic lesson must follow absolutely and entirely upon what one has experienced with the children in class. So that actually in the Waldorf School the endeavour has been as far as possible to entrust to one teacher even supplementary lessons in the lower classes, and certainly everything which concerns the general development of the human being.

This makes very great demands upon the staff, especially where art teaching is concerned; it demands, also, the most willing and loving devotion. But in no other way can we attain a wholesome, healing human development.

Now, in the following lectures I shall show you on the one hand certain plastic, painted figures made in the studio at Dornach, so as to acquaint you better with Eurhythmy—that art of movement which is so intimately connected with the whole of man. The figures bring out the colours and forms of eurhythmy and something of its inner nature. On the other hand I shall speak tomorrow upon the painting and other artistic work done by the younger and older children in the Waldorf School.

You will perhaps allow me to say just a few short words before our attempt to give a performance of Eurythmy. It is not my purpose to try to explain the content of this performance, for the very reason that all that is of the nature of Art must speak for itself. An explanation of any kind is not in itself “artistic” and would consequently be out of place here. It is, however, necessary to say some few words, because what we here call the Art of Eurythmy is derived from sources hitherto unfamiliar to the world of Art, and makes use of an artistic language whose forms are likewise rather unusual.

Eurythmy is the Art of Movement in Space carried out by individuals and groups of individuals in reciprocal relationships and positions. These movements are not mere gestures, nor are they miming. Eurythmy as we here give it cannot therefore be regarded as anything in the nature of dancing; it is a new Art, having as its instrument Man himself, and its movements are absolutely in accordance with law. The movements which are made in the larynx and the other organs of speech when a man expresses himself in sound have been studied by a kind of perception which is at the same time “sensible” and yet “super-sensible”—if I may use the expression of Goethe. But in speech those inner movements, or, better, those underlying principles of movement which it is the function of the larynx and the other organs of speech to bring into expression, are arrested as they arise and are transformed into finer vibratory movements which by means of the air carry the sound so that it can be heard. In Eurythmy, then, a process as yet within the human organs of speech is interpreted by one individual or by groups of individuals. Goethe's teaching of Metamorphosis forms the basis of this Art. Everything that we do here is founded an Goetheanism, and Eurhythmic Art is just one detail of it.

Goethe developed his teaching of Metamorphosis out of his universal world-conception. The following rather abstract remarks about the simple way in which Goethe applied this teaching of the Metamorphosis of plants are not made with the purpose of evolving a theory, but only of making myself clear.

Goethe sees in principle a complete plant in each single leaf, so that a plant as a unit originates from the right development of what lies as idea within each single leaf. The whole plant is, in principle, an elaborated leaf, and each individual leaf is a primitive plant. What Goethe worked out with regard to organic metamorphosis—for he expanded the range of his conception to cover all organisms—can be applied to organic functions and development and then transformed into Art. So that if we turn what exists in principle and as Idea in a single group of organs—such as the larynx, and other organs of speech—into movements carried out by the individual, making him or a group of individuals into a living larynx in movement, as it were, we get a visible speech. And what lies at the basis of our Eurythmy is this visible speech.

It is obvious, of course, that there will be opposition to an Art like this, employing, as it does, methods that are unfamiliar, but this opposition will all disappear in the course of time. The gestures are not accidental in our Eurythmy; there is no mere chance connected between some movement of the arms, for instance, and a certain emotion of the soul. Just as a definite shade of tone in speech corresponds to a psychic or soul process, and vice versa, do you find in our Eurythmy the logical sequence of movements. That which comes into expression in speech, in song, in music, is represented in Eurythmy by means of a different artistic medium, by a different form of speech. Hence, as you will see, Eurythmy can be accompanied by music, for that which in music is expressed in tone is there and then expressed by the movements of individuals. This visible speech of Eurythmy can also be accompanied by audible speech, such as recitation, or declamation. The poem is recited and the real artistic content of it is translated into Eurythmy into visible speech. We can in this way see how Eurythmy in this somewhat inartistic age may be able to develop a true artistic understanding and rendering of recitation and declamation.

To-day in reference to recitation and declamation it is the verbal content of the poem which is considered specially important. But the real artistic value of poetry is not determined by this verbal content so much as by the plastic-figurative, or musical element to be found in it. When recitation or declamation is to accompany Eurythmy, therefore, special care must be taken that they shall bring out the artistic element, the rhythm, the metre, and the inner form of the language used. In that way we shall get back to the understanding of the art of recitation as it existed in epochs which were truly artistic. It is interesting in this connection to remember that when Goethe studied his Iambic dramas with the actors, he always used a baton as if he were conducting music, showing that he attached more importance to the Iambic formation of his verses thin to their verbal content. Eurythmy will also have an influence upon recitation because the art of recitation must accompany that which forms the artistic basis of Eurythmy.

As the months have gone by we have developed the subject. At first we expressed the poetical content by the visible speech of Eurythmy while the recitation itself was going on. Now we are trying to impart the essential content of a poem, for instance, by means of evolutions which precede and follow it, so that the visible but unaccompanied language of Eurythmy can also be displayed to advantage by itself.

That, briefly, is the artistic side of the question, and it represents one aspect of Eurythmy as we practise it. The other is the pedagogic, didactic element, shall I call it. Our Eurythmy, besides being of the nature of Art, is a kind of spiritualised gymnastics. As such, it is used in the Waldorf School which was founded in Stuttgart by Emil Mott and arranged and directed by me. Eurythmy, as well as Gymnastics, has been introduced there as a compulsory subject in all the classes. It is true to say that in epochs more artistically impartial than ours, there will be a quite different way of judging Gymnastics. Just recently a famous modern physiologist came here, heard what I said as an introduction to the Eurythmy, and also saw the performance. His opinion was that from a physiological point of view ordinary gymnastics were not a method of education at all, but so much barbarism. Remember, it is not I who say that, but a modern physiologist for whose name people have a tremendous respect. I do not myself go nearly so far; I say that Gymnastics are carried out according to corporeal laws, built up upon a physiological basis merely, whereas when a child is allowed to carry out the movements of Eurythmy, all of which are full of meaning, then the whole of its being, body, soul and spirit, is affected and not the body only. We have already been able to see, by a year of experience in the Waldorf School, with what delight the children have made this Eurythmy Art their own. They really feel that these movements proceed from the human constitution itself. The natural joy of a child learning to speak may be compared with that of children between the ages of seven to fifteen who are beginning to practise these eurhythmic movements. They find that the human element in them is being guided into a course that is a right one. Out of the four hundred children in the Waldorf School there were at the very most two or three who did not enter into the thing as joyfully as was the case with all the others; the number of children who for some fundamental reason took to Eurythmy with difficulty was quite negligible, the remainder taking the very greatest delight in their Eurythmy lessons. I say without hesitation that Eurythmy develops in children something that is really needed; and that is initiative of soul and of will, which gymnastics, as such, cannot do.

We ask everybody to remember that we ourselves are the most severe critics of what we are attempting to do. Eurythmy is still at its most elementary stage; but while we realise that we are only attempting to make a beginning, we yet can affirm from association with this work that, by further development brought about either by ourselves or by others, Eurythmy will become ever more and more perfect, and will one day take up its rightful position as a young sister-art among the older and fully established ones.

Dr. Unger: The task at hand is to prepare for the assembly of delegates. I have consulted with Dr. Kolisko and prepared yesterday's discussions for the central theme: the society must be consolidated.

Dr. Kolisko: The Representatives' Meeting should take place soon.

Dr. Unger: How should this circle work until the meeting? The question must be asked whether it will still work with me.

A conversation takes place between Dr. Schwebsch and Dr. Unger.

Dr. Schwebsch: Yesterday one could have had the impression that it was the Unger-Arenson family that was concerned and not the Society.

Dr. Kolisko: First of all, a provisional arrangement must be made, also in the branch matters.

Dr. Unger: The mistrust against me continues.

Marie Steiner: At the time when the question of the merger of the two branches arose, Mr. Hahn, Mr. Baumann and Mr. Palmer worked against Mr. Arenson and Mr. Unger. If requests such as the one made by Miss Hauck arise, it shows that these things can be dealt with. Why shouldn't it be possible?

Dr. Schwebsch: These are imponderable things.

Dr. Unger: The opinion here is that it won't work with me.

Dr. Steiner: We won't get anywhere if we discuss this question. It is an absolutely unnecessary question that has no place in this evening's discussion. What is at issue is not what the Stuttgart branch finds desirable or not desirable for itself, or how the work of Mr. Arenson and Dr. Unger is evaluated, but the question is that the central committee has not achieved anything in these years. The second thing is that something must arise that makes it clear that something can arise. All other questions must be considered from these two points of view. The question of mistrust or trust must also be considered from this point of view. We cannot talk about it for another fortnight. That is it. It is about the Anthroposophical Society in Germany and Austria, and that was mentioned in Mr. Uehli's mandate. What will become of the Stuttgart branch is a completely different matter. I have always meant by the “Stuttgart system” that which has had a subversive effect on the Society from here, because the Central Council had no ideas. That must be the direction of the conversations.

Marie Steiner: I think that Dr. Schwebsch has turned in a very one-sided way and does not see the essential.

Dr. Steiner: The essential thing is that the second positive element does not emerge anywhere and that what the ladies and gentlemen intend to do does not emerge. Consider the sterile situation in which we find ourselves! The previous board of directors thought it was compatible for one of its members to make his functions available and for Dr. Unger to resign provisionally. Then we had a sad night session, and then there was another session in which we tried to sketch out where the journey should go. Now I expected that the deliberations would be along these lines: where the journey should go.

The first session was a tumultuous critique. Then a general silence fell; we sat down around the table, and those who had talked the most in the critique talked the least when it came to sketching out a positive structure.

Dr. Unger: I was anxious to present something new. Dr. Steiner: The two appeals are merely bureaucratic documents: convening meetings! If you think that this will be wiser than what has been done so far, then you are mistaken. The point is that the Anthroposophical Society must be led, and so the person who is already convening meetings must have ideas about how the journey should continue. These calls have created bureaucratic documents.

Several speakers speak, often with reference to “yesterday”. Marie Steiner: It is not usual for those who have something to say to speak.

Emil Leinhas speaks.

Marie Steiner: – – but those who are possessed seem strong. Unless you have years of experience, you do not notice the effect at the first glance. One is not always equal to it, and “eternal youth” falls for it after all. What Dr. Unger says: “to illuminate Dr. Steiner's life's work from all sides,” is perhaps not new, but – –

Miss Dr. Maria Röschl speaks.

Dr. Steiner: Take the things as they have been in these days. Basically, much of what should have been said has always been said in the Thirty Committee. On December 10 [1922], I spoke [with Mr. Uehli] and said that I expected the Central Committee to approach me with some other people, otherwise I would have to address the Society myself in a circular letter; this Society is disintegrating. — I do not want to repeat everything that has happened in the meantime. I came here again. You all gathered independently of the assignment that you expressed by criticizing the central committee so harshly because nothing is happening. – Please, what is it that needs to be done? The district must point to the personalities whom it believes know.

Dr. Maria Röschl [to Dr. Unger]: How do you envision the branch work?

Dr. Unger: The book “Theosophy” should be studied. It should be expanded to include the entire movement. Archives should be opened in the right way. A “leader” should be developed through the works of Dr. Steiner.

Several others speak, then Mr. Uehli and Dr. Unger.

Dr. Steiner: There has been no leadership since 1919. The establishment of this and that has created the necessity for the Society to be led by personalities. It needs leadership, but it is not being led because the personalities who should lead are not aware that they should lead. How are things going in the Society? What is happening? And what is not happening?

The “Movement for Religious Renewal” has emerged. A lady went into it with all her passion; she felt nothing but that she was supposed to go into it. No plausible directive emerged for her. She heard about my lecture on December 30 [in GA 219]; she was told all kinds of things that led her astray. Now, I gave a lecture here last Tuesday.¹ From the lecture she had the impression that she would find her earlier opinion again. Afterwards she was told that it was clear from my lecture that no anthroposophist should take part in the religious renewal movement. Well, now she has completely lost her temper. This “should” and “should not”! You should always do this or you should not do that — but that does not appear at all in what I said.

It is not actually working. What is a classic example of this movement: it is not working to spread anthroposophy, but to prevent the right way of looking at anthroposophy. This is the case of working to prevent the right way of looking at anthroposophy. No work was done on it until the end of December. So it happened that this whole complex of questions, which has arisen in relation to the religious renewal movement, is a misjudgment. No position was taken on it until the end of December, when the Central Council came and wanted to make a mere defensive move, which came much too late. And this was not accompanied by the real awareness: What should the Anthroposophical Movement do? It was a struggle with something else.

Let us add to this that the Anthroposophical Movement was founded in 1901 and continued positively until 1918. And that from then on, foundations began that have become part of the finished Anthroposophical Society. Anthroposophy was made into threefolding, it was made into everything possible. Everywhere, the stubborn or the comfortable ways were sought, while everything I emphasized was blown through the fingers, with the exception of the only thing that Mr. Leinhas took the reorganization of “Futurum” into his hands. There is a complete lack of real leadership. And that is why there was talk of the “Stuttgart system”, which consists of grafting everything possible onto the Anthroposophical Society, but not making the effort to work for anthroposophy. On the other hand, there is the system of starting everything and not continuing it, such as the “Bund für freies Geistesleben” (Federation for a Free Spiritual Life), which has remained only on paper. And then, isn't it true, everywhere the easiest way is chosen and then abandoned, no further attention paid to it. Sitting on curule chairs without any activity! All this is typical of the “Stuttgart system”.

These are the absolute “unmethods”: to carry out one's office, but to avoid any real activity. Activity has been avoided since 1919. Nothing has been pursued, while all the same promises have been made to pursue things. These are the things that come into question above all. It seems to me that it would be easy to move on to the positive. For example, when I look at Dr. Stein's activity, it seems to me historically like this: at first he ranted and raved so that he rose to the point of saying that the board of directors had become a laughing stock for children. Then he lapsed into lethargy. It would be hard to highlight anything positive. It's no use for you to tell me to guess. Then it leads to something that I say being passed on. I am not criticizing you for saying it; it is just that it is not helpful. Only what grows on one's own soil helps, but in such a way that it becomes concrete and permeates the will. As long as we remain in the stage of not getting beyond generalities, we act as if society were not there at all. But since it is there, we have to speak differently. We have to talk about real things. We are not faced with the question of founding the Anthroposophical Society now. “Finding the other human being”: these are expressions used in every humanitarian society.

Now this committee of seven was formed. It could only come together by saying: We want this or that, and therefore we are dissatisfied with this or that.

Wherever there was an opportunity to achieve something in a positive and humane way during this time, it was not seized. This is what I have explained as the system of inner opposition.

In this way, we are constantly practicing inbreeding by continuing the system of the last four years in society. In the last four years, inbreeding has been practiced constantly, with the exception of those people whom I myself appointed. The path of convenience has always been chosen. How much has been ruined here because people did not understand how to cultivate talent. Those who are there are not even cared for. They are scolded. The task is to cultivate them, to use them in such a way that they put their talents and knowledge at the service of society.

The “circle” does not even have the opportunity to get beyond its own clique. They never think of bringing in others to make use of their talents or good will when they themselves get stuck. So they keep on inbreeding. It is not becoming for a couple of Waldorf teachers to sit down and reform society if they can't do it. If they can, then they should just go for it.

Nobody knows about this appeal by Dr. Unger. Nor about the other one, which is almost identical. People don't know why they should come. Of course, it is only of value if those who want to take the matter into their own hands say what needs to be done. There is nothing in it for society to do, and it is not being done because society is not functioning.

We have researchers and institutes! There are: Dr. Theberath, Maier - Strakosch is the head of them -, Smits, Lehofer, Dechend, Pelikan, Streicher, Spiess. Nine researchers have emerged from the Anthroposophical Society. It is an urgent question that the “Kommende Tag” does not go bankrupt on these nine researchers. That is one of the most burning questions of the Anthroposophical Society. All of this has emerged from the bosom of the Anthroposophical Society. Have you taken care of the things that are not being done?

Dr. Kolisko: We are well aware of these questions.

Dr. Steiner: Otherwise everything will spiral out of control if the Society does not take care of the things that have grown out of it and does not think about maintaining them. The Anthroposophical Society can be administered in the same way as you are discussing it today, in the same way as it was administered in 1910. People have demanded the Waldorf school. There is no longer any possibility of continuing with things as they were in the past. People have demanded activities that need to be carried out. The responsibility to take care of them is growing on the people who demanded them. Instead, we hold meetings that prevent us from taking care of them.

I would like to continually point out specific issues. I would like to point out the researchers you let go for a walk. The central board has not even considered that it has an obligation to ensure that they do something. There is nothing in the magazine Anthroposophie. But nine researchers and four doctors go for a walk. Of course, the “Kommende Tag” will go bankrupt because of these nine researchers, who are joined by four doctors. And that is how we get the opposition. The result is that people say we promise the world all sorts of things and none of them come true.

Emil Leinbas speaks.

Dr. Steiner: The moment people hear that there are people sitting around doing nothing, we get opposition.

Marie Steiner: At the last meeting I expected these things to be mentioned.

Dr. Steiner: It didn't occur to anyone to speak of these real things, although I said other things. Since 1919 they wanted to have something other than the Anthroposophical Society.

Some members comment on this.

Dr. Steiner: There is not enough time for that. This means that the responsibility has fallen to the others to take care of the Anthroposophical Society. That is what needs to be done. We could have arranged to take care of the archives and arrange lectures from the archives anyway. What was needed in 1919 requires the help of others, not just from the inner circle. If nine researchers are employed, it is the responsibility of everyone who wants science to be done.

Marie Steiner: No one thought of eurythmy.

Dr. Steiner: Our friends first had to be persuaded to find something in eurythmy, while other things are taking hold here parasitically. The actual things are being thrown to the wind. This must be stated in the appeals, even if not in the words I am using to express it.

If we just keep talking about “finding the human being,” we won't get anywhere. I feel there is an injustice here. Is it heard that I have been directing research goals in a very specific direction for some time now, saying that the things are in the air? Mr. Strakosch recently told me that the things are already being done. The deeds of our researchers must be included in “Anthroposophy”, and the Central Board is responsible for this. |

The point is that our doctors are doing something. They have enough to do; there are specific tasks.

Opinions are being expressed loudly about some of the events of the last year.

Dr. Steiner: We cannot afford to become complacent in the face of such blatant injustice, nor refuse to feel it in all its depth. The matter has not been discussed in such a way that it is “a scandal” when something like this can happen.

Dr. Kolisko speaks.

Dr. Steiner: It is not the same thing to take something by the horns as it is to merely discuss it. I mention this only as an example. I have always said that one speaks in generalities. At the Waldorf School, you should use this intellect, which has come about through a very special selection from Central Europe. The inbreeding within this circle leads to nothing. This also ruins all branch foundations. We will not attract new people.

Marie Steiner: Everything should be imbued with a different attitude. In addition to Waldorf teachers, other people should also be considered.

Some people present speak.

Dr. Steiner: I am only talking about the things that can be done as a matter of course. You can travel to Dornach and you can give a lecture. When the brochure on the spleen appears, you can claim that it should have provoked a continuous discussion. An investigation takes time. Of course, that should also arouse some interest. I am not saying that there are many people who are interested in such things; but what everyone can and must do is to bring something before the public that is a positive treatment of the anthroposophical material. That can be done. All you need to do is get down to it. I am not talking about genius at all; there is no lack of that. I don't know about Spiess. The others have the capacity, but they are not hardworking. They can do something, but they are not encouraged to do it. What has come out of the researchers, except for the pendulum story by Rudolf Maier? That is the only really positive result.

Schmiedel did not talk to me about Maier's lecture. That's the way it is with all these things. And even if he had, it would only prompt Schmiedel to write a refutation. That's what would follow. It could lead to a very interesting debate.

There is talk about the mood of opposition among young people.

Dr. Steiner: Miss Mellinger wanted to express the mood of young people. These ideas, which come from this corner, all assume that people say that no leadership is needed. You know, if the community is there, the appropriate leader can be found. It won't work without leadership. Purpose must be brought into the assembly. She can perhaps make her objections if the people do not suit her. There are Polzer, Miss Mellinger, Lauer – Maikowski is only the voting leader. It is all more decrepit than one would imagine. Those who are accustomed to using their tongues must express their point of view. It is sad that Dr. Stein has suddenly become mute.

Marie Steiner: I thought that these shortcomings would be discussed. I lived under this assumption, but I hear nothing about it.

Various voices are raised.

Dr. Steiner: Polzer represents the current Austrian faction, which is still active. Miss Mellinger can say anything negative. – Lauer is, of course, a representative of the youth; Maikowski is the youth's theorist. – They can be obliged not to speak for the beginning. – Little by little, the position becomes impossible if Miss Mellinger is included and

Maikowski is not. Just take Polzer and Lauer.

[Dr. Steiner?]: Wednesday at 8:30 pm,

• 1. Lecture Stuttgart, January 23, 1923, in GA 257.

Dr. Steiner: I would like to say a few words before we go into the individual points of discussion. Now that we are at the beginning of a new school year we need to clarify some things. There has been some discussion of things, including my own position, in relationship to the faculty. Today, I do not want to discuss the external relationship, only the inner. That seems appropriate this evening because you brought up my inner relationship, at least between the lines. In those things connected with our spiritual movement, I feel I am an esoteric among friends and cannot feel I am anything else. Running the Waldorf School is one of these spiritual things, at least to the extent it is a spiritual matter and to the extent the faculty takes up pedagogical questions and belongs to our anthroposophical movement. I need to say some things today about the position of an esoteric and how an esoteric perceives him- or herself, which you will need to apply to the particular case of the Waldorf School.

Someone who brings things from the spiritual world to his or her fellow human beings assumes, of course, that people do not necessarily accept them because of authority, but at least because they feel the things result from scientific research revealing a content that can perhaps be made known only by the person undertaking it. People can understand these things, of course, once they are said, but someone must first say them as a result of his or her own investigation. As you hear such truths, you are not exactly in a relationship to authority, but you somehow recognize that the things said can only arise from such a source.

Much of what I have recently had to say to you may appear simple, but I did not discover it in a simple way. Much of what we can learn about such a special area as pedagogy can become available only by going through a great deal, by experiencing a great deal, which is possible only after many years’ experience with this type of investigating. Understanding it is easy and can occur in a short period, but the investigation itself is not at all so simple and requires a path of initiation. However, when someone tells fellow human beings of such investigation, he or she never does so out of a desire to speak as an authority in the normal sense, that is, as the exoteric world understands authority.

I would ask that you take what I have to say about this very seriously and precisely. You should not accept what I have to say simply upon authority in the normal sense of the word. You see, if you did that, it would have no effect. You would not receive it through the necessary intangible forces. The relationship must be entirely different. The relationship must be one in which you accept everything said through a completely free will. Your acceptance may not in the least depend upon the will of the speaker. Everything must depend upon the will of the listeners. That is as exact a description of the relationship that must exist as is possible in human speech. I tell you things not to place them in the proper light, but because, in our times, we can base the effectiveness of esoteric work upon them.

If in our times we wanted to achieve something through authority, whether it be the authority of suggestion or any of the other numerous ways of affecting the soul, then that would eventually reveal itself as a great mistake. We now exist in the stage of human development when people mature enough to do so put more and more impulses of freedom into the world. Specifically, when we work as teachers we may not under any circumstances accept those things that arise out of the spirit and will move the world forward through an authority forced upon the soul. We must accept everything through goodwill, through the insight of the listener when the listener feels that the person speaking has something to say. No other relationship may exist. If the intent is that the listeners undertake some work based upon those statements, work that people can undertake communally, any other relationship would have a negative effect. If the spiritual researcher is to participate, then the capacity to speak free of authority and to listen through free will must be the basis of the entire relationship.

Nothing else may be the basis of the external relationships. Therefore, my relationship to the faculty must be one, right to the dotting of the i’s and crossing of the t’s, that neither I nor anyone else wants something against the will of any member of the faculty. The entire faculty as a whole must accept and desire it in their hearts. Whether something would pass in an election or not is unimportant. It requires that kind of inner relationship. The moment that is no longer so, the proper relationship would no longer exist. We need to somewhat keep an eye on that relationship.

Groups form in this area, not the way associations form, but more like a gathering around one person who has something to say in the sense that I mentioned. That is, those who want to hear something freely gather around someone. Regardless of what the external world may or may not expect of such a group, what I have said is all that is inwardly acceptable.

You will certainly feel that I want to describe my inner relationship to the faculty in that way, and I would ask that you understand it in that way. All healing forces of the future will be based in this. Specific things also lie in that direction. You need to feel that I have harmonized and do always intend to harmonize my decisions with each of you, that is, what you bring to me for a decision, because those who ask a question do so out of their own insight. If you think this through, you can clearly discern the nature of our esoteric relationship and the positive results of that esoteric relationship.

I wanted to make this our starting point today. You may have already found from your many experiences that things arising out of the spirit proceed properly only when such an understanding of spiritual relationships is their basis. Thus, in an exoteric organization you should separate the things that are simply necessary for the external world from what must lie between us. We can then move forward not only in the most rational manner, but also in the most spiritual work. We will move forward.

I wanted to say this to you now as a kind of inauguration of our work for this year, an inauguration of our work through which I would particularly like spiritual forces to flow. You can be certain that I will continue to pray for a blessing upon your work as a whole and the work of individuals in this coming year from the spiritual powers that carry our entire movement. If you are aware that is the case, if you not only act together, but think together and feel together, and thus receive the good spiritual forces in this thinking together, feeling together into the harmony of the entire soul life, then our work in this year will succeed.

Now we can go on to specific points. Does anyone want to say something about our agenda for today?

A question is asked about the official recognition of the Waldorf School as an elementary school.

Dr. Steiner: This is something that can go in one direction or another and depends upon the goodwill of the educational bureaucracy. We will achieve a certain degree of security about the future existence of the school only if we can negotiate through personal contacts. I wish to state expressly that we should not do this by telephone. If we can work through personal discussions and personal contact with all the possibilities of emphasis that arise in a personal conversation, if we can create an attitude through that, then we will achieve a certain degree of security. We will be unable to avoid being confronted with the same problem in the future if we handle this question in a strictly bureaucratic manner.

For that reason I think it would be best if Mr. Molt could do something personally, if you were personally involved. The situation is such that we will feel secure about the Waldorf School only if you personally speak with those people who have some influence. I am convinced that if an exchange of this sort occurs, and it forces the officials to say something in recognition of the school, that will offer us the best protection. Sending memos back and forth will achieve nothing. Particularly here in Württemberg, we can achieve more than in Prussia. In Prussia, after the final decision, we would have to dismantle this school within a short period of time.

We need to work on the problem in that way. We should not forget that some school principal or a teacher from a normal school will often come along and want to have the Waldorf School pedagogy. They will ask what they can do to help their schools. That is pure nonsense. The first thing they need to do is to free themselves from the state, and that gives rise to such a difficult problem that only a few people can think about it consequentially.

What is important is that what we could call our school movement, namely, a movement for independent schools, gets into more people’s heads so that a genuinely large movement toward educational freedom arises as a part of the Threefold Movement. We can use the opportunity that the excuse about a unified school provides. I must admit that I have always found a concrete definition of a unified school unpleasant, even though we had to use that term. It was unpleasant for me because it emphasized we wanted what the state defines as a unified school, but a unified school was less important than an independent school. That will come about by itself. What the present German government wants as a unified school is actually the opposite. We would be signing on to something terrible if we give in on this question. Somehow we need to feel our way through this. We need to be aware that such things happen in life, but we should realize that they do not arise inwardly—that would be deceptive—but from without, and that we should do them with a certain mental reservation. We should be aware that we need to do things, but not inwardly, to achieve at least the minimum of what we want, and that we will need to speak with people while inwardly tweaking their noses.

Emil Molt: I will do what I can to bring things into order.

A teacher asks about the lessons for the ninth grade.

Dr. Steiner: I will write it down for tomorrow, but we will get farthest if we see it as a continuation of what we have already done. I would, therefore, ask you to provide me with all the information about what you have done and achieved in German and literature.

A teacher: I went through Goethe, Schiller, and Herder, but that was all. I was able to bring into history some discussion of things like Dante’s Divine Comedy, but mostly it was Goethe, Schiller, and Herder. In grammar, we wrote essays and I attempted to work on spelling from the perspective of speech. We did nothing with grammar as such.

Dr. Steiner: Well, what you will need to do in literature is to take care of Jean Paul. In particular, you will need to look at some sections of Aesthetics, or the Schooling of Beauty with the ninth grade—particularly the ones concerning humor. You should not pay too much attention to history. That would be about a semester’s work. Afterward, you would then go on with the students to something very different. They are, after all, fourteen and fifteen years old, and you could read and discuss some of the chapters in Herman Grimm’s lectures on Goethe. That is what you need to do in literature.

In German, I would recommend that you not go too deeply into grammar in the first semester. Discuss the phonetic law, particularly Grimm’s law. In the essays, I would recommend that you handle historical themes. The students should work primarily with the material you gave them last year in history. You will certainly have adequate opportunities to discuss grammar and syntax in connection with corrections. Before you have the children write an essay, though, you should have the children from last year orally discuss the theme for the new children in the class.

Now, what did you do in history?

A teacher: We went up to the Reformation and took Luther’s biography in detail. I then worked with Buckle’s History of Civilization in England, and attempted to use it to shed some light on the present.

Dr. Steiner: I would recommend that you for the time do not go further, but go through it again with a spiritual scientific perspective. Follow that with Lecky’s History of Modern Civilization.

A teacher: I now have a combined eighth–ninth grade class in German.

Dr. Steiner: It would perhaps be best if you precede Herman Grimm with Goethe, so that you could then catch part of the class up with what you already said about Goethe, Schiller, and Herder. That would be good for both classes, and then you could leave Jean Paul for later. You could teach both classes the same history, so that we have only geography left.

A teacher: We mainly did the Ice Age, the movement of land and water and so forth. In general, we focused on the geology of that period.

Dr. Steiner: In connection with all that, I would recommend that you thoroughly examine the Alps, the northern limestone Alps, the southern limestone Alps along with the river valleys that form the boundaries, the mountain ranges—in other words, the different sections. Then something about the landscape and about the geological qualities beginning with the Lake Alps all the way through Switzerland to the Austrian Alps. In this discussion of the Alps, you could also point out that the structure of the Earth forms a kind of cross, and that these mountainous formations represent that. Then continue the Alps toward the Pyrenees and all the way through to the Carpathians, and then go on with the forested mountains right through to the Altaic range, so that you then have an east-west range that continues under the Earth and encloses the Earth like a ring. The Rocky Mountain-Andes Cordillera crosses that at a right angle, forming another ring. You can explain these two rings crossing one another so nicely as the structure of the Earth. Through that the students can get an idea that the Earth has an inner organization. You can do all this, but allow yourself enough time. You do not need to handle everything in geography at once.

Then we have mathematics. You have already taken up equations, haven’t you? How far have you come in exponents? Squaring, cubing, and more general exponents? Have you already cubed binomials and trinomials?

A teacher: There were no difficulties, but there was no reason to do the binomial law, that is, \((a + b)^2\), \((a + b)^3\), \((a + b)^4\).

Dr. Steiner: How do the students do that?

A teacher: I had them multiply them out.

Dr. Steiner: What I mean is, do your students know that \((a + b)^3 = a3\) and so forth? Can they do that? If you have not required that they learn it as a formula, then you have not begun with raising numbers to a power, and you have not had them figure the formula \(3553\) or \(3552\). I would continue in this way by having the children do the cubes for numbers using a formula. Then have them do the square roots and cube roots.

A teacher: I did not think it was important.

Dr. Steiner: In such things, it is not so important that children do things the way they will need them later, but that they practice a particular form of thinking. The form of thinking that they practice in finding the cube or square, or by taking the root of a number, has the peculiarity that it abstracts from the concrete numbers and then puts the numbers together in another way. Such work in the depths of the numerical construct is so formative for thought, that they have to do it.

Then they need more practical computations. I would certainly find it proper if you had children figure things that have a practical content, which is certainly in accord with your intentions. I would say, for instance, that if a watering can is cylindrical or conical, it contains a certain amount of water. How much water is that if the diameter of the base of one can is half that of another one?

I would then go on to approximations so that the children get an idea of that. Begin with a transit and how to find the average value in such practical things as weighing things with a balance scale. You could then continue on with examples in the exchange of money. Then, of course, we need to consider geometry. You should, of course, begin with computing volumes of bodies, and then I would advise you to begin with descriptive geometry.

A teacher describes what he did in physics.

Dr. Steiner: In physics you should try to do two things. In the first case, present acoustics and electricity, to which magnetism also belongs, so that the children can understand the telephone. In the second case, cover heat and mechanics and everything else the children need to understand a locomotive. That is enough for the ninth grade.

A teacher: Last year, we divided geography and I presented something about astronomy.

Dr. Steiner: Of course, in that connection, we should look at the Doppler Effect, that is, the movement of the stars in the line of vision. You did not discuss the movement of stars in the line of vision? You need to include everything the children need in order to understand the movement of the stars in the line of vision. You should work toward that goal.

A teacher: Then you don’t want any optics in physics? Only heat, mechanics, and electricity?

Dr. Steiner: You can add as much of optics as you need to explain the Doppler Effect. Be sure to also include acoustics.

A teacher: Are the conclusions about the movement of stars from shifts in spectral lines justified?

Dr. Steiner: Why not? It is certainly correct to conclude that if you have two spectra and find one line in one position and the same line in a different position in the other one, that has something to do with different distances. That is a proper conclusion.

A teacher: We could conclude that about the Sun.

Dr. Steiner: I would use the Doppler Effect only with double stars; I would not generalize it. You should use it only to show that the stars rotate around each other, since the general assumption is that the stars move cyclically in the direction of vision. Only go that far. Then, we have chemistry. What we already did in the eighth grade, the fundamentals of organic chemistry, what an alcohol is, what an ether is, we should continue in the ninth grade.

Anthropology: Continue with that so that the children gain a proper understanding of anthropology. That should move in concentric circles from grade to grade in such a way that you connect the remaining natural sciences with it.

Mr. Baumann, what do you think about music and singing in the ninth grade?

A teacher: I was unable to accomplish what I wanted because the students had so little previous training in music.

Dr. Steiner: Could you give the music lessons in the eurythmy hall if they do not conflict with eurythmy?

A teacher: There is hardly space for eurythmy.

Dr. Steiner: Then, we will never be able to bring the music instruction into order until we have the large hall. The musical instruction will never be what it should be until we have the large hall.

Two things are important. We should teach music as completely as possible. If we want to prepare the children, we cannot do too much with instruments since hearing poor instruments will ruin their sense of tone. That is an important point. We could certainly do well with the old style of church singing.

A teacher: I want to say something about the majors and minors and about the color of sound in pure tones.

Dr. Steiner: That is the exact material for the ninth grade, and it is certainly something we should strive for under all circumstances. We should look at some things a little theoretically and also give something for the feeling. Major and minor should become a feeling.

A teacher: In deportment class, I went into the differences between men and women. The children seemed interested in that.

Dr. Steiner: I think it would be nice if you connected that with singing and made the connection with male and female voices. Not much has been tried in this direction. It is quite certain that teaching this age child about observed differences between male and female singing voices would counteract the false sexual feelings that are so strong today. That would certainly have a good effect.

It is painful for me that you cannot move forward with the instruments. Playing instruments is something we cannot replace. Regarding private lessons, well, private lessons are private lessons. Here we must remember that, as we understand it, children should take up musical instruments in the general context of education. Private lessons do not help in that regard. It is certainly too bad we cannot do that. I fear it will be a long time before we get to it. A teacher: We have some instruments, but we need rooms, and we really need a teacher.

Dr. Steiner: We already discussed that. Is it only a question of rooms?

A teacher: We have about fifteen instruments. If we had even the chorus room, we could do things like Hayden’s “Children’s Symphony.”

Dr. Steiner: That would be good.

A question is asked about language class.

Dr. Steiner: At that age, I would emphasize recitation. You can learn much about the mastery of language through recitation. The children can gain a sense for idioms through recitation and then learn to apply that to other things. We can continue that in eurythmy and grammar.

In the shop class, I had thought we could cultivate things about art and a feeling for art indirectly. In shop, it is important to have the children do different things and always complete them. I wouldn’t have them make only useful things, but toys also, reasonable toys. I think it would be very nice if the children made little blacksmiths that make each other move alternately. The children will become dexterous. They can also make presents. I would work in that direction.

If we could also do something festive for the children, that is, have them gather moss and make Christmas crèches, so that they make the little sheep and so forth and paint it, they will learn a great deal. Of course, we shouldn’t neglect useful objects. They are particularly happy when they can make something like a ratchet noisemaker, things that are like a little practical joke.

We rattle, we rattle the twelve together.
The bells are coming from Rome.

A teacher: There is still the question of the handwork teacher. I have spoken with Miss S. She is a drawing teacher, but can also teach handwork.

Dr. Steiner: That would be just the thing if someone who was artistic took over the handwork class. We would have to be certain, though, that she is capable of it. She would fit in well.

Under certain circumstances, there is something else we should consider. She does not have one characteristic that another lady has. Miss Hauck is from here and is the daughter of the former professor Guido Hauck, who wrote an article, “Arnold Böcklin’s Realms of the Soul and Goethe’s Faust.” He also wrote “A Technical Explanation of Faust.” Hauck was one of the last. If she could decide to become a handwork teacher, we would have the advantage that she is from Schwabia, something that would be quite good. She has been teaching at a workers’ school, and for that reason I would consider not calling her here, because it would be good if she taught the people there. The workers’ schools say that people don’t need to learn frivolous things like geometry. Only things such as class struggle and preparation for the revolution should be taught. That is one thing, and the other is a recent event, namely, that the technical school has fired her. Perhaps Mr. Strakosch could give an opinion about whether it is necessary for factory mechanics to learn something about geometry. I would ask you to give your own opinion, but I think architecture and mechanical engineering would cease if technical schools no longer teach geometry. Everything would sink into barbarism. In mechanical engineering, you can’t put a peg into a hole. People can’t construct anything like that. This is all pure nonsense.

I think she would be suitable, but I fear that under our present circumstances, she might be too much. She was an assistant at the technical university for many years. We should consider these two women. For personal reasons, Miss S. would prefer not to be asked. Perhaps we could telegraph Miss Hauck tomorrow and ask if she can come.

For the seventh, eighth, and ninth grade independent religious instruction we could move into a freer form and give a theoretical explanation about such things as life before birth and after death, and all the consequences of a life before birth. We could give them examples. We could show them how to look at the major cultural connections and about the mission of the human being on Earth. You need only to look at Goethe or Jean Paul to see it. You can show everywhere that their capacities come from a life before birth.

We could then go on with a good picture that really reaches into the religious if we explained the body of the Laocoön. With the Laocoön the etheric body actually separated; thus, the physical body made such contortions. You can illustrate much through the breaking of the Laocoön’s physical body. You would need a group, but you can lift the discomfort about the dissolution of the human body into the religious.

We have decided about the Sunday services. We need to name somebody to replace Mrs. Koegel in teaching the children. I would ask for suggestions. The person needs to feel called upon to do this. Does someone want to do that? Would you like to do it with Miss Röhrle?

A teacher: A deaf and dumb girl has enrolled.

Dr. Steiner: She cannot come to the Waldorf School.

A class teacher asks about another child who has enrolled.

Dr. Steiner: What is with him? I feel bad about the boy.

A teacher: He is impossible in class.

Dr. Steiner: That may be only a passing thing. When I spoke with him, he certainly seemed as if he could improve. I am also convinced that if you do what I suggested with him, he will improve in half a year. We can certainly not hope he will improve if we completely isolate him. We can’t do that.

A teacher: Then my other children will be shortchanged.

Dr. Steiner: I think it is only temporary. It is probably connected with the fact that he just came into the school. That could certainly have an effect.

A teacher: He was terribly nervous.

Dr. Steiner: The child’s constitution is quite irregular. This is a boy who has something like—well, you can break your arm or leg on your physical body, but you cannot break your head—but this boy has a broken etheric head, and for that reason he is, of course, always nervous. That is more evident with him than with other children, but I think it is only temporary. In any event, we will have to tell the parents that they will need to be patient until we have the remedial class. Have you known him long? Was he always that way? His whole life becomes chaotic with every event. Is he taking any medication? Has he had childhood illnesses? I thought so. You said he had a mental dysfunction. You can counteract that with hypophsis cerebri. Does he have any siblings? There is a disturbance in his growth caused by something the mother had before he was born.

A teacher: She once told me she was half crazy the whole time.

Dr. Steiner: The boy came into this situation through the pregnancy. Then we will work with him and take him into the school as soon as Dr. Schubert’s remedial class begins.

Surely, you have more questions.

The question of Dr. Steiner’s position in the school organization is brought up again.

Dr. Steiner: Defining my position has only opportunistic value. It would have been good if I had been included at the time the faculty was reported to the government. It is important now only because government officials require us to be exact.

A teacher: Perhaps we could send them a complete list and put you at the top.

Dr. Steiner: That always looks strange, because they will compare it with the old lists.

A teacher: We still need to fix it, though.

Dr. Steiner: There isn’t much we can do other than to write and say we forgot it and want to revise the list. “We unfortunately forgot this last time and want to make a revision.” I don’t know of any other way around this. It certainly would look funny if we did nothing, or if we made a new list.

A question is asked regarding the opponents of anthroposophy.

Dr. Steiner: These rumors are always coming up. You see it everywhere in Switzerland. We are now trying to trace all the different variations of these despicable things with the goal of wiping away all traces of their machinations, and of their being able to say that I had done something with Anthroposophy and turned things around. These people spread teachings they say are mine and then they wipe away their tracks.

Is there anything else?

A teacher asks about the World School Association, which is to be situated in Dornach, but work in Germany. If a German section were to be founded now, then everything could be brought into order during the courses in Dornach.

Dr. Steiner: Don’t we need a World School Association before we can form a German section? Now the path toward a World School Association must begin from an international center.

We could center the World School Association in Dornach, but we do not need to begin it there. Before, we had a particular presentation that sharply emphasized that we still have only a small school, but we cannot grow since we must turn away many children. We can no longer say that, so we must now begin the World School Association differently. Of course, if we have a large number of visitors in Dornach, we could begin by creating a good attitude. I don’t think it should begin here, because we can no longer say there are a hundred children waiting at the gates of the school.

We now need to begin it differently. We could work in Dornach, but I had also thought we could begin in a more international place, The Hague, for instance. We still have reason to believe we can do something for our movement, but we would ruin everything if we founded the World School Association here. We can do all kinds of things for the Waldorf School. There is such a positive attitude here, but we may not found the Association here. At the time I had thought we could begin an energetic campaign, but I would now favor a foundation arising in London. That, however, is not yet achievable. Apart from that, I still hope that other things will move more quickly.

[Editor’s note: The remaining notes of this meeting are very erratic and uncertain, as to both the content and the speaker. Possible missing parts are indicated by an ellipsis.]

Dr. Steiner: I had thought before that I would have to do that with the World School Association. We have a number of anthroposophists in The Hague.

A teacher: I think they are all mixed up.

A teacher: You cannot depend upon H. He will never say he is an anthroposophist.

Dr. Steiner: If I were to go to The Hague, H. would certainly help. A teacher: As long as you are there!

Dr. Steiner: It doesn’t need to be more … it is enough if he can do one thing, and if he prepares the way.

A teacher: He blocks the way. He has hidden the fact that there is a Goetheanum. The students were surprised when they heard that it exists, although they were brought to Switzerland under H.’s guidance.

Dr. Steiner: That’s how people are, but you cannot move forward if you do not take people as they are.…

In addition to The Hague, Zurich and Geneva also came under discussion.

A teacher: Don’t we have to do some preparation here? We should think about the names of the individual schools. We do not see your goals.

Dr. Steiner: I do not believe it is particularly urgent to find names for the individual schools. What kind of conditions do you want to create from here?

A teacher: I am not really certain we have thought of everything.

Dr. Steiner: In the end, what is important is that you master the situation at the proper moment, and that is today. I already mentioned that. If we could provide our movement with such basic principles, we would get somewhere. We need to comprehend the world situation.

We must use things as they come. You see, for example, we started the publishing company here, but it has done little until now. However, two books appeared, Dr. Stein and the one by Polzer. These were only beginning works, but in large editions. We sold both books in only a few weeks. Someone said today that the book against Traub also sold out. People are just sleepy there. The movement would move forward if people would just move with the stream. As such, the stream is already there, but no one is swimming in it. We can certainly say that the current is there, but no one is swimming in it. You can see that from the fact that my public lectures are always well attended. It is certainly true that movement is there, but no one thinks about the fact that there is such movement.

In reality—the things I have to say are confidential, but I need to make a remark—the leadership of The Coming Day does not realize there is a threefold movement. That is not something that we need to advertise. We need only to know that a sleepiness exists. Many things begin and then stop. If I am to give everyone an individual task, then I can say only that everything can happen. Then our meetings should definitely not last until three in the morning. You will find the least amount of support in Berlin. There is no interest there. But even in Berlin, we could accomplish something if I could be there for a week. I cannot do it in three days. In Berlin, people don’t see beyond the walls of their own city.

A teacher: When could we do something in The Hague?

Dr. Steiner: When I see there is some interest, we can begin to think about doing something in that connection in Dornach. A teacher: Then we will have to decide how we can generate some interest.

Dr. Steiner: Yes, you see we have to learn how to generate interest in a more noble sense. If you look at the Haaß-Berkow Group with all their noise, you can see they certainly have a knack for creating interest. It must be possible, for example, when people come from outside, to have other titles for our presentations. It is important that we create interest, but we do not need to do it in a negative way. It is important to generate interest rather than simply discuss how. When so many people gather in one place, there is much we can do from person to person.

For the purposes of founding the World School Association, it is important to generate the proper interest. Suppose you can get fifty people to believe we should found such a World School Association. If the people from Dornach then travel and work in the proper way, that would mean that three weeks later, five hundred, and six weeks later, five thousand, would believe we should found a World School Association. You need to have the guts to create such an opinion in a number of people.

A teacher: Could the Waldorf teachers work in that way following the lectures?

Dr. Steiner: Of course, you can do that, but creating the opinion would have to move in parallel. Why is it that an esprit de corps, in the best sense of the word, never arises in something like the Anthroposophical Society?

Several teachers attempt to answer that question.

Dr. Steiner: As long as we were simply the Anthroposophical Society, all that was not important. We did not need money. Now, we have the misfortune that we do need it. It is not that we are greedy, but somehow we must support the movement. We can accomplish that only by generating interest. Now, this is very painful for me, many people who should be doing something have a certain kind of inner opposition. They do not do what I think is right, but something else. They have considerable resistance. That is common in our time, as though we could work out of the spirit and need no money. If you need money, you have to do something. It does not have to be unidealistic, but you must do something. I believe there is much more opposition than you might suppose, an inner opposition. Thus, there is a resistance. There is a sleepiness, a formation of cliques. It would be good if we could develop an esprit de corps.

We cannot form a section of something that does not yet exist.

A teacher: Well, the impetus must arise somewhere.

Dr. Steiner: It must come from a more extended group.

A teacher: Perhaps we could approach the representatives of the local school movements and warm them to the idea of the World School Association. For example, Principal B. in Br.

Dr. Steiner: It is not our concern to publicize the name of the World School Association, but to put such an organization into the world. B. is interested enough. The moment we have the World School Association, he will join and be active. For B. in Br., that means nothing more than another opportunity for more freeloading. It is unimportant whether you go around and gather money as the Waldorf faculty or as the World School Association. That is only a new name for the same thing. We need to create a real organization, an organization in itself.

A teacher: We need to make use of the time of the Dornach course.

Dr. Steiner: We will have to get those people to carry the thoughts of political agitation. We cannot get much from them directly, they are just poor wretches who would rather receive something. We certainly have such people. What is important is that these people carry the thoughts and spread them. We will have to keep those agitators warm. If we inaugurate something in The Hague—it does not need to be an association, we only need to begin political agitation—if we can begin to do that in The Hague, we should not forget that there is also a strong interest in doing something to help Central Europe. People already want that. If we can find the right tone, something will happen. We will need to try to articulate the feelings that exist so they go in the right direction. The perspective already exists, and that is something we could achieve. We could soon achieve something if the souls would awaken. You are already awake enough. It would be good if you could send forth something clever from Dornach with the same strength.

It would be better if the beggars and hoboes did not form the association as something to combat poverty, but that people who have something in their pockets do it.

There is some discussion concerning the course to be held in Stuttgart in the coming winter, and there are reports about what the teachers intend to present.

Dr. Steiner: There has been much talk, but we must do something. My only desire is that you do not offer college level lectures that then fall flat. That would be terrible. I would say something about Anthroposophy and philosophy.

A teacher: We had considered giving lectures each semester.

Dr. Steiner: We could group the subjects differently. I wouldn’t do it in the old way. I would group them more objectively. Mr. von Baravalle, you can certainly take care of Einstein’s theories and quantum theory.

A teacher: I think we can present it more easily to the students. The people here will certainly understand it.

Dr. Steiner: I think the ideas of projective geometry are very promising. I agree with what you have presented as a program. The people will certainly have a very different kind of picture when, aside from being able to determine an ellipse from an equation, they can comprehend the creation of an ellipse from a bundle of rays. That is quite a lot.

Perhaps it would be interesting to first give, for example, the basic concepts of analytical geometry and then those of projective geometry. You could then handle conical sections analytically and projectively. Now, there is usually a course for analytical geometry and then one for projective. It would be very interesting to teach the whole theory of conical sections analytically and projectively.

I think we need to close for today. I would certainly advise you to consider the courses in Dornach. Bring your plans with you. In Dornach, our direction is more toward people, but students want to have it more toward subjects. We could certainly specialize things. Dr. Schubert, there is certainly not much research about the soul of language.

I hope that our working together will develop more in the way I mentioned at the beginning today.

Dr. Steiner: We want to take a look at how things should run.

They decide upon a provisional assignment of subjects for the coming school year.

Dr. Steiner: We have always divided the subjects beginning with the ninth grade, so that the ninth, tenth, eleventh, and twelfth grades have separate subjects. We have had some difficulties in that regard, and I would ask you to look into them. We are still missing eight hours of ancient languages since we are missing one teacher. Tittmann is coming to teach modern languages. If possible, I would like to have Dr. Lehrs teach mathematics and natural sciences for the higher grades. I think that Lehrs could also teach Latin for the lower grades. He has much goodwill and is also very capable in mathematics and physics, so I think he will do well here.

We have still not decided upon the 1a, 1b, and 3b classes. Miss Bernhardi could still take over one of the lower grades, and we are also considering two other ladies. For the upper grades, we will need to find some way of unburdening the teachers. In any event, we will still have Tittmann and Lehrs.

Now I can think about other things. In handwork, I am thinking of Miss Christern. Mrs. Baumann will not return until fall. Mrs. Fels will continue with her class. The question now is whether the one more teacher can handle remaining periods.

Marie Steiner: I would suggest Miss Wilke.

Dr. Steiner: She could teach for the time being and replace Mrs. Husemann who had been substituting for Mrs. Baumann.

Aside from the question of scheduling, I would like to know if there are any other wishes.

A teacher: The twelfth grade are anxious about their examinations.

Dr. Steiner: We still need to discuss the schedule for the twelfth grade. It would be good if someone got a description of the standard college preparatory teaching goals for the twelfth grade. I would then arrange the class plan so that we could promise people—of course, they could always fail, we cannot guarantee anything.

The difficulty is that there is much too much lecturing, and in spite of the fact that we have often discussed this, you are still not having the students participate enough. We therefore need to be certain that the students in the twelfth grade participate more. We cannot say they are incapable, but what they have learned doesn’t stick to them strongly enough for them to get past their anxiety about the upcoming examinations. They cannot get past their anxiety. Those wonderful lectures are quite nice for the students, but they do not retain them.

It would be a good idea if you gave me the standard teaching goals for the eleventh and twelfth grades when I am here tomorrow, so we can see how things actually are. We need to see if we can help the children past their anxiety.

We have no reason to have a thirteenth grade as they do in Bavaria. Imagine the problems we would have if we had to say we needed a thirteenth grade.

I don’t think the question of the examination problem will change. We will, however, have to limit our lecturing and allow the students to participate more.

A teacher asks about admitting the students to anthroposophical lectures.

Dr. Steiner: The school cannot possibly state it agrees with that. It would be difficult to keep them out according to the Society regulations, but this must not be a school question. The school could even raise an objection.

It is not a good idea that they attend Society lectures without being members. Earlier, very young members were also accepted. It is a shame the Waldorf School cannot raise an objection, since it is actually nonsense for the middle-grade students to attend the lectures.

Marie Steiner: It seems that some of the children have witnessed the self-destructiveness present in the Society. It might be possible for the Society to object to their presence.

Dr. Steiner: It would be best if such young children did not attend things not intended for them. In the Waldorf School, we assume they do not do such things, but if we forbid it, there will be a revolution. We need to assume that the children are so occupied by the Waldorf School that they could not possibly meet the learning goals if they also attended other lectures. That is an obvious perspective. We may expect that Ch. O., now in the first grade, will be listening to anthroposophical lectures. Part of the regulations of the Anthroposophical Society is that only adults are accepted, and minors are accepted only with the approval of their parents.

Marie Steiner: How can children who are not members get in? At occasions such as this, we can certainly see how idiotic that is. It is disastrous. This is impossible.

Dr. Steiner: The school should advise against it and we need to have at least enough connection with the students that that has an effect, but we cannot simply throw out those who are already members.

A religion teacher: We are introducing the 8a and 8b classes to the Youth Service. H.R. and L.F. would like to be confirmed in the Christian Community, and that is also their parents’ desire.

Dr. Steiner: That does not concern us here. Those children who participate in the Independent Religious Instruction can be confirmed there when they have reached the required age. It is, of course, also possible that they do not want that, but if they do, why shouldn’t we allow them to participate? If they do not want to, then they do not need to. But if they want to participate in both of the youth services, we can do nothing about that. There isn’t any real difference. It’s all the same to us what occurs there. In the end, what is important is whether the children want to participate in the Sunday services. We can leave it up to the children whether they want to or not. We cannot require them to go to the Youth Service. The answer to the question is obvious. We cannot discuss it. We have no reason to negotiate with the Free Religious Movement. We can do what we want, and they can do what they want. The children would then have it twice. I have always understood that we do not need to worry about it because it is a question for the Free Religious Movement. We cannot stop parents from sending their children there to be confirmed. Religious instruction is not obligatory. We cannot make any draconian rules. The children will certainly stay away if we make draconian rules. Someone might participate in the Independent Religious Instruction without going to the Youth Service, but not the other way around. That girl can certainly participate in both. If she does not do something, it would not be good if she went to our Youth Service, but perhaps the father doesn’t notice that at all. It is the parents who are responsible, not us.

A teacher: One girl occasionally faints at the Sunday service.

Dr. Steiner: We should do it twice, one for each half of the children. A teacher: The tenth and eleventh-grade children could come to the sacrament. Should the ninth-grade children also participate?

Dr. Steiner: Yes, they can. We can divide the Youth Service by class. Mr. Uehli will be the main celebrant at both.

A teacher: Should B.B. receive additional instruction? Also, N.N.?

Dr. Steiner: This all began last year. Is it possible he could be handled alone? Perhaps he would realize he is not really very nice at school. Perhaps we could give him individual instruction for the remainder of the year. It looks as if that would have a purpose, but only if we were to make it so that he realized he had done something wrong here at school, so that for the weeks until Easter, he has to attend such a class. I think that he is really a very nice boy, but he is asleep. In this way, he may wake up.

There are a lot of new bright children around. The question is whether they are really so bright when you ask them to do something. Concerning N.N., he is not very good in handling money. B. needs individual instruction. I will take another look at these two boys.

A teacher asks about two students in the fourth grade who are completely incapable in foreign languages.

Dr. Steiner: We could ask the parents if they would forego the language class. That is something we could ask parents. In fact, that is something we can generally do for the children in the remedial class.

A teacher: P.M. in the fifth grade cannot add.

Dr. Steiner: We could ask the parents if they would allow him to repeat the class.

A teacher: L.B. has been mistreated and is afraid.

Dr. Steiner: Treat her with patience.

A teacher: A girl in my eighth-grade class has only attended a country school in Silesia.

Dr. Steiner: We will need to carry her along. She should remain in the class, and she will find her way.