Soul Economy
Body, Soul and Spirit in Waldorf Education
GA 303
31 December 1921, Stuttgart
IX. Children from the Seventh to Tenth Years
An important and far-reaching change takes place when children begin to lose their milk, or baby, teeth. This is not just a physical change in the life of a human being, but the whole human organization goes through a transformation. A true art of education demands a thorough appreciation and understanding of this metamorphosis. In our previous meetings, I spoke of the refined body of formative forces, the ether body. These forces are in the process of being freed from certain functions during the time between the change of teeth and puberty. Previously, the ether body worked directly into the physical body of the child, but now it begins to function in the realm of a child’s soul. This means that the physical body of children is held from within in a very different way than it was during the previous stage. The situation then was more or less as described by those of a materialistic outlook, who see the foundation of the human psyche in the physical processes of the human body. They see the soul and spirit of children as emanating from the physical and related to it much as a candle flame is related to the candle. And this is more or less correct for a young child until the change of teeth. During the early years, the soul and spiritual life of the child is completely connected to the physical and organic processes, and all of the physical and organic processes have a soul and spiritual quality. All of the shaping and forming of the body at that age is conducted from the head downward. This stage concludes when the second teeth are being pushed through. At this time, the forces working in the head cease to predominate while soul and spiritual activities enter the lower regions of the body—the rhythmic activities of the heart and breath. Previously, these forces, as they worked especially in the formation of the child’s brain, were also flowing down into the rest of the organism, shaping and molding and entering directly into the physical substances of the body. Here they gave rise to physical processes.
All this changes with the coming of the second teeth, and some of these forces begin to work more in the child’s soul and spiritual realm, affecting especially the rhythmic movement of heart and lungs. They are no longer as active in the physical processes themselves, but now they also work in the rhythms of breathing and blood circulation. One can see this physically as the child’s breathing and pulse become noticeably stronger during this time. Children now have a strong desire to experience the emerging life of soul and spirit on waves of rhythm and beat within the body—quite subconsciously, of course. They have a real longing for this interplay of rhythm and beat in their organism. Consequently, adults must realize that whatever they bring to children after the change of teeth must be given with an inherent quality of rhythm and beat. Everything addressed to a child at this time must be imbued with these qualities. Educators must be able to get into the element of rhythm to the degree that whatever they present makes an impression on the children and allows them to live in their own musical element.
This is also the beginning of something else. If, at this stage, the rhythm of breathing and blood circulation is not treated properly, harm may result and extend irreparably into later life. Many weaknesses and unhealthy conditions of the respiratory and circulatory systems in adult life are the consequences of an improper education during these early school years. Through the change in the working of children’s ether body, the limbs begin to grow rapidly, and the life of the muscles and bones, including the entire skeleton, begins to play a dominant role. The life of muscles and bones tries to become attuned to the rhythms of breathing and blood circulation. At this stage, children’s muscles vibrate in sympathy with the rhythms of breathing and blood circulation, so that their entire being takes on a musical quality. Previously, the child’s inborn activities were like those of a sculptor, but now an inner musician begins to work, albeit beyond the child’s consciousness. It is essential for teachers to realize that, when a child enters class one, they are dealing with a natural, though unconscious, musician. One must meet these inner needs of children, demanding a somewhat similar treatment, metaphorically, to that of a new violin responding to a violinist, adapting itself to the musician’s characteristic pattern of sound waves. Through ill treatment, a violin may be ruined for ever. But in the case of the living human organism, it is possible to plant principles that are harmful to growth, which increase and develop until they eventually ruin a person’s entire life.
Once you begin to study the human being, thus illuminating educational principles and methods, you find that the characteristics just mentioned occupy roughly the time between the change of teeth and puberty. You will also discover that this period again falls into three smaller phases. The first lasts from the change of teeth until approximately the end of the ninth year; the second roughly until the end of the twelfth year; and the third from the thirteenth year until sexual maturity.
If you observe the way children live entirely within a musical element, you can understand how these three phases differ from one another. During the first phase, approximately until the end of the ninth year, children want to experience everything that comes toward them in relation to their own inner rhythms—everything associated with beat and measure. They relate everything to the rhythms of breath and heartbeat and, indirectly, to the way their muscles and bones are taking shape. But if outer influences do not synchronize with their inner rhythms, these young people eventually grow into a kind of inner cripple, although this may not be discernible externally during the early stages.
Until the ninth year, children have a strong desire to experience inwardly everything they encounter as beat and rhythm. When children of this age hear music (and anyone who can observe the activity of a child’s soul will perceive it), they transform outer sounds into their own inner rhythms. They vibrate with the music, reproducing within what they perceive from without. At this stage, to a certain extent, children have retained features characteristic of their previous stages. Until the change of teeth children are essentially, so to speak, one sense organ, unconsciously reproducing outer sensory impressions as most sense organs do. Children live, above all, by imitation, as already shown in previous meetings. Consider the human eye, leaving aside the mental images resulting from the eye’s sensory perceptions, and you find that it reproduces outer stimuli by forming afterimages; the activity leading to mental representation takes hold of these aftermages. Insofar as very young children inwardly reproduce all they perceive, especially the people around them, they are like one great, unconscious sense organ. But the images reproduced inwardly do not remain mere images, since they also act as forces, even physically forming and shaping them.
And now, when the second teeth appear, these afterimages enter only as far as the rhythmic system of movement. Some of the previous formative activity remains, but now it is accompanied by a new element. There is a definite difference in the way children respond to rhythm and beat before and after the change of teeth. Before this, through imitation, rhythm and beat directly affected the formation of bodily organs. After the change of teeth, this is transformed into an inner musical element.
On completion of the ninth year and up to the twelfth year, children develop an understanding of rhythm and beat and what belongs to melody as such. They no longer have the same urge to reproduce inwardly everything in this realm, but now they begin to perceive it as something outside. Whereas, earlier on, children experienced rhythm and beat unconsciously, they now develop a conscious perception and understanding of it. This continues until the twelfth year, not just with music, but everything coming to meet them from outside.
Toward the twelfth year, perhaps a little earlier, children develop the ability to lead the elements of rhythm and beat into the thinking realm, whereas they previously experienced this only in imagination.
If, through understanding, you can perceive what happens in the realm of the soul, you can also recognize the corresponding effects in the physical body. I have just spoken of how children want to shape the muscles and bones in accordance with what is happening within the organs. Now, toward the twelfth year, they begin to be unsatisfied with living solely in the elements of rhythm and beat; now they want to lift this experience more into the realm of abstract and conscious understanding. And this coincides with the hardening of those parts of the muscles that lead into the tendons. Whereas previously all movement was oriented more toward the muscles themselves, now it is oriented toward the tendons. Everything that occurs in the realm of soul and spirit affects the physical realm. This inclusion of the life of the tendons, as the link between muscle and bone, is the external, physical sign that a child is sailing out of a feeling approach to rhythm and beat into what belongs to the realm of logic, which is devoid of rhythm and beat. This sort of discovery is an offshoot of a real knowledge of the human being and should be used as a guide for the art of education.
Most adults who think about things in ways that generalize, whether plants or animals (and as teachers you must introduce such general subjects to your students), will recall how they themselves studied botany or zoology, though at a later age than the children we are talking about. Unfortunately, most textbooks on botany or zoology are really unsuitable for teaching young people. Some of them may have great scientific merit (though this is usually not the case), but as teaching material for the age that concerns us here, they are useless. Everything that we bring to our students in plant or animal study must be woven into an artistic whole. We must try to highlight the harmonious configuration of the plant’s being. We must describe the harmonious relationships between one plant species and another. Whatever children can appreciate through a rhythmic, harmonious, and feeling approach must be of far greater significance for Waldorf teachers than what the ordinary textbooks can offer. The usual method of classifying plants is especially objectionable. Perhaps the least offensive of all the various systems is that of Linné. He looked only at the blossom of a plant, where the plant ceases to be merely plant and reaches with its forces into the whole cosmos. But these plant systems are unacceptable for use at school. We will see later what needs to be done in this respect.
It is really pitiful to see teachers enter the classroom, textbook in hand, and teach these younger classes what they themselves learned in botany or zoology. They become mere caricatures of a real teacher when they walk up and down in front of the students, reading from a totally unsuitable textbook in an attempt to remember what they were taught long ago. It is absolutely essential that we learn to talk about plants and animals in a living and artistic way. This is the only way our material will be attuned to the children’s inner musical needs. Always bear in mind that our teaching must spring from an artistic element; lessons must not merely be thought out. Even when it is correct, an abstract kind of observation is not good enough. Only what is imbued with a living element of sensitive and artistic experience provides children with the soul nourishment they need.
When children enter class one, we are expected to teach them writing as soon as possible, and we might be tempted to introduce the letters of the alphabet as they are used today. But children at this age—right at the onset of the change of teeth—do not have the slightest inner connection with the forms of these letters. What was it like when we still had such a direct human relationship to written letters? We need only look at what happened in early civilizations. In those ancient times, primitive people engraved images on tablets or painted pictures, which still had some resemblance to what they saw in nature. There was still a direct human link between outer objects and their written forms. As civilization progressed, these forms became increasingly abstract until, after going through numerous transformations, they finally emerged as today’s letters of the alphabet, which no longer bear any real human relationship to the person writing them.
In many ways, children show us how the people of earlier civilizations experienced the world; they need a direct connection with whatever we demand of their will. Therefore, when introducing writing, we must refrain from immediately teaching today’s abstract letters. Especially at this time of changing teeth, we must offer children a human and artistic bridge to whatever we teach. This implies that we have children connect what they have seen with their eyes and the results of their will activity on paper, which we call writing. Experiencing life actively through their own will is a primary need for children at this stage. We must give them an opportunity to express this innate artistic drive by, for example, allowing them to physically run in a curve on the floor (see image). Now, when we show them that they have made a curve with their legs on the floor, we lift their will activity into a partially conscious feeling. Next we ask them to draw this curve in the air, using their arms and hands. Now another form could be run on the floor, again to be written in the air.
Thus the form that was made by the entire body by running was then reproduced through the hand. This could be followed by the teacher asking the children to pronounce words beginning with the letter L. Gradually, under the teacher’s guidance, the children discover the link between the shape that was run and drawn and the sound of the letter L.
Once children experience their own inner movement, they are led to draw the letters themselves. This is one way to proceed, but there is also another possibility. After the change of teeth children are not only musicians inwardly, but, as an echo from earlier stages, they are also inner sculptors. Therefore, we can begin by talking to the children about a fish, gradually leading artistically to its outer form, which the children then draw. Then, appealing to their sense of sound, we direct their attention from the whole word fish to the initial sound “F,” thus relating the shape of the letter to its sound.
This method, to a certain extent, even follows the historical development of the letter F. However, there is no need to limit ourselves to historical examples, and it is certainly appropriate to use our imagination. What matters is not that children recapitulate the evolution of letters, but that they find their way into writing through the artistic activity of drawing pictures, which will finally lead to modern, abstract letter forms. For instance, one could remind the children of how water makes waves, drawing a picture like this first one, and gradually changing it into one like the second.
By repeating something like “washing waves of water—waving, washing water” while drawing the form, we connect the sound of the letter W with its written form. By beginning with the children’s own life experience, we go from the activity of drawing to the final letter forms.
Following our Waldorf method, children do not learn to write as quickly as they would in other schools. In the Waldorf school, we hold regular meetings for parents without their children present, and parents are invited to talk with the teachers about the effects of Waldorf education. In these meetings, some parents have expressed concern over the fact that their children, even at the age of eight, are still unable to write properly. We have to point out that our slower approach is really a blessing, because it allows children to integrate the art of writing with their whole being. We try to show parents that the children in our school learn to write at the appropriate age and in a far more humane way than if they had to absorb material that is essentially alien to their nature—alien because it represents the product of a long cultural evolution. We must help parents understand the importance of the children’s immediate and direct response to the introduction of writing. Naturally, we have to provide students with tools for learning, but we must do this by adapting our material to the child’s nature.
One aspect, so often left out today, concerns the relationship of a specific area to life as a whole. In our advanced stage of civilization, everything depends on specialization. Certainly, for a time this was necessary, but we have reached a stage where, for the sake of healthy human development, we must keep an open mind to spiritual investigation and what it can tell us about the human being. To believe that anthroposophists always rail against new technology is to seriously misunderstand this movement and its contribution to our knowledge of the human being. It is necessary to see the complexities of life from a holistic perspective. For example, I do not object at all to the use of typewriters. Typing is, of course, a far less human activity than writing by hand, but I do not remonstrate against it. Nevertheless, I find it is important to realize its implications, because everything we do in life has repercussions. So you must forgive me if, to illustrate my point, I say something about typewriting from the point of view of anthroposophic spiritual insight. Anyone unwilling to accept it is perfectly free to dismiss this aspect of life’s realities as foolish nonsense. But what I have to say does accord with the facts.
You see, if you are aware of spiritual processes, like those in ordinary life, using a typewriter creates a very definite impression. After I have been typing during the day (as you see, I am really not against it, and I’m pleased when I have time for it), it continues to affect me for quite a while afterward. In itself, this does not disturb me, but the effects are noticeable. When I finally reach a state of inner quiet, the activity of typing—seen in imaginative consciousness—is transformed into seeing myself. Facing oneself standing there, one is thus able to witness outwardly what is happening inwardly. All this must occur in full consciousness, which enables us to recognize that appearance, as form as an outer image, is simply a projection of what is or has been taking place, possibly much earlier, as inner organic activity. We can clearly see what is happening inside the human body once we have reached the stage of clairvoyant imagination. In objective seeing such as this, every stroke of a typewriter key becomes a flash of lightning. And during the state of imagination, what one sees as the human heart is constantly struck and pierced by those lightning flashes. As you know, typewriter keys are not arranged according to any spiritual principle, but according to frequency of their use, so that we can type more quickly. Consequently, when the fingers hit various keys, the flashes of lightning become completely chaotic. In other words, when seen with spiritual vision, a terrible thunderstorm rages when one is typing.
Such causes and effects are part of the pattern of life. There is no desire on our part to deride technical innovations, but we should be able to keep our eyes open to what they do to us, and we should find ways to compensate for any harmful effects. Such matters are especially important to teachers, because they have to relate education to ordinary life. What we do at school and with children is not the only thing that matters. The most important thing is that school and everything related to education must relate to life in the fullest sense. This implies that those who choose to be educators must be familiar with events in the larger world; they must know and recognize life in its widest context. What does this mean? It means simply that here we have an explanation of why so many people walk about with weak hearts; they are unable to balance the harmful effects of typing through the appropriate countermeasures. This is specially true of people who started typing when they were too young, when the heart is most susceptible to adverse effects. If typing continues to spread, we will soon see an increase in all sorts of heart complaints.
In Germany, the first railroad was built in 1835, from Fürth to Nuremberg. Before this, the Bavarian health authorities were asked whether, from a medical point of view, building such a railroad would be recommended. Before beginning major projects such as this, it was always the custom to seek expert advice. The Bavarian health authorities responded (this is documented) that expert medical opinion could not recommend building railroads, because passengers and railroad workers alike would suffer severe nervous strain by traveling on trains. However, they continued, if railroads were built despite their warning, all railroad lines should at least be closed off by high wooden walls to prevent brain concussions to farmers in nearby fields or others likely to be near moving trains.
These were the findings of medical experts employed by the Bavarian health authority. Today we can laugh about this and similar examples. Nevertheless, there are at least two sides to every problem, and from a certain point of view, one could even agree with some aspects of this report, which was made not so long ago—in fact not even a century ago. The fact is, people have become more nervous since the arrival of rail travel. And if we made the necessary investigation into the difference between people in our present age of the train and those who continued to traveled in the old and venerable but rather rough stagecoach, we would definitely be able to ascertain that the constitutions of these latter folks were different. Their nervous systems behaved quite differently. Although the the Bavarian health officials made fools of themselves, from a certain perspective they were not entirely wrong.
When new inventions affect modern life, we must take steps to balance any possible ill effects by finding appropriate countermeasures. We must try to compensate for any weakening of the human constitution through outer influences by strengthening ourselves from within. But, in this age of ever-increasing specialization, this is possible only through a new art of education based on true knowledge of the human being.
The only safe way of introducing writing to young children is the one just advocated, because at that age all learning must proceed from the realm of the will, and the inclination of children toward the world of rhythm and measure arises from the will. We must satisfy this inner urge of children by allowing them controlled will activities, not by appealing to their sense of observation and the ability to make mental images. Consequently, it would be inappropriate to teach reading before the children have been introduced to writing, for reading represents a transition from will activity to abstract observation. The first step is to introduce writing artistically and imaginatively and then to let children read what they have written. The last step, since modern life requires it, would be to help children read from printed texts. Teachers will be able to discern what needs to be done only by applying a deepened knowledge of the human being, based on the realities of life.
When children enter class one, they are certainly ready to learn how to calculate with simple numbers. And when we introduce arithmetic, here, too, we must carefully meet the inner needs of children. These needs spring from the same realm of rhythm and measure and from a sensitive apprehension of the harmony inherent in the world of number. However, if we begin with what I would call the “additive approach,” teaching children to count, again we fail to understand the nature of children. Of course, they must learn to count, but additive counting as such is not in harmony with the inner needs of children.
It is only because of our civilization that we gradually began to approach numbers through synthesis, by combining them. Today we have the concept of a unit, or oneness. Then we have a second unit, a third, and so on, and when we count, we mentally place one unit next to the other and add them up. But, by nature, children do not experience numbers this way; human evolution did not develop according to this principle. True, all counting began with a unit, the number one. But, originally, the second unit, number two, was not an outer repetition of the first unit but was felt to be contained within the first unit. Number one was the origin of number two, the two units of which were concealed within the original number. The same number one, when divided into three parts, gave number three, three units that were felt to be part of the one. Translated into contemporary terms, when reaching the concept of two, one did not leave the limits of number one but experienced an inner progression within number one. Twoness was inherent in oneness. Also three, four, and all other numbers were felt to be part of the all-comprising first unit, and all numbers were experienced as organic members arising from it.
Because of its musical, rhythmic nature, children experience the world of number in a similar way. Therefore, instead of beginning with addition in a rather pedantic way, it would be better to call on a child and offer some apples or any other suitable objects. Instead of offering, say, three apples, then four more, and finally another two, and asking the child to add them all together, we begin by offering a whole pile of apples, or whatever is convenient. This would begin the whole operation. Then one calls on two more children and says to the first, “Here you have a pile of apples. Give some to the other two children and keep some for yourself, but each of you must end up with the same number of apples.” In this way you help children comprehend the idea of sharing by three. We begin with the total amount and lead to the principle of division. Following this method, children will respond and comprehend this process naturally. According to our picture of the human being, and in order to attune ourselves to the children’s nature, we do not begin by adding but by dividing and subtracting. Then, retracing our steps and reversing the first two processes, we are led to multiplication and addition. Moving from the whole to the part, we follow the original experience of number, which was one of analyzing, or division, and not the contemporary method of synthesizing, or putting things together by adding.
These are just some examples to show how we can read in the development of children what and how one should teach during the various stages. Breathing and blood circulation are the physical bases of the life of feeling, just as the head is the basis for mental imagery, or thinking. With the change of teeth the life of feeling is liberated and, therefore, at this stage we can always reach children through the element of feeling, provided the teaching material is artistically attuned to the children’s nature.
To summarize, before the change of teeth, children are not yet aware of their separate identity and consequently cannot appreciate the characteristic nature of others, whose gestures, manners of speaking, and even sentiments they imitate in an imponderable way. Up to the seventh year, children cannot yet differentiate between themselves and another person. They experience others as directly connected with themselves, similar to the way they feel connected to their own arms and legs. They cannot yet distinguish between self and the surrounding world.
With the change of teeth new soul forces of feeling, linked to breathing and blood circulation, come into their own, with the result that children begin to distance themselves from others, whom they now experience as individuals. This creates in them a longing to follow the adult in every way, looking up to the adult with shy reverence. Their previous inclination was to imitate the more external features, but this changes after the second dentition. True to the nature of children, a strong feeling for authority begins to develop.
You would hardly expect sympathy for a general obedience to authority from one who, as a young person, published Intuitive Thinking As a Spiritual Path in the early 1890s. But this sense for authority in children between the change of teeth and puberty must be respected and nurtured, because it represents an inborn need at this age. Before one can use freedom appropriately in later life, one must have experienced shy reverence and a feeling for adult authority between the change of teeth and puberty. This is another example of how education must be seen within the context of social life in general.
If you look back a few decades and see how proud many people were of their “modern” educational ideas, some strange feelings will begin to stir. After Prussia’s victory over Austria in 1866, one often heard a certain remark in Austria, where I spent half my life. People expressed the opinion that the battle had been won by the Prussian schoolmaster. The education act was implemented earlier in Prussia than in Austria, which was always considered to have an inferior educational system, and it was the Prussian schoolmaster who was credited with having won the victory. However, after 1918 [and World War I], no one sang the praises of the Prussian schoolmaster.
This is an example to show how “modern” educational attitudes have been credited with the most extraordinary successes. Today we witness some of the results—our chaotic social life, which threatens to become more and more chaotic because, for so many, their strong sense of freedom is no longer controlled by the will and by morality, but by indulgence and license. There are many who have forgotten how to use real, inner freedom. Those who are able to observe life find definite connections between the general chaos of today and educational principles that, though highly satisfying to intellectual and naturalistic attitudes, do not lead to a full development of the human being. We must become aware of the polar effects in life. For example, people in later life become free in the right way only if, as a child, they went through the stage of looking up to and revering adults. It is healthy for children to believe that something is beautiful, true and good, or ugly, false, and evil, when a teacher says so.
With the change of teeth children enter a new relationship to the world. As the life of their own soul gradually emerges, which they now experience in its own right, they must first meet the world supported through an experience of authority. At this stage, educators represent the larger world, and children have to meet it through the eyes of their teachers. Therefore we would say that, from birth to the change of teeth, children have an instinctive tendency to imitate, and from the change of teeth to puberty, they need to experience the principle of authority. When we say “authority,” however, we mean children’s natural response to a teacher—never enforced authority. This is the kind of authority that, by intangible means, creates the right rapport between child and teacher.
Here we enter the realm of imponderables. I would like to show you, by way of an example, how they work. Imagine that we wish to give children a concept of the soul’s immortality, a task that is much more difficult than one might suppose. At the age we are speaking of, when children are so open to the artistic element in education, we cannot communicate such concepts through abstract reasoning or ideas, but must clothe them in pictures.
Now, imagine a teacher who feels drawn to the more intellectual and naturalistic side of life; how would this teacher proceed? Subconsciously she may say to herself, I am naturally more intelligent than a child who is, in fact, rather ignorant. Therefore I must invent a suitable picture that will give children an idea of the immortality of the human soul. The chrysalis from which the butterfly emerges offers a good metaphor. The butterfly is hidden in the chrysalis, just as the human soul is hidden in the body. The butterfly flies out of the chrysalis, and this gives us a visible picture of what happens at death, when the suprasensory soul leaves the body and flies into the spiritual world. This is the sort of idea that a skillful, though intellectually inclined, person might make up to pass on to children the concept of the soul’s immortality. With such an attitude of mind, however, children will not feel touched inwardly. They will accept this picture and quickly forget it.
But we can approach this task in a different way. It is inappropriate to feel, “I am intelligent, and this child is ignorant.” We have seen here how cosmic wisdom still works directly through children and that, from this point of view, it is children who are intelligent and the teacher who is, in reality, ignorant. I can keep this in mind and fully believe in my image of the emerging butterfly. A spiritual attitude toward the world teaches me to believe the truth of this picture. It tells me that this same process, which on a higher plane signifies the soul’s withdrawal from the body, is repeated on a lower level in a simple, sense-perceptible form when a butterfly emerges from the chrysalis. This picture is not my invention but was placed into the world by the forces of cosmic wisdom. Here, before my very eyes, I can watch a representation of what happens on a higher plane when the soul leaves the body at death.
If this picture leaves a deep impression on my soul, I will be convinced of its truth. If teachers have this experience, something begins to stir between their students and themselves, something we must attribute to the realm of imponderables. If teachers bring this picture to children with an inner warmth of belief, it will create a deep and lasting impression and become part of their being.
If you can see how the effects of natural authority lead to a kind of inner obedience, then in a similar light authority will be accepted as wholesome and positive. It will not be resented because of a mistaken notion of freedom. Teachers, as artists of education, must approach children as artists of life, because, after the change of teeth, children approach teachers as artists as well—as sculptors and musicians. In certain cases, the unconscious and inherent gifts of children are very highly developed, especially in children who later become virtuosi or geniuses. Such individuals never lose their artistic gifts. But inwardly, entirely subconsciously, every child is a great sculptor; they retain these gifts from before the change of teeth. After this, inner musical activities are interwoven with the inner formative activities. As educators, we must learn to cooperate in a living way with these artistic forces working through children. Proceeding along these lines, it becomes possible to prevent rampant growth in young people, and we enable them to develop their potential in the broadest possible sense.
Neunter Vortrag
Es ist ein bedeutsamer Wechsel, welcher mit dem Menschen vor sich geht, wenn er in den Zahnwechsel eintritt. Nicht nur ist dieser Zahnwechsel ein physisches Ereignis im menschlichen Leben, sondern der Gesamtmensch erfährt eine Metamorphose. Derjenige, welcher Erziehungs- und Unterrichtskünstler sein will, muß durchaus auf diese Metamorphose sachkundig eingehen können. Dasjenige, was ich in den vorangehenden Betrachtungen den ätherischen, den feineren Bildekräfteleib genannt habe, das wird mit Bezug auf gewisse seiner Verrichtungen frei in der Zeit zwischen dem Zahnwechsel und der Geschlechtsreife des Menschen. Das funktioniert vorher organisch-physisch und beginnt von diesem Zeitpunkte an seelisch zu funktionieren. Dadurch aber wird auch das Leibliche des Menschen in einer ganz anderen Weise von innen heraus ergriffen als früher. Vorher war eigentlich für den Menschen die Sache so, daß gewissermaßen die materialistische Betrachtung im Rechte ist. Diese materialistische Betrachtung sieht in dem Menschen eine Summe von materiellen Vorgängen und in dem Geistig-Seelischen etwas, was aus diesem Physisch-Leiblichen hervorgeht, mit ihm zusammenhängt, wie die Flamme aus der Kerze. Das ist auch ungefähr richtig für das ganz kleine Kind bis zum Zahnwechsel hin. Da wirkt alles Seelisch-Geistige so, daß es eigentlich in physisch-leiblichen Prozessen besteht, und alle physisch-leiblichen Prozesse sind zugleich seelisch-geistige; das Ganze wird beim Kinde in bezug auf die plastische Ausgestaltung des eigenen Leibes vom Kopfe aus dirigiert. Seinen Abschluß findet es, wenn im Kopfe das Hervorstoßen der zweiten Zähne beginnt. Da müssen die Kräfte im Kopfe, die vorher tätig waren, aufhören in einem ausgesprochenen Maße tätig zu sein; da zieht sich die seelisch-geistige Tätigkeit mehr in untere Regionen des Leiblichen hinunter und geht über in den Atmungs- und in den Herzrhythmus. Vorher strömen gewissermaßen die Kräfte von ihrer ausgiebigsten Tätigkeit in der plastischen Gestaltung des Gehirnes immer hinunter in den übrigen Organismus, und sie wirken plastisch gestaltend, sie greifen direkt ein in das Substantielle, in das Stoffliche des Menschen. Sie bewirken dort Stoffprozesse.
Das wird anders mit dem Zahnwechsel. Da werden gewisse Kräfte mehr geistig-seelisch, und sie greifen jetzt nur ein in die Bewegungen, die sich im Herz-, im Atmungsrhythmus äußern. Sie wirken nicht mehr in demselben Maße in den stofflichen Vorgängen wie früher, dagegen abgetrennt von dem Körperlichen in das Atmungs- und Zirkulationssystem. Man kann das auch leiblich bemerken, indem der Atmungsrhythmus, der Zirkulationsschlag stärker wird in diesem Lebensalter. Das Kind hat in diesem Lebensalter einen inneren Drang, einen inneren Trieb, dasjenige, was es allmählich als selbständiges Geistig-Seelisches hat, zu erleben, allerdings unbewußt, instinktartig, als Rhythmus, als Takt, aber als Rhythmus und Takt, die sich zunächst im eignen Leib abspielen. Und es hat eine Sehnsucht nach diesem Abspielen von Rhythmus und Taktmäßigem in der eigenen Organisation. Es ist notwendig, zu berücksichtigen, daß man alles, was man an das Kind nach dem Zahnwechsel heranbringt, in einer solchen taktmäßigen, rhythmischen Weise gestaltet, damit es sich in dasjenige eingliedert, was das Kind eigentlich haben will. Man muß gewissermaßen als Lehrer und Erziehungskünstler in einem taktmäßigen, rhythmischen Elemente leben können, damit das an das Kind heranschlägt und das Kind sich in seinem Elemente fühlt.
Damit beginnt aber auch ein anderes. Wenn der Atmungs- und Zirkulationsrhythmus in diesem Lebensalter nicht in der richtigen Weise behandelt wird, dann zerstört man ihn in einer gewissen Weise für das ganze spätere Leben, und manche schwachen, krankhaften Zustände, die gerade in den Atmungs- und in den Zirkulationsrhythmus-Organen sich finden, die rühren von einer falschen Erziehung in dem schulpflichtigen Alter her. Das Kind bildet sich ja in dieser Zeit durch die andersartige Wirkung seines Äther- oder Bildekräfteleibes auch so aus, daß sich die Gliedmaßen in dieser Zeit stark verlängern, daß das Muskel- und Knochenleben, das Skelettleben in dieser Zeit eine besondere Rolle spielt und sich dem Atmungs-, dem Zirkulationsleben anpassen will. Das Kind wächst in dieser Zeit so, daß die Muskeln mitvibrieren, zum Teil in besonders hervorragendem Maße mit dem Atmungs-, mit dem Zirkulationsrhythmus, daß das ganze Wesen des Kindes einen musikalischen Charakter annehmen will. Während das Kind vorher plastisch tätig war an seinem eigenen Leibe, fängt es jetzt an, ein Musiker zu werden, ein unbewußter, der nach dem Inneren hineinarbeitet. Und das ist das Wesentliche gerade bei dem Kinde, das man in die Schule hereinbekommt, daß man weiß, man hat es mit einem unbewußten Musiker in dem Kinde zu tun. Und man muß dem Triebe in dem Kinde entgegenkommen, daß es seine eigene Organisation so behandeln will, wie etwa unter dem Einfluß eines Geigenspielers eine neue Violine sich verhält, daß sie sich mit ihrer eigenen Organisation in die Wellenberge und Wellentäler hineinfindet. Nur ist das beim Menschen natürlich alles Wachstum; die Geige kann man höchstens ruinieren ein für allemal; aber dem Menschen kann man falsche Wachstumsprinzipien einverleiben, die sich dann fortwährend vergrößern und verstärken und im ganzen Leben ruinös wirken können.
Wenn man sich einmal auf diese Bahn einer für die Pädagogik und Didaktik wirksamen Menschenerkenntnis begeben hat, dann wird man finden, daß dieser allgemeine Charakter, den ich jetzt angegeben habe, sich durch das schulpflichtige Alter vom Zahnwechsel bis zur Geschlechtsreife hindurchzieht, daß aber auch dieser Lebensabschnitt wiederum in drei voneinander deutlich unterscheidbare, einzelne Perioden zerfällt. Die erste dauert vom Zahnwechsel bis ungefähr um das vollendete neunte Lebensjahr herum, die zweite bis gegen das zwölfte Lebensjahr, und die dritte dann vom dreizehnten Jahr etwa bis zur Geschlechtsreife hin.
Gerade an dem, was das Kind innerlich musikalisch erlebt, kann man Einsichten bekommen, wie sich diese drei kindlichen Lebensperioden voneinander unterscheiden. In der ersten Lebensperiode, bis etwa zum vollendeten neunten Jahre hin, will das Kind alles, was an es herandringt, in innerlichen Rhythmen, in innerlich Taktmäßigem ausleben, das sich mit seinem Atmungs- und Herzrhythmus zusammenfügt, und dadurch mittelbar wiederum mit dem, wie die Muskeln, wie die Knochen sich gestalten. Und wenn es sich nicht zusammenfügt, wenn das eine gewissermaßen nicht in das andere übergeht, so entwickelt sich der Mensch eben, nicht gleich äußerlich sichtbar, aber doch als eine Art innerlicher Krüppel. Das Kind hat bis zum neunten Jahre hin durchaus das Bestreben, alles rhythmisch, taktmäßig im Inneren auszuleben. Wenn das Kind - das kann man durchaus durch einen schauenden Blick, der auf die innere seelische Organisation des Kindes eingehen kann, erkennen -, wenn das Kind in diesem Lebensalter Musik hört, dann setzt es eigentlich das ganze Musikalische in inneres Taktmäßiges, Rhythmisches um. Es vibriert mit. Es bildet innerlich dasjenige nach, was es äußerlich wahrnimmt.
Das Kind ist nämlich in diesem Lebensalter noch etwas von dem, was es vorher war. Vorher, bis zum Zahnwechsel, war es ja im ausgiebigsten Maße eigentlich Sinnesorgan; nicht ein Sinnesorgan, das in bewußter Weise wirkt, aber ein Sinnesorgan, das, wie ja schließlich auch die anderen Sinnesorgane, unbewußt die Außenwelt nachbildet; das Kind ist bis zum Zahnwechsel durchaus, wie ich auseinandergesetzt habe, ein Nachahmer. — Wenn Sie das menschliche Auge betrachten und davon absehen, was durch das menschliche Auge in das Vorstellungsleben hereingenommen wird, so äußert sich ja im eigentlichen Sinne die Augenorganisation auch darinnen, daß die Umwelt innerlich nachgebildet wird. Dieser Nachbilder bemächtigt sich dann erst das Vorstellungsleben. Da schließt sich das Vorstellungsleben an das Sinnesleben. Das ganz kleine Kind ist ganz unbewußt Sinnesorgan. Es bildet innerlich dasjenige nach, was es namentlich an Menschen seiner Umgebung wahrnimmt. Aber diese innerlichen Bilder sind nicht bloße Bilder, sie sind zugleich Kräfte, die es innerlich stofflich, plastisch organisieren.
Jetzt, wenn der Zahnwechsel kommt, gehen diese Nachbilder eben nur in das Bewegungssystem, in das rhythmische System hinein, wollen nur da hineingehen. Es bleibt allerdings als plastische Bildung noch etwas zurück, aber es tritt eben zu ihr das andere hinzu, was vorher nicht in demselben Maße da war. Es ist ein Unterschied zwischen der Art und Weise, wie sich das Kind gerade zu Rhythmus und Takt vor dem Zahnwechsel und nach dem Zahnwechsel verhält. Vorher wurde auch Rhythmus und Takt zu etwas, was das Kind allerdings nachahmt, was aber in Plastik umgesetzt wird. Nachher wird es in ein innerlich musikalisches Element umgesetzt.
Und hat das Kind etwa das neunte Lebensjahr vollendet, dann bekommt es bis zum zwölften Lebensjahre hin erst ein Verständnis für Rhythmus und Takt an sich, für das Melodiöse an sich. Es will jetzt nicht mehr so stark das Rhythmische, das Taktmäßige im Inneren nachbilden; es faßt es als solches, als Gebilde, das außer ihm steht, auf. Vorher erlebt das Kind Rhythmus und Takt; nachher fängt es an, Verständnis, Auffassungsgabe dafür zu entwickeln. Das dauert, nicht nur dem Musikalischen, sondern allem gegenüber, was ihm in der Welt entgegentritt, bis gegen das zwölfte Jahr hin.
Gegen das zwölfte Jahr, schon etwas früher, beginnt dann beim Kinde erst die Fähigkeit, dasjenige, was vorher nur phantasiegemäß musikalisch, rhythmisch, taktmäßig erlebt sein will, in das bloß Gedankenmäßige überzuführen.
Man kann für alles, was seelisch erschaut wird, durch den schauenden Blick auch die äußeren leiblich-physischen Mitwirkungen sehen. Ich habe vorhin davon gesprochen, daß das Kind die Muskeln, die Knochen demjenigen nachbilden will, was da innerlich in ihm ist. Jetzt, gegen das zwölfte Jahr hin, beginnt das Kind nicht mehr bloß in Rhythmus und Takt leben zu wollen, sondern das Rhythmus- und Taktgefühl in Abstrakt-Gedankliches auslaufen zu lassen, so wie in dieser Zeit allmählich sich immer mehr und mehr der Teil des Muskels verstärkt, der in die bloße Sehne ausläuft. Vorher ist alles Bewegen mehr auf den Muskel als solchen gerichtet, nachher auf dasjenige, was in die bloße Sehne ausläuft. Alles, was im Seelisch-Geistigen vor sich geht, findet man im Leiblich-Physischen wieder. Und dieses Einbeziehen des Sehnenlebens, der Verbindung von Knochen und Muskel, das ist der äußere, physische Ausdruck für das Hineinsegeln aus dem bloß gefühlsmäßigen rhythmischen, taktmäßigen Elemente in dasjenige, was nun logisch ist, was nun nicht mehr Rhythmus und Takt hat. Dem, was man da durch Menschenerkenntnis sich erwirbt, muß man aber durchaus in der Erziehungs- und Unterrichtskunst entgegenkommen.
Es ist schon so, daß gegenwärtig eben die meisten Erwachsenen, wenn sie etwas im Zusammenhang, nicht im einzelnen, aber im Zusammenhang — wie Sie es an die Kinder ja auch dann im Zusammenhang heranbringen müssen als Lehrer -, wenn sie etwas wie Pflanzen, wie Tiere im Sinne haben, sich dann an das erinnern, was sie selber schon in einem späteren Lebensalter als Botanik, als Zoologie gelernt haben. Nun ist dasjenige, was in unseren Botanik- oder Zoologiebüchern steht, das allerschlechteste Unterrichtsmaterial, das man in die Schule hereintragen kann. Das mag noch so großen wissenschaftlichen Wert haben, meistens hat es ihn ja auch nicht, aber in die Schule für dieses Lebensalter taugt es nicht hinein.
Wir müssen durchaus alles, was wir dem Kinde beibringen über Pflanzliches, über Tiere, so beibringen, daß wir eigentlich dabei als Künstler wirken, daß wir auf die harmonische Gestaltung des Pflanzenwesens und auf die harmonische Beziehung der einzelnen Pflanzenart zu der anderen, auf dieses, was auch da rhythmisch-harmonisch-gefühlsmäßig ist, einen viel größeren Wert legen als auf das, was in den Botanikbüchern steht. Gerade bei einer Pflanze ist es ja ohnedies so, daß uns die Systematik der Pflanzen, dieses Einteilen der Pflanzenwelt, so, wie sie auftritt, im Grund genommen am widerlichsten ist; am meisten Sympathie kann man noch haben für den Zinne, der die Pflanzenwelt nur da, wo sie nach oben aufhört, noch Pflanze zu sein, und ihre Kräfte ins allgemeine Weltenleben hineinstreckt, der nur die Blüte bei der Gestaltung der Pflanze betrachtet; aber jede Art gerade von Pflanzensystematik kann in der Schule gar nicht verwendet werden. Wir werden in den späteren Betrachtungen schon sehen, was da zu verwenden ist.
Überhaupt, ein Lehrer, der mit dem Buche in der Hand, worin ja heute in der Regel der Absud des Wissenschaftlichen steht, etwa gar in die Klasse hineintritt und demgemäß, was er selber in Botanik und Zoologie gelernt hat, in der Volksschule unterrichtet, der ist unter allen Umständen ein schrecklicher Lehrer. Eine schreckliche Lehrergestalt ist ja derjenige, der nun gar dieses Buch mitträgt und vor den ersten Bänken auf und ab geht und selber erst, während er es an das Kind heranbringt, sich erinnert, indem er sich die Vorstellungen, die er in einem viel späteren Lebensalter aufgenommen hat — und das, was er da hat, das taugt zudem ja gar nichts -, indem er sich diese Vorstellungen auffrischt.
Es ist eben durchaus notwendig, daß wir über Pflanzen, über Tiere so reden lernen, wie es einer künstlerischen Anschauung entspricht. Dadurch allein bringen wir auch das mit einem musikalischen Duktus in das ganze kindliche Wesen hinein. Das ist eben etwas, was wir berücksichtigen müssen, daß der Unterricht vom künstlerischen Element ausgehen müsse, nicht von dem gedanklichen Element, auch nicht von einem abstrakten Anschauen, sondern von einem von Kunst und künstlerischer Lebensempfindung durchdrungenen Elemente. Dieses verlangt das Kind.
Wenn wir das Kind in die Schule hereinbekommen und uns nun aufgetragen ist, das Kind muß so schnell wie möglich zum Beispiel schreiben lernen, so könnte man ja versucht sein, die Buchstabenformen - die sich nun einmal innerhalb der heutigen Zivilisation aus dem Handgelenk der Menschen loslösen, wenn sie etwas fixieren wollen für den Mitmenschen -, so wie sie sind, an das Kind heranzubringen.
Ja, aber diese Buchstabenformen sind ja etwas, wozu das Kind, wenn es den Zahnwechsel begonnen hat und in die Volksschule hereinkommt, nicht die allergeringste menschliche Beziehung hat. Als noch menschliche Beziehungen zum Schreiben waren, wie war es denn da? Man sehe nur zurück in ältere Kulturperioden: als zum Schreiben noch menschliche Beziehungen waren, da hatten die Alten auf den Täfelchen oder Pergamenten Bildchen fixiert, die noch etwas Ähnliches hatten mit dem, was man angesehen hat. Da war eine menschliche Beziehung zwischen dem, was man da aus dem Bilde herausgestalten mußte, und demjenigen, was in der Umgebung war. Die Entwickelung der menschlichen Zivilisation hat das durchgemacht, daß diese noch aus der menschlichen Natur herauskommenden Formen allmählich durch alle möglichen Übergangsformen zu dem geworden sind, was heute ein A oder ein B oder ein E ist, zu denen es gar keinen menschlichen Bezug mehr gibt.
Das Kind, das uns in seinen Neigungen in vieler Beziehung dasJenige zeigt, was frühere Kulturstufen dargeboten haben, verlangt einen menschlichen Bezug zu dem, was man von seinem Willen verlangt. Wir dürfen ihm nicht die abstrakten Formen beibringen, die die Buchstaben zum Beispiel angenommen haben. Wir müssen Menschliches in künstlerischer Weise gerade dann an das Kind heranbringen, wenn es uns beim beginnenden Zahnwechsel zur Schule übergeben wird.
Will man in einer menschlichen Art das Schreiben an das Kind heranbringen, dann hat man durchaus von demjenigen auszugehen, was das Kind erleben kann als Zusammenhang des Gesehenen und dem durch den Willen hervorgebrachten Gesehenen — wir nennen das die Schrift. Das ist dasjenige, was das Kind nun triebhaft entgegenbringt als Bedürfnis, aus dem Willen heraus zu erleben. Das Kind bringt einem nun einmal diese künstlerischen Tendenzen in die Schule herein, und es muß diesen künstlerischen Tendenzen zum Beispiel dadurch Rechnung getragen werden, daß man ein Kind, sagen wir zunächst, herumlaufen läßt in dieser Kurve (siehe Zeichnung). Dann bringt man ein Gefühl davon hervor, was bei einem so gearteten Herumlaufen innerlich erlebt wird. Man geht dann dazu über, das Kind aufmerksam zu machen, daß es da diese Linie am Fußboden beschrieben hat. Man kann es dann überleiten, diese Linie entsprechend mit der Hand nachzumachen. Nun läßt man es dann so laufen, daß es so seinen Weg vollführt, läßt es auch das wiederum mit der Hand nachahmen. Was so der ganze Körper in der künstlerischen Erziehung aus dem ganzen Organismus gebildet hat, läßt man nun einseitig mit der Hand nachformen. Und dann leitet man es dazu hin, Worte auszusprechen, die mit L beginnen. Man leitet es dahin, daß dasjenige, was solch ein Wort, das mit L beginnt, als Laut zunächst hat, in dem, was man aus dem Zeichnen, nicht aus dem abstrakten Nachbilden unserer L-Form herausgeholt hat, daß es das in dem hat.
Man kann auf diese Weise aus dem innerlich als Bewegung Erlebten zu dem Zeichnen der Buchstaben kommen. Man kann es auch anders machen. Das Kind ist ja nicht nur durch den Zahnwechsel ein innerlicher Musiker, es ist auch von früher her ein Plastiker. Nun kann man das Folgende machen: Man versucht, dem Kind ein Bild des Fisches zu geben; man geht dann allmählich künstlerisch über zu einem solchen Verlauf dieser Form: und man leitet das Kind von dem Worte Fisch zu dem F, nach dem Gehör, und bringt ihm diesen Zusammenhang lebendig vor Augen zwischen dem F und dem Bilde, das man vom Fisch herausgebildet hat. Man hat da sogar in einer gewissen Weise den Gang nachgebildet, wie in der Menschheitsentwickelung das F aus dem Worte Fisch heraus entstanden ist.
Es braucht nicht immer der Fall zu sein, daß wir in dieser Weise gerade just das treffen, was die Menschheitsentwickelung selber durchgemacht hat. Wir können durchaus unsere freie Imagination spielen lassen; denn es kommt nicht darauf an, daß das Kind wirkliche Kulturgeschichte wiederholt, sondern daß es in der Art, die einmal sich abgespielt hat, nun auch von dem Künstlerischen, dem ZeichnerischBildhaften in die abstrakte Schriftform hineinkommt. Man macht das Kind aufmerksam, wie Wasser Wellen aufwirft. Man bringt es zu diesem Bilde, leitet über in das Wort Welle, Woge, zu W und bringt Welle, Woge, es woget, es wellet, mit dem Zeichnen in Zusammenhang. So holt man aus dem unmittelbaren Leben heraus dasjenige, was zunächst zeichnerisch vorhanden sein kann, und leitet es über zu den Buchstabenformen.
Man wird ja natürlich dadurch das Kind nicht so früh beim Schreiben haben, wie man es sonst hat. - Wir haben in der Waldorfschule Elternabende eingerichtet, wo die Eltern der Kinder zusammenkommen, ohne die Kinder, und da wird manches, was dann die Eltern als Folge der Waldorfschul-Erziehung bemerken, besprochen. Dann kommen manche Eltern mit ihrem Kummer und finden, ihr achtjähriges Kind kann noch immer nicht ordentlich schreiben. Man muß dann den Eltern die Auskunft geben, daß das ein Glück ist für das Kind, denn es verwebt dadurch diese ganze Kunst des Schreibens eben mehr mit seinem Wesen, daß es in dem richtigen Lebensalter in das Schreiben hineinkommt und auf eine menschlichere Art, als dann, wenn etwas ganz Fremdes an das Kind herangebracht wird, was das Ergebnis einer menschlichen Zivilisation ist, und ganz gewiß gar keine innerliche Beziehung zu dem Kinde hat, wenn man nicht erst die innerliche Beziehung schafft. Wir müssen natürlich die Kinder immer weiter unterrichten; aber wir müssen das auf menschliche Art tun.
Das ist ja überhaupt dasjenige, was im allgemeinen heute unterlassen wird: irgendein Gebiet des Lebens in die Totalität des Lebens hineinzustellen. In unserer vorgerückten Zivilisation hat sich ja alles spezialisiert; wir sehen, wie die einzelnen Dinge in Spezialismen hineinlaufen. Gewiß, das mußte eine Zeitlang die Menschen in die verschiedenen Einseitigkeiten hineinführen. Aber wir sind jetzt in dem Auseinandertreiben in Spezialismen eben so weit gekommen, daß wir notwendig haben, diese einzelnen Spezialismen zum Heile der Menschheit wiederum mit dem Gesamtleben zu verbinden.
Dazu ist einmal eine Menschenerkenntnis notwendig, welche die Ergebnisse der Geistesforschung nicht ausnimmt. Man versteht dasjenige, was innerhalb der anthroposophischen Bewegung nach dieser Richtung zum Ausdrucke kommt, sehr falsch, wenn man glaubt, daß gegen irgendwelche neueren Errungenschaften unserer Zivilisation Sturm gelaufen wird in reaktionärer Weise. Das ist nicht der Fall. Aber es muß auf der anderen Seite überall der Lebenszusammenhang gesehen werden. Ich werde gewiß nicht im geringsten etwas dagegen einwenden, daß es heute Schreibmaschinen gibt. Das Schreibmaschinenschreiben ist natürlich noch viel unmenschlicher als das Schreiben aus dem Handgelenk heraus, aber, wie gesagt, ich bin kein Agitator gegen das Schreibmaschinenschreiben, aber die Tätigkeit, die da entfaltet wird, muß man kennenlernen, weil alles dasjenige, was im Leben abläuft, in polarischer Weise abläuft. Und vielleicht verzeihen Sie es mir, wenn ich etwas aus dem höheren Gebiete des anthroposophischen Schauens gerade mit Bezug auf die Schreibmaschine vorbringe, nur um etwas zu veranschaulichen. Wer das nicht als etwas hinnehmen will, was eben auch der Realität des Lebens angehört, der kann es ja als eine Art Narretei betrachten und es ablehnen. Aber ich rede durchaus von einer Wirklichkeit.
Sehen Sie, wenn man mit dem Anschauen der geistigen Vorgänge vertraut ist, die ja wie die physischen immer um uns sind, dann macht das Schreibmaschinenschreiben einen ganz besonderen Eindruck. Ich erzähle Ihnen durchaus Erlebtes, wenn ich Ihnen sage: wenn ich an einem Tage mit der Schreibmaschine geschrieben habe -— Sie sehen, ich agitiere nicht gegen das Schreibmaschinenschreiben, sondern ich bin froh, wenn ich selber einmal an das Maschinenschreiben komme -, wenn ich an einem Tage mit der Schreibmaschine geschrieben habe, so geht mir das lange nach. Nicht als ob das irgend etwas wäre, was mich selbst störte, aber es geht mir lange nach. Und wenn ich dann in die Ruhe komme, verwandelt sich ja bei dem imaginativen Sehen eine solche Tätigkeit in Selbstanschauung, und diese Selbstanschauung stellt sich innerlich vor den Menschen hin. Man sieht dasjenige, was sich innerlich abspielt, durchaus in der Außenwelt. Das alles muß sich bei vollem Bewußtsein abspielen, und man muß sehen, wie dasjenige, was in der äußeren Imagination auftritt, eben durchaus die Projektion desjenigen ist, was vielleicht viel früher innerlich als organische Tätigkeit sich abgespielt hat. Man kann dasjenige, was im Inneren des Menschen geschieht, besonders anschaulich vor Augen haben, wenn man es dann im hellsichtigen Imaginieren vor sich hingestellt findet: jeder Druck auf eine Taste wird zu einem Blitzschlag in diesem objektiven Anschauen des Subjektiven. Und dasjenige, was hingestellt ist als das menschliche Herz, das wird fortwährend von diesen Blitzschlägen durchstoßen. Und nun ist ja auf der Schreibmaschine nicht gerade nach einem spirituellen Prinzip eine Taste neben die andere gestellt, sondern nach dem reinen Utilitätsprinzip die Buchstaben, welche man öfter notwendig hat, so daß man schnell schreiben kann. Das alles bewirkt, daß dadrinnen nicht gerade viel Spirituelles ist. So daß das Fahren des Fingers von einer Taste auf die andere die Blitzschläge nicht nur als Blitzschläge erscheinen läßt, sondern noch dazu in Unordnung bringt. Kurz, es ist ein fürchterliches Gewitter, in dem sich ein Schreibmaschinenschreiben objektiviert.
Was bedeutet das? Das bedeutet nichts anderes, als daß man eine Erklärung dafür hat, warum im Leben so viele Menschen, bei denen sich gegen das Schreibmaschinenschreiben nicht das polarische Gegenmittel einfindet, mit einem schwachen Herzen herumgehen, insbesondere wenn sie zu früh an die Schreibmaschine herangebracht werden, wo das Herz noch im weitesten Umfange zerstörungsfähig ist. Und man wird schon sehen, wenn die Schreibmaschinenschreiberei zunimmt, wie immer mehr und mehr die Herzschwächen und Herzkrankheiten sich vermehren werden.
Diese Zusammenhänge gibt es im Leben. Es soll nicht in reaktionärer Weise gegen irgendein Kulturmittel Sturm gelaufen werden, aber man soll sich ein Wissen erwerben von den Bedürfnissen und Anforderungen des Gesamtlebens. Man soll erkennen, was man auf der anderen Seite zu tun hat, wenn man zu irgendeinem Kulturmittel greift. Solche Dinge sind für den praktischen Erzieher von ganz besonderer Bedeutung, weil er die Erziehung in das Leben hineinstellen muß; es kommt ja nicht allein darauf an, was wir innerhalb der Schule oder in ihrer Nähe mit den Kindern machen, sondern es kommt darauf an, daß sich die Schule, überhaupt alles, was sich auf Erziehung bezieht, in der richtigen Weise in das Leben hineinstellt; daher muß man ein Lebenskenner sein, wenn man ein Erziehungs- oder Unterrichtskünstler sein will. - In Deutschland zum Beispiel, da ist, 1835 war es, die erste Eisenbahn gebaut worden zwischen Fürth und Nürnberg. Man hat dazumal dem erleuchteten bayrischen Medizinalkollegium die Frage vorgelegt, ob es sich vom medizinischen Standpunkte aus empfiehlt oder nicht, Eisenbahnen zu bauen. Im Anfange solcher Zivilisationsbestrebungen fordert man ja natürlich immer Gutachten ein. Da hat das bayrische Medizinalkollegium - die Sache ist dokumentarisch festgehalten — folgendes Gutachten abgegeben: Man sollte eigentlich keine Eisenbahnen bauen, denn das Nervensystem der Menschen würde außerordentlich leiden, wenn sie auf der Eisenbahn fahren. Wenn aber dennoch durchaus Eisenbahnen gebaut werden sollten, so soll man sie wenigstens links und rechts mit hohen Bretterwänden umgeben, weil sonst die Bauern, an denen die Eisenbahnen vorüberfahren, leicht eine Gehirnerschütterung erleiden.
Dieses ist ein Gutachten einer gelehrten Körperschaft. Man lacht natürlich darüber, denn viele solche Gutachten von gelehrten Körperschaften sind ja schon abgegeben worden, und man könnte dieses Beispiel sehr, sehr stark vermehren durch Beispiele von demselben Stil. Nun aber, jegliches Ding hat zwei Seiten, und man könnte ja ebensogut diesem bayrischen Medizinalkollegium, dessen Gutachten ja gar nicht so weit hinter uns liegt, noch nicht einmal ein Jahrhundert, in einem feineren Sinne nicht bloß allein Unrecht geben, sondern man könnte ihm sogar Recht geben von einem gewissen Gesichtspunkte aus: die Menschen sind nämlich wirklich nervöser geworden, seit sie in den Eisenbahnen fahren. Und wenn wir einen Menschen beobachten und uns die Mittel verschaffen, die Menschen nach dem Bau der Eisenbahnen zu vergleichen mit denen, die noch in der alten, ehrwürdigen, philiströsen Postkutsche gefahren sind - sie sind anderer Natur. Das Nervensystem nimmt sich anders aus! Das bayrische Medizinalkollegium hat sich zwar lächerlich gemacht, aber es hat in einer gewissen Beziehung sogar Recht gehabt.
Es handelt sich durchaus darum, daß für gewisse Dinge, die in der Zivilisation auftreten, zu gleicher Zeit die Gegenmittel gefunden werden müssen, daß der Mensch, indem er von außen herein geschwächt wird, innerlich stärker gemacht wird. Und das kann eben nur geschehen, wenn wir unserer immer spezialisierter werdenden Zivilisation eine in sich geschlossene, im Sinne einer wahren Menschenerkenntnis gehaltene Erziehungskunst entgegensetzen.
Es kann nur frommen, wenn das Kind zuerst schreiben lernt auf die Weise, wie ich es zum Ausdrucke gebracht habe. Denn alle Entwickelung des Kindes geht vom Willen aus, und dieser Trieb zum Rhythmischen, zum Taktmäfßigen geht aus dem Willen hervor, und diesem Willensdrängen des Kindes muß man entgegenkommen. Ihm kommt man entgegen zunächst mit der Betätigung, nicht mit dem Anschauen, nicht mit dem Vorstellen. Daher ist es unrecht, zuerst das Lesen dem Kinde zu übermitteln und dann das Schreiben. Das Lesen ist schon ein Übergang vom Willensmäßigen zum abstrakten Anschauen. Erst auf künstlerische Weise das Schreiben beibringen, und dann übergehen zuerst zum Lesen von Geschriebenem und dann allmählich zum Lesen, da es schon sein muß, von Gedrucktem.
Sie sehen, ringt man sich zu einer wirklichen Menschenerkenntnis durch und kann man diese anwenden auf die Entwickelung des Kindes, so kann man auch die Aufeinanderfolge der Gebiete, die man in die Erziehung hereinbeziehen will oder muß, dieser Entwickelung des Kindes ablesen.
Für das Rechnen ist in der Tat das Kind ohne weiteres geeignet, wenn es das schulpflichtige Alter betritt. Nur handelt es sich darum, daß man auch mit dem Rechnen auf die inneren Bedürfnisse der kindlichen Organisation eingehen muß. Das Kind ist nach dieser Richtung auf Rhythmus, Takt, auf das empfindende Ergreifen eines Harmonisierenden veranlagt. Dem entspricht nicht, wenn man, wie ich es nennen möchte, die additive Art an das Kind heranträgt und es zum zählenden Rechnen bringt.
Natürlich muß das Kind zählen lernen, aber das zunächst additive zählende Rechnen, das ist nichts, was sich vereinigen kann mit den inneren Organisationskräften des Kindes. Wir sind ja im Verlaufe der Zivilisation allmählich dazu gekommen, das Arbeiten mit Zahlen in einer gewissen synthetischen Weise zu behandeln. Wir haben eine Einheit, eine zweite Einheit, eine dritte Einheit, und wir bemühen uns, im Abzählen, im additiven Elemente das eine zu dem anderen hinzuzufügen, so daß dann das eine neben dem anderen liegt, indem wir zählen. Dafür bringt uns, wie man sich wird überzeugen können, das Kind nicht ein innerliches Verständnis entgegen. In dieser Weise hat sich wiederum nicht das elementar Menschliche zum Zählen hin entwickelt. Das Zählen ging allerdings aus von der Einheit; die Zwei war aber nicht ein äußerliches Wiederholen der Einheit, sondern sie lag in der Einheit darinnen. Die Eins gibt die Zwei, und die Zwei sind in der Eins drinnen. Die Eins geteilt, gibt die Drei, und die Drei sind in der Eins darinnen. Fing man an zu schreiben ins Moderne umgesetzt: eins, so kam man aus der Einheit nicht heraus, indem man zur Zwei kam. Es war ein innerlich organisches Bilden, indem man zur Zwei kam, und die Zwei war in der Einheit drinnen; ebenso die Drei und so weiter. Die Einheit umfaßte alles, und die Zahlen waren organische Gliederungen der Einheit.
Das so zu empfinden, hat auch das Müsikalisch-Rhythmische in der kindlichen Anlage den Trieb, und man wird daher, statt in pedantischer Weise mit einer Art Addieren zu beginnen, lieber die Sache so anfangen, daß man sich ein Kind herausruft. Man gibt nicht da drei Apfel und vier Äpfel und zwei Apfel und veranlaßt das Kind, das Zusammenzählen zu lernen, sondern man gibt einen Haufen Apfel es kann ja natürlich, wenn man Äpfel nicht hat, auch etwas anderes sein —, man gibt einen Haufen Äpfel. Da ist dasjenige, was das Kind zunächst einmal hat. Nun ruft man zwei andere Kinder zu dem einen heraus, sagt dem Kinde: da hast du einen Haufen Apfel, du sollst etwas davon dem ersten Kind geben, dem zweiten Kind und dann für dich selbst behalten, und es soll jeder so viel haben wie der andere. Man bringt das Kind zum Auffassen dieser Prozedur, und dadurch bringt man es allmählich dahin, in das Drittel dieses Haufens Äpfel hineinzukommen. Man geht von einem Ganzen aus und geht zu dem divisionalen Prinzip; man beginnt nicht mit dem Additiven. Dadurch kommt man wirklich an das Verständnis des Kindes heran. Wir behandeln in der Waldorfschule aus Menschenerkenntnis heraus nicht zuerst die Addition, sondern zuerst die Division oder die Subtraktion und gehen dann erst zu der Addition oder Multiplikation über, indem wir den naturgemäßen Prozeß, den wir beim Divisiblen oder beim Subtraktiven durchmachten, wieder zurücklaufen; so wie das frühere Divisionelle, das Zahlenmäßige, auch nicht ein Synthetisches, sondern ein Analytisches war, ein Vordringen vom Ganzen zu dem Einen.
Das sind so Beispiele, wie man aus der Entwickelung des Kindes ablesen kann, was man in einem bestimmten Lebensalter eigentlich machen soll. Das Atmungs-, das Zirkulationssystem, also das ganze rhythmische System des Menschen, der mittlere Mensch, der ist ebenso der leiblich-physische Repräsentant für das Fühlen, wie der Kopf der Repräsentant ist für das Vorstellen, für das Denken. Dieses Fühlen, das gefühlsmäßige Element, wird insbesondere mit dem Zahnwechsel in dem Kinde frei. Daher nimmt auch das seelische Wesen etwas an, dem man nur durch das Gefühlsmäßige beikommt. Es ist durchaus auf dem Umwege durch das kunstgemäß gestaltete Fühlen in diesem Lebensalter dem Kinde beizukommen. Man kann das sogar ganz radikal in der Weise ausdrücken, daß man sagt: Die anderen Menschen, die das Kind vor dem Zahnwechsel in ihren Bewegungen, in der Sprache, selbst in den Empfindungen auf imponderable Weise nachahmt, die sind vom Kind noch nicht so empfunden, daß es auf deren eigenes Wesen, auf deren inneres Wesen hinschauen kann. Das Kind bis zum siebenten Jahre empfindet eigentlich den anderen Menschen in Wahrheit noch gar nicht ordentlich als anderen Menschen, sondern als etwas, mit dem es wie mit seinen Armen oder mit seinen Beinen verbunden ist. Es sondert sich noch nicht heraus aus der Welt.
Mit dem Zahnwechsel, mit dem selbständig durch Atmung, Zirkulation wirkenden Gefühlssystem, sondert sich das Kind ab von dem anderen, und daher wird ihm der andere Mensch ein Wesen mit einer Innerlichkeit. Und das verlangt beim Kinde, daß es in scheuer Ehrfurcht zu dem Erwachsenen, der groß ist, hinaufschaut, daß es sich gefühlsmäßig nach ihm richten lernt. Das bloße Nachahmungsprinzip, das sich auf die Äußerungen bezog, wird nach dem Zahnwechsel zu einem anderen; rein aus den Bedürfnissen der menschlichen Natur heraus muß sich das Autoritätsprinzip entwickeln.
Sie werden mir, der ich als junger Mensch im Beginn der neunziger Jahre meine «Philosophie der Freiheit» geschrieben habe, nicht zumuten, daß ich aus besonderer Sympathie für den allgemeinen Gehorsam für dieses autoritative Wesen zwischen dem Zahnwechsel und der Geschlechtsreife eintrete. Aber es muß dafür eingetreten werden, weil die menschliche Wesenheit in diesem Lebensalter verlangt, daß das Autoritative eine Rolle spielt.
Wir kommen nur zum richtigen Gebrauche unserer Freiheit im späteren Leben, wenn wir scheue Ehrfurcht und Autoritätsgefühl kennengelernt haben zwischen dem Zahnwechsel und der Geschlechtsreife. Da liegt wieder ein Gebiet, an dem man so recht sehen kann, wie man das Erziehungswesen als etwas im sozialen Leben im allgemeinen Drinnenstehendes anschauen und betrachten muß. Wenn wir heute zurückblicken, wie stolz die Menschheit auf ihr modernes Erziehungswesen gewesen ist, wie sehr man das gerühmt hat, so kommen wir manchmal zu eigentümlichen Gefühlen. Nach Österreich herüber, wo ich meine halbe Lebenszeit verbracht habe, haben wir ja öfter nach dem Jahre 1866 gehört, der preußische Schulmeister habe dazumal den Sieg davongetragen. Österreich war in seinem Schulwesen nach damaliger Auffassung noch zurück und hat seine Schulgesetzgebung erst später bekommen. Der preußische Schulmeister wurde gerühmt als derjenige, der dazumal den Sieg erfochten hat. Seit 1918 habe ich von diesem Gesichtspunkte aus nicht so häufig auf den preußischen Schulmeister hinweisen hören! Aber es ist das nur ein Beispiel, wie das moderne Schulwesen auf den verschiedensten Gebieten mit Stolz gerühmt worden ist.
Nun, heute sehen wir doch etwas von den Früchten: Das chaotische soziale Leben, das immer chaotischer und chaotischer zu werden droht, das vor allen Dingen dadurch chaotisch ist, daß die Menschen den Freiheitsinstinkt an die Stelle des Freiheitswillens und Freiheitsgemütes setzen und eigentlich den Wert‘der inneren Freiheit in der richtigen Weise zu gebrauchen verlernt haben. Derjenige, der das Leben beobachten kann, kann durchaus einen Zusammenhang sehen zwischen dem sozialen Chaos in der Gegenwart und zwischen denjenigen Erziehungsprinzipien, die zwar das intellektualistisch-naturalistische Bedürfnis in hohem Grade befriedigen konnten, die aber den Vollmenschen nicht auf die rechten Wege bringen werden. Man muß eben durchaus wissen, daß das Leben sich in polarischen Gegensätzen entwickelt, und daß der Mensch im späteren Leben dadurch in der richtigen Weise frei werden kann, daß er gelernt hat, in der richtigen Kindheitszeit gelernt hat, sich zu sagen: Das ist wahr, was der verehrte Lehrer oder Erzieher ihm für wahr bezeichnet. - Oder: Das ist falsch, weil er es sagt! Das ist schön! Das ist häßlich! — was er ihm als schön oder häßlich bezeichnet. Das ist gut, und das ist böse! — Der Mensch gewinnt mit dem Zahnwechsel ein neues Verhältnis zur Welt, aber die Welt muß ihm zunächst in der Form des Seelenlebens, das er jetzt erst abgesondert von sich empfinden kann, als die erzieherische Autorität entgegentreten. Der Erzieher ist die Welt für dieses Lebensalter. Man muß die Welt zunächst als Inhalt des Lebens des Erziehers kennenlernen, um im späteren Leben zum wirklichen, wahren Gebrauche der Freiheit zu kommen. Daher müssen wir sagen:
Von der Geburt bis zum Zahnwechsel = Nachahmungstrieb; vom Zahnwechsel zur Geschlechtsreife = Prinzip der Autorität; der selbstverständlichen Autorität, nicht der erzwungenen, jener Autorität, die durch die Imponderabilien, die den richtigen Rapport hervorrufen zwischen dem Kinde und dem Erzieher, bewirkt wird.
Da walten wirklich Imponderabilien. Ich möchte Ihnen an einem Beispiel symptomatisch zeigen, wie Imponderabilien arbeiten. Nehmen wir einmal an, wir wollen einem Kinde, was viel schwieriger ist als man gewöhnlich meint, einen Begriff, eine Vorstellung von der Unsterblichkeit der Seele beibringen. Wir können in dem Lebensalter, wo das Kind vorzugsweise für das Künstlerische in der Erziehung veranlagt ist, solche Dinge nicht mit abstrakten Begriffen, mit Vorstellungen in ideenhafter Form an das Kind heranbringen. Wir müssen es in bildhafter Weise heranbringen. Und wie wird denn ein Erziehungskünstler, der für das Intellektualistisch-Naturalistische eine gewisse Schwäche hat, wie wird der dem Kinde in bildhafter Form die Unsterblichkeit beibringen? Er wird sich, wenn auch nicht ganz explicite, aber in seinem Unterbewußten sagen: Ich bin sehr gescheit, das Kind ist sehr dumm; darum werde ich ein Bild ausdenken, um dem Kinde die Unsterblichkeitsidee beizubringen. Die Puppe, aus der der Schmetterling auskriecht, ist ein gutes Bild. In der Puppe ist der Schmetterling verborgen. Im menschlichen Leib ist die Seele. Der Schmetterling fliegt heraus. Das ist auf sichtbarem Boden dasjenige, was mit dem Tode geschieht, indem die übersinnliche Seele den Leib verläßt und hinausflattert in die Geisteswelt. Ich kann das so beibringen, daß ich es als ein ganz gescheiter intellektualistischer Mensch ausgedacht habe, und es dann an das Kind übermittle. Wenn ich diese Gesinnung habe, wird es nicht sehr einschlagen in das Kind. Das Kind wird das Bild aufnehmen, vergißt es auch wieder. Es dringt nicht tief genug in das Gemüt des Kindes ein. Ich kann aber dieses Bild auch in einer anderen Weise gebrauchen.
Ich kann ja gar nicht sagen: Ich bin besonders gescheit, das Kind ist besonders dumm. — Wir haben ja im Laufe der Betrachtung gesehen, daß das Kind auf einem anderen Gebiete gescheit ist und der Lehrer dumm. Ich kann mir das in irgendeiner Weise vor Augen halten und kann an dieses Bild selber glauben. Und eine geistgemäße Weltanschauung lehrt mich, an dieses Bild selber zu glauben, mir zu sagen: dasjenige, was auf einer höheren Stufe der Prozeß des Austrittes der Seele aus dem Organismus ist, das ist auf der niederen Stufe dasselbe, nur einfacher und sinnlich anschaubar. Das, was mit Puppe und Schmetterling wirklich geschieht, ist nicht von mir ausgedacht, das ist in die Schöpfung durch die Urweltweisheit hineingelegt, und ich habe auch draußen in der Natur in dem Ausfliegen des Schmetterlings ein Bild desjenigen zu sehen, was auf einer höheren Stufe auch geschieht, im Verlassen des Leibes durch die Seele. Da komme ich dazu, an mein Bild selber inbrünstig zu glauben, es für ein wahres zu halten. Da wirkt dann etwas, was ich durchaus in das Gebiet der Seelenimponderabilien rechnen muß, hinüber auf das Kind. Bringe ich aus der Wärme und aus der Innigkeit dieses eigenen Glaubens an mein Bild das dem Kinde bei, dann bleibt es, dann gestaltet es sich hinein in den ganzen Menschen. Man kann das Wirken der selbstverständlichen Autorität in solcher Weise anschauen. Dann wird diese Autorität, dieses Hinführen zum Gehorsam, zum innerlichsten Gehorsam eben in seiner heilsamen und wohltätigen Wirkung durchschaut werden und nicht etwa von einem falschen Freiheitsprinzip her angefochten werden.
Und so weist uns alles darauf hin, daß der Lehrer, der erziehende Künstler dem Kinde eben als ein wirklicher Lebenskünstler gegenüberzustehen habe, denn ihm kommt nach dem Zahnwechsel das Kind entgegen als ein plastischer Künstler nach innen, als ein musikalischer Künstler nach innen.
Diese Fähigkeiten entwickeln sich bei einzelnen Menschen dann, die Genies oder Virtuosen werden, in besonderer Weise. Sie bleiben. Aber nach innen unbewußt ist das Kind ein großer Plastiker. Das bringt es sich aus dem Lebensalter vor dem Zahnwechsel mit und dann verwebt sich das musikalische Wirken nach innen mit dem plastischen Wirken nach innen, und wir selbst müssen in einer lebendigen Weise diesem innerlichen künstlerisch-plastischen, künstlerisch-musikalischen Gestalten als Lehrer, als Erzieher entgegenkommen.
Nur wenn wir so verfahren, werden wir in der Lage sein, den Menschen nicht innerlich verwuchern zu lassen, sondern ihn nach allen Seiten zu einer gewissen Vollkommenheit, die in seinen Anlagen liegt, auszubilden.
Ninth Lecture
A significant change takes place in human beings when they enter the stage of tooth replacement. Not only is this tooth replacement a physical event in human life, but the whole person undergoes a metamorphosis. Anyone who wants to be an artist in education and teaching must be able to respond to this metamorphosis in a knowledgeable way. What I have called in the preceding considerations the etheric, the finer formative body, becomes free in relation to certain of its functions in the period between the change of teeth and sexual maturity. Previously, it functioned organically and physically, but from this point on it begins to function spiritually. As a result, however, the physical body of the human being is also affected from within in a completely different way than before. Previously, the situation for humans was such that, in a sense, the materialistic view was correct. This materialistic view sees the human being as a sum of material processes and the spiritual-soul as something that emerges from the physical-bodily, connected with it, like the flame from the candle. This is also roughly correct for the very young child up to the change of teeth. Everything spiritual and soul-related acts in such a way that it actually consists of physical processes, and all physical processes are at the same time spiritual and soul-related; in children, the whole process is directed from the head in relation to the plastic formation of their own bodies. It comes to an end when the second teeth begin to erupt in the head. Then the forces in the head that were previously active must cease to be active to a marked degree; then the soul-spiritual activity moves down more into the lower regions of the body and passes into the breathing and heart rhythms. Previously, the forces flowed down from their most extensive activity in the plastic formation of the brain into the rest of the organism, where they had a plasticizing effect, intervening directly in the substantial, material aspects of the human being. There they brought about material processes.
This changes with the change of teeth. Certain forces become more spiritual and soul-like, and now they only intervene in the movements that manifest themselves in the heart and respiratory rhythms. They no longer work to the same extent in the material processes as before, but are separated from the physical into the respiratory and circulatory systems. This can also be noticed physically, as the respiratory rhythm and circulation become stronger at this age. At this age, the child has an inner urge, an inner drive to experience what it gradually develops as an independent spiritual-soul life, albeit unconsciously, instinctively, as rhythm, as beat, but as rhythm and beat that initially take place in its own body. And they have a longing for this rhythm and beat to play out in their own organization. It is necessary to take into account that everything you introduce to the child after the change of teeth should be designed in such a rhythmic, beat-like manner that it fits in with what the child actually wants. As a teacher and educator, one must be able to live in a rhythmic, beat-like element so that it strikes a chord with the child and the child feels at home in its element.
But this also marks the beginning of something else. If the rhythm of breathing and circulation is not treated in the right way at this age, it will be destroyed in a certain way for the rest of the child's life, and some weak, pathological conditions that are found precisely in the organs of breathing and circulation are the result of incorrect education during school age. During this period, the child also develops in such a way that the limbs lengthen considerably, and the life of the muscles, bones, and skeleton plays a special role and seeks to adapt to the life of respiration and circulation. During this period, the child grows in such a way that the muscles vibrate, in some cases to a particularly remarkable degree, with the rhythm of breathing and circulation, so that the whole being of the child wants to take on a musical character. Whereas the child was previously engaged in plastic activity on its own body, it now begins to become a musician, an unconscious one who works inwardly. And that is the essential thing about the child that enters school, that one knows one is dealing with an unconscious musician in the child. And one must respond to the urge in the child to treat its own organization in the same way that a new violin behaves under the influence of a violinist, finding its way into the peaks and troughs of the waves with its own organization. Only, in humans, of course, this is all growth; at most, you can ruin a violin once and for all, but you can instill false principles of growth in humans, which then continue to grow and strengthen and can have a ruinous effect on their entire lives.
Once you have embarked on this path of understanding human nature that is effective for pedagogy and didactics, you will find that this general character I have now described extends throughout the school-age period from the change of teeth to sexual maturity, but that this phase of life can also be divided into three clearly distinguishable individual periods. The first lasts from the change of teeth to around the age of nine, the second to around the age of twelve, and the third from around the age of thirteen to sexual maturity.
It is precisely through what the child experiences musically within itself that one can gain insight into how these three periods of childhood differ from one another. In the first period of life, up to about the age of nine, the child wants to experience everything that comes to it in inner rhythms, in inner cadences that coincide with its breathing and heart rhythms, and thus indirectly with the way its muscles and bones develop. And if it does not come together, if the one does not merge into the other, so to speak, then the person develops, not immediately visible externally, but as a kind of inner cripple. Until the age of nine, the child has a strong desire to live out everything rhythmically and metrically within. When the child—which can be recognized by an observant eye that can respond to the child's inner soul organization—when the child hears music at this age, it actually translates everything musical into an inner sense of rhythm. It vibrates along with it. It internally reproduces what it perceives externally.
At this age, the child is still something of what it was before. Before, until the change of teeth, it was actually a sensory organ to the fullest extent; not a sensory organ that acts consciously, but a sensory organ that, like the other sensory organs, unconsciously reproduces the outside world; as I have explained, the child is, until it loses its baby teeth, entirely an imitator. — If you consider the human eye and disregard what is taken in by the human eye into the life of imagination, the organization of the eye is actually expressed in the fact that the environment is reproduced internally. It is only then that the life of imagination takes hold of these images. This is where the life of imagination joins the life of the senses. The very young child is completely unconscious of its sensory organs. It internally reproduces what it perceives, particularly in the people around it. But these internal images are not mere images; they are also forces that organize the child internally in a material, plastic way.
Now, when the teeth change, these afterimages only enter the movement system, the rhythmic system; they only want to enter there. Something remains as a plastic formation, but something else is added to it that was not there to the same extent before. There is a difference between the way the child behaves towards rhythm and beat before and after the change of teeth. Before, rhythm and beat also became something that the child imitated, but which was translated into plasticity. Afterwards, it is translated into an inner musical element.
And when the child reaches the age of nine, it first develops an understanding of rhythm and meter in itself, of melody in itself, until the age of twelve. It no longer wants to imitate the rhythmic, the metrical, so strongly within itself; it perceives it as such, as a structure that exists outside of itself. Before that, the child experiences rhythm and beat; afterwards, it begins to develop an understanding and comprehension of them. This lasts until around the age of twelve, not only in relation to music, but to everything it encounters in the world.
Around the age of twelve, or even a little earlier, children begin to develop the ability to translate what previously could only be experienced imaginatively in terms of music, rhythm, and beat into mere thought.
For everything that is perceived by the soul, one can also see the external physical effects through the observing gaze. I mentioned earlier that the child wants to model its muscles and bones on what is inside it. Now, around the age of twelve, the child no longer wants to live solely in rhythm and beat, but wants to let the sense of rhythm and beat flow into abstract thought, just as during this time the part of the muscle that flows into the mere tendon gradually becomes stronger and stronger. Before this, all movement is directed more toward the muscle as such, and afterward toward that which ends in the mere tendon. Everything that goes on in the soul and spirit is reflected in the body and physical realm. And this inclusion of the tendon life, the connection between bone and muscle, is the outer, physical expression of the transition from the purely emotional, rhythmic, metrical element to that which is now logical, which no longer has rhythm and meter. However, what is acquired through knowledge of the human being must be accommodated in the art of education and teaching.
It is true that at present, when most adults think of something in context, not in detail but in context — as you, as teachers, must also present it to children in context — when they think of something like plants or animals, they remember what they themselves learned later in life as botany or zoology. Now, what is written in our botany or zoology books is the very worst teaching material that can be brought into school. It may have great scientific value, but in most cases it does not, and it is not suitable for school at this age.
We must teach children everything we teach them about plants and animals in such a way that we actually act as artists, placing much greater value on the harmonious design of plant life and the harmonious relationship of individual plant species to one another, on what is rhythmic, harmonious, and emotional, than on what is written in botany books. Especially with plants, it is anyway the case that the systematics of plants, this classification of the plant world as it appears, is basically the most repulsive thing to us; the most sympathy can still be felt for the pinnacle, which only considers the plant world to be plants where it ends above, and extends its forces into the general life of the world, which only considers the flower in the formation of the plant; but no kind of plant systematics can be used in school. We will see in later considerations what is to be used there.
In general, a teacher who enters the classroom with a book in his hand, which today usually contains the essence of scientific knowledge, and teaches elementary school according to what he himself has learned in botany and zoology, is a terrible teacher under any circumstances. A terrible teacher is one who carries this book around with him, paces up and down in front of the first desks, and only remembers what he has learned when he brings it to the children, refreshing his memory with ideas he absorbed at a much later age — ideas that are, moreover, completely useless.
It is absolutely necessary that we learn to talk about plants and animals in a way that corresponds to an artistic view. Only in this way can we bring a musical style into the whole child's being. This is something we must take into account: that teaching must proceed from the artistic element, not from the intellectual element, nor from abstract observation, but from an element imbued with art and artistic sensibility. This is what the child needs.
When we bring the child into school and are now tasked with teaching the child to write as quickly as possible, for example, we might be tempted to teach the child the shapes of letters – which in today's civilization are detached from the human wrist when people want to write something down for their fellow human beings – just as they are.
Yes, but these letter forms are something to which the child, when it has started to lose its baby teeth and enters elementary school, has not the slightest human connection. When writing still had human connections, what was it like then? Just look back at older cultural periods: when writing still had human connections, the ancients fixed little pictures on tablets or parchments that still had something in common with what one saw. There was a human relationship between what had to be created from the image and what was in the environment. The development of human civilization has gone through a process whereby these forms, which still stemmed from human nature, gradually underwent all kinds of transitional forms to become what we now know as A, B, or E, to which there is no longer any human connection.
The child, whose inclinations in many respects show us what earlier stages of culture presented, demands a human connection to what is required of its will. We must not teach them the abstract forms that letters, for example, have taken on. We must bring the human aspect to the child in an artistic way, especially when they are handed over to us at school at the beginning of the change of teeth.
If we want to introduce writing to the child in a human way, then we must start from what the child can experience as a connection between what is seen and what is produced by the will — we call this writing. This is what the child now instinctively presents as a need to experience out of its will. The child brings these artistic tendencies into school, and these artistic tendencies must be taken into account, for example, by letting a child run around in this curve (see drawing). Then one brings out a feeling of what is experienced internally when running around in this way. We then move on to making the child aware that it has traced this line on the floor. You can then guide them to trace this line with their hand. Now let them run so that they complete their path, and let them imitate this again with their hand. What the whole body has formed in artistic education from the whole organism is now traced with the hand on one side. And then you guide them to say words that begin with L. You guide it so that what such a word beginning with L has as a sound is taken from what has been brought out of drawing, not from the abstract imitation of our L-shape, so that it has that in it.
In this way, one can move from the inner experience of movement to drawing letters. One can also do it differently. The child is not only an inner musician due to the change of teeth, but also a sculptor from an early age. Now you can do the following: Try to give the child a picture of a fish; then gradually transition artistically to a progression of this form: and guide the child from the word fish to the letter F, by ear, and bring home to them the connection between the F and the image that has been formed from the fish. In a certain way, you have even recreated the process by which the letter F arose from the word fish in the development of humanity.
It is not always necessary to follow exactly what human development itself has gone through. We can certainly give free rein to our imagination, for it is not important that the child repeats actual cultural history, but that it now enters into the abstract written form in the manner that once took place, through art, drawing, and imagery. The child's attention is drawn to how water creates waves. They are led to this image, guided to the word wave, surge, to W, and the concepts of wave, surge, it surges, it waves, are connected with drawing. In this way, what can initially be drawn is taken from immediate life and guided to the forms of letters.
Of course, this means that children will not start writing as early as they otherwise would. We have set up parents' evenings at the Waldorf school, where the children's parents come together without their children, and discuss some of the things they have noticed as a result of the Waldorf school education. Some parents come with their concerns and find that their eight-year-old child still cannot write properly. You then have to tell the parents that this is fortunate for the child, because it weaves the whole art of writing more into its being by learning to write at the right age and in a more human way than if something completely foreign to the child is brought to it, something that is the result of human civilization and certainly has no inner relationship to the child unless that inner relationship is first created. Of course, we must continue to teach children, but we must do so in a humane way.
That is precisely what is generally neglected today: placing any area of life within the totality of life. In our advanced civilization, everything has become specialized; we see how individual things are becoming specialized. Certainly, for a time this had to lead people into various one-sidednesses. But we have now gone so far in our drift toward specializations that we must necessarily reconnect these individual specializations with the whole of life for the good of humanity.
This requires, first of all, a knowledge of human nature that does not exclude the results of spiritual research. What is expressed in this direction within the anthroposophical movement is very misunderstood if one believes that it is a reactionary attack on any of the newer achievements of our civilization. That is not the case. But on the other hand, the context of life must be seen everywhere. I certainly have no objection whatsoever to the existence of typewriters today. Typing is, of course, much more inhuman than writing by hand, but, as I said, I am not an agitator against typing. However, one must become familiar with the activity that is involved, because everything that happens in life happens in a polar manner. And perhaps you will forgive me if I bring up something from the higher realm of anthroposophical insight, specifically in relation to the typewriter, just to illustrate something. Those who do not want to accept this as something that is also part of the reality of life can regard it as a kind of folly and reject it. But I am definitely talking about a reality.
You see, when one is familiar with observing spiritual processes, which, like physical processes, are always around us, then typing makes a very special impression. I am telling you something I have experienced when I say: when I have typed on a typewriter for a day—you see, I am not agitating against typing, but I am happy when I get to type myself—when I have typed on a typewriter for a day, it stays with me for a long time. Not as if it were something that bothered me, but it stays with me for a long time. And when I then come to rest, such an activity is transformed into self-observation through imaginative seeing, and this self-observation presents itself internally before the human being. One sees what is happening internally in the external world. All this must take place with full consciousness, and one must see how what appears in the external imagination is precisely the projection of what may have taken place much earlier internally as organic activity. One can see what is happening inside a person particularly clearly when one finds it presented before one's eyes in clairvoyant imagination: every press of a key becomes a flash of lightning in this objective viewing of the subjective. And what is presented as the human heart is constantly pierced by these flashes of lightning. And now, on the typewriter, the keys are not placed next to each other according to a spiritual principle, but according to the pure principle of utility, with the letters that are most frequently needed so that one can write quickly. All this means that there is not much spirituality inside. So that the movement of the finger from one key to another not only makes the flashes appear as flashes, but also causes disorder. In short, it is a terrible storm in which typing on a typewriter becomes objectified.
What does this mean? It means nothing other than that there is an explanation for why so many people in life who do not find the polar antidote to typing go around with a weak heart, especially if they are introduced to the typewriter too early, when the heart is still capable of destruction to the greatest extent. And we will see, as typewriting increases, how heart weaknesses and heart diseases will multiply more and more.
These connections exist in life. We should not reactively rail against any cultural medium, but we should acquire knowledge about the needs and requirements of life as a whole. We should recognize what we have to do on the other side when we resort to any cultural medium. Such things are of particular importance for the practical educator, because he must place education in the context of life; it is not only what we do with children within the school or in its vicinity that matters, but it is important that the school, and indeed everything related to education, is placed in the right context in life; Therefore, one must be a connoisseur of life if one wants to be an artist of education or teaching. In Germany, for example, the first railroad was built between Fürth and Nuremberg in 1835. At that time, the enlightened Bavarian Medical Council was asked whether it was advisable from a medical point of view to build railroads. At the beginning of such civilizational endeavors, expert opinions are always sought, of course. The Bavarian Medical Council—the matter is documented—issued the following opinion: Railroads should not be built, because people's nervous systems would suffer greatly when traveling on them. However, if railways were to be built after all, they should at least be surrounded by high wooden walls on both sides, because otherwise the farmers passing by the railways could easily suffer concussions.
This is an expert opinion from a learned body. Of course, people laugh about it, because many such expert opinions have already been issued by learned bodies, and this example could be multiplied many, many times over with examples of the same style. But now, every coin has two sides, and one could just as well say that this Bavarian medical council, whose expert opinion is not so far behind us, not even a century, is not only wrong in a finer sense, but one could even say that it is right from a certain point of view: namely, that people have indeed become more nervous since they started traveling by railroad. And if we observe people and find a way to compare those who travel on the railways with those who still traveled in the old, venerable, philistine stagecoach, we see that they are of a different nature. Their nervous system is different! The Bavarian Medical Association may have made itself look ridiculous, but in a certain respect it was actually right.
It is certainly true that for certain things that occur in civilization, antidotes must be found at the same time, that by being weakened from the outside, people are made stronger on the inside. And that can only happen if we counter our increasingly specialized civilization with a self-contained art of education based on a true understanding of human nature.
It can only be beneficial if the child first learns to write in the way I have described. For all of the child's development proceeds from the will, and this urge toward rhythm and meter arises from the will, and this urge of the child's will must be accommodated. It is accommodated first through activity, not through observation or imagination. Therefore, it is wrong to teach the child to read first and then to write. Reading is already a transition from the volitional to abstract observation. First teach writing in an artistic way, and then move on to reading what has been written, and then gradually to reading what has been printed, as it must be.
You see, if one struggles to gain a real understanding of human nature and can apply this to the development of the child, then one can also deduce from this development of the child the sequence of areas that one wants or needs to include in education.
The child is indeed readily suited to arithmetic when it reaches school age. However, it is important to respond to the inner needs of the child's organization when teaching arithmetic. In this regard, the child is predisposed to rhythm, tempo, and the sensitive grasp of harmony. This is not compatible with what I would call the additive approach to the child, which teaches it to count.
Of course, the child must learn to count, but additive counting is not something that can be combined with the child's inner organizational forces. In the course of civilization, we have gradually come to treat working with numbers in a certain synthetic way. We have one unit, a second unit, a third unit, and we try to add one to the other in counting, in the additive element, so that one lies next to the other as we count. However, as we will see, the child does not respond to this with an inner understanding. In this way, the elementary human faculty of counting has not developed. Counting did indeed start from unity; but the two was not an external repetition of unity, but lay within unity. The one gives the two, and the two are within the one. The one divided gives the three, and the three are within the one. If one began to write in modern terms: one, then one did not leave unity by arriving at two. It was an internally organic formation in which one arrived at the two, and the two was within the unity; likewise the three, and so on. The unity encompassed everything, and the numbers were organic divisions of the unity.
The musical-rhythmic aspect of a child's disposition also has the urge to feel this way, and so, instead of starting in a pedantic way with a kind of addition, it is better to start by calling a child out. One does not give three apples and four apples and two apples and make the child learn to add them up, but one gives a pile of apples — of course, if one does not have apples, it can also be something else — one gives a pile of apples. That is what the child has at first. Now you call two other children to the first one and say to the child: you have a pile of apples, you should give some of them to the first child, to the second child, and then keep some for yourself, and everyone should have as much as the others. You help the child to understand this procedure, and in this way you gradually lead them to understand the third of this pile of apples. You start with a whole and move on to the principle of division; you do not start with addition. In this way, you really get to understand the child. In Waldorf schools, based on our understanding of human nature, we do not deal with addition first, but rather with division or subtraction, and only then move on to addition or multiplication, retracing the natural process we went through with division or subtraction; just as the earlier divisional, numerical approach was not synthetic but analytical, a progression from the whole to the one.
These are examples of how one can see from the development of the child what one should actually do at a certain age. The respiratory and circulatory systems, that is, the entire rhythmic system of the human being, the middle human being, is just as much the physical representative of feeling as the head is the representative of imagination and thinking. This feeling, the emotional element, is released in the child especially with the change of teeth. Therefore, the soul being also takes on something that can only be approached through the emotional. It is entirely possible to approach the child at this age through the detour of artfully designed feeling. One can even express this quite radically by saying that the other people whom the child imitates in their movements, in their language, even in their feelings in an imponderable way before the change of teeth, are not yet perceived by the child in such a way that it can look at their own nature, at their inner nature. Until the age of seven, the child does not really perceive other people as other people, but as something with which it is connected, like its arms or legs. It has not yet separated itself from the world.
With the change of teeth, with the feeling system acting independently through breathing and circulation, the child separates itself from the other, and therefore the other person becomes a being with an inner life. This requires the child to look up to the adult, who is tall, with shy reverence, and to learn to orient itself emotionally toward the adult. The mere principle of imitation, which related to outward expressions, becomes something else after the change of teeth; the principle of authority must develop purely out of the needs of human nature.
You will not expect me, who wrote my “Philosophy of Freedom” as a young man in the early 1990s, to advocate for this authoritative being between the change of teeth and sexual maturity out of a particular sympathy for general obedience. But it must be advocated because the human being at this age demands that authority play a role.
We can only make proper use of our freedom in later life if we have learned reverence and a sense of authority between the change of teeth and sexual maturity. This is another area where we can clearly see how education must be viewed and regarded as something that is generally inherent in social life. When we look back today at how proud humanity has been of its modern education system, how much it has been praised, we sometimes come to strange feelings. In Austria, where I spent half my life, we often heard after 1866 that the Prussian schoolmaster had won the victory at that time. Austria was still backward in its school system according to the views of the time and did not get its school legislation until later. The Prussian schoolmaster was praised as the one who had won the victory at that time. Since 1918, I have not heard the Prussian schoolmaster mentioned so often from this point of view! But this is only one example of how the modern school system has been praised with pride in a wide variety of areas.
Well, today we are seeing some of the fruits of this: chaotic social life, which threatens to become more and more chaotic, and which is chaotic above all because people have replaced the will to freedom and the spirit of freedom with the instinct for freedom, and have actually forgotten how to use the value of inner freedom in the right way. Those who can observe life can certainly see a connection between the social chaos of the present and those educational principles which, although they have been able to satisfy intellectual and naturalistic needs to a high degree, will not lead the whole human being onto the right path. It is essential to know that life develops in polar opposites and that human beings can become truly free in later life by learning, during their childhood, to say to themselves: What the revered teacher or educator tells me is true. Or: That is wrong because he says so! That is beautiful! That is ugly! — what he describes to him as beautiful or ugly. That is good, and that is evil! — With the change of teeth, the human being gains a new relationship to the world, but the world must first confront him in the form of the soul life, which he can now feel as separate from himself, as the educational authority. The educator is the world for this age. One must first get to know the world as the content of the educator's life in order to arrive at the real, true use of freedom in later life. Therefore, we must say:
From birth to the change of teeth = imitation instinct; from the change of teeth to sexual maturity = principle of authority; the natural authority, not the enforced authority, that authority which is brought about by the imponderables that create the right rapport between the child and the educator.
Imponderables really do prevail. I would like to show you symptomatically, using an example, how imponderables work. Let us assume that we want to teach a child a concept, an idea of the immortality of the soul, which is much more difficult than is commonly thought. At the age when children are most receptive to the artistic side of education, we cannot approach such things with abstract concepts, with ideas in the form of ideas. We must approach it in a pictorial way. And how will an educational artist who has a certain weakness for intellectualism and naturalism teach the child about immortality in a pictorial form? He will say to himself, if not quite explicitly, then in his subconscious: I am very clever, the child is very stupid; therefore I will think up an image to teach the child the idea of immortality. The doll from which the butterfly crawls out is a good image. The butterfly is hidden in the cocoon. The soul is hidden in the human body. The butterfly flies out. On a visible level, this is what happens at death, when the supersensible soul leaves the body and flutters out into the spiritual world. I can teach this by thinking it up as a very clever intellectual person and then conveying it to the child. If I have this attitude, it will not make much of an impression on the child. The child will take in the image and then forget it again. It does not penetrate deeply enough into the child's mind. But I can also use this image in another way.
I cannot say: I am particularly clever, the child is particularly stupid. — We have seen in the course of our consideration that the child is clever in another area and the teacher is stupid. I can keep this in mind in some way and believe in this image myself. And a spiritual worldview teaches me to believe in this image myself, to say to myself: what is the process of the soul leaving the organism at a higher level is the same at a lower level, only simpler and more sensually perceptible. What really happens with the pupa and the butterfly is not something I have thought up; it is embedded in creation by primordial wisdom, and I also see an image of what happens on a higher level, when the soul leaves the body, in the flight of the butterfly out into nature. This leads me to believe fervently in my own image, to hold it for true. Then something that I must definitely count as belonging to the realm of the soul's imponderables has an effect on the child. If I impart to the child the warmth and intimacy of my own belief in my image, then it remains, then it shapes itself into the whole human being. One can view the effect of self-evident authority in this way. Then this authority, this leading to obedience, to innermost obedience, will be understood in its healing and beneficial effect and not challenged by a false principle of freedom.
And so everything points to the fact that the teacher, the educating artist, must face the child as a true artist of life, for after the change of teeth, the child meets him as an inner sculptural artist, as an inner musical artist.
These abilities develop in a special way in individuals who become geniuses or virtuosos. They remain. But inwardly, unconsciously, the child is a great sculptor. This is something they bring with them from the age before the change of teeth, and then the musical activity within is interwoven with the sculptural activity within, and we ourselves, as teachers and educators, must respond in a lively way to this inner artistic-sculptural, artistic-musical creativity.
Only if we proceed in this way will we be able to prevent people from becoming inwardly overgrown, but rather train them in all respects to a certain perfection that lies in their aptitudes.