JO
Y U M B E R 29
S
P
H
T
F
L
A
N
R
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S P R I N G , 1979
ISSN 0021-8235
F undam entally the W a ld o rf School does
not w ant to educate but to awaken.
It does not aim at being a system o f
principles. It aim s at being life —
not science, not cleverness, but art;
vital action; aw akening deed.
R u d o lf Steiner
Jo u rn al for A nthroposophy, N um ber 29, Spring, 1979
© 1979, T h e A nthroposophical Society of A m erica, Inc.
E D U C A T IO N
A Special Issue
For the Fiftieth Anniversary o f W ald o rf E ducation in
N orth Am erica
CONTENTS
ARTICLES
A la n H oward
3
Early Childhood
D estruction and New S tart
of the O riginal W aldorf School
Education for Adolescents
Inform ation — or Knowledge as Experience?
M. C. R ichards
10
A l L aney
R u d o lf Steiner
26
34
T o Have, T o Be and T o Become
A bout G oetheanistic Science
Karl Ege
H ans Gebert
40
44
Christy Barnes
Lisa M onges
55
66
Bum ble-Baby, a poem
T h e Beetle and the Spider, a fa b le
Christy Barnes
M artin K urkow ski
9
18
T o E ducate Youth, a poem
A C hild’s Evening Prayer, a poem
L ittle Myths
R u d o lf Steiner
A lb ert Steffen
19
25
M ark T aper
H einz F rankfurt
54
79
L iterature an d the
D ram a of Polarities at P uberty
A S tudent’s Memories of R udolf Steiner
POEMS AND PROSE
Stars, an assignment
Cure, an anecdote
ILL U STR A TIO N S AND SONGS
M ichael and the D ragon, a ch ild ’s crayon drawing
Little Lam b, by Blake
2
20
T h e Shepherd, by Blake
songs com posed by Laura Taylor
T h e Light of Sun, by R udolf Steiner
com posed by H arry Kretz
M other and Child, a drawing
D onald H all
22
23
24
REVIEW S
E ducating as an A rt, E dited by Ekkehard Piening
and Nick Lyons
M. C. R ichards
Teaching as a Lively A rt, M arjorie Spock
Erika V. A sten
Pilgrimage to the Tree o f L ife, A lbert Steffen
Jea n n e Bergen
77
80
82
The Living Earth, W alther Cloos
84
Contributors to this Issue
R a lp h B rockelbank
88
1
in]M
age:colrdw
Im
[ ichael an d the D ragon
2
C h ild ’s Crayon Drawing
Information -or Knowledge
as Experience?
ALAN HOW ARD
T h e business of education is knowledge; a n d it should follow
th a t the business of the teacher is knowing w hat knowledge is.
T h a t is not quite so stupid as it sounds; a n d a little enquiry
into the n atu re of knowledge an d knowing cannot come amiss
in w hat we are discussing here. Usually we are satisfied if the
teacher knows — th a t is to say, has knowledge of — this and
th at. Q uite often the m ore a teacher knows, the m ore courses
he has taken, the m ore letters he has behind his n am e — the
m ore we are im pressed by him . He m ust, as a result, have so
m u ch m ore to pass on to the children; a n d so this idea of
knowledge as a quantity, som ething th a t can be passed on or
stored up, persists even in the best educational circles.
Knowledge, however, is an experience, not a quantity, a
transform ation of the knower th rough the experience of know ­
ing. O f course he retains a m em ory of the experience, which
can be described, b u t w hich bears the sam e relation to the ex­
perience itself as a p h o to g rap h does to the experience of look­
ing at the sam e scene w ith one’s own eyes. T h a t rem em bered
an d com m unicated im age is inform ation. It can be w ritten up
in books, a n d o th er people can read a n d even reproduce it;
b u t it is not necessarily their knowledge. A nd having m ade this
distinction, we have no intention, in so doing, of
underestim ating the value of inform ation. T h a t w ould be
nonsensical; b u t the distinction is necessary in discussing
knowledge in relation to education, where both knowledge and
inform ation by this definition play a n im p o rta n t p a rt.
3
T he Teacher
So m u ch o f the knowledge we deal w ith in schools is of
necessity o ther people’s knowledge, secondhand experience, our
inform ation. W e get it out of books; a n d the teacher is one
who today gets alm ost all his know ledge o ut of books. T h e day
m ay come when a m ore enlightened — and m ore generous —
society will discover th a t one of the finest investm ents it can
m ake is in the fullest possible tra in in g of its teachers. They
will be very carefully selected of course; b u t once th a t is done,
th en they will be sent ro u n d th e w orld into all kinds of situ a ­
tions, doing various kinds of jobs, m eeting all kinds of people,
before they are allowed to stan d before a g roup of children.
W h at they com m unicate then by way of knowledge m ay at
least be lit up again a n d again w ith the w ealth of their p e r­
sonal experience. T eachers are far too young, too exclusively
book-fed when they begin to teach, especially teachers of the
youngest children. T hey know so little ab o u t life a n d the
world.
O ne of the advantages of our independence as W ald o rf
schools is th a t we are n ot b o u n d to choose ou r teachers only
according to academ ic qualifications. T h a t m ust be there, of
course; b u t w hat they are as h u m an beings, w hat their life ex­
perience has been, is for us equally im p o rtan t. Everything else
being equal, even if a prospective teacher h a d no professional
qualifications a n d we were convinced th a t he was just the m an
for this or th a t g roup o f children, o u r independence gives us
the o p p o rtu n ity to ap p o in t him . R udolf Steiner h a d som ething
to say on this, too, p articularly a b o u t class-teachers. A fter
eight years w ith a class, they should have a year’s sabbatical;
not as a holiday, however, b u t as a n o p p ortunity for getting
some entirely different experience. O f course there is a lim it to
this. T eachers w ould still have to get m u ch out of books; b u t
they w ould be far m ore effective a n d h u m an as teachers if
they were also people of wide experience. Anyone who has ever
talked to children knows w hat a difference it m akes in regard
to this or th a t m a tte r if one can p u n c tu a te it now a n d th en
w ith, “Now, w hen I was in . . . ” or, “W hen I was a. . . . ”
4
Everything im m ediately comes alive; the children “sit u p and
take n o tice.”
Info rm a tio n and A udio-V isual A ids
U ntil such tim es, however, we m ust still d epend largely on
w hat we acquire from books; and th a t m akes it all the m ore
im p o rta n t to appreciate this distinction betw een knowledge
a n d inform ation, so th a t the ch ild ren ’s know ing can be real
living experience for them . Otherwise, just because the bulk of
ou r knowledge is other people’s experience gleaned out of
books, it can becom e lifeless a n d dull, an d we have to enliven
(sic) it w ith all kinds o f audio-visual aids, an d any o th er of the
p a ra p h e rn alia an enterprising educational supplier can think
up. If ou r conception of the teacher is largely a “passer-on” of
inform ation, he will not only depend m ore and m ore on these
things, b u t they will in tim e replace him . H e will be reduced
to the status of the Greek pedagogue, who was not the Greek
equivalent of a teacher, although we som etim es use this highsounding word for “tea c h e r” or “e d u c a to r.” He was a slave,
who carried the child’s m aterials to and from school and
w aited for him till the p ro p er teachers h ad finished with him!
W hen the teacher begins to open up the various avenues of
knowledge, even p rin te d tex tb o o k s, charts, m odels an d
diagram s are kept to the very basic m inim um — except of
course for general reading m aterial w hich the children are e n ­
couraged to use in their own tim e. As to all the elaborate a n d
ingenious ap p aratu s for teaching u n d e r the n am e of a u d io ­
visual aids, it w ould be extrem ely rare for a W ald o rf teacher
to use any of it before the high school.
A nd such a statem ent really shocks m any people today. “But
these are w onderful aids to tea c h in g ,” they declare. “D on’t you
realise how m u ch m ore accurately, efficiently a n d beautifully
they brin g the world to the children? You really have no right
to deny the children these th in g s.”
W e realise it all right; b u t we realise too m any o ther things
in the whole educational set-up. As to denying children these
5
wonders, we can only categorically reto rt th a t we are
“denying” them nothing. O n the contrary, we are quite con­
sciously an d deliberately giving them a m uch needed rest from
it all, w hich is ab o u t the m ost a school can do. O u r m odern
w orld is such th a t it is no longer a m a tte r of having these
things to use w hen we really need them . W e cannot escape
from them ; a n d children no less th an adults are continually
bo m b ard ed by the bew ildering flicker of m achine-m ade images
an d the cacophony of artificial sound which engulf them from
m orning to night. W h at dam age this m ay be doing to them
physically has yet to be fully established; w hat dam age it is
doing to the possibilities o f joy a n d fellowship in learning and
doing things together is all too a p p a re n t.
Know ledge as E xperience
In the W ald o rf school we have a hom e-room teacher for
each grade, who starts a t G rade O ne, a n d unless som ething
unavoidable intervenes, goes w ith th a t sam e grade th ro u g h
the seven others up to G rade Eight. H e or she is not w ith th at
group of children all day, every day; b u t none the less they are
his — or her — children for those eight years. W e also begin
every m o rning in all grades w ith w hat we call the M ain
Lesson, w hich lasts for approxim ately two hours. D uring this
lesson the basic skills are tau g h t a n d practised; a n d a p ro ­
gressive in tro d u ctio n to the different fields of knowledge is
m ade. T h e hom e-room teacher — or class-teacher as we call
him — is w ith his class every day a t th a t tim e as it goes
th ro u g h the eight grades. His job is to unfold the story of M an
in a personal, living knowledge experience, a n d because he has
eight years in which to do it, he gets to know his p a rticu la r
children — a n d they him — alm ost as well as a p a re n t knows
his fam ily. T hey work in close co ntact w ith one an o th er in
every way all along the line. R eal h u m a n relationships are
cultivated a n d assured; a n d the teacher an d children retain , as
well as their experience in knowledge, an experience of h u m an
living together w here joys a n d sorrows, problem s an d
discoveries, the whole g a m u t of h u m a n experience, has been
lived th ro u g h intim ately.
6
But this isn’t all th a t this arran g em en t prom otes; for while
the teacher is w orking in this way with his class, w ith little
m ore equipm ent, as has been explained, th a n his own
knowledge and skills have given him , inner activity in the
fullness of knowing is developed in the children to the greatest
capacity. T h e teacher brings all his power of language, d ram a,
gesture, tone an d any special artistic skill he m ay possess to
m ake w hat he has to share w ith them a direct, living ex­
perience. T he child as a result becomes fully involved in feel­
ing and will as well as in thinking. He is not just a recipient of
the lesson b u t a co-creator of it. T h e feeling a n d will are of
course m ore active, for thinking as we u n d erstan d it — which
as such will come m ore into its own in the high school — is at
this stage m ore of a picture-form ing quality. B ut it is thinking;
thinking in a state of grow th, which will becom e the logical
thinking an d ju d g m e n t u p o n w hich the intellect will later
rely. It will be all the m ore vigorous a n d lively because of the
way it has been exercised in its earlier stages. For the point is
th a t w hat the class-teacher seeks to prom ote is activity as
against passive reception, creativity as against m ere rep ro d u c ­
tion, original im agination as against m ere observation. T his we
believe only the teacher as a full h u m an being can do. A nd as
the whole being of the child is b rought into inner m ovem ent,
all this finds vivid, colorful an d d ram atic expression w hen the
child writes, draws, paints, m odels an d acts w hat he has been
involved in, in this teacher-pupil experience. Those creations
are his text-books; those activities are his audio-visual aids;
each child is dealing w ith the sam e experience, b u t each p ro ­
duces an original expression of it.
T h e work of W ald o rf children is brig h t w ith color, com pel­
ling w ith originality, because the intellect, w hich tends to
absorb a n d reproduce, is not too early pressed into service
before the experience of knowledge has h a d a chance to
stim ulate h e a rt an d h an d . Love a n d enthusiasm pulsate
th rough w hat the intellect is certainly dealing w ith also, b u t as
a p a rtn e r, not as the d om inating influence. T h e teacher is not
just an instructor, and certainly not a technician. H e is one of
the child’s earliest and m ost im p o rta n t contacts w ith hum anity
outside the hom e; an d knowledge is not just an abstract q u a n ­
7
tity to be acquired, b u t the m edium th ro u g h which th a t c o n ­
tact is nourished.
Knowledge is living h u m an experience; a n d just because so
m uch o f w hat we call knowledge is this mass of inform ation in
books, the teacher, particu larly of grade school children, has
to be able to transform it — naturally, w ithout tam pering
w ith its factu al content — so th a t it first becom es his
experience.
Only thus will he be able to work on th a t im aginative, re ­
creative faculty of the child w hich is the child’s experience.
O therw ise, learning becomes alm ost entirely a m em orizing
skill, to which the child has to be coerced or induced by some
external rew ard — a rew ard which has n othing to do with the
acquisition o f know ledge as such.
T here are no such inducem ents in a W aldorf school; no
m arks, grades, certificates, prizes, a n d especially is there no
use m ad e of th a t p articularly pernicious inducem ent of com ­
petition in learning am ong the children. C hildren are n a tu ra l­
ly aw are th a t this one is b e tte r th an an o th er at this or that;
an d this is often m ad e the subject of conversations on the divi­
sion of h u m an gifts; b u t it is never artificially exploited to set
one child above or below another.
E ducation, Steiner insisted, is an art; an d the teacher m ust
all the tim e strive to be an artist. N othing pretentious was
m ean t by th at; a n d it certainly has no th in g to do w ith the
in tro d u ctio n of arty-crafty gim m icks into teaching. T o be an
artist as teacher m eans simply to be able to re-create w hat is
not the p ro d u ct of one’s own experience, an d m ake it one’s
own. W hen an accom plished pianist gives a perform ance of
Beethoven he certainly has to play w hat Beethoven, not he,
wrote; b u t he is an artist to the degree th a t he can re-create
w hat Beethoven w rote a n d m ake his perform ance of it his
own. T h e teacher has to m ake th a t otherwise abstract thing
called knowledge into a personal affair. H e has to try and
know it as if he were know ing it directly a n d at firsth an d for
the first tim e. R udolf Steiner often p u t one or an o th er teacher
of the first W ald o rf school into a tem porary panic by telling
him to teach a c ertain subject which was com pletely outside
8
his field. Those lessons were invariably some of the most
successful!
It is for this reason th a t the teacher should plunge deeply
into w hat is at work in the experience o f knowing; for this
knowing activity is far m ore th a n an intellectual operation.
T h e ability to know is w hat m akes m an m an; it is w hat
distinguishes him from all o ther creatures. M an is fu n d a ­
m entally a K nower. “M an feels th rough know ledge,” says
Em erson, “the privilege to be"', a n d it is this identity of know ­
ing a n d being w hich is falling a p a rt in o u r tim e. W e all suffer
to a certain extent from schizophrenia of intellect a n d being.
E ducation has the responsibility of reuniting them , an d lifting
knowledge out of the intellectual process of inform ing into a
sharing of life experience.
Bumble-Baby
My baby’s like a bum blebee,
So ro u n d a n d good w ith fuzzy head
A nd tiny legs all tucked in bed,
A nd she sleeps so busily!
In her dream s, w ith cozy love,
She hum s an d hovers just above
H er little body th ro u g h the sunny
Fields she roam ed before her birth;
Sucks a n d harvests heaven’s honey,
H oards it hom e for hives on earth .
W hen she wakes, she looks up th rough
Eyes like pansy-petal dew;
H er cheeks a n d b re a th are flowers’ too.
Tell m e, baby, w hat are you?
A tiny blossom -bundle, maybe?
A bee-flower? O r a bum ble-baby!
Christy Barnes
9
Early Childhood*
M. C. RICHARDS
T he education o f the child fo llow s seven-year rhythm s, which
are based on R u d o lf Stein er’s observations o f childhood
developm ent. H e explains this fo u n d a tio n on which education
should be based in a sm all book called T h e E ducation of the
Child. It was prepared f o r pub lica tio n in 1909 after he had
given the m aterial in lectures in various places. It seem s a
good place to start to exam ine what stands behind W a ld o rf
schools. I shall a tte m p t here to steer a course through som e
parts o f the content o f the book w hich deal especially with
early childhood. T he quotations fr o m Steiner used in what
follow s are all taken fr o m the above-m entioned book.
W hen I first began to rea d Steiner on education, I was at a
tim e in m y life w hen I h a d h a d enough of high hopes a n d e n ­
thusiasm as a basis for education, an d enough reaction against
som ething. In 1962 I wrote:
I w ant to know why a child is sent to school a t all.
W hy a t one age ra th e r th a n another. W hy he is
ta u g h t one subject now a n d a n o th e r late r on. A n d I
d o n ’t w ant to be told th a t it is to keep up w ith the
enem y or th a t it is legally req u ired or th a t it’s w hat
an expert recom m ends. I w ant to know how it gets
th a t way, in th e enem y’s or the law ’s or ex p e rt’s
m ind. I am not satisfied w ith opportunism or exp eri­
m ent as a ratio n ale o f curriculum . I w ant to know
w hat needs (whose needs) are being served by doing
things one way ra th e r th a n an other, a n d w hat m akes
*This article is draw n from the m anuscript of the book, W holeness in L iv ­
ing and Learning or Steps Toward a N ew Culture by M. C. R ichards.
10
anybody th ink so. I w ant to know w hat happens to
the artist who lives n atu rally in a child’s respon­
siveness to rhythm a n d tone an d color and story,
w hat happens to the child in m an . I w ant to know
why so m any grow n-ups who are sm art in school blow
their brains out in m iddle age, or rely on anxiety
depressants. I w ant the whole story from beginning to
end. T h e re are answers to these questions.
(C entering, W esleyan University Press, 1964.)
W e d o n ’t know all the answers, not even Steiner knew all
the answers, b u t he looked for them in ways which diverge
from the m aterialism of our colleges o f education or from the
piety of parochial schools. It is w orth looking into.
Steiner speaks of the “three births of the h u m a n b e in g .”
T h e first one is the b irth of the physical body, w hich we think
of as the b irth of the child. T h e second is the b irth of the
etheric body* at the change of teeth. T h e th ird is the b irth of
the astral body** at puberty. H e says:
It m ust not be im agined th a t these develop
uniform ly in the h u m a n being, so th a t at any given
point in his life — the m om ent of b irth , for exam ple
— they are all equally developed. T his is not the
case; their developm ent takes place differently in the
different ages o f m a n ’s life. T h e right fou n d atio n for
education, a n d for teaching also, consists in a
knowledge of these laws of the developm ent of
h u m an n atu re.
D uring the first seven years (approxim ately) of the child’s life,
the physical body is form ing its organs. It is the physical e n ­
vironm ent w hich is o f crucial im portance at this period. N ot
only the environm ent of shapes a n d colors an d so forth, b u t
the environm ent o f behavior. T h e child drinks everything in.
Its inner being im itates its surroundings. T h e power of ex am ­
ple teaches.
*The bearer of living form ative forces in plant, anim al and m an.
**The bearer of sentient consciousness in m an and anim al.
11
T h e kind of toys a n d gam es are best w hich allow for fantasy
a n d im agination. “T h e work of the im agination m olds an d
builds the form s o f th e b rain . T h e b ra in unfolds as the
muscles of the h a n d unfold w hen they do work for w hich they
are fitted. Give the child th e so-called ‘p retty ’ doll, a n d the
b rain has n othing m ore to do. Instead o f unfolding, it
becom es stunted an d dried u p .” B etter, he says, to “m ake a
doll for a child by folding u p an old napkin, m aking two co r­
ners into legs, th e o th er two corners into arm s, a knot for the
head, a n d p a in tin g eyes, nose an d m o u th w ith blots of in k .”
He recom m ends toys an d picture books w ith m ovable figures.
T h e colors w hich su rro u n d the child should be selected w ith
awareness th a t it is the com plim entary color which is created
w ithin the child a n d which will influence him . A n excitable
child should be dressed in red; he will inw ardly create the o p ­
posite, green; a n d this activity o f creating green has a calm ing
effect.
Pleasure an d delight, Steiner says, are the forces w hich most
rightly quicken a n d call fo rth the physical form s of the organs.
A t the sam e tim e he speaks of bringing the child “into a right
relationship, physically” w ith things like food. T eachers who
have a happy look a n d m an n er, a n honest unaffected love,
will fill the physical environm ent w ith w arm th. W a rm th “m ay
literally be said to ‘h a tc h o u t’ the form s of the physical
o rg an s.”
T h e value o f ch ild ren ’s songs is stressed. T h e ir rhythm an d
beauty of sound are m ore im p o rta n t th a n their m eaning. Also
the wish of the child to p a in t a n d to scribble w ritten signs an d
letters long before he understands them should be understood
as a deep will to im itate. D ancing m ovem ents in m usical
rhythm have a pow erful influence in building up the physical
organs. A nd w hen the child comes to k in dergarten, he tends
to im itate w hat is alive in the atm osphere.
I have noticed in the schools I have observed th a t there is a
m ark ed sense of form in beginning the day an d in ending it.
W ith the tiny children, it is often sitting in a circle, lighting a
candle, holding hands, saying a verse, singing songs, acting
out a story. A fter the circle, there is play tim e a n d w atercolor
pain tin g . T h e n snacks. T h e n ou td o o r play. M aybe a walk o r
12
work in the garden. O r a p u p p et show on a rainy day. T h en
lunch and n ap . A nd a final circle after playtim e.
In a th ird grade class which I visited recently, th e young
m an teacher stood at the door at the end of the day and
shook each child’s h an d , said goodbye to him or her by nam e,
an d the child as well clasped the h an d , said farewell. “G ood­
bye Neil, Goodbye M r. Levin. Goodbye Amy, Goodbye M r.
Levin. Goodbye M atthew , Goodbye M r. L evin.” A m o m en t’s
pause in the doorway. A contact, a greeting, an affirm ation
of identity and affectionate respect; an acknow ledgem ent of
m eaningful tim e spent together. I was touched by it. A nd it
seem ed to be felt a n d m ean t by the children as well as by Paul
Levin. N ot staged no r artificial. It bespoke th a t special kind of
dignity th a t children have, even with all their pettiness and
disorder a n d falsity.
E ducation of the elem entary school years is based not on in ­
tellect b u t on im agination a n d inner picturing, “ . . . i t is not
abstract ideas th a t have an influence on the developing etheric
body, b u t living pictures th a t are seen and com prehended in ­
w ardly.” T h e ch ild ’s m em ory, w hich is connected w ith the
etheric body, is of course present, b u t not yet ready for ex­
ternal stim ulation. It is sim ply to be nourished b u t not
developed by external m easures d u ring this period. It will then
unfold freely and of its own accord. Likewise the powers of
thought a n d jud g m en t w hich will w aken consciously at p u b e r­
ty, m ust be allowed to unfold w ithout pressure d u rin g these
early years.
W ith the change of teeth, when the etheric body
lays aside its o uter etheric envelope, there begins the
tim e when the etheric body can be worked upon from
w ithout. T h e form ation a n d grow th of the etheric
body m eans the m olding and developing of the in ­
clinations an d habits, of the conscience, the
character, the m em ory a n d tem peram ent. T h e
etheric body is worked upon by pictures a n d e x ­
am ples — i.e. by carefully guiding the im agination of
the child. As before the age of seven we have to give
the child the actual physical p a tte rn for him to copy,
13
so betw een the tim e of th e change of teeth an d
puberty, we m ust b rin g into his environm ent things
w ith the right in n er m ean in g a n d value. For it is
from the inner m eaning an d value of things th a t the
grow ing child will now take guidance. W hatever is
fra u g h t w ith a deep m ean in g th a t works th ro u g h p ic­
tures a n d allegories is the rig h t th in g for these years.
T h e etheric body will u n fo ld its forces if th e wellordered im agination is allowed to take guidance from
the in n er m eaning it discovers for itself in pictures
a n d allegories — w hether seen in real life or com ­
m u n icated to the m ind. It is not ab stract conceptions
th a t work in the rig h t way on the grow ing etheric
body, b u t ra th e r w hat is seen and perceived — not
indeed w ith the ou tw ard senses, b u t w ith the eye of
the m ind. T his seeing a n d perceiving is the rig h t
m eans of ed u catio n for these years.
It is u p o n this g ro u n d o f im agination th a t the later powers
of intellect a n d ju d g m e n t a n d critical thinking will be based.
T hey will be rooted in feeling a n d im agination.
A nother characteristic of children of these years, which
Steiner spells out a n d stresses as essential is the wish o f the
children to love an d respect their teachers. “V eneration and
reverence are forces w hereby th e etheric body grows in the
right way.. . . W here reverence is lacking, the living forces of
the etheric body are stu n ted in th eir g ro w th .”
Steiner em phasizes th e need to develop m em ory in the
elem entary school years an d answers th e arg u m en t against
m em orizing things we d o n ’t as children quite u n d erstan d . He
says th a t “o th er forces of the soul are a t least as necessary as
the intellect if we are to gain a com prehension of things. It is
no m ere figure of speech to say th a t m an can u n d e rsta n d with
his feelings, his sentim ent, his inner disposition, as well as with
his in te lle c t.” H e says th a t real intellectual u n d erstan d in g
comes after puberty. C hildhood is the tim e to store m em ory
w ith cu ltu ral riches, w hich late r can becom e concepts a n d su b ­
jected to ind ep en d en t ju d g m e n t a n d criticism . Steiner quotes a
14
m ost interesting passage from a book on education by Jean
Paul (L evena or Science o f E ducation) supporting this view:
Have no fear of going beyond the childish u n d e r­
standing, even in whole sentences. Your expression
an d th e tone of your voice, aided by the child’s in ­
tuitive eagerness to un d erstan d , will light up h a lf the
m eaning, an d w ith it in the course of tim e the other
half. It is w ith children as w ith the Chinese a n d p eo ­
ple of refinem ent; the tone is h alf the language. . . .
W e are far too prone to credit th e teacher with
everything the children learn. W e should rem em ber
th a t the child we have to educate bears h a lf his world
w ithin him all there and ready tau g h t, nam ely the
spiritual half, including, for exam ple, the m oral and
m etaphysical ideas. For this very reason language,
eq u ip p ed as it is w ith m aterial images alone, cannot
give the spiritual archetypes; all it can do is to
illum ine them .
Jean Paul goes on to praise the gifts children have for invent­
ing words.
T h e curriculum develops out of correlations betw een the
physical developm ent of the grow ing child an d his inner
developm ent.
T h e form of our body develops gradually. T o follow its
changes is a study in itself. Likewise the inner form s of ou r b e ­
ing gradually unfold; an d the thresholds of bodily changes are
also the thresholds of inner developm ent.
W hen one can view the n a tu re of m an, not despis­
ing w hat is physical a n d bodily, one can do a great
deal for the ch ild ren ’s h ealth as a teacher or
educator. It m ust be a fu n d am en tal principle th a t
spirituality is false the m om ent it leads away from the
m aterial to some castle in the clouds. If one has
come to despising the body, an d to saying: O h, the
body is a low thing; it m ust be suppressed, flouted,
one will m ost certainly not acquire the pow er to
15
educate m en soundly. For, you see, you m ay leave
the physical body out of account, an d perhaps can
a tta in to a high state of abstraction in your spiritual
n a tu re , b u t it will be like a balloon in the air, flying
off. A spirituality not related to w hat is physical in
life can give n othing to social evolution on the earth;
an d before one can wing one’s way into the heavens,
one m ust be p rep a re d for the heavens. T his p re p a ra ­
tion has to take place on earth.*
In conform ity w ith the inner developm ent of the child,
history begins with the fairy tale, legend, bible story and
m yth, th en goes on to biography, a n d then w ritten history.
T h e historic consciousness of the child follows in its develop­
m ent the evolution of h u m an consciousness. T h e seventh
graders are learning about revolutions at just the tim e when
they are beginning to feel in themselves a creative change
tow ard the independence of an ad ult, feeling as their bodies
begin to change, the tran sfo rm atio n of d ream in g child into
waking youth.
In an o th er connection, too, the presentation of liv­
ing pictures to the m ind is im p o rta n t for the period
betw een the change of teeth and puberty. It is essen­
tial th a t the secrets of N ature, the laws of life, be
tau g h t to the boy or girl not in dry, intellectual c o n ­
cepts. Parables of the spiritual connections of things
should be b rought before the soul of the child in
such a m a n n e r th a t b eh in d the parables he divines
an d feels, ra th e r th a n grasps intellectually, the
underlying law in all existence. 'A ll th a t is passing is
b u t a p a ra b le ’ m ust be the m axim guiding all our
education in this period. It is of vast im portance for
the child th a t he should receive the secrets of N atu re
in parables before they are bro u g h t before his soul in
the form of ‘n a tu ra l laws’ an d the like. A n exam ple
m ay serve to m ake this clear. Let us im agine th a t we
w ant to tell a child of the im m ortality of the soul, of
*The Spiritual G round o f Education by R udolf Steiner, pp. 110-111.
16
the com ing forth of the soul from the body. T h e way
to do this is to use a com parison, such, for exam ple,
as the com parison of the butterfly com ing forth from
the chrysalis. As the butterfly soars up from the
chrysalis, so after d e a th the soul of m an from the
house of the body. No m an will rightly grasp the fact
in intellectual concepts, who has not first received it
in such a picture. By such a p arable, we speak not
m erely to the intellect b u t to the feeling of the child,
to his soul. A child who has experienced this will a p ­
proach the subject w ith an altogether different m ood
of soul when late r it is ta u g h t him in the form of in ­
tellectual concepts. It is indeed a very serious m atte r
for any m an if he was not first enabled to ap p ro ach
the problem s of existence w ith his feeling. T hus it is
essential th a t the ed u cato r have a t his disposal
parables for all the laws of N a tu re a n d secrets of the
w orld.
In the tra in in g program s for W ald o rf teachers, the a rt of
creating such parables is em phasized. It is an a rt th a t m ust be
practiced with total sincerity an d w ithout condescension. “For
w hen one speaks in p arab le an d picture, it is not only w hat is
spoken an d shown th a t works upon the h earer, b u t a fine
spiritual stream passes from one to the other, from him who
gives to him who receives. If he who tells has not him self the
w arm feeling of belief in his parab le, he will m ake no im pres­
sion on the other. For real effectiveness, it is essential to
believe in one’s parables as in absolute realities. A nd this can
only be when o n e’s th o u g h t is alive w ith spiritual knowledge.
Life flows freely, u n h in d ered , back a n d fo rth from teacher to
p u p il.”
Steiner says the teacher does not need to try to “think u p ”
parables. T hey are the reality he sees w hen his eyes are opened
th ro u g h anthroposophy. T h e pictures are “laid by the forces of
the w orld w ithin the things themselves in the very act of their
creation.. . . T h a t such a th in g as a seed has m ore w ithin it
th a n can be perceived by the senses, this the child m ust grasp
in a living way w ith his feeling a n d im agination. He m ust, in
17
feeling, divine the secrets of existence.” T he sensory world is
the doorway to the spirit.
*
In all these ways and m ore, knowledge is m ade an inner ex ­
perience. T h e child feels the connection betw een him self and
the seasons and the anim als, plants, rocks, the starry skies,
m o u n ta in s a n d rivers, bridges a n d skyscrapers. T h e
m aterialist’s way of thought, Steiner says, will never give rise to
a really practical a rt of education. N arrow ing reality to only
one of its elem ents, it creates a basic m istrust, illness, and, I
w ould add, crim inality. Evil, there is reason to believe, comes
ab o u t w hen the h u m an being is estranged from the depths of
his own n a tu re . These depths can be continually spoken to
th rough p arable, allegory, story, m yth. They are stories th at
connect the h u m an soul a n d life of feeling with external
events. O ur lives are such stories, m oving like m usic, on m ore
th a n one level at once.
The Beetle and the Spider
A beetle, w hich h a d just craw led out of its p u p a, strolled
th ro u g h a m eadow betw een the blades of grass an d huge
flowers an d gazed a t the new sights.
“G reat guns, how the w orld has changed since I last saw it!
T h e sun is m u ch b righter, the leaves and grass are m uch m ore
delicate. How colorful the w orld has become! T h e trails also
are m uch better, a n d w alking is so easy. Everything was so
dull before. How could such a change have come about?”
T h e beetle w andered aro u n d a n d asked its fellow creatures
ab o u t this, one after the other. Finally the glistening, bluegreen beetle m et a very old spider, who h a d seen m uch of the
w orld, a n d she answered:
“You say th a t the world was different — dull a n d colorless
— w hen you were a grub. Look at yourself! T his will give you
the clue.”
— M artin Kurkowski, 12th grade
18
TWO VERSES B Y RUDOLF STEINER
T o educate youth
Is to foster an d tend:
In m atte r — the spirit,
In today — the tom orrow ,
In earthly life —
T h e spirit’s existence.
Translation by
M agda M aier & Tilde von
A Child’s Evening Prayer
From my head to my feet
I’m the picture of God.
From my h eart into my hands
I feel G od’s living breath .
W hen I speak w ith my m outh
I follow G od’s own will.
W hen I gaze on God
In the whole world-all,
In fath er and m other,
In all dear people,
In beast an d flower,
In tree an d stone,
No fear can come near,
Only love
For all th a t’s aro u n d m e here.
Translation by Arvia Ege
19
Songs fo r Children
These songs have been sung f o r som e years by children at the
R u d o lf Steiner School in N ew York. T he B lake songs were
com posed by the wife o f a B ritish playw right o f the last cen­
tury a n d given to Steele M acK aye, the fir s t A m erica n to act
H am let in England. T hey are pu b lish ed here f o r the fir s t tim e.
“T he L ig h t o f S u n ” is a verse fr o m R u d o lf S tein er’s First
M ystery D ram a. W hile he was a class teacher, H arry K retz
com posed the m usic a n d it becam e the school song.
L i t t le L a m b
by W il lia m B la k e
m u s i c c o m p o s e d by L a u r a T a y lo r nem
dsath[olcrui]p-gI:
20
]21
sicop
-ltru
d
n
age:h
[Im
How
neitm
dlsa]p-hg[ocIr:u
22
S weet is the Shepherd’s S weet Lot
by W i l l i a m B l a k e
m usic
byLa u r a T a y lo r
The L ight of S u n
neitm
dlsa]p-hg[ocIr:u b y R u d o l f S t e i n e r
m usic by H a r r y K retz
23
M other a[Im
hitrpouf]n d Child
age:blck-ndw
24
D onald H all
TWO LITTLE MYTHS — Albert Steffen
School Visit
W hile, at a teaparty, they were telling about the deeds of a
truly good and wise m an, a little girl w ith delighted eyes said
suddenly th a t she h ad d ream ed about him . He had come into
her school a n d h a d spit in all directions — w hereupon every
kind of toy h a d appeared: jum ping-jacks, lead soldiers, p u p ­
pets th a t p u t on plays, little horses, tiny see-saws, a n d trains
th a t could take you everywhere; flowers an d bushes th at
grouped themselves into gardens, balls an d little barrels th at
resounded, little rockets th at went off a n d left stars hanging
on the heavens. . . .
“A nd w hat did your teacher say to this m agician th a t cam e
into your classroom ?” som eone asked the child.
“O h, he d id n ’t even notice h im ,” she declared.
Walk Through a Library
I was walking with my favorite teacher th rough the stacks of a
library an d saw, in place of the fam iliar books — p reparations
in alcohol, skulls in fu r caps, helm ets a n d hoods, trousers
hanging from hooks, an d historical puppets out of which
sawdust was running. Most of the things were hung w ith black
an d w ith good reason. I h ad no desire to uncover them .
Suddenly — in the m iddle of the room upon a starem broidered carpet — I saw a child. H e laughed an d stretched
out his arm s to m e. I held him up high in the air and showed
him to my teacher.
“I know him alre ad y ,” he lau g h ed gaily. “H e is my own
p o em .”
— Translation by C.B.
25
Destruction and New Start
o f the Original W aldorf School
AL LANEY
O n a hillside overlooking the city of S tu ttg a rt in the valley of
the N eckar there was enacted on M arch 30, 1938, a scene of
great impressiveness which, taken together w ith its sequel seven
years later and its predecessor in 1919, form s a tab le au of
three scenes of great im p o rtan ce for ed u cation in G erm any
an d th ro u g h o u t the world.
These three scenes in the life of the Free W ald o rf School are
d ram atic exam ples of the triu m p h of m a n ’s spirit over adver­
sity an d the willingness of people to suffer for the sake of an
educational ideal.
T he Closing under H itler
O n this spring day of 1938 T h e W ald o rf School, one of the
last free institutions u n d e r N ational Socialism, was being clos­
ed by governm ent ord er a n d the final assembly was m ade the
occasion of a pilgrim age by friends of the school who h ad
cherished a n d su p p o rted it th ro u g h th e d ark days an d h ad
now com e to jo in w ith the students an d teachers in a pledge of
renew al some day an d by some m eans.
T h e great hall of the school on the hill was packed. A t the
front n ear the stage were the small children swirling about
their teachers like tiny wavelets lap p in g at a n island. B ehind
sat the older classes, each w ith its teacher; an d the young
people of the u p p e r grades closed the ranks.
T h e rows at the back were filled w ith grow n-ups, m en and
wom en from m any walks of life, parents of present an d form er
26
pupils, students from the W aldorf T ra in in g College and the
friends who h ad come from afar. From the balconies hundreds
of form er pupils looked down, once m ore at hom e for a brief
m om ent in the school they h ad loved.
Everyone present, even the smallest children who h ad no
u n d erstanding of the workings of the political tragedy in which
their lives had been caught up, knew w hat this last assembly
m eant. How different from the other joyous occasions when
they had g ath ered here!
T h e cerem ony was sim ple and direct. Each teacher spoke to
his or her class, a n d th rough his words each child received the
message th a t his beloved school was no m ore. T h en the school
orchestra played the Fifth Sym phony of Beethoven, which one
of the school’s founders h a d called the Sym phony of Destiny.
Finally, C ount Fritz B othm er, the school’s ch airm an who had
conducted the long a n d painful negotiations w ith the Nazi
authorities, rose.
T he building in which they were assem bled, C ount B othm er
said, h ad been constructed on the form of a cross a n d from
the spot where he stood, at the junction of the two arm s, the
founders of the W ald o rf School h ad often spoken to parents
and pupils.
“H e re ,” he said, “our m ost beautiful a n d impressive festivals
have taken place. H ere the h e a rt of the W ald o rf School has
shone forth m ost lum inously. This institution is founded on the
form of the cross a n d upon the nam e of H im who died upon
the cross b u t continues to live in those h u m a n beings who
offer H im a dwelling place in their hearts. T herefore, the
h e a rt of this school also continues to live.”
At this point C ount B othm er asked the assembly to rise, and
continued: “I have now the task of pronouncing th a t, upon
the decree of the W uerttem b erg governm ent, the W aldorf
School is closed. Let us then, w ith the power of love, seal up
our school in the deepest recesses of our hearts for the fu tu re .”
O n the following day nearly all the thousand an d m ore p res­
ent at this cerem ony were present at an o th er scene as far
rem oved as is possible to im agine. T his one was enacted at the
S tu ttg art railway station w here A dolf H itler, retu rn in g in
27
triu m p h from the accom plishm ent of the Anschluss in A ustria,
stopped off to receive the frenzied Heils of his followers and
the hom age-by-order of all the others.
T eachers, pupils a n d friends of the now defunct W ald o rf
School stood on the fringes of the hysterical crowd, u n ab le to
see into the fu tu re for themselves or for G erm any, un ab le even
to think beyond the day, b u t know ing in their hearts th a t the
day w ould com e, however long delayed, w hen dictators were
not a n d education w ould be free again.
R e b u ild in g out o f the R uins
T h a t day cam e for the W ald o rf School in O ctober of 1945
in vastly different physical a n d spiritual surroundings on the
sam e hillside, w hen the school was re-opened u n d e r w hat d if­
ficulties never will be adequately told. But here was living
pro o f th a t the words spoken an d the pledge taken in 1938 h ad
not been forgotten.
T h e once lovely city lay in ruins. Its streets were littered
w ith rubble an d the houses were b u rn t-o u t shells. People lived
in cellars an d provisional shelters. T h e children o f the town,
grow n u p w ithout fathers, presented a pitiful picture as, ra g ­
ged, barefoot a n d hungry, full of restlessness a n d fear and
weakened m oral feeling, they played am ong the twisted beam s
a n d piles of rubbish or g ath ered cigarette ends on the pave­
m ent to sell at black m arket prices.
B ut there on a fragm ent of the wall of the wrecked m ain
b uilding of the W ald o rf School, p a in te d in large letters by
some form er student, were the words, “W e W ill Be B ack.”
These words h a d stood for seven years against b o th the vindic­
tiveness of the Nazi G estapo an d the fury o f A llied bom bings,
an d still were there as a symbol th a t the spirit o f freedom h ad
not died.
A nd so, on the very day the occupation troops en tered S tu tt­
gart, a little group of people em erged from the chaos to m eet
in a su b u rb an house a n d discuss the fate of the children. Some
were form er teachers a t the W ald o rf School, some were
p arents a n d some, form er pupils now grow n to m an h o o d an d
28
w om anhood in a tim e of destruction when all th a t rem ained
seem ed to be an anim al-like need to struggle for survival. All
h ad carried the school in their hearts through seven years of
hardship.
T his group was addressed by Dr. Eric Schwebsch, a form er
teacher of the school, who told them th a t the words spoken in
1938 h ad not been m ere phrases an d th a t now was the tim e to
start again even though the difficulties m ight seem in su r­
m ountable. T h e need to re-open, Dr. Schwebsch said, was
urgent, for the hope of G erm any lay with these children who
roam ed the rubble and knew not w here to turn.
T h e school h a d been bom bed out, its m ain building was a
burned-out ru in and all other buildings were badly dam aged.
T h e school yard was a huge mass of wreckage th a t only the
m ost m odern salvage m achines seem ed likely to clear. But into
this mess o f destruction Dr. Schwebsch and his b a n d plunged
w ith hardly m ore th an their hands as tools.
As they worked, their num bers grew. A t the original
m eeting several form er pupils, now grown beyond school age,
volunteered to brin g the word to teachers and friends wherever
they could be found. O n bicycles they crossed zone lines,
searching everywhere, and one by one those teachers who had
survived cam e trickling back.
All th a t long first sum m er they worked, on the edge of s ta r­
vation, an d the trickle of those in whom the spirit h ad been
kept alive grew into a stream . They cam e from wherever they
were an d by w hatever m eans of travel they could find as soon
as the word h a d been b rought to them .
In th a t sum m er the rubble was cleared w ith a few spades
an d m any pairs of hands. T h e dam age to m inor buildings was
repaired and two provisional wooden structures were built. In
a tim e when no building m aterial was apparently to be had,
these people somehow found it. T h e ir own hom es were in
ruins b u t the school cam e first. T hey acquired the m aterial
actually by a com plicated system of b a rte r and exchange in
w hich food, cigarettes a n d clothing were m ore valuable th an
gold. A nd they h a d enorm ous help from the friendly A m erican
m ilitary authorities.
29
In O ctober, 1945, the school re-opened with a solem n and
touching cerem ony th a t stem m ed directly from the closing
cerem ony of 1938. M ore th a n 500 pupils were present on
opening day, twelve com plete grades were form ed, a n d of
these only a h an d fu l in the two u p p e r classes h a d been pupils
seven years earlier.
T h e difficulties these children a n d their p arents h a d to over­
com e in order to a tte n d classes were alm ost incredible. No
fam ily h a d enough to eat or enough clothes to go around.
Some pupils could come only irregularly because the fam ily
h ad only one p air of shoes th a t was shared. T ra n sp o rtatio n
was so poor th a t some children from the surrounding country
h a d to leave hom e at daw n each day and did n o t get back
u n til long after dark.
Still they cam e, a n d from the first day the school h a d a long
w aiting list of fam ilies eager for their children to atten d .
W hile the rest of the city an d the rest of G erm any b e ­
m oaned their fate, the W ald o rf teachers, pupils an d parents
began their work, full of faith in the future. An arm y officer
present a t the opening said th a t the school was “like a n island
of hope in an ocean of d e sp air.” Dr. Schwebsch spoke of the
“blessing of a second s ta r t.”
F ounding and Growth — “A Lasting H u m a n P urpose”
T o u n d e rsta n d w hat h a d taken place here on the hillside, it
is necessary now to tu rn to the opening scene of the tab leau
w hich was enacted at a tim e of alm ost sim ilar chaos in
G erm any. In 1919 the w orld h a d blu n d ered into a peace th a t
was a c o n tin u atio n of war, a n d the ideas w ith which m en
hoped to b uild a new a n d better w orld could not cope w ith
the realities of life.
T h e th u n d ersto rm of the First W orld W a r has not tau g h t
m en th a t the outw orn conceptions of the 18th and 19th cen ­
turies could no longer apply, for m en h a d slept th ro u g h the
storm , em erging from it w ith the sam e basic habits of tho u g h t
w ith w hich they entered.
T h ere were m en in 1919, however, who recognized the true
situation a n d who saw th a t the ideas w ith w hich it was hoped
30
to build a p erm an en t peace were hopelessly o u td ate d an d
could produce only confusion. Because of the breakdow n of
outer conditions, G erm any was open to new impulses as she
h ad never been before, a n d in the m idst of these conditions a
farsighted industrialist, Dr. Emil M olt, owner of the W aldorf
Astoria cigarette factory in S tu ttg art, cam e to R udolf Steiner,
philosopher and ed ucator, w ith the request th a t he found a
school for the children of M olt’s 4,250 factory workers.
Emil M olt was a m an of w ealth an d great influence, and he
was deeply concerned w ith the social and econom ic problem s
of the times. He recognized th a t all these problem s h ad their
source in the central problem of the h u m an being himself; he
wished, in a tim e of econom ic breakdow n and social revolu­
tion, to use his w ealth for a lasting h u m a n purpose.
H e believed th a t the most effective way to achieve this was
to found a school w here children would receive a truly h u m an
education which would help them to take their places in life
no m atte r w hat the o uter conditions m ight be. A nd he tu rn e d
to R udolf Steiner as the ed ucator whom he considered best
able to create such a school.
Steiner accepted the task on two conditions: th a t he be free
from every political, econom ic or religious control in following
his educational principles, a n d th a t children o f every social
and econom ic class be ad m itted. T h e school was to be “fre e ,”
he said, as an artist is free to create out of the necessities of
his m aterial.
C urriculum an d teaching m ethods were to evolve from
insight into the n a tu re of m an , arrived at by m eans of the in ­
vestigation of supersensible realities according to the disciplines
of scientific thought and observation. It was to the w inning of
this knowledge an d the developm ent of a clear, contem porary
p a th to its achievem ent th at R udolf Steiner h a d devoted his
life and it was the recognition by Emil M olt th a t his
knowledge aw akened creative capacities in those who worked
with it, leading them to practical a n d helpful results, which
h ad m oved him to ap p ro ach R udolf Steiner on beh alf of the
school he wished to found. This was not to be just one m ore
pedagogical experim ent, b u t a response to the spiritual and
social needs of the times.
31
T h e faculty w ould be the real leaders of the school and,
u n d e r no outside influence, w ould be free to build the school
out of its own necessity. T h e school was to be m aintained
entirely by gift m oney if th a t were possible, or by gift m oney
and tuitions if it were not. T h e ideal w ould be no tu ition fees
at all, b u t this proved impossible because of an already
im pending terrible inflation in G erm any.
T his educational idea was in com plete contrast to the system
then prevailing in G erm any, w here the A b itu r, the stiff
en tran ce exam ination for the universities, was the goal of
secondary education. G erm an children w ent to elem entary
public schools w here tuition was free, from the ages of six to
ten. T h e n the p arents decided, chiefly according to the state
of their purses, w hether the child should go to the Gym nasium
for eight m ore years a n d becom e an “in te lle c tu a l,” or stay in
the Volksschule a n d p rep are for a m an u a l profession. T h e
child’s fu tu re was thus d eterm ined a t the age of ten and the
tra d itio n of the G erm an education was to create separate
social castes.
Dr. M olt purchased for the new school a building th a t had
housed a fashionable resta u ra n t, b ringing dow n u p o n him self
a t the start the disapproval of the elite of S tu ttg art who had
dined there for generations. H ere, Steiner g ath ered together
the han d fu l of m en a n d wom en he h ad selected as teachers
a n d conducted an intensive course in the new pedagogy with
daily lectures, sem inars an d dem onstrations.
O n the day the W ald o rf School was scheduled to open,
nearly 400 children w ith their fu tu re teachers g ath ered in the
courtyard of the form er resta u ra n t building an d were
separated into age groups. A nd there, on the spot, Steiner
assigned the teachers to the grades, declaring th a t it was
necessary to see the teachers in the presence of the children
before deciding w hich should take w hich group.
T h e school started u n d er the best o f auspices, w ith a
cerem ony in a large hall in the center of S tu ttg a rt which
followed im m ediately on this initial assembly. T h e hall was
filled to overflowing w ith m ore th a n 2,000 persons, am ong
32
them the M inister of E ducation for W uerttem berg, a Socialist
who was favorably disposed tow ard the new venture.
W ithin a year of its founding the school h ad ab o u t 800
pupils an d at its peak about 1,000; it was lim ited only by its
physical capacities. These pupils included boys and girls of
every creed an d class and from alm ost every p a rt of the world.
T h e curriculum an d teaching m ethods a ttra c te d educators
from m any countries who carried them back to their own
homes, with the result th at schools w orking with the W aldorf
pedagogy grew u p in Sw itzerland, A ustria, H olland, Norway,
Sweden, England an d the U nited States.
Those who knew the school at this tim e felt th a t here was a
group, although still sm all, of young people who could break
th rough national barriers a n d conventional, routine thinking
to a genuine internationalism which w ould not be satisfied
w ith em pty phrases.
A nd then cam e 1933 and the rise of H itler to power. From
th a t day the W ald o rf School an d the, by now, nine other
Steiner Schools in G erm any were doom ed. By their very n atu re
they could not conform to the Nazi ideas of education.
T h e reasons were bluntly stated in the press of the day. T h e
W aldorf Schools developed individuals, whereas the task of
education in a N ational Socialist State was to produce N ational
Socialists. Tw o such opposed systems of education could not
exist in a single state.
But ideas a n d ideals such as these live all the m ore in te n ­
sively a n d inw ardly w hen outw ardly suppressed and, as the
th ird scene in the tab leau dem onstrated, wherever the spirit
lived in G erm any unseen th ro u g h the d ark years, there was an
ally for the cause of freedom and a sure collaborator in the
task of the re-education of m ankind.
There are at present well over 180 R u d o lf Steiner schools in
some 20 countries o f the fr e e world, though none behind the
Iron Curtain. F ifteen o f these are in N o rth A m erica, where a
n u m b er m ore are in the process o f establishing themselves.
— T he E ditor
33
Education fo r Adolescents*
R U D O LF STE IN ER
W h en ch ild ren com e to the age of puberty, it is necessary to
aw aken w ithin th em an ex traordinarily g reat interest in the
w orld outside of themselves. T h ro u g h the whole way in which
they are educated, they m ust be led to look o ut into the w orld
a ro u n d them a n d into all its laws, its course, causes an d
effects, into m en ’s intentions a n d goals — not only into h u m an
beings, b u t into everything, even into a piece of m usic, for
instance. All this m ust be b ro u g h t to them in such a way th a t
it can resound on a n d on w ithin them — so th a t questions
a b o u t n a tu re , a b o u t the cosmos a n d the entire w orld, ab o u t
the h u m a n soul, questions of history — so th a t riddles arise in
their youthful souls.
W hen the astral body** becom es free at puberty, forces are
freed w hich can now be used for form u latin g these riddles.
B ut w hen these riddles of the w orld a n d its m anifestations do
not arise in young souls, th en these sam e forces are changed
into som ething else.
W hen such forces becom e free, a n d it has not been possible
to aw aken the m ost intensive interest in such w orld-riddles,
th en these energies transform them selves into w hat they
becom e in m ost young people today. T hey change in two
directions into urges of an instinctive kind: first into delight in
pow er, a n d second into eroticism .
*This text consists of excerpts from a lecture given in S tu ttg art on Ju n e 21,
1922. In a few cases the repetitions appropriate for spoken style have been
om itted an d sentences condensed. T ranslation by C.B. [C
ane]
hristyB
**A term used to designate all th a t is sentient in m an an d in anim als.
34
U nfortunately pedagogy does not now consider this delight
in power and the eroticism of young people to be the second­
ary results of changes in things th a t, until the age of 20 or 21,
really ought to go in an altogether different direction, but
considers them to be n a tu ra l elem ents in the h u m an organism
at puberty. If young people are rightly educated, there should
be no need w hatsoever to speak ab o u t love of power and
eroticism to them at this age. If such things have to be spoken
about d u ring these years, this is in itself som ething th a t smacks
of illness. O u r entire pedagogical a rt an d science is becom ing
ill because again an d again the highest value is a ttrib u te d to
these questions. A high value is put u p o n them for no other
reason th a n th a t people are powerless today — have grown
m ore and m ore powerless in the age of a m aterialistic worldconception — to inspire tru e interest in the w orld, the world
in the widest sense. . . .
W hen we do not have enough interest in the world aro u n d
us, then we are throw n back into ourselves. T ak en all in all,
we have to say th a t if we look at the chief dam ages created by
m odern civilization, they arise prim arily because people are far
too concerned w ith themselves and do not usually spend the
larger p a rt of their leisure tim e in concern for the w orld b ut
busy themselves w ith how they feel an d w hat gives them
p ain . . . . A nd the least favorable tim e of life to be self­
occupied in this way is d u rin g the ages betw een 14, 15 an d 21
years old.
T h e capacity for form ing judgm ents is blossom ing at this
tim e a n d should be directed tow ard w orld-interrelationships in
every field. T h e world m ust becom e so all-engrossing to young
people th a t they simply do not tu rn their a tte n tio n away from
it long enough to be constantly occupied w ith themselves. For,
as everyone knows, as far as subjective feelings are concerned,
p ain only becomes greater the m ore we think ab o u t it. It is
not the objective d am age b u t the p ain of it th a t increases as
we think m ore about it. In c ertain respects, the very best
rem edy for the overcom ing of p ain is to b rin g yourself, if you
can, not to think ab o u t it. Now th ere develops in young
people just betw een 15, 16 an d 20, 21, som ething not
35
altogether unlike pain. T his a d a p ta tio n to the conditions
b ro u g h t a b o u t th ro u g h the freeing of the astral body from the
physical is really a con tin u al experience o f gentle pain. A nd
this k ind of experience im m ediately m akes us ten d tow ards
self-preoccupation, unless we are sufficiently directed away
from it an d tow ard the w orld outside ourselves. . . .
If a teacher m akes a m istake while teaching a 10 or 12 year
old, then, as far as the m u tu a l relationship betw een pupil and
teacher is concerned, this does not really m ake such a very
great difference. By this I do not m ean th a t you should m ake
as m any m istakes as possible w ith children of this age.. . . T h e
feeling for the tea c h e r’s au thority will flag perhaps for a while,
b u t such things will be forgotten com paratively quickly, in any
case m u ch sooner th a n c e rtain injustices are forgotten a t this
age. O n the o ther h an d , w hen you stan d in front of students
betw een 14, 15 a n d 20, 21, you simply m ust not expose your
late n t inadequacies an d so m ake a fool of yourself. . . .
If a student is u n ab le to form ulate a question w hich he ex­
periences inwardly, the teacher m ust be capable of doing this
himself, so th a t he can b rin g ab o u t such a fo rm ulation in
class, a n d
he m ust be able to satisfy th e feeling th a t then
arises in the students w hen the question comes to expression.
For if he does not do this, th en w hen all th a t is m irro red there
in the souls of these young people goes over into the w orld of
sleep, into the sleeping condition, a body of detrim en tal,
poisonous substances is p ro d u ced by th e u n fo rm u la ted ques­
tions. These poisons are developed only d u rin g the night, just
w hen poisons ought really to be broken dow n a n d transform ed
instead of
created. Poisons are pro d u ced th a t b u rd en the
brains of the young people w hen they go to class, a n d g ra d u a l­
ly everything in them stagnates, becom es “stopped u p .” This
m ust a n d can be avoided. B ut it can only be avoided if the
feeling is not aroused in the students: “Now again the teacher
has failed
to give us the rig h t answer. H e really h a sn ’t
answ ered us at all. W e c a n ’t get a satisfying answer o ut of
h im .” Those are the late n t inadequacies, the self-exposures
th a t occur w hen th e children have the feeling: “T h e teacher
just isn’t up to giving us th e answers we n e e d .” A nd for this
36
inability, the personal capacities a n d incapacities of the
teacher are not the only determ ining factors, b u t ra th e r the
pedagogical m ethod.
If we spend too m uch tim e p o uring a mass of inform ation
over young people at this age, or if we teach in such a way
th at they never come to lift their doubts an d questions into
consciousness, then the teacher — even though he is the m ore
objective party — exposes, even if indirectly, his laten t in ­
adequacies. . . .
You see the teacher m ust, in full consciousness, be
perm eated th rough and th ro u g h w ith all this when he deals
w ith the transition from the n in th to the ten th grades, for it is
just with the entire transform ation of the courses one gives
th a t the pedagogy m ust concern itself. If we have children of
six or seven, then the course is already set th ro u g h the fact
th a t they are entering school, a n d we do not need to u n d e r­
stand any other relationship to life. But w hen we lead young
people over from the n in th to the ten th grade, then we m ust
p u t ourselves into quite an o th er life-condition. W hen this h a p ­
pens, the children m ust say to themselves: “G reat th u n d er an d
lightning! W h a t’s hap p en ed to the teacher! Up to now we’ve
thought of him as a pretty brig h t light who has plenty to say,
b u t now he’s beginning to talk like m ore th an a m an . W hy,
the whole w orld speaks out of him !”
A nd when they feel the m ost intensive interest in p a rticu la r
world questions a n d are p u t into the fo rtu n a te position of
being able to im p a rt this to o th er young people, then the
world speaks out of th em also. O ut of a m ood of this kind,
verve (Schw ung) m ust arise. Verve is w hat teachers m ust brin g
to young people at this age, verve w hich above all is directed
towards im agination; for although the students are developing
the capacity to m ake judgm ents, jud g m en t is actually borne
out of the powers of im agination. A nd if you deal w ith the
intellect intellectually, if you are not able to deal w ith the
intellect with a certain im agination, then you have “misp layed,” you have missed the b o at w ith them .
Young people dem an d im aginative powers; you m ust
ap proach them w ith verve, a n d w ith verve o f a kind th a t co n ­
37
vinces them . Scepticism is som ething th at you m ay not bring
to them at this age, th a t is in the first h alf of this life-period.
T h e m ost dam aging jud g m en t for the tim e betw een 14, 15
a n d 18 is one th a t implies in a pessimistically knowledgeable
way: “T h a t is som ething th a t cannot be know n.” This crushes
the soul of a child or a young person. It is m ore possible after
18 to pass over to w hat is m ore or less in doubt. But betw een
14 an d 18 it is soul-crushing, soul-debilitating, to introduce
them to a certain scepticism. W h at subject you deal w ith is
m uch less im p o rta n t th a n th a t you do not bring this
debilitating pessimism to young people.
It is im p o rtan t for oneself as a teacher to exercise a certain
am o u n t of self-observation an d not give in to any illusions; for
it is fatal if, just a t this age, young people feel cleverer th an
the teacher d u rin g class, especially in secondary m atters. It
should be — and it can be achieved, even if not right in the
first lesson — th at they are so gripped by w hat they hear th at
their atten tio n will really be diverted from all the tea c h e r’s
little m annerism s. H ere, too, the teach er’s laten t inadequacies
are the m ost fatal.
Now if you think, my d ear friends, th a t neglect of these
m atters unloads its consequences into the channels of instinc­
tive love of power an d eroticism , th en you will see from the
beginning how trem endously significant it is to take the e d u c a ­
tion of these young people in h a n d in a bold a n d generous
way. You can m uch m ore easily m ake m istakes w ith older
students, let us say w ith those at m edical school. For w hat
you do a t this earlier age works into their later life in an
extraordinarily devastating way. It works destructively, for
instance, u p o n the relationships betw een people. T h e right
kind of interest in o th er h u m an beings is not possible if the
right sort of w orld-interest is not aroused in the 15 or 16
year old. If they learn only the K ant-L aplace theory of the
creation of the solar system and w hat one learns through
astronom y an d astrophysics today, if they cram into their skulls
only this idea of the cosmos, th en in social relationships they
will be just such m en an d wom en as those of our m odern
civilization who, o u t of anti-social impulses, shout ab o u t every
38
kind of social reform b u t w ithin their souls actually brin g a n ti­
social powers to expression. I have often said th a t the reason
people m ake such an outcry ab o u t social m atters is because
m en are antisocial beings.
It cannot be said often enough th a t in the years betw een 14
and 18 we m ust build in the m ost careful way upon the fu n ­
dam entally basic m oral relationship betw een pupil a n d
teacher. A nd here m orality is to be understood in its broadest
sense: th at, for instance, a teacher calls up in his soul the very
deepest sense of responsibility for his task. T his m oral attitu d e
m ust show itself in th a t we do not give all too m uch
acknow ledgem ent to this deflection tow ard subjectivity and
one’s own personality. In such m atters, im ponderables really
pass over from teacher to pupil. M ournful teachers, u n ­
alterably m orose teachers, who are imm ensely fond of their
lower selves, produce in children of just this age a faithful
m irro r picture, or if they do not, kindle a terrible revolution.
M ore im p o rta n t th a n any approved m ethod is th a t we do not
expose ou r laten t inadequacies a n d th a t we ap p ro ach the
children w ith a n a ttitu d e th a t is inw ardly m oral th ro u g h and
th r o u g h .. . .
T his sickly eroticism which has grow n up — also in people’s
m inds — to such a terrible extent appears for the m ost p a rt
only in city dwellers, city dwellers who have becom e teachers
an d doctors. A nd only as u rb a n life trium phs altogether in our
civilization will these things come to such a terrible - I do
not w ant to say “blossom ing” b u t to such a frightful —
degeneracy. N aturally we m ust look not at appearances b u t at
reality. It is certainly quite unnecessary to begin to organize
educational hom es in the country im m ediately. If teachers and
pupils carry these sam e detrim en tal feelings out into the c o u n ­
try a n d are really p erm eated by u rb a n conceptions, you can
call a school a country educational hom e as long as you like,
you will still have a blossom ing of city life to deal w ith. . . .
W h a t we have spoken ab o u t here today is of the utm ost
pedagogical im p o rtan ce and, in considering the high school
years, should be tak en into the m ost earnest consideration.
39
To Have, To Be and To Become
W ords T o A n A udience O f Y oung People
KARL EGE
This short address, w hich speaks to yo u n g people out o f long
life experience and spiritual insight, is an exam ple o f how it is
possible to reach into the realm where their inner questions
are rooted, and by helping th em to raise these affirm atively in ­
to consciousness, shed light upon their answers. It is taken
fr o m Karl E g e ’s recently published book, An Evident N eed of
O ur Times, which deals with aspects o f W a ld o rf education in
relation to the dilem m as o f our age, and with its fu r th e r
developm ent in a new direction indicated by R u d o lf Steiner at
the end o f his life.
— T he E ditor
My dear young friends —
T o night I shall speak to you ab o u t two small words: — to
have a n d to be — having a n d being — or we m ight say — I
have an d I am .
T o illustrate w hat I m ean, I shall tell you a story.
A young soldier — it is the tim e of the First W orld W ar —
who h a d been poisoned by m u stard gas in the trenches, had
developed a lung hem orrhage. He knew w hat this m eant. D u r­
ing the seven or eight m onths th a t he h a d been in the hospital
for treatm en t, h ad he not seen m any o f his com rades die
th rough this same event? T hey h a d all actually been suffocated
in th eir own blood as it filled th e respiratory tra c t. H e was
b rought from a room , where he h a d been w ith h a lf a dozen
o ther patients, into a single room — a procedure he knew well
a n d w hat it m eant.
40
Reviewing his short life, he considered w hat it h a d b ro u g h t
him , w hat h a d been given him : parents, childhood, school,
arm y training, the battlefield. H e him self h a d earn ed very lit­
tle — his soldier’s pay. All he h a d he h a d received — it h a d
been given to him .
A nd then he thought w hat life d u rin g forty, fifty, sixty years
m ight b ring him . H e im agined w ealth, h ealth, a successful,
im p o rta n t career, a happy fam ily life — all th a t a lucky
destiny m ight bring. All th a t he m ight “h a v e .”
A nd yet, in the end, all of this he w ould have to leave
again. T here was n o thing o f all these worldly goods he could
take w ith him . W as it so terrible, then, not to have all of this?
All th a t I “have” at this m om ent a n d leave behind m e — he
thought to him self — is my body w hich gave m e an existence
on this plan et e a rth . A nd yet I a m , a n d the m an n e r in which
I experience my own being will not go from m e as does my
body. O f w hat n a tu re then is this “I a m ” an d w hat kind of ex­
istence will it have — in w hat environm ent?
Suddenly, as he po n d ered thus, there was w ithin him a feel­
ing of inner light an d w ith it the conviction — not a belief —
b u t a knowing, th a t there is an o th er life w here I am .
B ut our young m an d id not die. A nd it took him quite some
tim e to realize th a t his life h a d to continue here on this side of
the threshold. T his experience, however, of “to have” a n d “to
b e ” guided him a n d determ ined his strivings, his interests and
his deeds thro u g h o u t the next fifty years.
A nd d u rin g these fifty years he h a d all m an n e r of ex­
periences. H e lived the life th a t he h a d im agined. H e did not
have w ealth, full health , success, o r m any of the things he h a d
pictured. But he h a d other, m ore extrao rd in ary experiences:
spiritual riches, th e joy of work, struggles, suffering an d gifts,
far beyond any of his im aginings. A nd after m any w anderings,
he h a d a hom e, a g arden, a car a n d all the m any things th a t
life h a d b ro u g h t him .
T h e n once again, he lay in a hospital very ill w ith
pneum onia. H e spoke w ith the m an in the bed next to him . A
strong m an who h a d w orked h a rd all his life. B ut the words
they exchanged becam e fewer, his voice w eaker, an d th en one
41
night he died. T hey carried him away, w ith the few earthly
belongings he h a d b rought w ith him , a n d the room was e m p ­
ty. H ere again was a n experience of the “to have” and the “to
b e ” — a n d a few days later, as he was being driven hom e
th ro u g h the clear, sun-filled air of w inter, there stood before
him vividly the question:
W h a t th en do I now own in reality? W h at is really mine?
All the physical things I have acquired: my hom e, this car, my
body — I shall have to leave them all even as did my co m p a­
nion in the hospital. I am only the user. But w hat about all
th a t I have experienced th ro u g h living w ith them , acquiring
them , using them . Does this m ean nothing? W h at can “I , ” this
“I a m ,” really call my own?
A nd there cam e to his m ind an o th er sm all word: “to
becom e.”
Becom ing, m atu rin g , the gaining of life experience an d in ­
sight, of m oral developm ent th rough th e good a n d the evil
w hich I have done; this is evolution. Evolution is the m ethod
of creation, o f becom ing. Yet I cannot achieve this alone. I
have not bro u g h t m yself into existence. W h at has been given
to m e, a n d the way it has been given, have all been provided.
How do I myself exist? W ho am I?
By m eans of an im age, we m ay becom e aw are of an answer.
T h e p lan t is draw n up out of the darkness of the e a rth by
the light of the sun. It needs the sun forces. W ithout them it
perishes. So, too, am I draw n forth into existence by a
spiritual sunlight — th a t Light of the W orld W ho said: I am
the W ay, the T r u th an d the Life.
Just as the p la n t’s life — so is my being, a gift. Pondering
how it is given, w hat is given, an d in w hat way I use it, I
becom e aw are o f the reality o f destiny — of the p a tte rn by
which this gift is given, grows a n d becomes — destiny, both
cosmic a n d personal.
Standing thus before this mystery of my own being, I look
u p to the creative w orking of a divine will a n d am filled with
the striving to grow tow ards it, as does the plan t, to become
its tru e instrum ent. In its presence, g ratitu d e an d confidence
42
grow strong — confidence th a t there is an inner necessity and
lawfulness related w ith my innerm ost self in all th a t happens
to m e, while, on the other h a n d , w ith sharp awareness, a deep
sense of responsibility awakens. For all this — this gift — is
given into my own hands. W h at use will I m ake of it? W h at
will it becom e th ro u g h me? T his becom ing is now not only a
gift, but my own deed, my tran sfo rm atio n of the “to have”
into the “to b e .” H ere, in this act o f becom ing, e a rth a n d sun
— just as w ith the p lan t, b u t now in free activity th ro u g h m e
— are un ited in one deed of creation. H erein lies my tru e
being. T his is my own — th a t I am free to work u p o n a n d to
particip ate in — b u t also to neglect. It is, thus, m y own free
goal, a n d at the sam e tim e, the goal of the highest spiritual
beings who have created m e — the fru it of their work of c re a ­
tion. T his will stay w ith m e th ro u g h all eternity, w hen all else
is left behind.
Looking about us at this critical p oint of tim e in w hich we
live, when the prim e em phasis in life is on “to h a v e ,” w ith the
result th a t h u m a n civilization hangs on the brin k of d estru c­
tion, m ust we not say: T oday it is no longer a question of “to
be or not to b e ,” b u t it is a question of “to becom e or not to
becom e."
T h e divine beings say to us: H ere are the powers a n d help
you need. W e give them to you. B ut you have to recognize
an d n u rtu re them , to take them an d use them . — T his is your
freedom : a n d therefore, also, your responsibility. Just as food
is given to you by N a tu re — th o u g h you m ust first cultivate it,
prep are an d e a t it if you are not to die; ju st as you m ust
digest a n d transform it if you are to be nourished a n d to
grow — so spiritually you m ust cultivate, digest a n d transform
the life a n d destiny th a t is given you, in ord er to becom e. It
lies in your freedom to recreate the given, a n d thereby to
create, to becom e yourself — your highest goal, so th a t you
m ay in tu rn becom e a giver.
T h ro u g h this m ystery of “b eco m in g ,” you will in this way —
even as the ripening p la n t — provide a new store o f living
nourishm ent for others, for the w orld a n d for all eternity.
43
About Goetheanistic Science
HANS G EBERT
T h e fear th a t science, a n d the technology it has fathered,
m ight destroy o u r environm ent is often expressed nowadays.
This fear itself is a m anifestation of a new spirit w hich has
been a b ro ad since the m iddle of this century. Some of its
o ther m anifestations are the w idespread rejection of A m erican
work ethics, the increasing refusal to recognize m erit as a valid
basis for advancem ent in society, and the search for m ethods
of expanding consciousness by use of drugs, m ed itation, or in
other ways. C harles Reich is a typical p ro p h et of the m ore ex­
trem e m anifestations of this new sp irit.1 T h e change of outlook
he an d others describe is as profound as the one w hich started
aro u n d the 15th century an d led to the Renaissance in Italy
a n d to H um anism fu rth e r n o rth . T h e change from A ristotelian
science to N ew tonian science was p a rt of th a t change in
outlook. T h e cosmos a n d the e a rth were experienced quite dif­
ferently before an d after th a t change. H anson, in a searching
inquiry regarding scientific m ethod, asks w hether K epler and
Tycho B rahe each saw the sam e thing w hen they w atched the
d a w n .2 They were contem poraries, b u t Tycho B rahe accepted
the theory of a stationary ea rth and a m oving sun, while for
Kepler the state of affairs was reversed. H anson suggests in
effect th a t observation cannot be separated from the way one
thinks about phenom ena. C ertainly the change of view-point
m ade old questions m eaningless a n d suggested new ones. For
instance, a question ab o u t the influence of the stars on te r­
1.R eich, Charles: The Greening o f Am erica (R andom House, New York,
1970).
2.H anson, Norwood R .: Patterns o f Discovery (Cam bridge University Press,
London, 1958) p. 5.
44
restrial events was very m eaningful in the A ristotelian universe.
T h e ea rth was at the center of the sphere of each of the
planets, a n d the m otion of the planetary spheres conditions the
m ovem ent of the visible spot of light we call the plan et. In the
N ew tonian universe — in w hich the m otion of the planets is
determ ined by the su n ’s gravitational forces, in w hich the same
forces at work betw een the planets have very sm all effects, an d
the forces exerted by the fixed stars have negligible effects —
astrology becomes a dubious science. O n the o th er h a n d it
becomes of great interest to investigate how terrestrial objects
a ttra c t or repel each o ther an d how they move w hen propelled
by such forces. T h e changes described go h a n d in h a n d w ith a
breathtakingly ra p id developm ent of the capacity for abstract
m ath em atical thought. W h eth er the new science caused the
developm ent in m athem atics or vice versa is a question d if­
ficult to answer. P erhaps it is best to content ourselves by
noting their m u tu a l influence.
I shall try to characterize in this article some aspects of a
new m ethodology in science, w hich began to develop in the
m iddle of the last century. I believe th a t it accom panies the
changes noted by Reich a n d others, ju st as the rise of N ew ­
tonian science accom panied the transition from a feudal socie­
ty to the m odern age.
Since G oethe, the G erm an poet-statesm an-scientist, was one
of the first consistent practitioners of this m ethod, it has been
called G oetheanistic science. New questions are only just a p ­
p earing in G oetheanistic science because it is still in its infancy
an d the results o b tain ed are not yet very significant. However,
we know how this change calls on new faculties of the h u m a n
psyche, an d I shall concentrate on th a t m ost im p o rta n t aspect.
O nce this has been ap p reciated it will also becom e clear w hat
new results can be expected.
O ut o f G o ethe’s W ork
W hen G oethe left Strassburg as a young m an of twenty-two,
he rem arked on the ap p aren tly com pleted tower of the
cathedral in a way w hich foreshadows the scientific m eth o d he
45
was to develop later on. (M any people, including myself, have
m istakenly applied the following anecdote to the unfinished
tow er.) D uring his stay in Strassburg, G oethe h a d been
fascinated by the cath ed ral. H e h a d exam ined it u n d e r all
possible lighting conditions. Reflecting on the way in which its
architecture com bined the m ajestic w ith the agreeable, he
developed a view new to him about G othic arch itectu re in
general an d about its im portance for G erm any in particu lar.
H e n ot only observed a n d sketched the cathedral, b u t went so
fa r as to use the tower to cure a predisposition to vertigo from
w hich he suffered. A gain a n d again he clim bed to a small,
un p ro tected p latform ju st below the top of the tower, fighting
the giddiness u n til it no longer occurred. H e tried to
experience the building in as m any ways as he could. W hen he
was ab o u t to leave Strassburg he rem arked to friends th a t the
tower was incom plete. H e also sketched w hat it w ould have
looked like h a d it been finished. O ne of the friends confirm ed
from the original plans th a t Goethe was right in his projec­
tions. W hen asked who told him about the original design
Goethe replied: “T h e tower itself. I observed it so long a n d so
attentively an d I bestow ed on it so m uch affection th a t it
decided a t the end to reveal to m e its m anifest secret.”3
T h ro u g h observation, exercise a n d m ental effort he h a d
p e n e trate d to an im perceptible reality, to the idea of the
architect.
T w enty years later G oethe used the sam e m ethod in his
study of botany. His interest was sparked by practical con­
siderations of forestry a n d h o rticulture. Once his curiosity was
aroused, he studied the then available academ ic work, in ­
cluding L inne’s system of classification. He took every o p p o r­
tunity to observe plants d u rin g his m any journeys, a n d to
collect an d sketch specim ens. Using the same m ethod as when
studying the cath ed ral, G oethe p en etrated once again to
fu n d am en tal ideas. T h e first of these is the idea of m eta m o r­
phosis. H e saw all p lan t organs as m etam orphosed leaves. He
n oted first how the leaf form changes as we ascend the stem.
3.G oethe, Johann W olfgang: D ichtung und, W ahrheit, p art III, Book II,
(translated by the author).
46
T h e lowest leaves are usually least, the highest ones m ost, dif­
ferentiated. It is not very difficult to recognise the parts of the
calyx an d the petals as m etam orphosed leaves — the tendency
to becom e m ore ethereal is continued until the petals are very
th in an d colored. It is m ore difficult to recognise stam ens as
m etam orphosed petals. However, one can occasionally find
flowers, particularly cultivated ones, w here a petal appears in
the place of a stam en. T h e m any-petalled, cultivated rose has,
according to Goethe, developed from the wild rose by
breeding, so th a t m ost of the stam ens of the la tte r have
reverted to petals.4
His second fu n d am en tal idea is m ore difficult to m ake clear.
D uring his journey to Italy, G oethe visited the botanical
g arden in P ad u a an d wrote in his diary: “H ere, w here I have
been faced w ith plants in a quite new m anifoldness, the
thought springs to life th a t perhaps all p lan t form s can be
developed from o n e . . . . ” Six m onths later, having visited
Sicily, G oethe wrote to H erder: “M oreover I have to confide to
you th a t I am quite close to unravelling the secret of the c re a ­
tion an d organization of plants, an d th a t it is as sim ple as one
can im agine.. . . T h e m ain point from w hich everything else
stems I have grasped quite clearly a n d all the rest I can see in
outline; a few finer points only have still to be determ ined.
T h e archetypal p la n t ( Urpf lanze) will be the strangest creatu re
in the world, — a creatu re for w hich n a tu re herself will envy
m e. W ith this m odel an d the key to it, one can invent w ithout
end plants which are true to form ; th a t is they could exist
even if they don’t exist in reality. . . . ” G oethe h ad in m in d not
the form of an actual p lan t from w hich others develop, as
m ight be postulated by a theory of evolution. H e h ad in m ind
a supersensible m odel; w hen he described it to Schiller after
his re tu rn to W eim ar, he also sketched it. Schiller called it an
idea, a n d G oethe replied: “It is all right w ith m e — if I have
ideas w ithout being aw are o f it an d can even see them with
4.Goethe, Jo h an n W olfgang: The M etam orphosis o f Plants (translation of:
Die M etam orphose der Pflanze, taken from the British Jo u rn al of Botany
and published by Bio-Dynamic Farm ing & G ardening Association, Spring
Valley, N.Y .).
47
my eyes.”5 Perhaps the archetypal p lan t can be likened to the
general idea of a style of b u ilding from which an architect
could derive m any different edifices. Goethe certainly was con­
vinced th a t he h a d fath o m ed the p lan according to which
n a tu re creates plants.
For a study of G oethe’s m ethod it is significant to know how
he was guided to these new thoughts. H e says th a t a study of
Rousseau, who was an a m a teu r botanist, suggested th e d irec­
tion in w hich to look.6 H e indicates in the sam e essay th a t “he
who has love” (der L iebhaber) is m ore likely th a n the
academ ic scientist to use a m eth o d w hich is integrative and
holistic. (A m a te u r a n d L ie b h a b er, one French the other
G erm an, b o th share the m ean in g of “love” in th eir root stru c ­
ture. It is tem p tin g to translate L iebhaber as connoisseur,
w hich is derived from the F rench an d m eans “know er,” an d it
is significant for G oetheanistic science th a t the “know er” a n d
the “lover” becom e one.) G oethe studied academ ic scientists
b u t transcended the systems created by them . H e did not
despise the systems because he recognized th a t they show how
the supersensible reality has m anifested in the physical world.
In his work on color, G oethe shows how his m ethod can be
applied to inorganic sciences. T his has been described in two
recent articles7 a n d will, therefore, not be tre a te d here. In
general Goethe tries in inorganic science to p en etrate to w hat
he calls the archetypal phenom enon (U rphaenom en) in each
connected cluster of phenom ena. For instance in the study of
heat, expansion a n d a tte n u atio n are archetypal phenom ena.
T hey are seen in their purest form w hen h eat radiates from a
hot body. T h e h e a t is dissipated, expands out into the cosmos
as rapidly as possible an d equally in all directions. In the ex­
pansion of solids, liquids, an d gases the phenom ena are seen
5.G oethe, Jo h an n W olfgang: Glueckliches Ereignis (Essay in H eften
M orphologie," 1817).
“Zur
6.G oethe, Johann W olfgang: Geschichte meines Botanischen Studium s (In
H eften “Zur M orphologie," 1817).
7.G ebert, Hans: G oethe’s W ork in Color (M ichigan A cadem ician, Vol. III,
No. 3, W inter 1976).
Zajonc, A rth u r G.: Goethe's Theory o f Color and Scientific In tu itio n
(A m erican Journal of Physics, Vol. 44) p. 327.
48
as conditioned by properties of m aterials a n d they can be
recognized also in h e a t conduction a n d convection. T h e
G oetheanistic scientist orders phenom ena by m eans of ideas
derived from the n a tu re of the events he is studying. In c o n ­
tradistinction, established science often tries to reduce
phenom ena in one field to laws derived from an other. H eat
rad ia tio n becomes in established science a special case of
electrom agnetic rad ia tio n akin to light and radio waves, while
heat conduction is reduced to statistical processes am ong the
atom s constituting m atte r. W h at belongs together for
G oetheanistic science is often separated in established science.
T h e unity which established science tries to achieve by deriving
as wide a range of phenom ena as possible from properties of
atom s or sim ilar constructs, is atta in e d quite differently by
G oetheanistic science. T h e G oetheanistic scientist tries to find
laws w hich connect the different forces an d phenom ena in the
inorganic world. H e establishes, for instance, how h eat is co n ­
nected w ith chem ical processes, w ith electric currents, with
friction. He tries to elucidate the n a tu re of each process and
force, an d to determ ine the p a rt each plays in the nexus of
world events. His ap p ro ach is ontological a n d he attem pts to
show the cosmos as a unity form ed by the harm onious w orking
together of m any parts, each of w hich can, to some extent, be
studied alone.
D evelopm ents Since Goethe
R ecently Maslow has described a new m ethodology of
science w hich seems to have a good deal in com m on w ith th a t
of Goethe. H e distinguishes betw een experiential knowledge
an d spectator knowledge. A bout this last he writes:
You look th ro u g h the m icroscope or telescope as
th ro u g h a keyhole, peering, peeping, from a distance,
from outside, not as one who has a rig h t to be in the
room being peeped into.. . . H e can be cool, detached,
em otionless, desireless. . . . 8
A bout experiential knowledge he writes:
8.M aslow, A braham H .: T he Psychology o f Science (H arp er & Row, New
York, 1966, C hapter 6).
49
T h e good experiencer gets utterly lost in the
present. . . . Selfconsciousness is lost for the m om ent. . . .
In the fullest experiencing a kind of m elting together of
the person experiencing with th a t w hich is experienced
occurs.. . . T h e experiencer becomes m ore ‘in n o ce n t,’
m ore receptive w ithout questioning, as children are. In
the purest experience the person is naked in the situ a ­
tion, guileless, w ithout expectations or worries of any
kind, w ithout shoulds or oughts, w ithout filtering the
experience th ro u g h any a priori ideas of w hat the ex­
perience should be. . . . 8
In this connection Maslow speaks also of “im provem ent of
knowledge by love.” He believes th a t such knowledge can be
objective in quite a new sense, if by objective knowledge we
m ean knowledge o f an object as it is in itself, u n a ffected by
our predilections or prejudices. H e writes: “Briefly stated, my
thesis is: if you love som ething or som eone enough at the level
of Being, th en you can enjoy its actualization of itself, which
m eans th a t you will not w ant to interfere with it, since you
love it as it is in itself.”9
It could easily be objected th a t G oetheanistic science as
described so fa r has none of the accuracy, reliability and
precision of science as we know it. T h e question could arise: Is
G oetheanistic science perhaps just an easy option for a few
mystically inclined m alcontents who canno t b ear the rigor and
intellectual discipline of established science? T his would relate
well, it m ight be objected fu rth er, to m uch else which goes by
the nam e of counter-culture a n d cannot be called culture in
any accepted sense of the word. These doubts w ould be
justified if there did not also exist a body of philosophical
work which provides for it a lucid and precise basis.
G oethe him self does not a p p e ar to have analysed his m ethod
philosophically. T h e first such analysis was provided by
S tein er.10 His work m akes it possible for G oethe’s m ethod to be
applied in spheres which he him self never touched. S tarting
9.o p. cit. , ch. 11.
50
from the work of G oethe a n d also from th a t of K ant and
Fichte, Steiner developed his own philosophy. In his m ajor
philosophical w ork11 he shows how the capacities of ordinary
thinking can be developed to a level w here the concepts an d
ideas it reveals form p a rt of the reality of the w orld. T h e “real
object” is, for Steiner, com posed of two parts: one p a rt is
given th ro u g h sense perception, the o ther p a rt is revealed by
thinking. T h ro u g h the la tte r the object becom es a p a rt of the
total nexus of w orld events, w hich has a spiritual aspect
discoverable by th inking an d a physical aspect given to the
senses. In the addition to ch ap ter V III, w ritten for the second
edition (1918), Steiner has this to say about this fully
developed thinking:
T h inking all too readily leaves us cold in recollection; it
is as if the life of the soul h a d dried out. Yet this is
really n othing b u t the strongly m ark ed shadow of its
real n a tu re — w arm , lum inous, a n d p e n e tratin g deeply
into the phenom ena of the w orld. T his p en etratio n is
b ro u g h t about by a power flowing th ro u g h the activity
of thinking itself — the power of love in its spiritual
fo rm .11
Husserl m akes discoveries sim ilar to Steiner’s. He also claims
th a t thinking can be detach ed from the sense w orld so th a t in
the process a w orld of essences is discovered. Proceeding in this
way (a way, w hich in his w ritings is adm ittedly n ot easy to
follow), a stage is reached w hen this personal a n d subjective
10.Steiner, Rudolf: Goethes Naturwissenschaftliche Schriften (R udolf Steiner
Verlag, 4th ed., D ornach, 1973).
and: G rundlagen einer Erkenntnistheorie der Goetheschen W eltanschaung
(R udolf Steiner Verlag, 6th ed., D ornach, 1960).
Translations: Goethe the Scientist an d Theory o f Knowledge o f G o eth e’s
Conception o f the W orld (both, A nthroposophic Press, Spring Valley, New
York).
11.Steiner, Rudolf: Philosophie der Freiheit (R udolf Steiner Verlag, 13th
ed., D ornach, Switzerland, 1973).
Translations: W ilson, Michael: Philosophy o f Freedom (R udolf Steiner
Press, London, 1964); and, Stebbing, R ita: T he Philosophy o f Spiritual A c ­
tivity (R udolf Steiner Publications, W est Nyack, New York, 1963).
51
experience com bines w ith other subjects to reach a stage of
intersubjectivity.12
B oth Husserl a n d Steiner claim th a t thinking divorced from
ordinary sense perception loses none of its clarity and lucidity.
They say th a t it becomes not less b u t m ore effective in u n d e r­
standing the world of phenom ena, or the life w orld, to use
H usserl’s term inology. Steiner gives special exercises for
developing sense-free thinking in some of his books.13 W e are
dealing here w ith the developm ent of a new faculty a n d it
would not be reasonable to expect this to be easy. W e should
not forget th a t Galileo, when using the new concept of a c ­
celeration, m ad e a m istake in his argum ent w hich could be
corrected nowadays by any high school student who has had
an elem entary physics course.14 I would like to suggest th a t the
thought of Steiner and Husserl, particularly of the form er,
could becom e an instrum ent for the kind of science described
by Goethe a n d Maslow, a n d th a t it w ould provide the a p ­
parently missing accuracy an d rigor.
It is clear th a t practitioners of G oetheanistic science would
require a new form of training. T h e faculty of feeling would
have to be developed to a n u n h e a rd of degree of objectivity. A
beginning has been m ade in the sphere of aesthetics. A lready
nowadays great scientists such as Einstein a n d H eisenberg m e n ­
tion frequently th a t the decision betw een rival theories or
equations is often based on aesthetic judgem ents ra th e r th an
on logical ones. This type o f ju dgem ent w ould becom e even
m ore im p o rta n t in the transition to G oetheanistic science. It
could be hoped on the o th er h a n d th a t the present com ­
m unication gap betw een artists an d scientists w ould dim inish.
T h e new a rt of education which Steiner in au g u ra te d aims to
m ake the whole teaching process artistic. In this way the feel­
12.H usserl, Edm und: Cartesian M editations (M artiuus Nijhoff, T h e Hague,
1960, trans. Dorion Cairns) and Die Krisis der Europaeischen W issenschaft
u n d die Transzendentale Phenom enologie (M artiuus Nijhoff, T h e H ague,
1976).
13.e .g. Steiner, Rudolf: A n Outline o f Occult Science (A nthroposophie Press,
Spring Valley, New York, 1972, ch. 5).
14.G alilei, Galileo: Dialogues Concerning two N ew Sciences (Dover P ublica­
tions, New York, p. 168).
52
ing life of the student is refined a n d he becom es accustom ed
to aesthetic judgem ents. C hildren who have been th ro u g h a
Steiner or W ald o rf school should, therefore, find it easier to
develop G oetheanistic science th a n those who have been ex­
posed to ordinary education. T hey should be in the h a b it of
trying to experience knowledge as deeply a n d widely as they
can, a n d should have developed a considerable facility for
em pathising w ith the w orld. A n extension of W ald o rf m ethods
to ad u lt education could well form a beginning for the tra in ­
ing of G oethean scientists.
At the end o f this article some speculation m ay be p erm itted
based on the results of Steiner’s occult investigations relatin g to
the origin and the purpose of the universe. A ccording to this
research the m aterial w orld owes its existence to the sacrifices
of His own substance by the C reator. T h e cosmos appears,
therefore, as the result of Divine Love. God has w ithdraw n, at
least tem porarily, from his handiw ork, so th a t h um anity can
learn to act independently. T h e thoughts w hich m en find in
th eir souls are the reflections of the laws used by the C reator
to fashion the world. M any of the early scientists experienced
th eir striving as an atte m p t to fathom “the thoughts of G o d .”
These thoughts are derived from sense impressions in the first
instance. Nevertheless they have value as keys to unlock some
of the h id d en powers in n a tu re . W e use them in technology to
exploit the resulting forces for w hat appears to be ou r benefit.
W hen we use the sam e thoughts for deciding w hat c o n ­
stitutes “ou r benefit” it becom es a p p a re n t th a t, based on
finite an d tem poral sense perception as they are, these
thoughts lead in practice to one con trad ictio n after an other.
Suspicion of these values a n d the search for a w ider conscious­
ness m entioned earlier ap p ear, in this light, as healthy im ­
pulses. Could it be th a t the progenitors of G oetheanistic
science are pointing the way out o f the impasse? C ould it be
th a t we m ust find the courage not to ab an d o n th o u g h t, as
m any critics of science w ould w ant us to, b u t to develop it fu r­
th er u n til we find in it the “love in its spiritual fo rm ” m e n ­
tioned by Steiner? Divine love a n d h u m a n love m ight th en
sound in unison for the m u tu a l benefit of the creation an d of
m ankind.
53
S
T
A
R
S
H om ework assigned in a poetry class to develop a sense fo r the m etaphors and
analogies in the kingdom s o f nature, m an and the cosmos. The assignment
was the fr u it o f goals shared in com m on by the science and literature teacher.
O nce stars were tho u g h t to be pinpricks in the wall of
heaven. Actually, they are m am m o th balls of enorm ously hot
gas, generating energy by nuclear fusion, b u t essentially — or
ra th e r apparently — they are points of light rad ia tin g in all
directions, able to reach every conceivable position in the
universe.
T h e star form , the basis of rad ia l symm etry, is found
thro u g h o u t n a tu re . Crystals sometim es grow clustered in star
p atterns. O ften crude, m ere im plications of the star, generally
these clusters grow only in small arcs, b u t sometim es the full
form can be seen, fine a n d beautiful. M any p lan t stems show
beautiful star form s. Most flowers are star-based, which
becomes m ore noticeable if one looks dow n on them from
above.
If one exam ines an anim al cell at the p ro p er m om ent in
mitosis, one sees a very clear star p a tte rn of fibers em an atin g
from the centriole. T h e silican shells of diatom s often display
rad ial a n d star shapes, w hich are frequently sim ple in p a t­
tern, com plex in detail, a n d b rea th ta k in g in beauty. Jellyfish
an d polyps are rad ial as are the Echinoderm s, w hich include
starfish. Bone has a p a tte rn sim ilar to those found in diatom
shells a n d some p lan t stems. It is interesting to note th a t these
are all stru ctu ral supports. O ne is rem inded of this p a tte rn by
the nerve cells, especially the ones in the cerebral cortex. T he
physical basis for thought is b o u n d up in a star form . T h o u g h t
itself is star-rem iniscent — the brig h t core of the idea
rad ia tin g illum ination, capable of reaching every m ind in the
w orld. A nd so we pass from the m ost pow erful a n d violent
forces of n a tu re to the m ost pow erful an d controlled forces of
m an.
— M ark Taper, 11th grade
54
Literature and The Drama
o f Polarities at Puberty
CHRISTY BARNES
T h e soul of an adolescent is a battlefield. A new tide is
rushing into the w aters of his childhood, a n d the two currents
m eet in a w hirlpool, whose vortex can suck him dow n into
depths of loneliness or fascinating hells, a n d th en lift him to
b reath tak in g heights, w here the wide view is swept by a light
like daw n on the first day of creation, revealing, as has never
been revealed before, the beauty o f the w orld a n d of frie n d ­
ship: an ideal w orld — W hy is it th a t older people have been
able to disregard or sully it so? — an inner w orld th a t is deep
an d secret beyond any telling of it.
These extrem es are his realities. A gainst them he tests his
teachers. Do they know anything of his heights a n d depths?
W ill they encroach on this inner w orld too far? A re they
ignorant of it? W h at m astery have they? C an they grasp or
answer the riddles th a t confront him?
O ne of the tasks of a high school teacher is to help boys an d
girls — th rough the m edium of im agination ra th e r th a n
th rough raw experience — to explore these extrem es an d life
riddles even fu rth er. H ere he can have no m ore effective col­
laborators th a n the poets, dram atists a n d novelists of great
literatu re. T h ro u g h them , the students come to realize th a t
now they are no longer alone in their w orld of discovery.
These artists plunge w ith them into depths an d delights, a n d
voice their own questionings; a n d one or an o th er a u th o r
becomes their friend a n d guide.
A good English teacher longs to brin g his pupils into direct
contact w ith these authors so th a t they can learn from them as
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Keats learned from Spenser, Dostoyevsky from Gogol, and
Melville from Shakespeare a n d H aw thorne. All original
authors have ap p renticed themselves to a chosen m aster and
followed in their footsteps for a longer or a shorter way. How
can a teacher bring ab o u t a sim ilar apprenticeship? Actually it
often requires hours or m onths of search for just those works
or passages th at give the essence of a m an or a period of
literatu re. T h e n a significant im pression can m ake its effect in
a relatively short tim e. O n the other h and, it is well w orth ta k ­
ing a precious half h our or m ore o f a M ain Lesson period
w hen each student recites the poem he has learned by heart.
T h en ask the others if they can rem em ber any of the lines they
have just heard. Give extra credit on a quiz for any volunteer
m em orization, and it will surprise you how some of them write
out ten, thirty, even fifty lines for you! A poem learned by
h e a rt will stay w ith them thro u g h o u t a lifetim e. L earning by
h e a rt allows tim e for the substance, m ood an d music of a
poem to trickle dow n below the head-know ledge of academ ic
teaching a n d becom e form ative forces w ithin the life of the
feelings a n d the will, developing powers of com passion and
purpose. All this belongs to the “econom ics” of teaching.
W here does one spend, w here economize tim e in ord er to
achieve far-reaching results?
All good teachers know these things as far as literatu re is
concerned, b u t they often fall short of letting the students
learn to write in a sim ilar way — by becom ing the au th o rs’
pupils. W riters themselves have always done this. B ut today in
school, we ask pupils to write essays about w hat they read, to
analyze an d criticize them . T his sharpens their critical powers
a n d is very necessary a n d good. B ut it is one-sided. It
strengthens no im agination, no productive ability, encourages
no b re a d th or variety of style.
A fter read in g C haucer, let the class practice C h au cer’s a rt of
p o rtra itu re , using his swift, econom ic strokes an d a b ru p t tr a n ­
sitions, sketching like him the m ost telling articles of dress and
c h aracter w ith shrew d h um or. O r let them try H aw thorne’s
R em brandtesque use of one ray of light in a large darkness,
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Em erson’s sure-footed pace o f thought, H a rd y ’s m astery of
concrete nouns an d C o n ra d ’s abstract ones, M elville’s
splenderous, rolling seas of language an d alliteration. This
exercises deep regions of their beings. T h e ir im agination grows
tru er, m ore concrete and expansive. — But now soon it will
be tim e to take them into the opposite gesture of contraction,
to have them analyze, a n d m ake outlines, abstracts a n d precis.
It is probably in the te n th g rad e th a t they feel the changes
w ithin themselves a n d in their relation to the w orld aro u n d
them m ost intensely. Physical p uberty comes earlier, b u t this is
a puberty of the soul. Especially at this tim e, expeditions into
literatu re an d the w riting of com positions can act as a
veritable m edicine for boys and girls. If, for instance, they
read and w rite ab o u t the loneliness which they are sure to e n ­
counter — now m ore th a n ever before — they can be helped
to value it: to realize th a t just th ro u g h loneliness one can
grow, can come to have a sense of one’s own individuality,
find com panionship w ith it, an d th rough u n d e rsta n d in g the
loneliness of another, becom e a better friend.
In their ten th grade study of the origins of Greek d ra m a in
the ancient Mystery Schools, they h e a r how the neophyte was
b rought to feel a loneliness so deep th a t of itself it gave b irth
to devotion — a devotion to a star, a bird, to some th ing or
some one other th a n one’s self. Loneliness found its relief and
resolution in devotion. L ater the students en counter this same
soul-transform ation an d healing in C oleridge’s “A ncient
M a rin e r,” B yron’s “Prisoner of C hillion” an d other works.
Several tim es I have h a d seniors rem ind m e of this tra n sfo rm a ­
tion in a way th a t told m e th a t they themselves h ad tested
such a cure an d found it valid an d helpful.
In the works of Aeschylos a n d Sophocles, they com e to see
how, on the other h an d , passion reaches its fru itio n th rough
— as A ristotle puts it — “vicarious fear a n d pity so intense
th a t it causes a catharsis of the soul.” Passion, rightly in te n ­
sified, spills over into com passion.
A class m ay well have learned ab o u t the form of the G reek
th eater a n d m any of its properties in the n in th grade, b u t it is
57
a pity th at they should not h ear of just such m otions and
resolutions of soul at a tim e when they are especially ready
an d in need of them .
Dionysos and A pollo — Chaos and Cosmos
Now we tu rn to the other root of Greek d ram a , to the
Dionysian dances. T h e class listens inw ardly to the pounding of
rhythm ic footsteps as the two choruses of young m en advance
a n d tu rn in strophe and anti-strophe b eneath the flare of
torches, m oving an d speaking in resounding unison to the “god
w ithin” (our w ord en-thusiasm stems from this), to the
upw ard-striving, subjective, chaotic god who longs to grow
above an d beyond him self — Dionysos!
Two roots of d ram a — one fed by the Mystery Schools, the
other by the Dionysian dances — are united in A thens by the
actor, Thespis, an d they form the m ighty tru n k of Greek
d ram a proper. T h ro u g h the study of Aeschylos, Sophocles and
Euripides, the students see how the poet’s relationship to the
gods, along w ith his poetic style, grows steadily m ore earthly,
whereas the sense of h u m an conscience becomes progressively
m ore inw ard, individual an d conscious. A d ram atic workshop
using scenes from “A ntigone” can give special reality and
power to this study.
O n the other h an d , te n th graders come to respect the p ro ­
perties of Apollo, fath er of the nine muses, god of the sun,
whose serene regularity, objectivity a n d harm onious, stringent
rays encourage yet shape b oth p lan t an d m an from w ithout. It
is he whose rhythm ic m usic pervades Greek lyric an d epic
poetry. O ne can ask the class to form ulate the contrasting a t ­
tributes of the two gods:
Dionysos: inner fire
enthusiasm
chaos
dram atic conflict
aspiring
individual
subjective
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A p o llo : outer form
serenity
order
m usical harm ony
inspiring
cosmic
objective
It is these two gods, also, th a t the ten th grade teacher learns
to invoke. Dionysos tells him to throw discretion to the winds,
let fire and lig htning loose, to ride the tides o f m elancholy
a n d hum or. H e urges him to explore the depths of longing
an d all the w onderful subjectivity of the soul. T h e n Apollo
comes to his aid an d curbs him a n d the class, as he curbs the
horses of the chariot he guides across the heavens. H e discloses
the m ajesty a n d force o f form th a t disciplines all creatio n an d
chisels it to beauty.
So, invoking Apollo, the teacher restricts a n d shapes as he
sets an assignm ent. “T h e hom ew ork for tonight is to write a
sonnet. R em em ber it is w ritten in p e n ta m eter, not tetram eter.
You m ust choose m usical sounds a n d use a t least one a llite ra ­
tion; the thoug ht a n d im ages m ust be clear. D on’t invert the
order of a sentence to get a rhym e; d o n ’t p a d w ith archaic
‘do’s’ to keep th e rhythm . You m ust have a m eta p h o r or
simile and use color. You m ust be true to n a tu re a n d to ex­
p erien ce,” you tell them , sum m oning u p all your courage a n d
decisiveness. T h en , calling on Dionysos, you continue: “O th e r­
wise you are absolutely free to do anything you w ant. You can
write of the darkest city, the m ost silent a n d sunlit m o u n ta in
top, of your own soul struggles, whales or dragons — of an old
w om an. Only start w ith a m ood, a m usical phrase, a w onder
or longing, an im age — a n d now, listen!” A nd you rea d them
sonnets by Shakespeare, Keats, D onne, Millay an d have them
recite the sonnets they have learned till they are fairly soaked
in the long, th oughtful line an d m ighty stru ctu re of the sonnet
form . “T h e fun really begins w hen you sta rt to re-work the
poem s after you have w ritten th e m ,” are your p a rtin g words.
O r, if their gasps have been all too despairing, you read them
a stunning sonnet w ritten the year before by an eleventh
g rad e r they know, a n d they leave w ith the silent resolve to do
every bit as well or b e tte r — an d some of them do.
W hen the sonnets — (one of them w ritten in perfect
tetram eter despite your w arning), some half-tadpole, half-frog,
b u t each containing a pearl or g rain of pure gold — com e in
to you, you show them how an “a n d ” here or a “th e ” there
will tu rn th e verse into pentam eter-, how trite words can be
59
replaced by shining ones, gaudy by clear, abstract by m usical
words. A nd a t last the treasures of some of their deepest
experiences — now polished, p ru n ed an d clarified — fill you
w ith w onderm ent.
T h e two gods help you fu rth er. Apollo shows you how to
bu ild a lesson as you w ould w rite a poem — w ith structure
an d an ear for the right kind of repetition, echo, or even a
kind of rhym ing of your subject m atte r, allowing the content
to ring out in overtones at m any levels as do m etaphors and
similes — an d your p rep a ra tio n takes on a new, refreshing
dim ension th a t is rew arded by a deeper, quieter, yet m ore
relaxed a tte n tio n from the students. They begin not only to
h ear b u t to breathe the lesson in. Dionysos fires you to
enthusiasm , tem peram ent, d ram atic change of tem po — com ­
passion.
T he In flu en ce o f Geography on Language a n d Poetic Form
R udolf Steiner recom m ended th a t the te n th grade history
teacher show how geography is a shaper of history “as at this
age the students are justifiably m aterialists.” This sam e guide
line has proven enorm ously productive in teaching the history
of literature.
Let us start w ith the southern stream of western literature,
w here it originated in Greece, a lan d where there is a balance
betw een m ountains an d the sea, betw een the lassitude of the
tropics a n d the rigors of the northlands. In this clim ate, m en
can live an outdoor life steeped in the daily a n d seasonal
rhythm s o f the e a rth a n d the heavens. H e can unfold u n ­
disturbed his own rhythm ic natu re: the n a tu ra l harm ony of
b rea th an d h e a rt b eat, which are neither allowed to grow slug­
gish from h eat nor w hipped out of course by the cold. His
gestures, too, take on the large, rhythm ic quality of this life.
H arm ony and rhythm becom e the criteria for excellence in his
athletics and in sculpture — as we see in the proportions of
th e h u m an form a n d the fall of the g arm en t folds. They
im bue his architecture an d the flow of his poetry. H om er’s
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dactylic hexam eter is the finest expression of the n a tu ra l re la ­
tionship betw een h e a rt b eat an d b reath , so m uch so th a t, com ­
bined w ith exercises in curative eurythm y, it helps to cure the
rhythm ic disturbance th a t underlies stuttering.
Peoples of southern climes ten d in th eir language to
em phasize vowel sounds — the soul-bearing elem ent of
language — whereas n o rth e rn words are b u ilt u p out of the
m ore form ed, consonantic elem ent, sounds im itative of the ex­
ternal n a tu re th a t m en m ust constantly com bat. O ne can h ear
this shift in ou r own country w hen traveling from G eorgia to
M aine — from the w arm , relaxed, w elcom ing draw l, “howahh ya-awll?” to a brisk New E ngland “Hey” or “y ep .”
T h e Anglo-Saxons spoke forceful, m onosyllables stam ped
w ith the signature of n a tu re herself: crash, crag, sludge,
bridge, growl, stream — often four consonants to one vowel.
W hereas in th e M aori language o f w arm New Z ealand, the
proportions tend to be reversed as in A oteoroa, the nam e for
New Z ealand itself; wai nut, water-, a n d m oana, W aiganui. In
H aw aiian, too, we find a large p ro p o rtio n of vowels. T h e
ancient Greek language keeps a sonorous balance of co n ­
sonants an d vowels. As the students recite lines from St. J o h n ’s
Gospel or the Iliad in the original Greek, they experience this
as well as how the very stride a n d spear throw of the ancient
w arriors have been carried over into the rhythm s a n d harm ony
of their verse. A t the sam e tim e they are learn in g such Greek
w ord roots as arche, logos, theo, polly, auto a n d m any m ore.
T h e study of the lyric takes them u p th ro u g h the L atin to the
beginning of rhym e, th en to Italy, France, E ngland. T hey scan
an d w rite in a n u m b er of poetic form s ending w ith the sonnet,
w hich they have followed from D ante to E. B. B row ning and
across the seas to R obinson a n d Millay in this country.
In striking contrast to the w orld of the Greeks is the
hom eland of the Eddas a n d N orse m yths, of the n o rth e rn
stream of poetry, a lan d th a t prepares the class for the study
of Beowulf, C aedm on a n d th a t w onderful lyricist Cynewulf.
H ere rivers ra n sluggish to the sea th ro u g h sw am plands and
fens, swollen by incessant sum m er rains, till the mists rose like
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furnace smoke, craw ling the horizon in purple coils, th rough
w hich T h o r flashed his fiery b eard. Axe strokes fall in the
forest. In w inter, ice-blocks sway crashing betw een surge and
shore; “Fast to the deck my feet were frozen,” sings the sailor
in the “Seafarer” ; beer m ugs bang the boards of the m ead
halls, heels ring on the h a rd ground, sword strokes cry out
th rough the cold. Face to face w ith storm , snow, hail and
rock, the Anglo-Saxons form terse, vigorous, simple words th at
echo the elem ents. T h e savagery of the w eather m akes them into
doers, attackers. In language as in life, they attack at the
start. T h eir rhym e comes at the beginning of the words:
“T em pest and terrible toil of the d e e p ,” “G rim a n d greedy his
grip m ade read y .” A lliteration is brief, beginning rhym e.
T h ere is no tim e for the lingering echoes of “singing, ringing
. . . lonely, only.” Gone is the harm ony of Greek m eters, in
w hich it is the m usical length of the syllable th a t form s the
verse. It is now the force, the weight of the syllable th a t
counts. It is the axe-stroke, the stroke of the sword th at
bursts in thunderous verse-strokes from the pent lungs of the
scops a n d gleem en, now cram p ed in the m ead halls, where
they m ust suppress the custom ary gestures of their lim bs and
so give vent to them in a new form in their poetry, while
strong consonants sculpture the words.
R udolf Steiner has indicated this p a th from axe-stroke to
A nglo-Saxon poetic rhythm as a concrete exam ple of how
physical gesture is carried over into speech. In a c e rtain sense
speech is, in its dynam ics, transform ed gesture. W e can even
observe how the way in w hich a child walks is characteristic
also for the dynam ics of his speech. In A nglo-Saxon poetry,
four weighty strokes fall in every verse. T h e small syllables,
like so m any wood chips after the axe falls, fly heiter skelter
into the air as they will (no tim e to count them ). B ut it is also
the b eat of the blood, w hipped awake by the n o rth winds,
pounding like T h o r’s ham m er, th a t you hear, and the b rea th
th a t comes in short gasps as the w ind tears the words away
from the lips th a t form them . T h e re is a sim ilar vitality in the
kennings or m etaphorical nouns of n o rth ern poetry: the
w hale-path; sw an-road; heather-stepper; w ord-hord.
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A fter the study of Beow ulf, each m em ber of the class writes
some lines in this sam e poetic form , using kennings a n d words
of Saxon root a n d perhaps learns a poem by Cynew ulf by
h eart. L ater they will read C hristopher Frye’s pow erful play,
T h or with A ngels, w ith its gorgeous, Saxon-rooted language,
set at the tim e w hen Angles, Saxons a n d Jutes were still at w ar
an d St. A ugustine cam e to E ngland.
A fter 1066, the southern an d n o rth e rn stream s of litera tu re
come crashing together a n d m ill ab o u t in tro u b led p atterns.
T h e fam iliar song, “Sum m er is icum en in ,” is one of the first
exam ples of the u n io n of n o rth e rn Anglo-Saxon words w ith
southern rhym e an d m eter. D uring the centuries from C aesar’s
inroads into E ngland up to C haucer, one can trace how
various words are picked up an d absorbed into the m ainstream
of B rita in ’s language.
Finally, out of a host of dialects, C haucer raises one above
the rest an d m olds it th ro u g h his genius into a firm tru n k of
language, b ro ad enough to up h o ld a n d nourish the boughs of
various new literary form s ab o u t to spread themselves ab ro ad
in the age of Shakespeare. Now the class learns by h e a rt the
first lines of C h au cer’s “P rologue” in the original m id lan d
dialect a n d writes verses in royal couplets. T hey try o u t the
polaric characteristics of Anglo-Saxon an d L atin-derived words,
discovering the elem ental, poetic, alm ost child-like pow er or
crudeness of the one, a n d the exact, polished, intellectual d e ft­
ness or pedantic dryness of the other.
Em erson tells us th a t “T h e science is false, by n ot being
poetic . . . th a t lacks th e connection w hich is th e test of
genius. It isolates the reptile a n d the m ollusk it assumes to
explain; whilst reptile a n d m ollusk exist only in system, in
re la tio n .” It is in this spirit th a t one w ould like to present the
study a n d history of language, n o t in isolation, b u t as it cam e
about — as an inseparable p a rt of the grow th of literature;
not separated off from h u m a n history, b u t as an expression
an d pulse o f its life blood.
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D ram a
For this d ram atic tim e of life — the high school years —
d ram a itself is one of the m ost potent educative forces th at
can be found.
R udolf Steiner has given us a key to the problem of evil by
separating its n a tu re into two realm s: the extrem e th a t carries
us away in a glow of u n earthly bliss an d vague idealism , and
the o th er extrem e th a t contracts, hardens and fetters us in
m aterialism . B ut the artist in each of us can en ter lovingly
into b o th elem ents an d transform them to the uses of creation.
H e can refine ex u ltant glow to enthusiasm a n d sharpen the
heavy hardness of m a tte r or soul to a fine edge th a t carves
form s a n d thoughts to clarity. In d ram a, in which you use
n either clay nor p a in t as your m aterial b u t only yourself, all
such transform ations are particularly effective.
If, in a d ram a class, you can stir all the unresolved chaos,
the subjective fear or fire o f a student a n d show him how,
w ith every fiber of his being, to pour these, not into selfexpression, b u t into an objectively form ed gesture, exploring
w ith him every dynam ic nuance an d concrete detail of it with
m atter-of-fact strictness, enthusiasm , h u m o r an d insistence, he
comes to experience a sense o f achievem ent, relief a n d joy th at
enables him to walk w ith confidence into the next situation
th a t confronts him .
For w hat has happened? His subjective n a tu re has entered
fully into a n d becom e one with a form outside himself, an
objective form . T h e walls betw een subject a n d object, betw een
him self a n d the w orld outside him self have been broken
through, dissolved; an d he discovers, at one a n d the sam e
m om ent, b o th the w orld an d himself. In this m om ent he is no
longer self-conscious b u t world-conscious a n d so self-confident
in dealing w ith the w orld. T his sort o f experience is perhaps
the m ost im p o rta n t one we can help to b rin g him . B ut we live
in a tim e when m ost of the w orld an d its artists do not believe
th a t the gap betw een subject a n d object can be bridged, and
this inability leads to a w ide-spread sense of isolation th at
causes neuroses, paralysis, eroticism a n d often despair.
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Exactly for this reason, it is im p o rta n t th a t we realize
especially in the realm o f d ram a , th a t the teacher should not
use just any m ethod. R udolf Steiner’s insights into speech and
d ram a are needed here, if anything m ore, ra th e r th an less,
th a n in any other facet of education. Yet it is never enough
m erely to read about an a rt or even study it for a short tim e,
any m ore th an reading a book on m usic will m ake a pianist. A
thorough train in g is called for, or at least a teacher who has set
his feet on the ro ad to such training.
A rt as Balance
E ducators a n d students today are confronted w ith the fact
th at academ ic “h e a d ” knowledge does not nourish the whole
h u m an being and can often lead to serious problem s of im ­
balance a n d ill h ealth. A fter the “nervous” activity of exams,
students let off unused em otional steam by indulging in all
kinds of outbursts th a t have no relation whatsoever to their
studies or ideals. T o b ring ab o u t a balance of know ing and
doing, of h ead and lim bs, sports program s or m ore altruistic
a n d purposeful work program s are devised. B ut neither of
these really succeeds in inw ardly u n itin g a n d m aking fully
perm eable the nervous a n d m etabolic systems. For this, an in ­
ner circulation an d b rea th in g betw een two such activities is
needed, one th a t a t the sam e tim e transform s the n a tu re of each.
In the h u m an body, this power expresses itself in the restorative,
rhythm ic circulation of the blood a n d the b rea th . A nd it is in
dealing w ith just these processes th a t the artist is train ed . Like
the blood, he is constantly “entering in to ” the one pole,
transform ing its properties so th a t they m ay be assim ilated by
the other pole, an d th en in like m an n e r enterin g into the o p ­
posite field. So he moves betw een polarities an d lovingly form s
a th ird creation born of b o th parents, yet new in itself, u n iting
idea an d deed, substance a n d form , the inner an d the outer,
the subjective w ith the objective, never stagnating in the one
or the other, yet enterin g fully into each. So w hen literatu re
an d d ram a becom e artistic activity, then like b rea th in g and
circulation, they give life to the soul a n d becom e healing and
health-giving forces in education as in life.
65
A Student’s Memories o f R u dolf Steiner
LISA D R EH E R MONGES
It was a great good fortune th a t allowed m e to m eet R udolf
Steiner for the first tim e w hen I was five years old. In 1908,
my m other, F rau P aula D reher, h ad becom e a m em ber of the
G erm an Section o f the Theosophical Society th a t was under
the direction of Dr. Steiner, an d in S tu ttg art in 1911, shortly
after the dedication o f the new hom e of the T heosophical
Society in the Landhausstrasse 70, my m other h ad an a p p o in t­
m ent with Dr. Steiner. She took m e along and introduced m e
to him . W hile I do not rem em ber the events im m ediately
before or after this occasion, I clearly rem em ber the occasion
itself, which took place in the so-called Blue Room of the new ­
ly dedicated house: Dr. Steiner’s slender figure of m edium
height, his black hair, his black eyes, his d ark suit an d black
flowing silk tie; an d even today I can feel the kindness that
flowed from him to m e as he took my h a n d and put his other
h a n d on my head.
It was again my great good fortune to becom e one of the
first pupils of the original W aldorf School in S tu ttg art which,
in 1919, was founded by my uncle, Emil M olt, an d which was
u n d er the direction of R udolf Steiner. I was at th at tim e in
the 7th grade (the W ald o rf School h ad eight grades from the
very beginning) an d was thus able, to a certain extent, to
realize the im portance th a t was a ttach ed to the founding of
this school u n d er the spiritual guidance of R udolf Steiner.
T h e school was dedicated on Septem ber 7, 1919 in the great
hall of the S tu ttg art Stad tgarten. Emil M olt spoke the opening
words of greeting. T h en R udolf Steiner addressed the assembled
66
future teachers, students, a n d the la tte r’s parents, who were
mostly the employees and workers o f Em il M olt’s W ald o rf
Astoria C igarette factory, a n d some m em bers o f the A n th ro ­
posophical Society. R udolf Steiner described the basis an d
aims of the pedagogy to be p racticed in this school. (See:
R u d o lf Steiner in des W aldorfschule, published by V erlag
Freies Geistesleben, S tu ttg a rt.) A few weeks p rio r to this
dedication festival, a group of children, am ong them my sister
D ora an d myself, h a d eurythm y with the Ur -e u ryth m ist, Lory
M aier-Sm its. Eurythm y, as an art, was then just seven years
old. In the eurythm y p rogram perform ed after Dr. Steiner’s
D edication Address, we did rod exercises, and, together with
the ad u lt eurythm ists, some hum oresques by C hristian
M orgenstern. R udolf Steiner was present a t the rehearsals,
which were u n d e r the direction of M arie Steiner — she also
recited the texts in the program — a n d d u rin g the dress
rehearsal he cam e up onto the stage, took the eurythm y c o p ­
per rods an d showed the tallest girl am ong us how she should
hold them on her arm s a n d how we, w ith a slight b en d tow ard
her, should receive them . R udolf Steiner called this
occasion of
the W ald o rf School a “Festival Act in the H istory of
M an k in d .”
M any vivid a n d precious pictures of R udolf S teiner’s fre ­
quent visits to the W ald o rf School an d to o u r classrooms d u r ­
ing the next five years up to his last illness arise before the eye
of the soul. I shall try to describe some th a t are m ost
characteristic. It was a tim e of glowing enthusiasm , o f joy and
g ratitu d e for all th a t we children received from R udolf Steiner
an d our teachers,
it was the happiest tim e o f my life an d
shines forth in my m em ory in a golden glow.
Dr. Steiner h ad directed th a t on every first T h u rsd ay of the
m o n th there should take place a so-called M onatsfeir (m onthly
festival), in which the whole school g ath ered in the assembly
hall, a n d the various grades showed w hat they h a d learn ed in
foreign languages, recitation, eurythm y, singing, a n d so forth.
Very often D r. Steiner was present at these festivals a n d a d ­
dressed, first, the younger pupils, then us older ones, a n d
67
finally the teachers. I rem em ber his great delight when, at the
very first of these festivals, a little boy in the first grade gave
him a w ashrag he h a d k n itted for him . T h e little boy h a d a
typically Sw abian nam e: H aefe le (L ittle Pot). Dr. Steiner held
up the w ashrag an d said, “E uer lieber gu ter H aefe le hat m ir
einen W aschlappen gestrickt. M it dem soll ich m ich n u n je d e n
Tag waschen." (“Y our dear, good little H aefele has k n itted m e
a w ashrag, a n d now I will wash myself with it every d a y .”)
T h e n he continued: “D ear children, just as we have to keep
o u r bodies clean, so we m ust see to it th at we keep ou r souls
p u re and c le a n .”
At an o th er m onthly festival Dr. Steiner spoke to us of two
wings w hich every child m ust develop. He said: “W e have no
wings to fly in the air w ith like the birds, b u t we can grow two
wings, one on the right side, one on the left. T h e one on the
right side is diligence, the other on the left, attentiveness. If
we develop these wings, we shall becom e industrious and
capable h u m an beings (t uechtige M enschen) who can fly with
them into life.”
D r. Steiner invariably ended his addresses to us children
w ith the question: “Do you love your teachers?” (“H a b t ihr
eure Lehrer lieb?"") to w hich we answered, out of the full
conviction of our hearts, with a strong, loud “Yes!” (“J a!").
O ne tim e, after the sum m er vacation, Dr. Steiner spoke to the
assem bled children on the first day of the new school year. As
he cam e to the end of his address we expected to hear him ask
the fam iliar question an d we were inw ardly ready for the
fam iliar a n d joyful answer. This tim e, however, he asked: “Did
you not forget your teachers?” Now we could not shout “J a!”
This req u ired an o th er answer. T h e whole group of about a
thousand children hesitated for a m om ent. Dr. Steiner m ade
an encouraging gesture w ith both arm s, an d finally we broke
into a loud “N ein!” (“No!”). How different was the experience
o f a convinced answer in th e negative from the accustom ed
one in the affirm ative!
A n unforgettable picture: R udolf Steiner w alking across the
schoolyard, surro u n d ed by countless children, the little ones
literally hanging on his arm s an d legs like grapes on a vine, he
68
struggling to get his arm s free to be able to shake h ands with
us older students.
Dr. Steiner visited the various grades of the school from
tim e to tim e. It was always a trem endous joy for us — our
hearts began “to beat h ig h er” — when the door of the
classroom suddenly opened an d R udolf Steiner w alked in. W e
rose from our seats, a n d Dr. Steiner greeted us w ith b o th arm s
raised up high. He listened to w hat the teacher was teaching,
and very often he took u p the th re a d a n d continued to teach
where the teacher h ad left off. O ne day he entered o u r room
— I think we were then in the n in th grade — a n d said ra th e r
sternly: “Som ething is w rong in this classroom!” I w ondered
w hat he could m ean, a n d th en I discovered th a t there was the
wrong date on the calen d ar hanging on the wall. I raised my
han d an d said so, an d Dr. Steiner walked over, w ithout saying
anything fu rth er, a n d w ith a decided m otion pulled off the
page w ith the w rong date. W e h a d sat in th a t room for about
two hours w ithout discovering th at the calendar h a d not been
brought “up to d a te ,” b u t Dr. Steiner saw it the m om ent he
entered the room!
D uring a lesson in the History of A rt Dr. Steiner told us:
“W hen you take all the colors th a t L eonardo da Vinci used in
his Last Supper, p u t them on a disk an d ro ta te this disk very
fast, you will get the color w hite. But if you take the colors of
the figures of C hrist a n d of Judas Ischariot a n d m ix them
together, you will get the color grey.”
A m ost m em orable experience was the laying of the fo u n d a ­
tion stone for the new m ain building of the W ald o rf School by
Dr. Steiner in D ecem ber, 1921. Students, teachers, R udolf
Steiner, M arie Steiner, Emil M olt (the founder of the school),
B erta M olt, the architect W eippert, officers of the W ald o rf
School Association an d friends of the school were assem bled in
the large eurythm y hall in the so-called b arrack. D r. Steiner
addressed the assembly a n d read his words w hich were w ritten
on a parchm ent tablet, signed by him , and all those m entioned
above, as well as by the teachers. These words described the
aims and purpose of the activities to be carried on in the newlyto-be-erected building and ended w ith the following three lines:
69
W ith pure intentions
A nd good will
In the n am e of Jesus Christ.
It was a deeply m oving experience to hear Dr. Steiner p ro ­
nounce these words an d th en see him place the p archm ent in
a pentagon-dodecahedron of copper which was then im ­
m ediately sealed an d carried out onto the building site where
it was lowered into a concrete slab which was then also sealed.
Dr. Steiner took a h am m er and with it struck the concrete
slab three times. T h e n he did the sam e of behalf of M arie
Steiner. A fter this the founder of the school, all the teachers
an d every single child in tu rn carried out the same act.
This foundation stone escaped destruction when, 23 years
later, the building was destroyed in a bom bing attack in
W orld W ar II, a n d today it still rests u n d er the en tran ce steps
of the now re-erected building.
At C hristm as, 1922, I was invited to spend the holidays with
a friend a n d her m other an d sister at the G oetheanum in D or­
nach. I accepted this invitation with great joy. T hus, I was
able, evening after evening, to h ear Dr. Steiner’s lectures in
the great hall of the G oetheanum . T h e public lecture cycle’s
title was Der E ntstehungs-m om ent der Naturw issenschaft in
der W eltgeschichte u n d ihre seitherige E ntw icklung (T h e B irth
of N atu ral Science in W orld History and its Developm ent). Dr.
Steiner stood on a platform , surrounded by the beautiful forms
of the speaker’s desk, in th e center of the space before the
closed cu rtain , beh in d w hich was the stage a n d the small
cupola. His deep a n d w arm voice sounded forth in harm ony
w ith all form s of the fourteen pillars, the architraves, the
paintings in the large cupola an d the pictures th a t were etched
into the colored windows.
I do not recall the content of the lectures, but Dr. Steiner’s
gestures as he was speaking I rem em ber well. W hen he spoke
one of his long sentences, he accom panied it w ith a weaving
m ovem ent of his arm s a n d hands. O r he would concentrate his
gestures or w iden his arm s, even slightly shaking th e fingers
70
when the statem ent he was m aking cam e to a clim ax, a n d this
was followed by an all-em bracing m ovem ent of b o th arm s with
the conclusion of the statem ent. Tw o years later, w hen Dr.
Steiner first gave the eurythm y gestures for the m usical in te r­
vals, it daw ned upon m e th at these a n d Dr. Steiner’s gestures
when lecturing h a d the sam e origin. I do not say th a t Dr.
Steiner carried out eurythm y gestures when he lectured, b u t
these m ovem ents all sprang from the sam e source.
O n D ecem ber 31st, on New Y ear’s Eve at five o ’clock, a
eurythm y perform ance was given on the great stage o f the
G oetheanum . As was his custom , Dr. Steiner spoke some in ­
troductory words before this perform ance, th e first p a rt of
which was the “Prologue in H eaven” from G oethe’s Faust. Dr.
Steiner stood in front of the closed c u rta in som ew hat to the
right of the center of the stage. As he spoke, there was a
m om ent of tension, of danger, w hen suddenly in the center
a n d front of the stage, a n d directly to the left of D r. Steiner
as seen from the audience, the big tra p door opened in the
floor. O ut of this, d u rin g the perform ance, M ephisto was to
rise in the “Prologue in H eav en .” Dr. Steiner seem ed to be
unaw are of the sudden deep, gaping hole right next to him .
Luckily, young G raf von Polzer-H oditz h a d the presence of
m ind to ju m p up onto the stage, take hold of D r. Steiner’s
arm a n d lead him away from the d an g er spot. D r. Steiner
seem ed to be astonished a t this sudden action, b u t as he looked
to the side, he m ust have seen in w hat danger he h a d been.
Two steps to the side, a n d he would have fallen into the gaping
hole. He continued his introduction w ithout interruption.
T he perform ance itself, on the great G oetheanum stage, was
beautiful beyond words. T h e “Prologue in H eaven,” surrounded
by the twelve carved pillars and the paintings above in the
sm all dom e — it was really heaven.
A t eight o’clock, New Y ear’s Eve, Dr. Steiner gave a lecture,
T he Spiritual C om m union o f M a n kin d , in the g reat hall of the
G oetheanum . T his was strictly a m em bers’ lecture. O ne h a d to
be eighteen years old to becom e a m em ber, a n d since my
friend an d I were lacking one year, we did n o t a tten d . I n ­
71
stead, a group o f us young people m et at the Villa Duldeck,
the hom e of Dr. Grosheintz, which Dr. Steiner h ad designed,
an d we decided to stay up till m idnight for a New Y ear’s Eve
party. I lived, with the friend who h ad invited m e, in a room
in the house of a fam ily down the hill in D ornach-B rugg. At
aro u n d h alf past nine o ’clock, we walked past the G oetheanum
where we m et the night w atchm an with his G erm an shepherd
w atchdog m aking the rounds. W e greeted one another;
everything was peaceful a n d quiet as we walked down the hill
to tell our landlord th a t we would not get hom e till after m id ­
night. T h e n we tu rn e d aro u n d a n d started back up the hill.
W hen we were halfway up to the G oetheanum , a lady cam e
ru n n in g tow ard us, calling out: “T h e G oetheanum is on fire!”
W e could not believe our ears b u t ran up the hill as fast as we
could. Grey smoke was pouring out of the u p p e r windows of
the south wing o f the G oetheanum and craw ling like snakes
over the silvery slate roof. It was about ten o’clock at night by
then. T h e re were calls for w ater, so we joined a chain of
helpers, filling the buckets in the Schreinerei a n d han d in g
them along the line. O h, how slowly the w ater ran out of the
faucet. T h e n there were calls from the terrace: “Bring
ladders!” T here were a few ladders lying near the Schreinerei.
I g rab b ed one an d rushed w ith it as fast as I could through
the south p ortal a n d up the concrete stairs th a t led to the
stage a n d dressing rooms. I could not get very far, for the
space was filled with tra n sp a re n t, greenish smoke which m ade
b rea th in g impossible. I started to cough an d could have suf­
focated. A Russian eurythm ist cam e ru n n in g after m e and
pulled m e down the stairs. I h ad to ab an d o n the ladder.
In the m eantim e the firem en an d fire engines from D ornach
h a d arrived. D r. Steiner gave the ord er th a t everybody should
leave the G oetheanum . T h e firem en took over. W e were asked
to fetch vinegar to help the m en who h a d suffered from smoke
inhalation. So a friend a n d I ra n down to H aus Eckinger and
brought u p w hat vinegar we could find there for the first aid
station which F rau Kolisko h a d p u t u p in the m eadow near
H aus de Jaager.
72
T h e clouds of smoke becam e thicker an d thicker as they
craw led now over b o th cupolas. O ne could h ear the crackling
of the fire, b u t no flam es were visible. T h e G oetheanum h ad
double walls, an inner a n d outer wall w ith air space betw een
them . T h e two cupolas also were double — an inner one on
which were the paintings, a n d an o u ter one covered with
silvery N orw egian slate. T h ere was quite a bit of space b e­
tween them . T h ro u g h this space, betw een th e walls a n d b e ­
tween the domes, the fire ate its way. O ne could n o t see it
from outside.
Suddenly, as the ch u rch bells o f D ornach a n d A rlesheim
pealed the h our of m idnight a n d ra n g in th e New Y ear, a
trem endous flam e b urst fo rth w here the two dom es m et. Now
it was clear th a t there was no help. Piece by piece, the large
and the small dom e collapsed. Now the firem en directed the
stream s of w ater onto the Schreinerei, the carp en try shop. T h e
heat was trem endous. T h e w ater rose up as steam from the
roof. W e carried out all the books from the bookstore, w hich
was in one wing of the Schreinerei, down into H aus de Jaag er.
W e m an ag ed loads we w ould not have been able to carry
u n d er ordinary circum stances.
A nd there, near his studio which contained his g reat wooden
sculpture — the Christ betw een Lucifer an d A hrim an — stood
Dr. Steiner gazing into the raging fire, on his rig h t Miss
M aryon, the sculptress, on his left F raeulein W aller (later
Mrs. Pyle). I stood quite n e a r to them as som eone cam e r u n ­
ning up to Dr. Steiner a n d told him th a t some m em bers were
trying to move the C hrist statue from his studio out onto the
m eadow behind the Schreinerei. Dr. Steiner said th a t should
not be done a n d sent F raeulein W aller to give the message. She
cam e too late; they h a d already m oved the statue.
T h e fire m ade its m urderous progress. First the two dom es
collapsed; then the walls were swallowed by the flam es, the big
windows m elting in the trem endous h eat. T h e n the n o rth and
south wings caved in; the west w ing was the last to go. W hen
the flam es engulfed the organ pipes located in the west of the
g reat hall, they responded w ith strange m usical sounds. T h e
73
flam es took on all m an n e r of colors as they m elted the great
m etal pipes.
Now n othing rem ained but two circles: one of fourteen col­
um ns, the other of twelve. They stood like flam ing torches in
the black night sky, a sight both of h orror and beauty. O ne by
one they fell over into the concrete substructure where the fire
continued to b u rn for two m ore days.
T hick smoke rose above the flam es. “It cannot be!” we said
to ourselves as we gazed at the billowing smoke above the con­
crete foundation. “Surely, the smoke will clear away and the
G oetheanum will be there in all its b e a u ty .” Alas, there before
us was only gaping, physical nothingness.
T h e Schreinerei was saved th ro u g h the efforts of the
firem en. B ut the w ater h ad flooded the room s behind the
stage, an d now the floors h a d to be dried, for Dr. Steiner h ad
asked th a t the Conference go on as scheduled for New Y ear’s
Day, in the Schreinerei: a t 5 P .M ., the Three Kings Play, a t 8
P .M ., his lecture in the series on T he B irth o f N atural
Science. Everybody helped to get the Schreinerei ready for the
five o’clock perform ance, which then took place as scheduled,
while over at the G oetheanum site the fire was still flam ing.
T h e c u rta in of the Schreinerei stage opened; the Angel,
played by In a S chuurm an, stepped forw ard and, speaking the
first words of greeting in the A ustrian dialect of the plays, “I
tritt herei an oilen spot, a sehen g u a tn abend geb eng G od”
(“I enter here joyfully an d bid you from God a beautiful good
evening”), her voice failed her, an d she fought back her tears.
A fter a short struggle, she gained the victory over the pain
th a t gripped the hearts of all o f us who h a d experienced this
terrible night, this u n h e a rd -o f disaster; she ended h er speech
an d the play w ent on w ithout m ishap.
For D r. Steiner’s lecture at eight o’clock the audience had
assem bled early a n d sat in the Schreinerei hall in com plete
silence, w aiting for him . If, on other occasions, one h ad seen
him w alking up the G oetheanum hill, one was im pressed by
his light a n d forw ard-striving step. O ne m ight call it an
iam bic step — w ithout heaviness. Dr. Steiner a n d F rau D oktor
h a d a room b eh in d th e Schreinerei stage; a n d now, as we all
74
sat there in silence, w aiting, we h e a rd heavy steps a p ­
proaching, the feet dragging; a n d D r. Steiner en tered th ro u g h
the blue c u rta in beside the stage a n d stepped to the speaker’s
desk. W e all rose an d stood in reverence before this great a n d
beloved h u m an being. Dr. Steiner, w ith a voice of deepest
sadness, as one m ortally w ounded, spoke a few sentences ab o u t
the g reat loss we h a d experienced: “Das liebe G oetheanum ,
zehn Jahre A rb eit" (“T h e dear G oetheanum , ten years of
w ork”), a n d then, w ith un b ro k en strength, he gave his lecture.
A year later, in his lecture of D ecem ber 31, 1923, Dr.
Steiner said th a t in the flam es of th e b u rn in g tem ple of
A rtem is a t Ephesus one could rea d th e envy o f the Gods; in
the flam es of the b u rn in g G oetheanum one could rea d the
envy of h u m an beings. —
T h ere rem ains w ith m e as precious m em ories the lunches at
the house of Emil a n d B erta M olt, a t w hich R udolf Steiner
an d M arie Steiner were present an d I was allowed to p a r ­
ticipate. Dr. Steiner wished a joyful m ood to prevail d u rin g
m ealtim es, a n d while dessert was served, he frequently told
jokes.
It was in F ebruary, 1924, th a t R udolf Steiner a n d M arie
Steiner cam e to lunch at H aus M olt for the last tim e. T h e
lively conversation h a d tu rn e d to autom obiles a n d to H enry
Ford, a n d R udolf Steiner said th a t he liked to ride in a Ford
car (it was the “M odel T ” of th a t tim e). H e continued: “H enry
Ford has just published his m em oirs,” a n d jokingly he added:
“M any people have ‘m em oiritis’ now adays,” u p o n w hich M arie
Steiner rem arked: “T h a t can be said of you, to o ,” for R udolf
Steiner was at th a t tim e w riting his autobiography w hich a p ­
peared, week after week, in the periodical Das G oetheanum .
As F rau D oktor m ade this rem ark, Dr. Steiner’s facial expres­
sion changed to deep seriousness. H e looked up, his black eyes
seem ed to gaze into far distances, an d he said w ith his deep
and resounding, w arm voice, very slowly: “Ja, es soll n u r
schlicht u n d wahr sein." (“Yes, b u t it m ust be only sim ple an d
tru e .”) A fter a short pause, Emil M olt said: “O ne ought to
w rite F rau D oktor’s biography, to o .” W hereupon D r. Steiner
replied: “Das ka n n m an j a nicht. Frau D oktor ist ein
75
kosmisches Wesen.” (“T h a t cannot be done. Frau D oktor is a
cosmic b e in g .”)*
T h e last tim e I saw R udolf Steiner, he was lying on his
death b ed in his studio in the Schreinerei at the G oetheanum ,
at the feet of the C hrist statue which he him self h ad carved.
T h e soft candle light threw a golden glow over his beloved
countenance, w hich bore the expression o f greatest love as
though he were going to open his eyes any m om ent a n d u tte r
words o f kindness. T h e fragrance o f countless flowers pervaded
the room . A m ong them was a w reath fashioned of every im ­
aginable flower from g ard en a n d m eadow sent by the children
of th e W ald o rf School who h a d lost their greatest teacher a n d
friend w hom they loved like a father. A nother w reath o f red
roses, sent by A lbert Steffen, bore the inscription:
D em G ottesfreund u n d M enschheitsfuehrer
R u d o lf Steiner
(T o the Friend o f G od a n d L eader of M ankind,
R udolf Steiner).
A g reat n u m b er of people h a d g a th e red for the crem ation
a t the cem etery in Basel. Only few found room inside the
crem atorium , w hich was a m u ch sm aller building th a n the
present one. Most people h a d to stan d outside d u rin g the
funeral service, am ong them my m other a n d myself. T h rough
the open door one could h e a r clearly w hat went on inside.
First there sounded the funeral m usic com posed by J a n Stuten.
T h e n D r. R ittelm eyer carried out the funeral service. A fter
th a t A lbert Steffen spoke, a n d m usic concluded the service. As
M arie Steiner, A lbert Steffen, Dr. W egm ann, Dr. V reede, a n d
Dr. W achsm uth left the crem atorium a n d cam e down the
steps, the smoke began to rise from the chim ney. T h e spring
sun rad iated , a n d suddenly there ap p eared a flock of white
birds: it rose in spirals w ith the smoke a n d disappeared into
the blue of the heavens.
*This is an authentic memory. O ne m ust, however, be careful how one in ­
terprets such a rem ark and consider that there are m any aspects of the
h um an individuality, especially in those most spiritually active.
76
E D U C A T IN G AS A N A R T : The R u d o lf Steiner M ethod,
E dited by E kkehard Piening a n d N ick Lyons; available d ire c t­
ly from T h e R udolf Steiner School, 15 East 79 St., New York,
N .Y .; $7.95.
If the beginning of R udolf Steiner ed u cation in A m erica in
New York City seem ed like a pioneering b reak th ro u g h in 1928,
it seems even m ore so in this o u tstan d in g F iftieth Anniversary
publication. How refreshing an d inspiring to read these pieces
by teachers an d form er teachers. As H enry B arnes explains in
his introduction, this collection does not p rete n d to be
system atic or exhaustive, b u t each article describes a facet of
life an d work in a R udolf Steiner school, “an d thus it is hoped
th a t together they will form a m osaic of experience a n d thus
serve to com m em orate the first fifty years of pioneer enterprise
in this educational fie ld .”
W hen so m uch is falling a p a rt, w hen so m any teachers in
public a n d private schools have succum bed to cynicism an d
opportunism , it is h earten in g to h e a r these faithful voices,
building stone by stone a new cu ltu re in o u r m idst: “an e d u c a ­
tion th a t w ould nourish th e spiritual a n d artistic sides of a
child’s n a tu re , as well as school his intellect a n d tra in his
technical skills.”
W hy is it th a t this rem arkable educational a rt is still so little
known an d practiced, in a p eriod o f expanding n atio n al in ­
terest in artistic expression a n d alternative schooling? Barnes
suggests th a t it is because the ed u cation rests on a pictu re of
the total h u m a n being, soul a n d spirit a n d body, a n d this not
in a vague religious way, b u t concretely. T h e know ledge on
w hich the ed u cation is based comes from a spiritual scientific
approach, which has evolved o ut o f the objective disciplines of
n a tu ra l science. It is a frontier.
T h e wholistic tem p er of the Steiner schools is gradually a t­
tra c tin g m ore interest, a n d th e years of practical work in
agriculture, m edicine, n u tritio n , arch itectu re, curative e d u c a ­
tion for the h an d icap p ed , com m unity building, a n d th e arts,
as well as education, are gradually providing g ro u n d for trust
77
on the p a rt of people who are searching for wholeness in
themselves a n d in the world.
T h e 28 individual articles in this book present ideas and
m ethods w hich are not only education-transform ing b u t
person-transform ing a n d w orld-transform ing. T h e book begins
w ith a strong inform ative in troduction by H enry Barnes,
history teacher a n d faculty c h airm an of the New York school
for 30 years. This is followed by an astute piece by Barnes and
Lyons on “E ducation as an A rt,” an im aginative picture of the
“golden windows” o f the elem entary years by V irginia Paulsen,
a n insightful account by V irginia Sease of th e Class T eacher,
“Seeds of Science” for preschoolers by M argaret de Ris, R udolf
C opple on Norse Myths in the F ifth G rade, an d a play by B a r­
b a ra Francis showing how a teacher m ay brin g alive the con­
tent o f a lesson for the children a n d herself. T h e n follow a
w onderful th ird piece by H enry Barnes on the a rt of reading
a n d an o th er on the d ram a tic a rt of H istory T eaching, two
pieces by Christy Barnes on Speech an d Poetry an d on the
Schooling o f Im agination th ro u g h L iteratu re a n d Com position,
a n d a “m oving” account by K ari von O rd t of some aspects of
Eurythm y. Franceschelli’s piece on m a th a n d geom etry is a
plea for “appreciative th in k in g .” H ans G ebert writes on H igh
School Physics a n d Chem istry, Rosem ary G ebert on H andw ork,
M argaret F roehlich on Crafts, Je an Zay in a pow erful b rief
piece on p ain tin g in the curriculum , a n d four delightful excur­
sions into story a n d playlet a n d poem as introducing
arithm etic to the small children. D orothy H a rre r on Fairy
T ales an d Square N um bers, N an ette G rim m on Discipline,
a n d L ona Koch on the social ed u cation of four-year-olds, these
are gems. George Rose of the A delphi W ald o rf faculty gives a
substantial account of m usic curriculum a n d th e strong p ro ­
g ram a t his school.
Jo h n G a rd n er’s piece, “Y outh Longs to K now ,” states the
longing in ou r tim e for im m ediacy of experience, for m eaning
th a t transcends conventional goals a n d routines, a n d for feel­
ing oneself a p a rt of an essential g ro u n d o f Being. W hen these
longings are fru strated , he says, they m ay tu rn into despairing
78
an d destructive behaviors. H e describes the support th a t youth
can get for its energies an d idealism from a schooling based on
living experience, a n d a free individual p a rticip a tio n w ith the
divine. “It was Steiner’s view th a t o u r present age begins
som ething new in the history of m a n k in d .” Seeds of this
renew al are found in T h o re a u ,
Em erson, W h itm a n ,
H aw thorne.
In a piece called “E ducation as an A rt,” B arnes a n d Lyons
write th a t the goal of artistic m eth o d in R udolf Steiner e d u c a ­
tions is to w aken the living concept w hich m ay becom e h u m an
capacity. It comes ab o u t th ro u g h a rhythm ic sequence of
perception, experience, understan d in g , b o th in each lesson a n d
in the developm ent of the curriculum . T h e intelligence of the
child is gradually led a n d encouraged a n d stren g th en ed from
its early m anifestations in action and will, to the elem entary
years w here feeling is upperm ost, to the high school c u r­
riculum w hich reflects the grow ing independence of thinking.
A lan H ow ard’s concluding piece on “T h e F u tu re of
Know ledge” is an o th er voice in the positive read in g o f the
spiritual tasks of ed u cation in ou r tim e. Knowledge, he says, is
the reu n itin g of the being o f m an an d the Being o f the world.
T his is love, too, an d “relig io n .” A n ideal, yes, b u t, as he says,
perhaps approp riately evoked in a book celebrating the Fiftieth
Anniversary o f a school d edicated to “a living science, a living
a rt a n d a living religion.”
T his book is rich a n d readable. Its im aginative a n d m oral
force sweetens the air w ith th e unm istakable scent of healthy
an d grow ing form s. I hope it will be widely rea d in the
b ro ad er ed ucational com m unity.
M. C. R ichards
79
T E A C H IN G AS A LIV ELY A R T , by M arjorie Spock; T h e
A nthroposophic Press, 1978; 138 pages; $3.95.
It is no small feat to describe the b rea d th an d d e p th of the
elem entary school curriculum b u ilt aro u n d the. developm ental
stages of the child a n d em ployed since 1920, in its essential
features, in a n ever increasing n u m b er of W ald o rf or R udolf
Steiner schools aro u n d the w orld. M arjorie Spock has ac­
com plished this by fram ing the actu al description of the in te r­
related curriculum subjects, tau g h t from grade one th rough
eight, w ith a n opening ch ap ter on “A New Picture of the
H u m an B eing” w hich attem pts to explain the underlying
philosophy of teaching, a n d three concluding chapters dealing
w ith the child’s tem p eram en tal disposition, the tea c h e r’s role
an d his relationship to the grow ing child.
Miss Spock is herself an exam ple of the “lively a rt” of ex­
pression. R eaders who m ight well lay aside an o th er book will
be led on from page to page a n d be a ttra c te d to the education
she describes by her very read ab le a n d c h arm in g style. It is
regrettable th a t the book does not contain a note on the
au th o r, giving tim e, place a n d circum stances of her involve­
m en t w ith W ald o rf E ducation.
A few words here will supply some background. A fter study­
ing eurythm y in D ornach, Sw itzerland, she tau g h t it to
children in the New York R u d o lf Steiner School a n d the
W ald o rf School in G arden City d u rin g their early years. L ater
she ta u g h t grades b o th in the D alton School in New York City
a n d in th e Fieldston School. T his book was first w ritten for
her m aster’s thesis a t T eachers College, C olum bia University,
in 1944, when it was seriously considered for publication there.
She has p racticed bio-dynam ic g ard en in g in L ong Island an d
in M aine, w here she is still ru n n in g a farm . She is the sister of
th e well-known B enjam in Spock.
It is the beauty of R udolf Steiner’s indications for the
teaching of the various subjects th a t they are precise in term s
of aim s, m ethods a n d long-range effects. T h e m any exam ples
a n d situations described w ith considerable insight in the m id ­
dle chapters o f the book nevertheless should not be taken as
80
recipes th a t prevent a teacher from responding creatively to
the changing needs of children today in any given location.
R a th e r they should be taken as illustrations of the m any
aspects of elem entary education offered in a W ald o rf School.
T h e teach er’s resourcefulness, im agination an d co n tem ­
porariness are called u p o n a t all tim es to find ways of im ­
plem enting the indications in a m eaningful, diversified way in
each school, in each class, today.
T his friendly little volum e presents a rich, colorful
p a n o ra m a o f the landscape of childhood’s m iddle years, only
gently implying, perhaps, the existence o f deeper roots
u n d ern eath , a n d w ithout seeking to b are them for the present.
T h e sparkling p icture should not b lind us, of course, to the
fact th a t all teaching is fra u g h t w ith problem s an d obstacles
w hich will challenge the teachers in m any ways. T h e book m ay
well be placed, w ith some explanatory rem arks such as those
of the previous p a ra g ra p h , in the hands of in q uiring parents
who seriously seek a viable alternative education for their
children.
Erika V. A sten
C u r e — AN ANECDOTE*
by H ein z Frankfurt
A m other was troubled ab o u t her child; he bored into his nose
insatiably. T h e little nose was already raw a n d th re a te n e d to
becom e deform ed. W h a t could she do?
She h u rried to R udolf Steiner. Lovingly he took the little
boy on his arm a n d carried him to the eurythm ists who were
just then having a recess from their rehearsal.
“Just look a t this lovely blue lady!” — “Blue lad y ,” the child
said after him . A nd R udolf Steiner w ent on: “A nd look a t this
lovely yellow lad y ,” — “Lovely yellow la d y ,” the child
repeated. A nd so the red, the green a n d the lilac lovely ladies
were all adm ired a n d w ondered at. T h e n suddenly R udolf
Steiner added, “A nd n o t one of them bores into her nose!”
A t these words, the child pulled his little finger quickly out
of his nose. A nd lovely lady A unt Kisseleff claim ed th a t from
then on he was cured.
*From M itteilungen, S tuttgart, G erm any; Easter 1978.
81
P IL G R IM A G E T O T H E T R E E OF LIFE by A lbert
Steffen, Adonis Press, second p rin tin g 1978, 66 p p ., $3.95.
Cover design by the au th o r.
W e can be grateful for the rep rin tin g of this rem arkable little
book in a new a n d ap p ealing edition. It is one to rea d again
a n d again, m editatively, a n d is for all those who “long for a
tru e perception of n a tu r e .” T h e serious student of h er rhythm s
a n d form s will recognize m uch fam iliar a n d well-loved terrain ,
b u t it is likely th a t all will find themselves led tow ard new and
ever w idening realm s of experience.
T o perceive n a tu re truly, one m ust begin by w orking upon
oneself — b a d habits m ust be recognized a n d dealt with. P u ri­
ty a n d freedom are thus the first qualifications. T h e various
“types” which one m eets in the outdoors, all considering
themselves friends of n a tu re , are deftly described: the one out
for a ta n or to please the ladies, the one lost in m em ories, the
one who looks a t a tree as so m any b o a rd feet o f lum ber. Yet
all econom ic, personal, o r purely recreational reasons for “e n ­
joying” n a tu re m ust vanish, be p u rg ed away, if we are to
becom e sufficiently receptive to h e a r h er speak. O ne who
w ould observe n a tu re a n d appreciate her infinite a n d subtle
transform ations m ust also move inw ardly — in the inner
reaches o f the soul — in a realm of self-observation a n d self­
transform ation. A change in o u r habits will of itself bring
ab o u t a “refinem ent o f the feelings.” Love is essential —
“W h a t is already present in love, the longing to know, will
lead m e o f itself to know ledge.” T o learn som ething new ab o u t
a tree, one m ust “perfect oneself in love.”
T h ro u g h Steffen’s m agic we see the inner w orld o f feelings
as a c o u n te rp art to the vast w orld o f n a tu re . W hen a new and
“friendly” feeling m anifests in the g ard en of the soul, it m ust
be carefully ten d ed so th a t it m ay take root. C ultivation is
necessary. T h a t w hich th reaten s it — ugliness a n d stupidity
— m ust be reg ard ed as poor soil, or as a b o m b ard m en t by
hailstones. T h e lab o r is never-ending, as all gardeners know. If
a m an is to rise to a tru e perception of the blue sky or a b u d ­
82
ding m eadow , he m ust lab o r to reproduce the p icture w ithin
himself. “All this requires th a t the inner life be m ore steadfast
yet sensitive, richer in love a n d m ore soaring.” T h e perception
of n a tu re “requires m any varied a n d delicate nuances of seeing
a n d feeling. T h e soul m ust transform itself for the sake of a
m eadow which puts forth its first b lo o m .”
T h a t w hich lives as the artist in m an , his creative and
im aginative capacities, m ust thus be exercised to respond to
the artist in n atu re. Steffen speaks of being “creators” of our
own feelings. H ere we have help and insight into the creative
process, led by one who knows it well. O nce again we see th a t
the act of creating involves first a clearing-aw ay of obstacles,
of developing sensitivity, an d th en a “letting arise,” a n activity
of stillness, o f restraint, o f objectivity. T hus we are led beyond
w hat we usually call G oetheanistic observation, in which we
strive for a living picture of the whole, for an Im agination.
Now we are entering the world of Inspiration.
T h e first essay, “T h e P re p a ra tio n ,” lays the groundw ork for
a new perception o f n a tu re and gives us the rules we m ust
follow. T h e second essay, “T h e W ay ,” is divided into three
parts, an d leads us into a new w orld. H ere we m eet new
perceptions, new feelings, new revelations. It is in these latte r
essays th a t the poems ap p ear, for such experiences can best be
com m unicated th rough art. O ne feels th a t it is the poet in
p a rticu la r who m ust tra in his powers of observation, who
perhaps best bridges the transform ation into the inner response
o f the soul.
This translation by E leanor Trives, w hich so beautifully
em bodies the pace and poetic im pact of the original, first a p ­
peared in 1943. May it now becom e know n an d loved by a
whole new generation! T h e volum e has a lively feel. T h e cover,
bearing Steffen’s m o tif from A le x a n d e r’s Transform ation, is
striking. O ne regrets the inevitable loss w hen poems are
translated into an o th er language, b u t again in this new edition
the G erm an originals of Steffen’s poems ap p earin g in the text
are g ath ered together in a separate section at the end.
83
Pilgrimage to the Tree o f L ife is a book to live with through
the years. No teacher should be w ithout it. “In our day it is
chiefly the science of the tree th a t is ta u g h t,” says A lbert Stef­
fen. “Knowledge, however, sprang from love. T herefore I
w ould prefer th a t som eone tell m e how to learn to love trees.”
Jeanne Bergen
T H E L IV IN G E A R T H — T h e O rganic O rigin o f Rocks
and M inerals by W alth er Cloos; translated by K. Castelliz and
B. Saunders-Davies from Lebensstufen der E rd e , L an th o rn
Press, 1978, 160 p p ., 8 pp. half-tone illustrations, (£2.85).
This book is a n am plification of certain statem ents by R udolf
Steiner, m ainly in Occult Science, to the effect th a t the whole
m ineral stru ctu re of the present E arth planet is an offcast of
form er processes of life. T h e translators express the hope th a t
it will be w elcom ed as a com panion to G ro h m an n ’s work on
th e p lant, especially by teachers, a n d indeed the w ealth of
detail given by W alth er Cloos appears to place it in this class.
B ut to am plify is not necessarily to increase our understanding,
a n d Cloos does not atte m p t to explain w hat Steiner m eans by
these statem ents about the m ineral E a rth in term s th a t we can
reconcile w ith our own experience.
Steiner’s statem ents were based on his readings in the
Akashic Record, an occult phenom enon he said was accessible
to all those who follow a certain p a th of tra in in g w hich he
described in detail. Steiner evidently expected others to follow
this p a th to the extent of being able to rep eat and confirm his
own readings, b u t he also hoped th a t his occult findings would
be confirm ed less directly, though no less certainly, by the
m ore usual kind of scientific observation. I do not have access
to the Akashic C hronicle myself, a n d Cloos m akes no m ention
of it, so the direct m eth o d of confirm ation is not available for
discussion; b u t I do believe th a t we should take Steiner with
enough seriousness to give his second m ethod a fair trial, and
84
use rigorous logical thinking a n d unbiassed observation to try
to find out w hat he m ean t us to u n d erstan d by a living and
dying planet. P erhaps this is w hat Cloos set out to a ttem p t,
b u t I am not sure th at he has seen the n a tu re of the problem .
W hat we know as life is a property of living organism s;
these are bodies th a t have the power to reproduce their kind
an d to develop a n d m a in ta in their characteristic form s by
assim ilating an d converting n u trie n t m aterial. W e are asked to
consider th a t the planet E a rth is or was such an organism . Yet
Cloos seems to be confused ab o u t the n a tu re of a n organism
a n d about life processes. He m akes the analogy betw een the
m ineral E arth and a corpse, b u t writes as if a living p la n t or
anim al were subject to living forces alone a n d only becomes
subject to physical forces when dead; in fact, any organism
w ith a physical body is subject to physical forces at all times.
It is gravity th a t ensures th a t a p la n t grows u p straight; it is
the law of conservation of energy th a t enables a p red a to r to
h u n t an d the law of inertia th a t m akes possible the flight of
the swallow. Those physical forces th a t produce the crystals
and gemstones also enable us to chew ou r food an d see distant
objects. Those forces peculiar to living organism s — the
ethereal form ative forces of w hich Steiner speaks — th a t
enable a p la n t or anim al to assim ilate food into its own
specific life-form , are ad d itio n al to the physical forces acting
on the organism . If the E a rth is a n organism , we m ust ask
w hat is its specific life-form (leaving aside the question of
reproduction) and how is it m ain tain ed . O therw ise there is no
point in talking ab o u t life processes.
Cloos m erely illustrates some resem blances betw een m inerals
a n d living form s, such as a folded rock th a t looks a bit like
tree b ark or twisted wood, a n d th e lovely flower-like an d
frond-shaped crystals, a n d assumes th a t since flowers, fronds
a n d b ark are pro d u ced by living organism s, the o th er form s
m ust also be the result of life processes. O thers, n o tin g the
sim ilarities, have argued th a t, w here the resem blance is m ore
th a n superficial a n d really depends u p o n the w orking of
sim ilar forces, this is evidence th a t physical forces are also at
work in the living kingdom s. O f course, if Cloos m eans th a t
85
any force at work in a living organism is a life force, then his
definition of a life force m ust becom e so vague as to lose any
distinction betw een living a n d physical, an d we are arguing
only about term inology. But then w hat becomes of Steiner’s
exciting concept of the E a rth plan et as a n organism ? Surely
Steiner deserves b e tte r th an this.
In the realm of straightforw ard geology, Cloos still seems
ra th e r confused. H e outlines three b ro ad groups of rocks: a
prim al layer of g ran u la r rock such as granite; an interm ediate
layer of foliated schists, slates and shales; a n d the m ost recent
layer mostly m ade u p of thick beds of lim estone. Such a
schem e m ight have been found in a nineteenth-century
prim er, b u t it hardly fits the facts as we know them today.
Cloos him self has to adm it th a t there are limestones am ongst
the m ost ancient rocks, thus shaking the structure of his
schem e; he avoids the fact th a t granite is never found as a
basal layer b u t always as an intrusion into still older sedim en­
tary rocks. It m ay well be th a t the whole process of granitization, by which vast masses of continental crust becom e
transform ed into crystalline rock (such as granite) w ith a broad
m arg in of more-or-less m etam orphosed rocks (such as schist
an d slate) is one o f the m ore recent developm ents in the
E a rth ’s long history, a n d it w ould seem to m e th a t this fits
m uch better w ith S teiner’s idea th a t the m ineral phase is the
last step in the form ation of ou r planet.
T h e e a rth sciences have m ade great progress since Steiner’s
tim e, b u t Cloos treats scientists w ith derision. H e repeats the
hoary jibe th a t com pares a geologist w ith a m an who observes
a p a tie n t’s pulse over one year an d then projects the pulse-rate
for 300 years forw ards an d backw ards w ithout realizing th a t
the p a tie n t does not live th a t long. In fact scientists are always
careful to describe th eir observations, their assum ptions and
their calculations in such a way th a t others can check them ,
whereas Cloos can only rep eat dogm atically w hat Steiner has
p u t forw ard. If Cloos wishes to im pute stupidity to scientists,
he should be careful th at his own naivety does not bring
discredit upon Steiner. It seems to m e th a t the m odern scien­
tific picture of the e a rth planet as a totality, w ith its exciting
86
new concepts of plate tectonics a n d sub-crustal circulations, is
m uch closer to Steiner’s view of the e a rth as a kind of gigantic
developing em bryo th a n is the m u d d le d schem e o u tlined by
Cloos.
T h e translators say th a t this book should be helpful to
teachers in W aldorf schools, b u t here again I think a word of
caution necessary. Steiner com m ended G oethe’s work in the
field of science as a m odel for scientific study in schools, based
as it was on close but w ide-ranging observation of phenom ena
free from preconceived abstract theories. G oethe him self m ade
a characteristic co n trib u tio n to geological know ledge by
postulating w idespread glaciation over E urope a t a form er
tim e
an ice-age — based on his observation of
Scandinavian-type boulders in G erm any a n d the perception
th at a glacier was the only n a tu ra l phenom enon capable of
m oving such large rocks so far. In fact, the m odern picture of
E a rth ’s history is based on ju st such G oethe-like science, p a tie n t
an d open-m inded; Cloos, however, w arns against trying to
explain the past from the present, b u t offers no alternative
except his own, Steiner-derived preconceptions. W hether one
agrees w ith his in terp retatio n s of Steiner or not, this is hardly
the best exam ple of scientific procedure to place before young
people.
Finally, I would like to suggest th a t the translators’ work has
not been wasted, in spite of the serious shortcom ings of the
book as a work of science. T h ere is a splendid poetry of tru th
in Steiner’s work, an d it is an excellent thing to be rem inded
of all th a t he has p u t forw ard concerning the origins of our
m ineral planet. T h e re are still m ore questions th a n answers,
b u t Cloos has b ro u g h t together, a n d the translators an d
publisher have m ade available to the English-speaking w orld, a
com pact basketful of rocky problem s to po n d er over. May it
be used wisely.
R a lp h B rocklebank
87
CONTRIBUTORS TO TH IS ISSUE
ALAN H O W A R D — R etired W aldorf teacher who has lectured widely on
R udolf Steiner an d his work. • M. C. (Mary Caroline) RICHARDS —
Poet, potter, free lance teacher and lecturer; au th o r of Centering: in P o t­
tery, a nd the Person; translator: The T heater and its D ouble by A rtaud.
• M A R TIN KURKOW SKI — Form er high school student at the R udolf
Steiner School, New York.
•
A L B E R T STEFFEN — Swiss poet,
dram atist, novelist; president of the A nthroposophical Society, 1925-1963.
• LAURA T A Y L O R — W ife of an English playwright of the last century.
• DO NA LD H A LL — G raduate of the School of P ainting (Assenza) at
the G oetheanum , D ornach, Switzerland; form er painting teacher at the
R udolf Steiner School, Basel; resident artist at the R udolf Steiner Farm
School, Harlem ville, N.Y. • AL LANEY — Free-lance journalist; form er
sports w riter for the New York H erald T ribune; au th o r of Paris Herald:
The Incredible N ewspaper and Covering the Courts.
* CHRISTY
BARNES — R etired English teacher at the R udolf Steiner School, New
York; editor of A lb e rt Steffen, Translation an d T rib u te; Jo u rn ey m a n ’s
A lm anac.
•
R U D O LF STE IN ER (1861-1925) In au g u rato r of
A nthroposophy and the School for Spiritual Science, G oetheanum , D or­
nach, Switzerland.
•
KARL EGE — (1899-1973) T eacher, lecturer;
tau g h t in the original W aldorf School an d the R udolf Steiner School, New
York; consultant to a n um ber of schools in this country an d abroad; a
founder of the R udolf Steiner Farm School, Harlem ville, N.Y. • HARRY
KRETZ — T eacher, m usician; form erly a t the R udolf Steiner School, New
York and C am p Glen Brook; presently at the R udolf Steiner Farm School,
H arlem ville, N.Y. • HANS G EBERT — H igh school physics teacher at
M ichael H all, E ngland for 16 years; head of Physics D epartm ent of B ir­
m ingham Polytechnic; Associate Professor an d Co-D irector of the W aldorf
Institute of Mercy College, D etroit. • MARK T A PE R — Form er student
of the R udolf Steiner School, New York. • ERIKA V. A STEN — Ph.D .
in Musicology, Berlin; ten years in Public Broadcasting; form er class
teacher, D etroit W aldorf School. • JEA N N E BERGEN — N aturalist;
B icentennial Essay A w ard, 1976; faculty, R udolf Steiner F arm School,
H arlem ville, N.Y. • R A LPH BROCKELBANK - M.A. in Geology,
C am bridge, E ngland; chairm an of Color G roup of G reat B ritain; m em ber
o f G oethean Science F oundation; adm inistrator of Sunfield School, Clent,
E ngland.
EDUCATION AS AN ART
Published b y the W aldorf Schools in n o rth America
S P R IN G 1979: Special double issue celebrating the 50th anniversary
o f the in c e p tio n o f W a ld o rf E ducation on the N o rth A m erican
continent.
A R T IC L E S by L. Francis Edmunds, Alan Howard, Rene M. Q uerido, Betty
Kane, Nick Lyons, Stephen Edelgtass, N anette G rim m , H elm ut Krause, and
o thers. - G A L L E R Y OF P O R T R A IT S : th e W aldorf Schools and W aldorf
Teacher T raining Institutes in N orth America Today. - W O RLD L IS T of
Waldorf (Rudolf Steiner) Schools. - C O LO R PAG ES of the 50th Anniversary
Exhibit. - G U E ST E D IT O R IA L by Henry Barnes.
Double issue: $2.75. - Order from ANTHROPOSOPHIC PRESS, 258 Hungry Hollow Road, Spring Valley, N.Y. 10977;
or from ST. GEORGE BOOK SERVICE, P.O. Box 225, Spring Valley, N.Y. 10977.
88
TEACHING
AS A LIVELYART
by
MARJORIE SPOCK
Here, at last, is a book on the W aldorf method of teach­
ing that w ill delight teachers, parents, students and every­
one else interested in a living approach to the education of
our children. Marjorie Spock, a truly creative individual, is
w ell-prepared to w rite such a book. First, she has a thor­
ough grasp of Rudolf Steiner’s anthroposophy, which is es­
sential to an understanding of his views on education. She
is also a teacher of long experience, a eurythmist, and the
author of numerous essays and articles on education.
In Teaching as a Lively Art, Miss Spock devotes a chap­
ter to each of the grades through high school, discussing
problems and methods. The concluding chapters are di­
rected to parents and teachers.
Paper, 144 pages, illustrated, $3.95
“ This book makes you want to send
your child to a W aldorf School!”
“ It w ill be of use to teachers as w ell as parents.”
“ M arjorie Spock is a fine w riter and
Teaching as a Lively A rt is an excellent
example of her direct and lu cid style.”
THE ANTHROPOSOPHIC PRESS
258 H ungry H ollow Road
S pring Valley, New Y o rk 10977
Agents and distributors in the United States for
RUDOLF STEINER PRESS, LONDON
STEINER BOOK CENTRE, NORTH VANCOUVER
89
E m e r s o n C o lle g e
A centre for adult education, training and research based
on the w ork o f Rudolf Steiner.
Foundation Year:
Education Course:
Agriculture Course:
Centre for Social
Development:
Arts:
A year of orientation and exploration in
Anthroposophy.
A one-year training course in W aldorf Education.
Introduction to fundamentals of bio-dynamic
agriculture and gardening.
One-term and one-year courses of training in
social questions and practice.
Opportunities for further work in sculpture,
painting or eurythmy, follow ing the Foundation
Year or equivalent.
For further information, please write to:
The Secretary, Emerson College, Forest Row, Sussex
RH18 5JX, England.
hpsilud
fA
entoC
acrm
S
9 2 0 0 Fair Oaks Blvd.
Fair Oaks. Calif. 9 5 6 2 8
RENE M. Q U E R ID O
A D M IN IS T R A T O R
F O U N D A T IO N Y E A R
based on the w ork of
in S P IR IT U A L S C IE N C E
R U D O L F S T E IN E R
T E A C H E R T R A IN IN G A P P R E N T IC E S H IP
in cooperation with the Sacramento Waldorf School
A M E R IC A N S T U D IE S P R O G R A M
seeks to penetrate the spiritual reality of
America in our time
E U R Y T H M Y , S P E E C H , and D R A M A
B IO D Y N A M IC G A R D E N IN G A P P R E N T IC E S H IP P R O G R A M
Intensive study in
full time and part time studies; public lectures.
90
which
Waldorf Teacher Training
THE WALDORF INSTITUTE OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
at H IG H L A N D HALL
17100 Superior Street
N o rth rid g e, C a lifo rn ia 91324
offers a W aldorf Teaching Training Program from
Mid-September to Mid-June. This intensive one-year
Program is housed at H ighland Hall, a W aldorf
School, w ith grades Nursery through Twelfth. For
full details please send for our brochure.
DIRECTORS
D r. V ir g in ia Sease, a n d M r . John B rou sseau
A training in Speech Formation by Sophia Walsh o f Dornach is also
available during the Winter months.
WALDORF INSTITUTE------------------OF
MERCY COLLEGE------------------8469 East Jefferson, Detroit, Michigan 48214*
offers four programs:
• The ORIENTATION YEAR provides a firm basis in A n th roposophy w ith a p p ro p ria te
em phasis o n arts, crafts a n d cognitive courses. It is a m ajor tow ards a B.A. D egree
and o p en to g rad u ates an d u n d erg ra d u ates.
a The TEACHER TRAINING program is designed to m e e t th e need s of W aldorf (Steiner)
Schools a t th e elem en tary an d high school level. It also provides elem en tary certifi­
catio n by th e S tate of M ichigan if desired. T here is a n eed for W aldorf teachers.
• The EARLY CH ILD H O O D EDUCATION program is o ffered in asso ciatio n with th e
In tern atio n al A ssociation of W aldorf K indergartens. It is in te n d e d as training for w ork
in nurseries an d k in d erg arten s an d for th o se co n cern ed w ith th e first seven years of
life.
• The SPECIAL (CURATIVE) EDUCATION p ro g ram is o ffe re d in a s so c ia tio n w ith th e
Cam phill School (Beaver Run) an d th e E speranza School (Chicago). It leads to w ork in
hom es an d schools for h an d ic a p p e d children.
DIRECTORS: W erner Glas, Ph.D., H ans G ebert, R alph M arinelli
A ccred ited by th e N orth C entral A ssociation of C olleges an d S econdary Schools
'A d d ress a fter July 1, 1979 ■ 23399 Evergreen Rd., Southfield, Mich.
(A beautiful cam pus on 118 acres of land 15 m iles from dow ntow n Detroit)
91
the
Toronto
W ALDORF SCH O OL
Kindergarten — Grade 12
9100 B athurst Street
T h o rn h ill, O n tario L3T3N3, Canada
B R IS T O L W A L D O R F S C H O O L
Park Place, Clifton, Bristol 8
This School is now in its sixth year with over 200 pupils. It is firmly established on a central
city site with im m ense potential. W e intend to develop besides a good W aldorf School, also
a vitally needed Social Center involving parents and friends.
In Septem ber 1980 an U pper School is being established. W e shall need Teachers for this
work. Please write to us if you feel a response to the challenge of this pioneering work in
England.
Fern Hill Environs
& P roperties
Secluded homesites & properties in rural
community; adjoining biodynamic farm, Waldorf
School, woodlands, swimming, common lands.
Ideal for families, retired persons or second home.
Investment opportunity,
write: Fern Hill Environs, Harlemville, Ghent, N.Y. 12075
call: 518-672-4815
D iaetpension
VIGILIA
A-6380 ST. JOHANN IN TIROL, AUSTRIA
HEALTH FOODS - BIO-DYNAMIC FARM
Train line from Dornach
Tel. (0 53 52) 2256
92
A r i WALDORF BOARDING
SCHOOL
/
\
r \-^
High Mowing School
Wilton, New Hampshire
We are a coeducational boarding school, beautifully situated in hilly,
wooded country, about 65 miles northwest of Boston (Enrollment 100110; boarding, grades 9-12; day students, 7-12).
Since our founding as a W aldorf School in 1942, we have prepared
hundreds of students who have entered a wide variety of careers: gov­
ernment, business, medicine, education, and the arts and crafts. Quite
a number of our alumni send us their sons and daughters to educate.
We offer the following program:
Academic
Arts & Crafts
Practical
(4 years each of)
English
History
Mathematics
Science
French
German
Drama
Music
Eurythmy
Art
Weaving
Pottery
Wood Carving
Biodynamic
Agriculture
Forestry
Carpentry
Building
Construction
Motor Mechanics
Sports are largely noncompetitive. Where possible, we raise our own
food; and our kitchen serves nutritious, well balanced meals for both
meat eaters and vegetarians.
We are neither traditional nor “ free” in form. Students live and work
within a definite educational and social structure and yet have freedom
within the framework of expectations and requirements. The atmosphere
is friendly, informal, and homelike. A capable and devoted faculty works
closely to help each student find his own direction and purpose in life.
HIGH MOWING SCHOOL, Abbot Hill Road, Wilton, N.H. 03086
Telephone (603) 654-2391
93
Kneippsan
a torium
Dr. Felbermayer
Alpenpark and Ski-Station, A - 6793 Gashurn I Montafon
VACATION — REST — REFRESHMENT — RECOVERY
On the sunny slopes of the Austrian Alps
996 m e tre s a b o v e se a le ve l
Treatment broadened by spiritual-scientifically oriented medicine. Health foods, biodynamically grown; Hydrotherapy (Kneipp,
Sauna, Baths); Massage; Special diet; Thera­
peutic Gymnastics; Neuraltherapy.
Chamber Music; Lectures.
Open, mid-December to end of October. Tel. 00 43/ 55 58/ 2 18
WELEDA
massage oil
with
Arnica
At your Health Food Store
Ask for our m ail order catalog
Weleda Inc., 841 S. Main St., Spring Valley, N.Y. 10977
94
CAMPHILL
VILLAGE
Gift Shop
H A N D C R A F T S
Wooden cutting boards, trivets, toys
Stuffed soft toys / Weavings / Batiks
Enamel dishes, bowls, pendants
Blank books covered in hand-woven material or batik
Visit our store
Chrysler Pond Road, Copake, N.Y. 12516
Tel.(518)329-4511.
Open daily except Tuesdays.
We also fill mail orders.
Write for catalogue.
95
AN EV ID E N T NEED O F O U R TIMES
by KARL EGE
G o a ls o f E d u c a t io n a t t h e C lo s e o f th e C e n t u r y
T he th o u g h ts o f a teacher on his w o rk and on the new needs confronting W aldorf Education.
From the C ontents: In tro d u c tio n by A rvia Ege; The N a tu re o f U n d e rs ta n d in g ;
P ro b le m s o f P u b e rty ; P ro s p e c ts fo r th e F u tu re ; T e a c h e r’ s P re p a ra tio n ; M u tu a l
T ru s t. 66 pp., $3.50.
P IL G R IM A G E T O THE TREE O F LIFE
by ALBERT STEFFEN
A b o o k to lead te a c h e rs , p a re n ts and n a tu re lovers back in to
th e e x p e rie n c e s o f c h ild h o o d and fo rw a rd in to th e rid d le s o f
th e life and d e a th fo rc e s at w o rk in th e w o rld .
A p o e t’s s p iritu a l in s ig h t in to n a tu re and s e lf-d e v e lo p m e n t.
A new e d itio n w ith co v e r design by the au th o r, $ 3 .9 5 .
Please add 50$ for postage.
A
D
O
N
I S
P
R
E
S
S
Hillsdale, New York 12529
ChildandMan
________Journal for Waldorf Education
WINTER - SPRING 1979 R E L IG IO N & T H E S O C IA L T A S K O F SC H O O L S
Has R e lig io n any Place in E d u c a tio n ? (part 1 ) ................................A la n H ow ard
R e d is c o v e rin g th e Phases o f H um an L if e .......................... C h risto p h er Schaefer
A Deep C o m m u n a l Im p u ls e (th e B ris to l S c h o o l).............................. Jo h n A ld e r
W h e re a T e a c h e r's Road Can L e a d ..................................................R o n a ld Jarman
SUMMER - MICHAELMAS 1979 M O V E M E N T IN SC H O O L
S tru g g lin g w ith Chaos — W hy te a ch e v e ry th in g ? ....................Janet W illiam son
Space is Hum an (Teaching B o th m e r G y m n a s tic s )........................ Paul M atthew s
T h e S easons — My C u rric u lu m in C la s s T w o (part 2 ) .............. D ennis D em annet
...a n d m u c h m o r e ! 48 c o lo u r fu l pages, w ith th e la te st lis t o f
(1 8 0 4 ) W a ld o rf S ch o o ls a ro u n d th e w orld.
S ubscription $6 p er year p o stag e paid, or individual copies $4.50 from D iane Schm itt,
1823 Beech Street, W antagh, NY 11793 or from A nthroposophic Press, 358 Hungry Hollow Road,
Spring Valley, NY 10977.
96
LEIERN
Leier-M akers
E D M U N D PRA CHT
und
L O T H A R G AERTNER
1926
1976
W . L O T H A R G AERTNER
F O R IN F O R M A T IO N W R IT E T O
D -7750 K O N S T A N Z / A . B .
F ritz-A rnold-S trasse 18 / P o stfa ch 8905
W. G erm any
T elephone 07531 / 61785
R u d o lf S te in e r F a rm S ch o o l
S u m m e r P ro g ra m s
f o r CHIL DRE N
S u m m er at H aw thorne Valley Farm — A c re a tiv e su m m e r e x p e rie n c e fo r c h ild re n
ages 9 - 12: fa rm ch o re s, s w im m in g , h ik in g , a rtis tic w o rk at H a w th o rn e
V alley Farm . F o u r w e e ks, s ta rtin g Ju n e 30th.
The Agaw am uck W ilderness Adventure — A c h a lle n g in g six w e e ks o f le a rn in g
to live in h a rm o n y w ith na ture . B a ck p a c k in g , c a n o e in g , ro c k c lim b in g in th e
B e rk s h ire s , C a ts k ills and A d iro n d a c k s . F o re s t e c o lo g y , s w im m in g , m u sic.
A ge 13 and o ld e r. Six w e e ks, s ta rtin g Ju n e 30th.
Write or phone: Rudolf Steiner Farm School, RD 2, Harlemville, Ghent, New York 12075
Tel. (518) 672-7120 weekdays until 4 o'clock
ST AFF: Christy Barnes, E ditor; Jeanne Bergen, Sandra Sherman, Editorial
Assistants; Janet Hutchinson, Subscriptions.
Published twice a year by the Anthroposophical Society in America. S u bscriptions S6.00 per year. Back numbers may he obtained upon request from
Journal for Anthroposophy, 211 Madison Avenue, New York, N .Y . 10016.
Title Design by Walter Roggenkamp.