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Steiner’s Lectures

To Teachers & Educators

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Steiner’s Lectures On Teaching And Education

About The Transcripts Of The Lecture Courses “The results of my anthroposophical work are, first, the books available to the general public; and secondly, a great number of lecture courses… But it must be borne in mind that faulty passages occur in these lecture-reports not revised by myself. The right to judge such material can, of course, be conceded only to someone who has the prerequisite basis for such judgment. And in respect of most of this material it would mean at least knowledge of the human being and of the cosmos insofar as these have been presented in the light of Anthroposophy.”1 The Unique Value Of Each Course “Thus, the educational course given here at the Goetheanum just over a year ago2 can be compared with what I presented to you again differently in this course. You will find that, basically, the substance of both courses is the same as, for example, the head and the stomach; each form a part of one organism… because of how various themes mutually support each other, one cannot say: I have read and understood the first course; and because the later one is supposed to carry the same message, there is no need for me to study it as well. The fact is, however, that, if one has studied both courses, the earlier one will be understood in greater depth, because each sheds light on the other. It could even be said that, only when one has digested a later teachers’ course, can one fully understand an earlier one because of these reciprocal effects. As a Waldorf teacher, one has to be conscious of the necessity for continually widening and deepening one’s knowledge, rather than feeling satisfied with one’s achievements.”3

1 Extract from Rudolf Steiner, An Autobiography, (GA 28). 2 Soul Economy; Body, Soul, And Spirit In Waldorf Education. 3 22.IV.1923, Dornach (GA 306).

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Why Are The Books Written In A Way That Is So Difficult To Understand? “If it were made easy to enter Spiritual Science then each one could enter without overcoming his egoism. But in the work accomplished spiritually by the efforts we have to make, we get rid of a little of our egoism; we enter what we wish to acquire through Spiritual Science in a more hallowed frame of mind if we have had to take trouble over it, than if it had been presented to us in quite an easy and popular form.”4 * * * *

4 7.XII.1915, Berlin.

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1. The Foundations of Human Experience5 (Fourteen lectures delivered in Stuttgart, Germany, August 21 - September 5, 1919) Early in 1919 Rudolf Steiner was asked by the director of the Waldorf Astoria Tobacco Company in Stuttgart, Germany, to give lectures to the factory workers on the question of what new social impulses are necessary in the modern world. Responding to the lectures, the factory workers requested of Rudolf Steiner that he further help them in developing an education for their own children based on the knowledge of the human being and of society that he had opened up for them. By the end of April, that same spring, the decision had been made to establish a new school for the workers’ children, the first Waldorf school. Today, there are over 600 schools in almost forty countries… Before the opening of the first Waldorf school, Rudolf Steiner met with the group of teachers who were preparing themselves for their new task. For fourteen days, from August 20 to September 5, 1919, he gave these teachers a foundation for an understanding of the growing human being in body, soul, and spirit. This understanding made it possible for the teachers to call forth the true artists in themselves, enabling them to create their lessons out of imaginative and inspired thought pictures. Rudolf Steiner began the day with the lectures that are collected in The Foundations of Human Experience (previously titled The Study of Man); then he followed these with the practical advice contained in the lectures now titled Practical Advice To Teachers. The sessions which are known under the title Discussions with Teachers followed in the afternoons. Together these three books constitute the solid foundation upon which every Waldorf teacher can build, for, as we hear at the beginning of the first lecture of this book, Waldorf teaching methods will have to differ from other methods. They will draw on the teacher’s spiritual-scientific understanding of the child and of the time in which they live.

5 Allgemeine Menschenkunde als Grundlage der Pädagogik (GA 293).

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2. Practical Advice To Teachers6 (Fourteen lectures delivered in Stuttgart, Germany, August 21 - September 5, 1919) The seminal significance of these three courses for the teachers is perhaps best captured by Steiner’s own remarks toward the conclusion of this intensive fortnight of lectures when he reassures the teachers that, “While there may be times when you feel uncertain how or when to bring one thing or another into your teaching, or in what place to introduce it, if you remember rightly what has been brought before you during this fortnight, then thoughts will surely arise in you which will tell you what to do.”7 This book contains so many gems and profound insights into how to address the needs of the growing human being in a healthy way that it is positively astonishing. For that reason these lectures can be an inspiration to parents, home schoolers, and all others who are interested in human development and education. In his closing words to the teachers (lecture 14), Steiner brings before them the ideal of a healthy and inspired teacher, one who can be a true model for children. It is also the ideal of a healthy human being in general but one that is particularly necessary for the teaching profession. However, it can also stand for the kind of human beings that Waldorf education wants to foster: Human beings of initiative Human beings interested in the world Human beings who seek the truth Human beings who will not grow sour.8

6 Erziehungskunst Methodisch-Didaktisches (GA 294). 7 6.IX.1919, Stuttgart (GA 294). 8 From the Foreword by Astrid Schmitt-Stegmann.

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3. Discussions With Teachers9 (Fourteen seminars in Stuttgart, Germany, August 21-September 5, 1919) These discussions are part of the first Waldorf Teacher Training. They took place along with two other courses that Rudolf Steiner gave to prepare the individuals he had chosen as teachers for the first Waldorf school, which opened in Stuttgart on September 7, 1919. Emil Molt, the managing director of the Waldorf-Astoria cigarette factory, had requested that Rudolf Steiner help found a school for the children of the factory employees. From that request has grown what is now a worldwide educational movement. But the questions can be asked: Is an educational impulse more than seventy five years old relevant today? How do teachers keep themselves up to date? Can the Waldorf curriculum be effective for children in the twentieth and into the twenty first centuries? This original Waldorf teacher training was brief: it lasted only two weeks. It was understood by those who attended, however, that Waldorf education was to be based upon the continuing training or self-education of the teacher, and that this was only the beginning of that process. These fifteen discussions — along with three lectures on the curriculum, translated for the first time into English — can give the teachers of today the tools for becoming true educators. In this book, along with its companion courses, The Foundations of Human Experience and Practical Advice to Teachers, is a foundation for the continuing self-education of teachers. These courses provide the basis out of which a teacher of today can educate a child of today, at each new moment, with a fresh and healthy mood of soul. A more modern art of education could not be created.

9 Erziehungskunst Seminarbesprechungen und Lehrplanvorträge (GA 295).

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4. Education As A Force For Social Change10 (Six lectures delivered in Dornach, Switzerland, August 9-17, 1919) For the Western world, the years 1914 to 1918 were cataclysmic. Western society, whether in Europe, England, or America, had collectively marched out of the nineteenth century waving the banners of Science and Prosperity. People widely believed that this wonderful tool, rational science, developed and refined by the best minds on both continents, had placed humanity just steps away from being able to completely eliminate suffering, poverty, and despair… Then came the Great War. From August 1, 1914 to November 11, 1918 volley after volley, battle after battle, drove home the enormity of the error of these beliefs. The cycle of six lectures printed here were presented in Dornach during August, 1919… Throughout the first three lectures, Steiner presents again and again the disastrous futility he beheld — the emptiness, the selfishness, the blindness, the assumptions… This was the world after World War I; this was the cold midnight experienced by millions of people. In the final three lectures of this cycle… what streamed forth was the truth that living, conscious Love, that Christ as Strength, as living Principle itself is available to every human being on Earth, and that it is the deepest personal misfortune when we fail to experience the presence of this living, conscious Love in our lives. “Teachers… need to bring the children a way of finding Christ as an Impulse in the course of their lives, that is, of finding their own rebirth.”11

10 Die Erziehungsfrage als soziale Frage; Die spirituellen, kultur-geschichtlichen und sozialen Hintergründe der Waldorfschul-Pädagogik (GA 296). 11 From Introduction by Nancy Parsons Whittaker.

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5. The Spirit Of The Waldorf School12 (Six lectures delivered in Stuttgart, Germany, and Basel Switzerland August 24 - November 25, 1919) Emil Molt, Director of the Waldorf-Astoria Cigarette Company and student of Rudolf Steiner, first had the desire to be active in a reformation of German society during a lecture given by Dr. Steiner in Switzerland in early November 1918. Shortly thereafter, during a mid-November discussion with some of the workers at the Waldorf-Astoria factory, he resolved to create a school, though the school as yet had no firm form. In a discussion with Rudolf Steiner in January 1919, the latter mentioned that in order to achieve a real social reformation, schools must be formed. Three months later, following a lecture by Steiner to the factory workers,13 the workers expressed a desire for a new school, a desire which was, of course, immediately taken up by Molt. Some weeks before, Molt had already begun discussions with the Minister of Education concerning the formation of a new unified school, discussions that were tending in a positive direction. Two days after the meeting with the factory workers, a first “teachers” meeting took place with Steiner, Molt and two of the future Waldorf School teachers (Stockmeyer and Hahn). Three weeks later, the Minister of Education agreed to the new school… The following weeks were filled with activity. Teachers needed to be found. Buildings needed to be located and renovated. The seminar for teachers was held. Finally, the Free Waldorf School opened amid great festivities on September 7, 1919. Throughout these six lectures and one essay… the heart of this education shines forth. These lectures reveal the ground on which all else in Waldorf education must stand and the necessary path to walk. It is our hope that they will become a starting point for those making first inquiries about Waldorf Education and Anthroposophy as well as a fundamental resource for those already involved in this work.14

12 Idee und Praxis der Waldorfschule (GA 297). 13 Rudolf Steiner, Proletarische Forderungen und deren künftige prak- tische Verwiklichung [Proletarian demands and their future practical real- ization], contained in Neugestaltung des sozialen Organismus [Reorganization of the social organism], Rudolf Steiner Verlag, Dornach Switzerland, 1983. (GA 330, 23.IV.1919). 14 From the introduction by Robert F. Lathe and Nancy Parsons Whittaker.

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6. Education, Teaching And Practical Life15 (Eight lectures delivered in Utrecht, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, The Hague, Holland and Darmstadt, Stuttgart, Germany and Prague, Czech Republic, 1921-1924) During the early years of the twentieth century, Albert Schweitzer was introduced to Rudolf Steiner at a conference in Strasbourg, France. Since they were the only two German speakers at an otherwise French- speaking event, Schweitzer arranged for Steiner to be seated next to him during the conference meal. Their conversation stretched well into the remainder of the day as they ranged over a wealth of philosophical and ethical issues. In his account of this meeting, Schweitzer recalls how at one point, standing in a corridor of the conference hall, the two of them got into a lively discussion concerning the spiritual decline of culture as a crucial yet widely ignored problem. “We learned that we were both preoccupied with the same question,” Schweitzer later wrote from his home in Lambarene, Gabon. “Each of us discovered from the other that we had set ourselves the same life task, to strive for the awakening of that true culture which would be enlivened and penetrated by the ideal of humanity, and to guide and hold men to the goal of becoming truly intelligent, thinking beings.”16 The two men never met again, but both remained aware of the other’s attempts to bring social and cultural healing to humanity – Schweitzer through his celebrated hospital deep in the jungles of Africa, Steiner through his less famous but perhaps more far-reaching contributions to homeopathic medicine, organic farming, new artistic forms, and several initiatives for cultural renewal including Waldorf education. With the opening of the first Waldorf school in the aftermath of World War I, Steiner… set off in February and March of 1921 on his first lecture tour beyond the German-speaking world since the end of the war. His travels included two open lectures in Holland – one in Utrecht, the other in Amsterdam – during which he described the essentials of Waldorf education for the general public. In the next year he toured widely from England to Austria, including another visit to Holland with lectures in

15 Erziehung zum Leben; Selbsterziehung und pädagogische Praxis (GA 297a). 16 Albert Schweitzer, My Meeting with Rudolf Steiner, reprinted in Journal for Anthroposophy (Number 75, Fall 2005), p. 28.

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Rotterdam and The Hague… The lecture of November 4, 1922, given in the Hague on the subject of religious and ethical education, inspired quite a few Dutch educators to become Waldorf teachers. Among them was Jan van Wettum, a math teacher who helped co-found the first Dutch Waldorf school. In Rotterdam, the organizing committee failed to advertise the event adequately, with the result that only a handful of listeners attended. Steiner treated the mishap with characteristic humor, remarking that he had lectured before large audiences of several hundred out of which only one person had “heard” what he was trying to say. Steiner undertook this lecture tour of the Netherlands at a time when as yet no Waldorf school existed in that country. Within two years of his lecture in The Hague, the first Dutch Waldorf school was founded there in September 1923. The Rotterdam Waldorf School, however, was founded only after World War II, and the school in Utrecht not until the 1970s. It should be mentioned, though, that the Rotterdam lecture was attended by leading figures in the shipbuilding industry who, after Steiner’s visit, became important contributing members to the Waldorf school movement as well as to the Anthroposophical Society…17 The Darmstadt lecture included in this book arose from a discussion with students at the university who had asked Steiner to tell them about his new ideas on education. During the 1920s Prague enjoyed a relatively strong anthroposophical life… but offered only one educational lecture in that city. All that remains of this engagement is an article Steiner wrote for the media about the content of his talk. In this collection of lectures one can hear Steiner describe with a joy filled and open tone the healing effects that Waldorf education can bring to a time of spiritual crisis. In language accessible yet profound, he paints pictures of human development that can inspire readers to strive for new levels of excellence in the spirit that both he and Schweitzer embodied in their life tasks. Like Schweitzer, Steiner was deeply committed to the renewal of social and cultural life. In Schweitzer’s words, “What we have in common is that each wishes to see true culture replace unculture.”18

17 The background of the Dutch lectures was shared by Christof Wiechert in an e-mail to David Mitchell on September 24, 2007. 18 From the introduction by Douglas Gerwin David Mitchell.

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7. Rudolf Steiner In The Waldorf School19 (One essay and twenty four addresses Delivered in Stuttgart, Germany, September 7, 1919 - March 15, 1925) How many Waldorf teachers today, while seeking insight into a pedagogical problem, planning a parent meeting, or preparing a public presentation wish to have before them this founder of the education! In these addresses English speaking readers can share a bit of the enthusiasm felt by those who experienced the presence of this remarkable Austrian philosopher and spiritual scientist. All of the talks in this collection were given between September 1919 and June 1924 at the first Waldorf School in Stuttgart, Germany. The addresses to students, teachers, and parents were offered on such occasions as the opening of the school year, Christmas and Easter assemblies, parents meetings, and the opening of a new building. One particularly poignant talk was delivered immediately following the tragic burning of the Goetheanum... Other lectures were delivered to the Waldorf School Association, which had been founded on May 19, 1920. Guided by such executive committee members as Emil Molt, Karl Stockmeyer, and Steiner himself, along with honorary chair Max Marx from the Waldorf Astoria Cigarette factory, the association had the tasks of financing the school and disseminating the ideas of Waldorf education. Steiner’s… direct references to matters of the spirit are particularly thought provoking and might surprise some modern readers. For example, he mentions, “...the divine spirit that watches over your souls from the time you go to sleep until the time you wake up.” He tells the children that the source of their teachers’ strength and ability is the Christ. He also speaks of the spirit of the Waldorf School, identifying it directly as, “…the spirit of Christianity that wafts through all our rooms.” He clarifies that anthroposophy does not have to do with “what” is being taught, but with “how” it is being taught out of a “…profound and loving understanding of the human being.” Steiner addresses a wide range of topics in this volume. He includes such subjects as the role of the parents in the schools, the economic life of the school, the social mission of Waldorf education and its relationship to the school reform movement.

19 Rudolf Steiner in der Waldorfschule (GA 298).

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8. The Genius Of Language20 (Six lectures delivered in Stuttgart, Germany, December 26, 1919 – January 3, 1920) Karl König tells us, “The child plays with speech and its words as if with the most beautiful golden balls that are thrown to him to possess… At this stage, speech awakens to itself and begins to unfold.”21 Rudolf Steiner’s references to the ‘Genius of Language’ in the six lectures contained in this book urge us to realize the transcendent quality of the realm of speech. A delicate echo sounds through the mysterious phrase: In the Beginning was the Word… König gives a remarkable image of this: “Speech is the plough that works the field of the soul so that the seeds of future thought achievement can be laid into the open furrows.”22 Rudolf Steiner gave the lectures in this book to the teachers of the first Waldorf School, which had been established under his guidance for the children of factory workers in 1919. His words were not intended merely to give a foundation for the language classes23 in the school — which of course they did — but more importantly, to encourage every single teacher in the faculty to work with language, enliven their classes with it, and bring the children to reverence for its place in life… May these printed pages begin to speak forth in ringing tones to every reader!24

20 Geisteswissenschaftliche Sprachbetrachtungen Eine Anregung für Erzieher (GA 299). 21 Karl König, The First Three Years of the Child (Spring Valley, NY: Anthroposophic Press, 1969), p. 39. 22 König, op. cit. 23 4. In 1919 the Waldorf School inaugurated the new and valuable method of beginning two foreign languages in the first grade, playfully at first, with enthusiasm and discipline carrying them through every grade of the elementary school. In high school one language is usually carried on alone. Greek and Latin are given in the fifth and sixth grades, but continued several years only in Europe. 24 From the introduction by Ruth Pusch.

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9. Faculty Meetings 1919-1922, vol. 125 (Transcripts of faculty meetings at the Free Waldorf School in Stuttgart) As leader of the Waldorf School, Rudolf Steiner held seventy meetings with the faculty. The first meeting, on September 8, 1919, was one day after the festive opening of the school, and the final meeting took place September 3, 1924. Except for September 25 and 26, 1919, there was no stenographer. Most of what we have today from these meetings we owe to Dr. Karl Schubert’s note taking. Only short notes exist from the period before he joined the faculty in the summer of 1920. As the faculty grew, more and more members took notes that add to those of Schubert. Since discussions can never be recorded as completely or precisely as lectures can be, the notes all have a very fragmented quality. The editors’ task was to position the fragments so that they support one another, thus giving the most complete picture as possible. The reader will need to participate actively in making a truly living picture from this information. The exact text is often uncertain. Only when Rudolf Steiner gave a longer, connected perspective, or when several sets of notes exist, can we view the text as relatively authentic… Until recently, only Emil Molt’s memoirs suggested that Steiner gave a speech to the participants of the pedagogical seminar founding the Waldorf School on the evening prior to the course. There were, however, no known notes. Now the notes of several participants enable us to reconstruct the speech, so that we can at least get an impression of the content and general mood. As in past editions, we have rendered the names of the teachers and students unrecognizable… Only where Steiner mentions a teacher or praises a teacher have we given the name. We carefully compared the text with all original material and corrected the present edition where necessary. Wherever possible, we included additional remarks by the faculty; therefore, this edition reads more like a conversation. Unlike Steiner’s lectures, the meetings had no inner structure… Mostly, the meetings consist of a series of unconnected questions arising from the daily life of the school. Other questions lead to lively discussions.26

25 Konferenzen mit den Lehrern der Freien Waldorfschule in Stuttgart (GA 300a and 300b). 26 From the Preface to the 1975 German edition by Erich Gabert and Hans Rudolf Niederhäuser.

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10. Faculty Meetings 1919-1922, vol. 227 (Transcripts of faculty meetings at the Free Waldorf School in Stuttgart) These meetings were a lively continuation of the faculty’s education, and they form an important addition to Steiner’s foundation courses presented before and after the opening of the Waldorf School. These discussions cannot be comprehended without an understanding of those courses. The often fragmentary details given here become clear and meaningful only when considered within the entire context. The publication of these meetings makes visible some of the life and internal history of the Waldorf School under Steiner’s leadership. The Waldorf School was not created as an ideal, completely thought-out school program; rather, in an exemplary way, Steiner showed in detail how a school organism — and schools in general — must necessarily arise from the capacities of the people involved, and from the conditions of the time and place according to the needs of an independent cultural life. Thus, despite all the difficulties of the notes, the present text still provides some experience of the spirit of the first Waldorf school.28

27 Konferenzen mit den Lehrern der Freien Waldorfschule in Stuttgart (GA 300b and 300c). 28 From the Preface to the 1975 German edition by Erich Gabert and Hans Rudolf Niederhäuser.

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11. The Renewal Of Education29 (Fourteen lectures delivered in Basel, Switzerland, April 20 – May 16, 1920) In this particular lecture cycle, Steiner was not preaching to the choir. These lectures were given not to teachers who were already versed in Anthroposophy and using the Waldorf method, but rather to a group of public educators in Basel, Switzerland, in a forum organized by the Basel Department of Education. In spite of his clear and unconditional opposition to state governance of education, Steiner was never reluctant to cast seeds of regeneration onto any field he felt was fertile… In The Renewal of Education, Steiner’s audience was filled with teachers, and the more deeply the lecturer guided them into the Waldorf method, the more they wondered how anyone could be trained to fulfill this responsibility. Rudolf Steiner’s response to this unspoken question is worth repeating at length: “A typical feature of spiritual science consists of one’s forgetting, almost every moment, what one has absorbed, so that one has to relearn and recreate it all the time. In order to gain knowledge of the Science of the Spirit, one has to lose it all the time… One always has to acquire it anew. And when preparing the Waldorf teachers, I wanted them to feel that every morning they would have to enter their class rooms with fresh, untrammeled souls, ready to face ever new situations and ever new riddles… Anthroposophy must be a living spring which constantly renews itself within the soul… All memorized matter should disappear from the mind to make room for an actively receptive spirit. Allowing spiritual science to flow into one’s sphere of ideation will fructify the art of education.” Even when speaking to a public audience, Steiner did not hesitate to point to the inextricable ties between Waldorf education and Anthroposophy… To Rudolf Steiner, the ‘renewal of education’ can be brought about only by men and women who, with courage and initiative, will be willing to undertake their own renewal. These lectures are clearly dedicated to such individuals, and it is to be hoped that this new edition will find its way to their minds, hearts, and deeds.30

29 Die Erneuerung der pädagogisch-didaktischen Kunst durch Geisteswissenschaft (GA 301). 30 From the Foreword by Eugene Schwartz.

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12. Education For Adolescents31 (Eight lectures delivered in Stuttgart, Germany, January 1, 1920 - June 19, 1921) The present lecture cycle, given in Stuttgart in June 1921 at the opening of the high school and now titled Education for Adolescents, is also known as The Supplementary Course. This name suggests quite clearly that the talks were meant as an expansion and continuation of the cycle The Foundations of Human Experience, which Steiner had presented to the teachers at the opening of the Stuttgart Waldorf (Primary) school two years earlier.32 Through these lecture cycles, Steiner advocated a consolidation of interest and interaction of all teachers in the curriculum and teaching methods in the lower and middle elementary schools. Repeatedly in the Supplementary Course lectures, we read that the teachers of the high school should share with their colleagues in the lower grades and kindergarten a common interest in the children’s developmental stages in order to gain a meaningful and true picture of puberty and adolescence. A meaningful study of the Supplementary Course must, there- fore, be pursued against the background of the Foundations of Human Experience as well as in conjunction with the thoughts given by Steiner in other lectures to teachers… In considering the questions regarding our adolescents, we may again become students ourselves, willing to learn. This is one of the basic conditions for Waldorf education. Our students will only learn from the adult who also chooses the path of learning. The Supplementary Course gives us descriptions of archetypal processes that allow the teacher to gain insights into the interesting dynamics of human biography, insights into the mysterious chemistry involved in the search for the self.33

31 Menschenerkenntnis und Unterrichtsgestaltung (GA 302). 32 Previously titled Study of Man, this lecture cycle is now published as The Foundations of Human Experience by Anthroposophic Press, Hudson, NY, 1996. 33 From the Introduction by Hans-Joachim Mattke.

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13. Balance In Teaching34 (Seven lectures delivered in Stuttgart, Germany, September 15-22, 1920 and October 15-16, 1923) The first series of these two cycles of lectures was given as follow up to an intense two week teacher education course that Steiner had offered these teachers just before the school opened in 1919.35 The second series, held just over three years later, in October of 1923, focused more on the historically changing mission of the teacher — from Greek gymnast to Roman rhetorician to modern professor — and laid out the need for teachers to collaborate more intimately with the medical profession in the healthy unfolding of youth. The first lecture series of this volume, previously published in English as Balance in Teaching, appeared in German under the title, supposedly suggested by Marie Steiner, of Meditativ erarbeitete Menschenkunde —literally “the study of the human being worked on meditatively”. The second set of lectures in this book, originally issued in English under the title Deeper Insights into Education: The Waldorf School Approach, has also been published separately in German as Anregungen zur innerlichen Durchdringung des Lehr- und Erzieherberufes — literally “suggestions concerning the inner penetration of the teachers’ and educators’ profession.” The German titles suggest that, notwithstanding his detailed suggestions, Steiner never intended these series as prescriptions for teaching but rather, like so many of his lectures, as indications for contemplative study and meditation. Especially his comments on ear and eye, on musical and sculptural forces, call for a contemplative rather than expository reading.36

34 Erziehung und Unterricht aus Menschenerkenntnis (GA 302a). 35 In English, this course is available in three separate volumes: Study of Man (published also as Foundations of Human Experience), Discussions with Teachers, and Practical Advice to Teachers. 36 From the Introduction by Douglas Gerwin.

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14. Soul Economy; Body, Soul and Spirit In Waldorf Education37 (Sixteen lectures delivered in Dornach, Switzerland, December 23, 1921 – January 5, 1922) Rudolf Steiner presented more than twenty lecture courses on education and child development, each taking a somewhat different approach to the introduction of his insights and pedagogical methods. The important lectures in this volume were presented in Dornach, Switzerland, to leading educators, including many from England, led by Professor Millicent Mackenzie, a pioneer in education from Cardiff University. As a result of these talks, Steiner went to Oxford, England, later that year, where he expanded on many of the themes begun in these lectures.38 The setting for these lectures was the White Hall in the first Goetheanum, where, because of the large attendance and limited space, the audience was split into two groups. Each lecture was presented twice, first to the German speakers and then to those who had travelled from England and Holland. The repeated second sessions are represented in this volume. Consequently, in these lectures Steiner was speaking mostly to English-speaking educators, many of whom were relatively new to the ideas of spiritual science… Steiner presented these lectures with the great hope that his ideas on education would soon be understood and practiced well beyond Central Europe, bringing with them a lively impulse for social and spiritual renewal in the world.”39

37 Die gesunde Entwickelung des Menschenwesens; Eine Einführung in die anthroposophische Pädagogik und Didaktik (GA 303). 38 See Rudolf Steiner, The Spiritual Ground of Education. 39 From the Introduction by William Jensen.

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15. Waldorf Education And Anthroposophy 140 (Nine public lectures delivered in Dornach, Switzerland and The Hague, Aarau, Holland and Christiania, Norway and Stratford-on-Avon, England, February 23, 1921 – September 16, 1922) This book contains a collection of public lectures given in 1921–1922 by Rudolf Steiner on educational and social questions. It is presented here for the first time in English and contains a number of surprising jewels not found anywhere else… It should perhaps be mentioned that the present collection of lectures given in different parts of Europe very much reflects the mentality and the interest of each different nation… The single public lectures on education were given in Oslo, during a visit Steiner made to Scandinavia. An interesting theme, which Steiner spoke of in earlier lectures to members of the Anthroposophical Society, emerges here. In order to educate children rightly, we should discover the element of ‘unbornness’. Steiner coined this term to express that we should form a relationship with what the human being experiences in the spiritual world before birth. For thousands of years humanity has been concerned with “immortality.” Now, in the new age of light, the concept of ‘unbornness’ should be added, so that we develop a devotional understanding of what children bring with them. The publishers should be thanked for making available in English, after so many years, a collection of lectures that can help particularly parents and teachers to gain a clearer picture of how to address a wider public on the central questions of a spiritual-scientifically oriented education. Much can be learned from them, for they are totally uncompromising, although never intended to distress an unprepared audience with a terminology that would be obscure or inappropriate. These lectures could well be placed also in the hands of beginners who wish to find out in a succinct and clear way what Waldorf education is really about.41

40 Erziehungs- und Unterrichtsmethoden auf anthroposophischer Grundlage (GA 304). 41 From Introduction by Renée Querido.

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16. Waldorf Education And Anthroposophy 242 (Twelve public lectures delivered in London, Ilkley, England and Stuttgart, Germany and Dornach, Switzerland and The Hague, Holland November 19, 1922 – August 30, 1924) The present collection of public lectures given by Rudolf Steiner between 1922–1924 has not previously appeared in English. It may be regarded as a continuation of the collection of public lectures printed under the title Waldorf Education and Anthroposophy 1. By this time Rudolf Steiner had achieved considerable public prominence. His lectures and travels were regularly reported in the press, and the Waldorf school movement was gaining increasing recognition. Emil Molt, the owner and managing director of the Waldorf Astoria Cigarette Factory and a longtime anthroposophist, had made this educational movement possible by asking Steiner to found a school at his factory. At its inception, the school provided a broad education for the children of the workers… From that endeavor arose the first Waldorf school, which opened its doors in Stuttgart in September 1919 with one hundred and thirty children in eight grades. After four years, it had grown to accommodate eight hundred students in twelve grades. By then, many families outside the Waldorf Astoria factory had enrolled their children in this progressive enterprise, directed by Rudolf Steiner himself. Rudolf Steiner’s various trips to the Netherlands, where he also spoke publicly about Waldorf education, led on Palm Sunday, April 9, 1922, to the birth of an initiative for the founding of the first Waldorf school in Holland. The courses on education that Rudolf Steiner gave in England at Oxford (1922), Ilkley, Yorkshire (1923), and Torquay, Devonshire (1924) led to the founding of the first Waldorf school in the English-speaking world. This occurred early in 1925, still during Rudolf Steiner’s lifetime, and the school is now known as Michael Hall, in Forest Row, Sussex. Today the Waldorf movement comprises more than six hundred schools world-wide. Some one hundred and fifty are located on the North American continent. In 1928 the first school in America opened its doors in Manhattan, New York.43

42 Geistige Zusammenhänge in der Gestaltung des Menschlichen Organismus (GA 218) and Anthroposophische Menschenkunde und Pädagogik (GA 304a). 43 From Introduction by Renée Querido.

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17. The Spiritual Ground Of Education44 (Nine lectures delivered in Oxford, England, August 16-29, 1922) The Spiritual Ground Of Education is exceptional among Rudolf Steiner’s many lectures on Waldorf education for its breadth, depth, daring, and accessibility. Given in 1922 at Mansfield College, Oxford, England, the audience was one of the most prestigious that Steiner ever addressed. The occasion was a conference on ‘Spiritual Values in Education and Social Life’. About two hundred people attended. Dr. Millicent Mackenzie, then Professor of Education at Cardiff — a person for whom Steiner had the highest regard — was in the chair throughout the lectures. The Minister for Labor, Dr. H. A. L. Fisher presided. Other lecturers included celebrated names such as Gilbert Murray, the great classicist, A. Clutton Brock, the essayist, Professor Maxwell Garnett, and Edward Holmes. Nevertheless, despite this luminous company, the Oxford Chronicle reported that, “The most prominent personality at the Congress is probably Dr. Rudolf Steiner.” Dr. Jacks, Principal of Manchester College, welcomed the conferees, and he, too, singled out Rudolf Steiner “whom he designated as the principal personality at the Congress”. The Chronicle reports: “Dr. Jacks said that the writings of Dr. Steiner impressed him as something extraordinarily stimulating and valuable.” Writing on August 21, a national daily, The Manchester Guardian, concurred: “The entire congress finds its central point in the personality and teaching of Dr. Rudolf Steiner, and through this fact the audience is especially impressed.” Steiner spoke of the nature of the ‘knowledge he imparted to teachers; “We need open minds, ready to receive new wisdom each day, and a disposition that can transform accumulated knowledge into a sense of potential that leaves the mind clear for the new. This keeps people healthy, fresh, and active. A heart that is open to changes in life—its unexpected and continuous freshness — must be a Waldorf teacher’s basic nature and mood.” All in all, The Spiritual Ground of Education is one of Steiner’s most exciting and revealing courses on education.45

44 Die geistig-seelischen Grundkräfte der Erziehungskunst Spirituelle Werte in Erziehung und sozialem Leben (GA 305). 45 From Christopher Bamford’s Introduction.

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18. The Child’s Changing Consciousness46 (Eight lectures delivered in Dornach, Switzerland, April 15-22, 1923) This book is a transcript of eight lectures plus an introduction to a eurythmy performance, taken originally in shorthand, given by Rudolf Steiner in April, 1923, at Dornach, Switzerland, to a group of Waldorf teachers and others from several European countries — he especially mentions the Czech representatives… It should, perhaps, also be noted that in these lectures Rudolf Steiner was speaking to people who had at least an acquaintance with the view of the human being, on which his lectures were based… Central to Waldorf education is the conviction that each pupil, each person, is an individual, evolving self of infinite worth — a human spirit, for the essence of spirit, Steiner insisted, is to be found in the mystery of the individual self. As the English Waldorf educator John Davy once observed, this is not a fashionable view in a skeptical age, but it is one that carries a natural affinity with all who care about the education and evolving humanity of our children.47

46 Die pädagogische Praxis vom Gesichtspunkte geisteswissenschaftlicher Menschenerkenntnis Die Erziehung des Kindes und jüngeren Menschen (GA 306). 47 From Foreword by Douglas Sloan.

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19. A Modern Art Of Education48 (Twelve lectures delivered in Ilkley, England, August 5-17, 1923) Rudolf Steiner’s lectures and lecture courses on Waldorf education fill at least twenty volumes. Therefore, it is not surprising that there is a certain amount of repetition in these works. It is the differences that are surprising. These often have to do with who Rudolf Steiner was addressing. He spoke differently, for example, to anthroposophists in Germany or Swiss public school teachers than he did to English audiences. The English lectures are especially interesting and uncannily accessible. Like The Kingdom of Childhood and The Spiritual Ground of Education, A Modern Art of Education has an immediacy and intimacy that makes it one of the best introductions to Waldorf education. In 1923, Rudolf Steiner was invited to give a lecture course at Ilkley in Yorkshire under the auspices of ‘The Union for the Realization of Spiritual Values in Education’. A number of experienced Waldorf teachers (including Hermann von Baravalle, Carolyn von Heydebrand, and Karl Schubert) accompanied Steiner (they were all on their way to the International Summer School in Penmaenmawr, Wales) and gave demonstrations of the practice of Waldorf education. We are lucky enough to have Steiner’s own report on the event49. On his way north, Steiner observed the industrial and coal mining townships — for example, “Leeds, where unbelievably blackened houses are strung together quite abstractly, where everything looks like a condensation of blackest coal dust, concentrated into the shapes of houses where people have to live.” He remarked, “Do you see those thought forms — there you have hell on earth.” He concludes, “This kind of experience makes obvious how absolutely necessary it is that spiritual impulses should enter our present civilization.” He also remarks how struck he was by the simultaneous evidence of remnants of ancient, Druidic culture: “Ilkley, then, is a place surrounded on the one hand by an atmosphere created entirely by these industrial towns. On the other hand, in the remains of dolmens and old Druidic altars lying around everywhere, it has traces of something that reminds one of

48 Gegenwärtiges Geistesleben und Erziehung (GA 307). 49 Rudolf Steiner, Rudolf Steiner Speaks to the British: Lectures and Addresses in England and Wales. London: Rudolf Steiner Press, 1998.

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the ancient spirituality that has, however, no successors. It is most moving to have on the one hand the impression [of the industrialism] I just described and then, on the other, to climb a hill in this region so filled with the effects of those impressions and then find in those very characteristic places the remains of ancient sacrificial altars marked with appropriate signs.” He then describes the course itself: “Each morning began with a lecture in which I tried to put before the audience the kind of education practiced in the Waldorf school, basing this on the whole historical development of education… The actual content of the lectures was then the Waldorf approach as such.... Following the lectures, there was a eurythmy performance by the children of the Kings Langley School, and performances in the Ilkley Theatre by the professional eurythmists who had accompanied us there... The third element was the contributions from six teachers from the Waldorf school who were going to show how they put into practice what was described in the lectures.” These teacher demonstrations were “met with the greatest interest”… For instance, Dr. Baravalle’s demonstration, Steiner reports, “was extremely moving for one who cares deeply about the development of Waldorf education.... To watch him setting out his geometric ideas in a simple way suitable for children; to follow a kind of inner drama in the way Pythagoras’s theorem suddenly arose from a sequence of metamorphosing planes that was both artistic and mathematical; and to watch the audience, chiefly teachers, being led step-by-step without knowing where they were going, while various planes were shifted around until, suddenly, Pythagoras’s theorem appeared on the blackboard — this was a most moving experience. The audience of teachers were quietly astonished, their feelings and thoughts involved in an inner drama, and they were so genuinely enthusiastic about such methods coming into schools that it was truly moving to behold.”50

50 From the Introduction by Christopher Bamford.

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20. The Essentials Of Education51 (Five lectures delivered in Stuttgart, Germany, April 8-11, 1924) The lectures that Rudolf Steiner gave in April, 1924, now freshly revised and republished as The Essentials of Education and The Roots of Education, represent a remarkable synthesis of Waldorf education as a practical manifestation of anthroposophy. This can be experienced through the flowing content of the lectures themselves and their place in the context of Steiner’s work. First in Stuttgart and then in Bern, Steiner delivered these lectures just eleven months before his death in March, 1925 and five years after the founding of the first Waldorf school in 1919. Those who are preparing to teach in Waldorf schools cannot be asked to simply ingest large quantities of information, whether Waldorf curriculum or anthroposophy in general… The absorption of content without enough time to process it is like the wolf with too many stones in its belly… A teacher in training needs to learn the process, not the recipe; Steiner’s indications were meant to stimulate the teacher’s own creativity. This is not achieved by reading these lines or by just taking courses… A new kind of intuition, or capacity for sensitivity, arises that allows for spontaneous responses to the needs of children. Rather than following rules of pedagogy, the prepared teacher is inwardly in tune with the class. Anthroposophy is an opportunity to practice this inner attunement. A teacher must search out a way of being that allows “human beings to act as if God were acting in them”(p. 75).52

51 Die Methodik des Lehrens und die Lebensbedingungen des Erziehens (GA 308). 52 From the Introduction by Torin M. Finster.

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21. The Roots Of Education53 (Five lectures delivered in Bern, Switzerland, April 13-17, 1924) This conference, arranged at the wish of an active group of teachers, took place in the city hall of Bern. In these five lectures, given just eleven months before his death, Rudolf Steiner finds a variety of ways to call for a change in the practice of teaching. This will depend on how the teacher is able to view the developing human being and the curriculum that responds to the child’s changing needs… In Bern, he begins The Roots of Education with a plea to counter materialism in our time, and this aspect needs our further efforts today. Many who come to Waldorf education have a sense of the more overt aspects of materialism — self-worth defined by one’s possessions and social position, for example. Yet there are more subtle aspects of materialism that should be discussed… His treatment of almost every issue in education is expansive; again and again, he looks at questions from a longitudinal perspective. Also, the process of characterization, rather than defining, calls on the reader to exercise new flexibility in thinking, and to develop the ability to view things from various sides. Steiner seems to ask continually: Now that you have understood it from this point of view, let us consider the question from another side.54

Bern City Hall 1934

53 Anthroposophische Pädagogik und ihre Voraussetzungen (GA 309). 54 From Introduction by Torin M. Finster.

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22. Human Values In Education55 (Ten lectures delivered in Oosterbeek-Arnheim, Holland, July 17-24, 1924) Although each of Rudolf Steiner’s courses of lectures on what has come to be known as Waldorf education has its own special quality and value, certain seminal courses shine out with a unique light. Human Values in Education (originally entitled The Pedagogical Value of Knowledge of the Human Being and the Cultural Value of Pedagogy) is certainly one of these. It was held in July 1924, the last year of Steiner’s active life — he died in 1925. The context was a summer teachers’ conference, set in an unusual part of Holland among wooded hills. Participants were united not only by lectures, but also by meals, excursions, and almost continuous discussion and conversation. Thus they created what Günther Wachsmuth described as “a splendid mood of intensive community”. Human Values in Education gives an overview of the unique qualities of Waldorf education — what makes it special – with a unique contemporaneity, and directness… No such lecture cycle is ever complete in an encyclopedic way, but each nevertheless covers ‘the basics’ in its own way. Any lecture by Rudolf Steiner also has its own incomparable value.56

The participants in the Pedagogical Summer Course in Arnheim, 1924

55 Der pädagogische Wert der Menschenerkenntnis und der Kulturwert der Pädagogik (GA 310). 56 Introduction to Human Values in Education by Christopher Bamford.

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23.The Kingdom Of Childhood 57 (Seven lectures delivered in Torquay, England, August 12-20, 1924) These talks, translated as The Kingdom of Childhood, were given by Rudolf Steiner at the Second International Summer Conference, arranged by D. N. Dunlop and E. C. Merry, in Torquay, England, in August, 1924. Rudolf Steiner was then already a sick man. It was his last trip abroad. Günther Wachsmuth, who was one of those who travelled with him, writes: “During the summer conference in Torquay, [Rudolf Steiner] suffered tragically from his destructive illness… But Rudolf Steiner allowed nothing of this illness to be known by those at the conference. The more his physical suffering increased, the more heroic became his concentrated, intense activity.”58 From August 11 to 22, Steiner delivered the main lecture cycle59 in the mornings in the Town Hall. In the afternoons, a small group of aspiring teachers, who hoped to open a Waldorf School in England, met for an impromptu education course. The year before, during the lecture course published under the title of A Modern Art of Education60, four women came to Steiner to ask him for advice on founding a school. He encouraged them to proceed with their plans, but advised them to plan a large school — for a small school would be a disadvantage in England. It should be modern and well thought out, and conversant with other contemporary educational ideas. For they were not to be dilettantish. This school, he advised, should neither be in the country, nor in a poor neighbourhood, like the East End of London. Nevertheless, it should be a school for all children. In conclusion, he said, they must find a man to work with them. This man turned out to be A. C. Harwood, who attended The Kingdom of Childhood lectures the following year in Torquay. He had come there thinking it a fine place to recuperate from a bout of mumps! A. C. Harwood later recalled that, “[These talks] were given specifically for a small group of teachers or intending teachers, no more than five in number (though some others were allowed to attend),

57 Die Kunst des Erziehens aus dem Erfassen der Menschenwesenheit (GA 311). 58 Günther Wachsmuth, The Life and Work of Rudolf Steiner. Blauvelt, New York: Spiritual Science Library, 1989. 59 Rudolf Steiner, True and False Paths in Spiritual Investigation. London: Rudolf Steiner Press, 1985. 60 Rudolf Steiner, A Modern Art of Education, London: Rudolf Steiner Press, 1972; also available as Education and Modern Spiritual Life, Blauvelt, New York: Steinerbooks, 1989.

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who had resolved to open a school based on [Steiner’s] work.”61 The five teachers in attendance were; Helen Fox, Effie Wilson, Dorothy Martin, Daphne Olivier and A.C. Harwood. As a lecture course, these talks have always been in demand. Perhaps this is because they were given originally to a small English group, dedicated to the project of founding their own Waldorf School. And, for this reason, perhaps, they have spoken directly and simply to all those pioneer parents and teachers who over the past seventy or so years have struggled to do the same in the English-speaking world.

Torquay Town Hall (1913)

61 This was opened in 1925 as ‘The New School’ in Streatham. It is now known as ‘Michael Hall’ and is situated in Forest Row, Sussex.

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24. The Education Of The Child The texts in this volume date from 1906 to 1912 and therefore predate by a number of years the actual founding of the first Waldorf school in 1919. Many of the principles of Waldorf educational theory and practice, however, will be found to be present. The emphasis, of course, is slightly different, for there are not yet actual schools where the vital principles Rudolf Steiner describes may be put into practice. Yet already Steiner is very clear: schools must arise through which the truths of spiritual science may be practically embodied for the benefit of human beings and the ongoing evolution of humanity… Steiner is quite clear, that whatever guidance spiritual scientific insight can provide to the furtherance of education, this must not take the form of an abstract program but must arise naturally out of the nature of the child, the evolving human being, which contains in itself the seeds of its own future. Thus these lectures are largely descriptive. The Education of the Child in the Light of Spiritual Science, was originally given as a public lecture in the Architektenhaus in Berlin on January 10, 1907 — the founding lecture of ‘Waldorf’ pedagogy — appeared in written form in the journal Lucifer-Gnosis in April of that year. The other lectures, while allowing readers to come to know Rudolf Steiner better, amplify and extend the ideas contained in The Education of the Child. These lectures reveal Steiner’s selfless love for human beings, his idealism, and his practicality… and many useful insights for teachers and parents alike.

Architektenhaus Berlin