Course WC1 1
Human Development
Introduction
The online Waldorf Certificate Studies Program Course Human Development is based on the study and work with lectures given by Rudolf Steiner in 1919.
These Lectures were given as a preparation for their task to the teachers of the original Waldorf School in Stuttgart, the first School to be founded on the work of Rudolf Steiner in 1919. They are not, however, only concerned with education; they contain Steiner's fundamental views on the psychology of man. Steiner's psychology differs from all other psychologies in that it takes account not only of the forces playing into man from the past, but also of future states of consciousness and being, which will not be realized till the far distant future, but which are already affecting his character and density. All new things have to find their unique vocabulary and the reader will find some unfamiliar terms in these lectures. But as Steiner's picture of the human being unfolds itself they will gradually assume shape and meaning. It is in the balancing out of the past with the future that man escapes determinism and finds his true nature as a free being. In this lies the importance of these lectures. All students of psychology, and not only teachers, will find in them new light on the absorbing riddle of the human being. Course Outline
Human Development
Lesson 1: Foreword/Lectures I, II, III Lesson 2: Lectures IV, V, VI Lesson 3: Lectures VII, VIII, IX Lesson 4: Lectures X, XI, XII Lesson 5: Lectures XIII, XIV Lesson 6: Final Paper |
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Tasks and Assignments for Lesson WC1 1 5
Please study and work with the study material provided for this lesson. Then please turn to the following tasks and assignments listed below.
1. Summarize the content of the two lectures in your own words.
2. Lecture 13: Spirit is active in bodily work, body is active in mental work. Please elaborate.
3. Lecture 14: Steiner speaks of "imaginative treatment of subjects." What is meant with this?. Give practical examples.
Please send your completed assignment via the online form or via email.
1. Summarize the content of the two lectures in your own words.
2. Lecture 13: Spirit is active in bodily work, body is active in mental work. Please elaborate.
3. Lecture 14: Steiner speaks of "imaginative treatment of subjects." What is meant with this?. Give practical examples.
Please send your completed assignment via the online form or via email.
Study Material for Lesson WC1 1 5
"Study of Man" by Rudolf Steiner (Lectures XIII, XVI)
Lecture XIII
The insight we have won through these lectures will enable us to understand man in his relationship to the world around him. It will enable us also to deal with the child in his relationship to the world. It is only a question of being able to apply this insight in life in the right way. We have to think of the relation of man to the outside world as twofold, for we have found that the constitution of the limb man is in complete contrast to that of the head man. We must accustom ourselves to the difficult thought that the only way to understand the forms of the limb man is to imagine the head forms turned inside out like a glove or stocking. And in this is an expression of something of great significance in the whole life of man. If we were to draw it as a diagram we might say: the head is formed as though it were pressed outwards from within, is “bulged” outwards from within. The limbs of man we can picture as pressed inwards from without through being turned inside out at the forehead. (This turning inside out is a process of great significance in the life of man.) Consider your forehead, and imagine that your inner being is striving from within outwards towards your forehead. Now on the palm of your hand or on the sole of your foot, a kind of pressure is being exercised, like the pressure on your forehead from within, only in the reverse direction. So that when you hold your hand with the palm facing outwards, or when you place the sole of your foot on the ground, there streams from without through your sole, or through your palm, what streams towards your forehead from within. This is a fact of remarkable importance. It is so very important because it enables us to see the actual disposition of the spiritual-soul element in man.
This spirit-soul element, as you now see, is a stream. The spirit-soul passes through man as a stream, as a current.
The insight we have won through these lectures will enable us to understand man in his relationship to the world around him. It will enable us also to deal with the child in his relationship to the world. It is only a question of being able to apply this insight in life in the right way. We have to think of the relation of man to the outside world as twofold, for we have found that the constitution of the limb man is in complete contrast to that of the head man. We must accustom ourselves to the difficult thought that the only way to understand the forms of the limb man is to imagine the head forms turned inside out like a glove or stocking. And in this is an expression of something of great significance in the whole life of man. If we were to draw it as a diagram we might say: the head is formed as though it were pressed outwards from within, is “bulged” outwards from within. The limbs of man we can picture as pressed inwards from without through being turned inside out at the forehead. (This turning inside out is a process of great significance in the life of man.) Consider your forehead, and imagine that your inner being is striving from within outwards towards your forehead. Now on the palm of your hand or on the sole of your foot, a kind of pressure is being exercised, like the pressure on your forehead from within, only in the reverse direction. So that when you hold your hand with the palm facing outwards, or when you place the sole of your foot on the ground, there streams from without through your sole, or through your palm, what streams towards your forehead from within. This is a fact of remarkable importance. It is so very important because it enables us to see the actual disposition of the spiritual-soul element in man.
This spirit-soul element, as you now see, is a stream. The spirit-soul passes through man as a stream, as a current.
And what is man in respect to this soul and spirit? Imagine a flowing stream of water stopped by a dam, so that it is checked and floods back on itself. So does the spirit and soul gush over in man. The human being is like a dam for the spirit and soul. They might flow through him unhindered, but he retards and keeps them back. Man causes spirit and soul to be dammed up within him. Now this process, which I have likened to a stream, is a very remarkable one. I have likened the active flow of spirit and soul through man to a stream. But actually — what is it from the point of view of the external bodily nature? It is a perpetual suction of the human being. Man confronts the external world. Spirit and soul are continuously striving to absorb him, to suck him in. This is why we continuously shed flakes and bits of ourselves. And if the spirit is not strong enough to do it we have to cut off bits of ourselves, e.g. the finger nails — because the spirit, coming from without, seeks to devour and destroy them. The spirit destroys everything, and the body checks this destructiveness of the spirit. And in man a balance must be created between the destructive spirit and soul and the continually constructive activity of the body. The chest abdomen system is inserted amidst this stream. And it is this chest abdomen system which throws itself against the destructive onset of spirit and soul, and which permeates the human being with the material substance it produces. From this you will see that the limbs of man which reach out beyond the chest abdomen system are really the most spiritual thing of all, for there is less of the substance-creating process going on in the limbs than anywhere else in man. The only thing that brings a material element into the limbs is that part of the metabolic process which is sent into the limbs by the chest abdomen system. Our limbs are spirit to a high degree, and it is the limbs which consume our body when they move.
And the task of the body is to develop in itself what is potentially in man from his birth. If the limbs move too little or move in the wrong way, they do not consume enough of the body. The abdomen chest system is then in the fortunate position — fortunate, that is, for itself — that an insufficient quantity of it is consumed by the limbs. It uses what is left over to produce surplus substantiality in man. This surplus substantiality then permeates what is native to man from his birth, that is, the bodily nature proper to him as a being born of spirit and soul. It permeates what he ought to have with something he ought not to have, with a substantiality which belongs to his earthly nature only, a substantiality having no tendency to spirit and soul in the true sense of the words: it permeates him with fat. Now when this fat is deposited in man to an abnormal extent it causes too much obstruction to the incoming consuming process of spirit and soul; with the result that the path of this spirit and soul process to the head system is made difficult. For this reason it is not right to allow children to have too much fat producing food. It causes their heads to be separated off from the soul-spiritual stream. For fat obstructs soul and spirit, and renders the head empty. It is a question of having the tact to co-operate with the child's home life and see to it that he does not get too fat. Later in life getting fat depends on all kinds of other things, also some abnormally constituted children tend to get fat because they are weak — but with normal children it is always possible to prevent excessive fat by giving a suitable diet.
We shall not, however, have the right feeling of responsibility towards these things unless we appreciate their very great significance. We must realise that if we allow the child to accumulate too much fat we are encroaching on the work of the world process. The world has a purpose to achieve in man, which it signifies by letting soul and spirit flow through him. We definitely encroach on a cosmic process if we let the child get too fat.
Now something very remarkable happens in man's head: as all spirit and soul is dammed up there it splashes back like water meeting a weir. It is like this: the spirit and soul brings matter with it, as the Mississippi brings sand, and this matter sprays back right inside the brain; thus where spirit and soul is dammed up we have streams surging one over the other. And in this beating back of the material element matter is continually perishing in the brain. And when matter, which is still permeated with life, collapses and is driven back, as I described, there then arises the nerve. Nerve comes into existence wherever matter which has been driven through life by the spirit perishes and decays within the living organism. Hence nerve is decayed matter within the living organism: life gets jammed, as it were, gets dammed up in itself, matter crumbles away and decays. Hence arise channels in all parts of the body filled with decayed matter, these are the nerves. Here spirit and soul can play back into man. Spirit and soul sprays through man along the nerves; for spirit and soul makes use of the decayed matter. It causes matter to decay, to flake off on the surface of man's body. Indeed spirit and soul will not enter man's body and permeate it until matter has died within it. The spirit and soul element in man moves within him along the nerve channels of lifeless matter.
In this way we can see how spirit and soul actually operates in man. We see it pressing upon him from outside, developing, as it does so, a devouring, consuming activity. We see it penetrating into him. We see how it is checked, how it splashes back, how it kills matter. We see how matter decays in the nerves, and how this enables the spirit and soul to make its way even to the skin, from within outwards, along the pathways of its own making. For spirit and soul cannot pass through what has organic life.
Now, how can you picture the organic, the living element? You can picture it as something that takes up spirit and soul into itself, that does not let them through. And you can picture the dead material, mineral element as something that lets the spirit and soul through. So that you can get a kind of definition for the living-organic element and a definition for the bone-nerve element, and indeed for the material-mineral element as a whole. For the living-organic element is impermeable for the spirit. The dead physical element is permeable for the spirit. “Blood is a very special fluid,” for as opaque matter is to light, so is blood to the spirit. It does not let the spirit through. It retains the spirit within it. Nerve substance is a very special substance, also. It is to spirit as transparent glass is to light. As transparent glass lets the light through, so, too, physical matter, material nerve substance lets the spirit through.
Here we have the difference between two component parts of the human being, that in him which is mineral, which is permeable to the spirit, and that in him which is more animal, more of a living organism, and which retains the spirit within him — that which causes the spirit to produce the forms which shape the organism.
From this many things follow for the treatment of the human being. For example, when a man does bodily work he moves his limbs. This means he is entirely immersed, he is swimming about in the spirit. This is not the spirit that has dammed itself up within him, this is the spirit that is outside him. If you chop wood, or if you walk — whenever you move your limbs in work of some sort — whether useful or not — you are constantly splashing about in spirit; you are concerned constantly with spirit. This is very important. And, further it is important to ask ourselves: What if we are doing spiritual work, if we are thinking or reading — how is it then? Well, this is a concern of the spirit and soul that is within us. Now it is not we who splash about in spirit with our limbs, but the spirit and soul is at work in us and continuously makes use of our bodily nature; that is, spirit and soul come to expression wholly as a bodily process within us. And here within us by means of this damming up, matter is constantly being thrown back upon itself. In spiritual work the activity of the body is excessive, in bodily work, on the other hand, the activity of the spirit is excessive. We cannot do spiritual work, work of soul and spirit, except with the continuous participation of the body. When we do bodily work the spirit and soul within us takes part only in so far as our thoughts direct our walking, or guide our work. But the spirit and soul nature takes part in it from without. We continuously work into the spirit of the world, we continuously unite ourselves with the spirit of the world when we do bodily work. Bodily work is spiritual; spiritual work is bodily, its effect is bodily upon and within man. We must understand this paradox and make it our own, namely that bodily work is spiritual and spiritual work bodily, both in man and in its effects on man. Spirit is flooding round us when do bodily work. Matter is active within us when we do spiritual work.
We must know such things, my dear friends, if we are to think with understanding about work — whether spiritual or bodily work — and about recreation and fatigue. We can only do this if we have a thorough grasp of what I have just described. For, suppose a man works too much with his limbs, that he does too much bodily work, what is the result? It brings him too much into relation with the spirit. For spirit continually floods round him when he does bodily work; consequently the spirit gains too much power over man, the spirit that comes from outside. We make ourselves too spiritual when we do too much bodily work. From without we let ourselves be made too spiritual. And it follows that we need to give ourselves up to the spirit for too long, in other words, we have to sleep too long. And too much sleep in turn promotes too much bodily activity, the bodily activity of the chest abdomen, not of the head system. This activity over-stimulates life, we become feverish, too hot. Our blood pulses in us too strongly its activity in the body cannot be assimilated, if we sleep too much. Nevertheless through excessive bodily work we produce in ourselves the desire to sleep too much.
But what about lazy people who love to sleep, and who sleep so much? Why are they like this? It is due to the fact that man can never really stop working. When a lazy person sleeps it is not because he works too little, for a lazy person has to move his legs all day long, and he flourishes his arms about, too, in some fashion or other. Even a lazy person does something. From an external point of view he really does no less than an industrious person — but he does it without sense or purpose. The industrious man turns his attention to the outside world, He introduces meaning into his activities. That is the difference. Senseless activities such as a lazy person carries on are more conducive to sleep than are activities with a purpose in them. In intelligent occupation we do not merely splash about in the spirit: if there is meaning in the movements we carry out in our work we gradually draw the spirit into us. When we stretch out our hand with a purpose we unite ourselves with the spirit; and the spirit, in its turn, does not need to work so much unconsciously in sleep, because we are working with it consciously. Thus it is not a question of whether man is active or not, for a lazy man too is active, but the question is how far man's actions have a purpose in them. To be active with a purpose — these words must sink into our minds if we would be teachers. Now when is a man active without purpose? He is active without purpose, senselessly active, when he acts only in accordance with the demands of his body. He acts with purpose when he acts in accordance with the demands of his environment and not merely in accordance with those of his own body. We must pay heed to this where the child is concerned. It is possible, on the one hand, to direct the child's outer bodily movements more and more to what is purely physical, that is, to physiological gymnastics, where we simply inquire of the body what movements shall be carried out. But we can also guide the child's outer movements so that they become purposeful movements, movements penetrated with meaning, so that the child does not merely splash about in the spirit in his movements, but follows the spirit in his aims. So we develop the bodily movements into Eurythmy. The more we make the child do purely physical gymnastics the more he will be at the mercy of excessive desire for sleep; and of an excessive tendency to fat. We must not entirely neglect the bodily side, for man must live in rhythm, but having swung over to this side we must swing back again to a kind of movement which is permeated with purpose — as in Eurythmy, where every movement expresses a sound and has a meaning — the more we can alternate gymnastics with Eurythmy the more we shall bring harmony into the need for sleeping and waking; the more, too, shall we maintain normal life in the child's will, in his relations to the outer world. That gymnastics, moreover, has become void of all sense or meaning, that we have made it into an activity that follows the body entirely, is a characteristic phenomenon of the age of materialism. And the fact that we seek to “raise” this activity to the level of sport, where the movements to be performed are derived solely from the body, and not only lack all sense and meaning, but are contrary to sense and meaning — this fact is typical of the endeavor to drag man down even beyond the level of materialistic thinking to that of brute feeling. The excessive pursuit of sport is Darwinism in practice. Theoretical Darwinism is to assert that man comes from the animals. Sport is practical Darwinism, it proclaims an ethic which leads man back again to the animal.
One must speak of these things to-day in this radical manner because the present-day teacher must understand them; for, not only must he be the teacher of those children entrusted to his care, he must also work socially, he must work back upon mankind as a whole to prevent the increasing growth of things which would tend indeed to have an animalising effect upon humanity. This is not false asceticism. It comes from the objectivity of real insight, and is as true as any other scientific knowledge.
Now what is the position with regard to spiritual work? Spiritual work, thinking, reading and so on, is always accompanied by bodily activity and by the continual decay and dying of organic matter. When we are too active in spirit and soul we have decayed organic matter within us. If we spend our entire day in learned work we have too much decayed organic matter in us by the evening, This works on in us, and disturbs restful sleep. Excessive spiritual work disturbs sleep just as excessive bodily work makes one sleep-sodden. But when we exert ourselves too much over soul-spiritual work, when, for instance, we read something difficult, and really have to think as we read (not exactly a favorite occupation nowadays), if we do too much difficult reading we fall asleep over it. Or if we listen, not to the trite platitudes of popular speakers or others who only say what we already know, but to people whose words we have to follow with our thoughts because they are telling us what we do not yet know — we get tired and sleep-sodden. It is well known that people who go to a lecture or concert because it is “the thing to do”, and do not give real thought or feeling to what is put before them, fall asleep at the first word, or the first note. Often they will sleep all through the lecture or concert which they have attended only from a sense of duty or of social obligation.
Now here again are two kinds of activity. Just as there is a difference between outward activity which has meaning and purpose and that which has no meaning, so there is a difference between the inner activity of thought and perception which goes on mechanically and that which is always accompanied by feelings. If we so carry out our work that continuous interest is combined with it, this interest and attention enlivens the activity of our breast system and prevents the nerves from decaying to an excessive degree. The more you merely skim along in your reading, the less you exert yourselves to take in what you read with really deep interest — the more you will be furthering the decay of substance within you. But the more you follow what you read with interest and warmth of feeling the more you will be furthering the blood activity, that is, that activity which keeps matter alive. And the more, too, you will be preventing mental activity from disturbing your sleep. When you have to cram for an examination you are assimilating a great deal in opposition to your interest. For if we only assimilated what aroused our interest we should not get through our examinations under modern conditions. It follows that cramming for an examination disturbs sleep and brings disorder into our normal life. This must be specially borne in mind where children are concerned. Therefore for children it is best of all, and most in accordance with an educational ideal, if we omit all cramming for examinations. That is, we should omit examinations altogether and let the school year finish as it began. As teachers we must feel it our duty to ask ourselves: why should the child undergo a test at all? I have always had him before me and I know quite well what he knows and does not know. Of course under present-day conditions this must remain an ideal for the time being. And I must beg you not to direct your rebel natures too forcibly against the outside world. Your criticism of our present-day civilization you must turn inwards like a goad, so that you may work slowly — for we can only work slowly in these things — towards making people learn to think differently; then external social conditions will change their present form.
But you must always remember the inner connection of things. You must know that Eurythmy, external activity permeated with purpose, is a spiritualising of bodily activity, and the arousing of interest in one's teaching (provided it is genuine) is literally a bringing of life and blood into the work of the intellect.
We must bring spirit into external work, and we must bring blood into our inward, intellectual work. Think over these two sentences, and you will see that the first is of significance both in education and in social life, and that the second is of significance both in education and in hygiene.
Lecture XIV
If we regard man in the way we have done here in evolving a true art of education, his threefold bodily nature becomes evident from many aspects. We can clearly distinguish between all that belongs to the system of the head — the head formation of man, and what belongs to the formation of the chest, of the whole trunk; and these, again, we distinguish from what belongs to the limb formation. At the same time we must recognize that the limb formation is much more complicated than is usually imagined: because what is present in the limbs in germ — and is really formed, as we have seen, from without inwards — is continued right into the interior of man's being; hence we have to distinguish between what is built up from within outwards and what is pushed into the human body, so to speak, from without inwards.
If we have a picture in our minds of this threefold division of the human being, it will be particularly clear how man's head is in itself a whole human being, a whole human being raised from out the animal stage.
In the head we have the real head; but we have also the trunk, that is all that belongs to the nose; and we have the limb part, which is continued into the bodily cavity, namely, all that comprises the mouth. So we can see how the whole human being is present in the head in bodily form. Only, the chest part of the head is stunted; it is so stunted that the relation between the nose and the lung nature is no longer conspicuous. A correspondence, however, does exist between the nose and nasal passages and the lung nature. This nose is rather like a metamorphosed lung. It therefore transforms the breathing process also and makes it take on a more physical nature. Perhaps you think of the lung as less spiritual than the nose? This is a mistake. The lung is more of a work of art. It is more permeated with spirit, or at least with soul, than is the nose — which, to be sure, really pokes out in the face in the most immodest way; whereas the lung, although more soul-like than the nose, conceals its existence with more modesty.
And it is the mouth, and all that belongs with it, that is related to the metabolic system, to digestion and nourishment, and to all that is a continuation of the limb-forces into man; the mouth, indeed, cannot disguise its relationship to nourishment and to the limb nature.
Thus the head is a whole human being, only the non-head part of it is stunted: chest and lower body are also present in the head but in a stunted form.
Now when in contrast to this, we consider the limb man we find that all its outer shapes, all its outer configuration is essentially a transformation of man's two jaw bones, of the upper and lower jaw. What encloses your mouth below and above is but a stunted form of your legs and feet, and your arms and hands. Only you must think of the thing in its right position. Now you can say: If I think of my arms and hands as the upper jaw-bone, and my legs and feet as the lower jaw-bone, I have to ask: “To what are these jaw bones directed? Where do these jaws bite? Where is the mouth?” And you must answer this question as follows: It is where your upper arm is attached to your body, and where the upper part of your leg, the femur, is attached to your body. So that if you think of this as the human trunk (see drawing) you must think of the real head as somewhere outside: it opens its mouth here above (see drawing) and here below also; so that you can imagine a remarkable tendency of this invisible head that opens its jaws in the direction of your chest and your abdomen.
What then does this invisible head do? It is constantly devouring you. It opens its jaws upon you. And here the outward form is a wonderful representation of the real facts. Whereas man's proper head is a material bodily head, the head belonging to his limb-nature is a spiritual head, but one that becomes a little material so that it can continually eat the human being up. And when death comes, it has devoured him completely.
And the task of the body is to develop in itself what is potentially in man from his birth. If the limbs move too little or move in the wrong way, they do not consume enough of the body. The abdomen chest system is then in the fortunate position — fortunate, that is, for itself — that an insufficient quantity of it is consumed by the limbs. It uses what is left over to produce surplus substantiality in man. This surplus substantiality then permeates what is native to man from his birth, that is, the bodily nature proper to him as a being born of spirit and soul. It permeates what he ought to have with something he ought not to have, with a substantiality which belongs to his earthly nature only, a substantiality having no tendency to spirit and soul in the true sense of the words: it permeates him with fat. Now when this fat is deposited in man to an abnormal extent it causes too much obstruction to the incoming consuming process of spirit and soul; with the result that the path of this spirit and soul process to the head system is made difficult. For this reason it is not right to allow children to have too much fat producing food. It causes their heads to be separated off from the soul-spiritual stream. For fat obstructs soul and spirit, and renders the head empty. It is a question of having the tact to co-operate with the child's home life and see to it that he does not get too fat. Later in life getting fat depends on all kinds of other things, also some abnormally constituted children tend to get fat because they are weak — but with normal children it is always possible to prevent excessive fat by giving a suitable diet.
We shall not, however, have the right feeling of responsibility towards these things unless we appreciate their very great significance. We must realise that if we allow the child to accumulate too much fat we are encroaching on the work of the world process. The world has a purpose to achieve in man, which it signifies by letting soul and spirit flow through him. We definitely encroach on a cosmic process if we let the child get too fat.
Now something very remarkable happens in man's head: as all spirit and soul is dammed up there it splashes back like water meeting a weir. It is like this: the spirit and soul brings matter with it, as the Mississippi brings sand, and this matter sprays back right inside the brain; thus where spirit and soul is dammed up we have streams surging one over the other. And in this beating back of the material element matter is continually perishing in the brain. And when matter, which is still permeated with life, collapses and is driven back, as I described, there then arises the nerve. Nerve comes into existence wherever matter which has been driven through life by the spirit perishes and decays within the living organism. Hence nerve is decayed matter within the living organism: life gets jammed, as it were, gets dammed up in itself, matter crumbles away and decays. Hence arise channels in all parts of the body filled with decayed matter, these are the nerves. Here spirit and soul can play back into man. Spirit and soul sprays through man along the nerves; for spirit and soul makes use of the decayed matter. It causes matter to decay, to flake off on the surface of man's body. Indeed spirit and soul will not enter man's body and permeate it until matter has died within it. The spirit and soul element in man moves within him along the nerve channels of lifeless matter.
In this way we can see how spirit and soul actually operates in man. We see it pressing upon him from outside, developing, as it does so, a devouring, consuming activity. We see it penetrating into him. We see how it is checked, how it splashes back, how it kills matter. We see how matter decays in the nerves, and how this enables the spirit and soul to make its way even to the skin, from within outwards, along the pathways of its own making. For spirit and soul cannot pass through what has organic life.
Now, how can you picture the organic, the living element? You can picture it as something that takes up spirit and soul into itself, that does not let them through. And you can picture the dead material, mineral element as something that lets the spirit and soul through. So that you can get a kind of definition for the living-organic element and a definition for the bone-nerve element, and indeed for the material-mineral element as a whole. For the living-organic element is impermeable for the spirit. The dead physical element is permeable for the spirit. “Blood is a very special fluid,” for as opaque matter is to light, so is blood to the spirit. It does not let the spirit through. It retains the spirit within it. Nerve substance is a very special substance, also. It is to spirit as transparent glass is to light. As transparent glass lets the light through, so, too, physical matter, material nerve substance lets the spirit through.
Here we have the difference between two component parts of the human being, that in him which is mineral, which is permeable to the spirit, and that in him which is more animal, more of a living organism, and which retains the spirit within him — that which causes the spirit to produce the forms which shape the organism.
From this many things follow for the treatment of the human being. For example, when a man does bodily work he moves his limbs. This means he is entirely immersed, he is swimming about in the spirit. This is not the spirit that has dammed itself up within him, this is the spirit that is outside him. If you chop wood, or if you walk — whenever you move your limbs in work of some sort — whether useful or not — you are constantly splashing about in spirit; you are concerned constantly with spirit. This is very important. And, further it is important to ask ourselves: What if we are doing spiritual work, if we are thinking or reading — how is it then? Well, this is a concern of the spirit and soul that is within us. Now it is not we who splash about in spirit with our limbs, but the spirit and soul is at work in us and continuously makes use of our bodily nature; that is, spirit and soul come to expression wholly as a bodily process within us. And here within us by means of this damming up, matter is constantly being thrown back upon itself. In spiritual work the activity of the body is excessive, in bodily work, on the other hand, the activity of the spirit is excessive. We cannot do spiritual work, work of soul and spirit, except with the continuous participation of the body. When we do bodily work the spirit and soul within us takes part only in so far as our thoughts direct our walking, or guide our work. But the spirit and soul nature takes part in it from without. We continuously work into the spirit of the world, we continuously unite ourselves with the spirit of the world when we do bodily work. Bodily work is spiritual; spiritual work is bodily, its effect is bodily upon and within man. We must understand this paradox and make it our own, namely that bodily work is spiritual and spiritual work bodily, both in man and in its effects on man. Spirit is flooding round us when do bodily work. Matter is active within us when we do spiritual work.
We must know such things, my dear friends, if we are to think with understanding about work — whether spiritual or bodily work — and about recreation and fatigue. We can only do this if we have a thorough grasp of what I have just described. For, suppose a man works too much with his limbs, that he does too much bodily work, what is the result? It brings him too much into relation with the spirit. For spirit continually floods round him when he does bodily work; consequently the spirit gains too much power over man, the spirit that comes from outside. We make ourselves too spiritual when we do too much bodily work. From without we let ourselves be made too spiritual. And it follows that we need to give ourselves up to the spirit for too long, in other words, we have to sleep too long. And too much sleep in turn promotes too much bodily activity, the bodily activity of the chest abdomen, not of the head system. This activity over-stimulates life, we become feverish, too hot. Our blood pulses in us too strongly its activity in the body cannot be assimilated, if we sleep too much. Nevertheless through excessive bodily work we produce in ourselves the desire to sleep too much.
But what about lazy people who love to sleep, and who sleep so much? Why are they like this? It is due to the fact that man can never really stop working. When a lazy person sleeps it is not because he works too little, for a lazy person has to move his legs all day long, and he flourishes his arms about, too, in some fashion or other. Even a lazy person does something. From an external point of view he really does no less than an industrious person — but he does it without sense or purpose. The industrious man turns his attention to the outside world, He introduces meaning into his activities. That is the difference. Senseless activities such as a lazy person carries on are more conducive to sleep than are activities with a purpose in them. In intelligent occupation we do not merely splash about in the spirit: if there is meaning in the movements we carry out in our work we gradually draw the spirit into us. When we stretch out our hand with a purpose we unite ourselves with the spirit; and the spirit, in its turn, does not need to work so much unconsciously in sleep, because we are working with it consciously. Thus it is not a question of whether man is active or not, for a lazy man too is active, but the question is how far man's actions have a purpose in them. To be active with a purpose — these words must sink into our minds if we would be teachers. Now when is a man active without purpose? He is active without purpose, senselessly active, when he acts only in accordance with the demands of his body. He acts with purpose when he acts in accordance with the demands of his environment and not merely in accordance with those of his own body. We must pay heed to this where the child is concerned. It is possible, on the one hand, to direct the child's outer bodily movements more and more to what is purely physical, that is, to physiological gymnastics, where we simply inquire of the body what movements shall be carried out. But we can also guide the child's outer movements so that they become purposeful movements, movements penetrated with meaning, so that the child does not merely splash about in the spirit in his movements, but follows the spirit in his aims. So we develop the bodily movements into Eurythmy. The more we make the child do purely physical gymnastics the more he will be at the mercy of excessive desire for sleep; and of an excessive tendency to fat. We must not entirely neglect the bodily side, for man must live in rhythm, but having swung over to this side we must swing back again to a kind of movement which is permeated with purpose — as in Eurythmy, where every movement expresses a sound and has a meaning — the more we can alternate gymnastics with Eurythmy the more we shall bring harmony into the need for sleeping and waking; the more, too, shall we maintain normal life in the child's will, in his relations to the outer world. That gymnastics, moreover, has become void of all sense or meaning, that we have made it into an activity that follows the body entirely, is a characteristic phenomenon of the age of materialism. And the fact that we seek to “raise” this activity to the level of sport, where the movements to be performed are derived solely from the body, and not only lack all sense and meaning, but are contrary to sense and meaning — this fact is typical of the endeavor to drag man down even beyond the level of materialistic thinking to that of brute feeling. The excessive pursuit of sport is Darwinism in practice. Theoretical Darwinism is to assert that man comes from the animals. Sport is practical Darwinism, it proclaims an ethic which leads man back again to the animal.
One must speak of these things to-day in this radical manner because the present-day teacher must understand them; for, not only must he be the teacher of those children entrusted to his care, he must also work socially, he must work back upon mankind as a whole to prevent the increasing growth of things which would tend indeed to have an animalising effect upon humanity. This is not false asceticism. It comes from the objectivity of real insight, and is as true as any other scientific knowledge.
Now what is the position with regard to spiritual work? Spiritual work, thinking, reading and so on, is always accompanied by bodily activity and by the continual decay and dying of organic matter. When we are too active in spirit and soul we have decayed organic matter within us. If we spend our entire day in learned work we have too much decayed organic matter in us by the evening, This works on in us, and disturbs restful sleep. Excessive spiritual work disturbs sleep just as excessive bodily work makes one sleep-sodden. But when we exert ourselves too much over soul-spiritual work, when, for instance, we read something difficult, and really have to think as we read (not exactly a favorite occupation nowadays), if we do too much difficult reading we fall asleep over it. Or if we listen, not to the trite platitudes of popular speakers or others who only say what we already know, but to people whose words we have to follow with our thoughts because they are telling us what we do not yet know — we get tired and sleep-sodden. It is well known that people who go to a lecture or concert because it is “the thing to do”, and do not give real thought or feeling to what is put before them, fall asleep at the first word, or the first note. Often they will sleep all through the lecture or concert which they have attended only from a sense of duty or of social obligation.
Now here again are two kinds of activity. Just as there is a difference between outward activity which has meaning and purpose and that which has no meaning, so there is a difference between the inner activity of thought and perception which goes on mechanically and that which is always accompanied by feelings. If we so carry out our work that continuous interest is combined with it, this interest and attention enlivens the activity of our breast system and prevents the nerves from decaying to an excessive degree. The more you merely skim along in your reading, the less you exert yourselves to take in what you read with really deep interest — the more you will be furthering the decay of substance within you. But the more you follow what you read with interest and warmth of feeling the more you will be furthering the blood activity, that is, that activity which keeps matter alive. And the more, too, you will be preventing mental activity from disturbing your sleep. When you have to cram for an examination you are assimilating a great deal in opposition to your interest. For if we only assimilated what aroused our interest we should not get through our examinations under modern conditions. It follows that cramming for an examination disturbs sleep and brings disorder into our normal life. This must be specially borne in mind where children are concerned. Therefore for children it is best of all, and most in accordance with an educational ideal, if we omit all cramming for examinations. That is, we should omit examinations altogether and let the school year finish as it began. As teachers we must feel it our duty to ask ourselves: why should the child undergo a test at all? I have always had him before me and I know quite well what he knows and does not know. Of course under present-day conditions this must remain an ideal for the time being. And I must beg you not to direct your rebel natures too forcibly against the outside world. Your criticism of our present-day civilization you must turn inwards like a goad, so that you may work slowly — for we can only work slowly in these things — towards making people learn to think differently; then external social conditions will change their present form.
But you must always remember the inner connection of things. You must know that Eurythmy, external activity permeated with purpose, is a spiritualising of bodily activity, and the arousing of interest in one's teaching (provided it is genuine) is literally a bringing of life and blood into the work of the intellect.
We must bring spirit into external work, and we must bring blood into our inward, intellectual work. Think over these two sentences, and you will see that the first is of significance both in education and in social life, and that the second is of significance both in education and in hygiene.
Lecture XIV
If we regard man in the way we have done here in evolving a true art of education, his threefold bodily nature becomes evident from many aspects. We can clearly distinguish between all that belongs to the system of the head — the head formation of man, and what belongs to the formation of the chest, of the whole trunk; and these, again, we distinguish from what belongs to the limb formation. At the same time we must recognize that the limb formation is much more complicated than is usually imagined: because what is present in the limbs in germ — and is really formed, as we have seen, from without inwards — is continued right into the interior of man's being; hence we have to distinguish between what is built up from within outwards and what is pushed into the human body, so to speak, from without inwards.
If we have a picture in our minds of this threefold division of the human being, it will be particularly clear how man's head is in itself a whole human being, a whole human being raised from out the animal stage.
In the head we have the real head; but we have also the trunk, that is all that belongs to the nose; and we have the limb part, which is continued into the bodily cavity, namely, all that comprises the mouth. So we can see how the whole human being is present in the head in bodily form. Only, the chest part of the head is stunted; it is so stunted that the relation between the nose and the lung nature is no longer conspicuous. A correspondence, however, does exist between the nose and nasal passages and the lung nature. This nose is rather like a metamorphosed lung. It therefore transforms the breathing process also and makes it take on a more physical nature. Perhaps you think of the lung as less spiritual than the nose? This is a mistake. The lung is more of a work of art. It is more permeated with spirit, or at least with soul, than is the nose — which, to be sure, really pokes out in the face in the most immodest way; whereas the lung, although more soul-like than the nose, conceals its existence with more modesty.
And it is the mouth, and all that belongs with it, that is related to the metabolic system, to digestion and nourishment, and to all that is a continuation of the limb-forces into man; the mouth, indeed, cannot disguise its relationship to nourishment and to the limb nature.
Thus the head is a whole human being, only the non-head part of it is stunted: chest and lower body are also present in the head but in a stunted form.
Now when in contrast to this, we consider the limb man we find that all its outer shapes, all its outer configuration is essentially a transformation of man's two jaw bones, of the upper and lower jaw. What encloses your mouth below and above is but a stunted form of your legs and feet, and your arms and hands. Only you must think of the thing in its right position. Now you can say: If I think of my arms and hands as the upper jaw-bone, and my legs and feet as the lower jaw-bone, I have to ask: “To what are these jaw bones directed? Where do these jaws bite? Where is the mouth?” And you must answer this question as follows: It is where your upper arm is attached to your body, and where the upper part of your leg, the femur, is attached to your body. So that if you think of this as the human trunk (see drawing) you must think of the real head as somewhere outside: it opens its mouth here above (see drawing) and here below also; so that you can imagine a remarkable tendency of this invisible head that opens its jaws in the direction of your chest and your abdomen.
What then does this invisible head do? It is constantly devouring you. It opens its jaws upon you. And here the outward form is a wonderful representation of the real facts. Whereas man's proper head is a material bodily head, the head belonging to his limb-nature is a spiritual head, but one that becomes a little material so that it can continually eat the human being up. And when death comes, it has devoured him completely.
This, truly, is the wonderful process, that our limbs are so made as constantly to be consuming us. Our organism slips continuously into the yawning jaws of our own spirituality. The spiritual perpetually demands of us a sacrificial devotion. And this sacrificial devotion is expressed even in the form of the body. We have no understanding of the human form unless we recognize the expression of this sacrifice to the spirit in the relation of the limbs to the rest of the human body. Thus we can say: the head and limb nature of man form a contrast to one another and it is the chest or trunk nature, mid-way between, that (from one aspect) maintains the balance of these opposites.
In man's chest there is in reality just as much head nature as limb nature. Limb nature and head nature are interwoven in the chest nature. The chest has a continuous upward tendency to became head, and a continuous downward tendency to fit in with the out-stretched limbs, with the outer world, in other words to become a part of the limb nature. The upper part of the chest nature has the constant tendency to become head; the lower part has the tendency to become limb man. That is to say: the upper part of the human trunk has the continual desire to become head, but it cannot do so. The other head prevents it. Therefore it produces continuously only an image of the head, something that represents so to speak, a beginning of the head formation. Can we not clearly recognize that in the upper part of the chest formation there is a suggestion of head formation? Yes, there we have the larynx, called Kehlkopf in German, from the native genius of the language, i.e., the head of the throat. The larynx is absolutely a stunted human head; a head which cannot become completely head and therefore lives out its head nature in human speech. The larynx continually makes the attempt in the air to become head; and this attempt constitutes human speech. When the larynx tries to become the uppermost part of the head we get those sounds which clearly show that they are held back by man's nature more strongly than any. When the human larynx tries to become nose it cannot, because the real nose prevents it. But it produces in the air the attempt to become nose, and this constitutes the nasal sounds. Thus in the nasal sounds the actual nose is checking the “air nose” which is seeking to arise. It is exceedingly significant how, when man speaks, he is continually making the attempt in the air to produce pieces of a head, and how these pieces of head are extended in wave-like movements which are then checked by the physically developed head.
You can now see what human speech really is. Therefore you will not be surprised that as soon as the head is more or less complete physically, i.e., towards the seventh year when the change of teeth takes place, opportunity is provided for the soul head — which is produced out of the larynx — to be permeated by a kind of skeletal system. But it must be a skeletal system of the soul. To achieve this we must now leave off developing language merely at random through imitation, and must devote our powers to the grammatical side of language. Let us be conscious that when the child comes to us in his seventh year we have to do for his soul a thing similar to that done by his body in pushing up into his organism the second teeth. Thus we shall impart power and firmness to his language (but a firmness of the soul only) by introducing grammar in a reasonable way: that is, the working of language in writing and reading. We shall get the right attitude of mind to human speaking if we know that the words man forms actually express a tendency to become head.
Now, just as the upper part of the chest system in man has the tendency to become head, so the lower part has the tendency to become limbs. And just as all that proceeds from the larynx in the form of speech is a refined head, a head formed out of air, so all that proceeds downwards from the chest nature of man to take on something of the limb organization, is a coarsened limb nature. The outer world pushes into man, so to speak, a densified, coarsened limb nature. And once natural scientists discover the secret that a coarsened form of hands and feet, arms and legs is present in man — more of the limbs being pressed inside than remains visible outside — then indeed they will have fathomed the riddle of sex nature. And then only will man find the right tone for speaking of these things. It is no wonder therefore that the talk prevalent to-day about sex instruction is mostly meaningless. For one cannot explain well what one does not understand oneself. And contemporary science has not the least understanding for the thing I have just barely touched on in characterizing the connection between the limb man and the trunk man. Just as one finds in the first years of school life that what penetrated the teeth before the age of seven is now pressing into the soul, so in the later years of schooling one finds pressing into the child's soul all that arises from the limb nature and comes to its rightful expression after puberty. This must be known.
Thus, just as the power to write and read is an expression of the teething of the soul, so all activity of imagination, all that is permeated with inner warmth is an expression of what the soul develops in the later school years, the twelfth, thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth years. In particular, there then appear all those capacities of the soul which can be permeated and filled with inner love, all that shows itself, namely, in the power of imagination. It is to this power of imagination that we must especially appeal in the latter part of the period between the change of teeth and puberty. We are much more justified in encouraging the child of seven to develop its own intellectuality by way of reading and writing than we are justified in neglecting to bring imagination continually into the growing power of judgment of the child of twelve. (It is from the age of twelve onwards that the power of judgment gradually develops.) We must arouse the child's imagination in all we teach him, in all the lessons he has to learn during these years; all history, all geography teaching must be steeped in imagination.
And we do really appeal to the child's imagination if, for instance, we say to him: “Now you have seen a lens, haven't you, a lens that collects the light? Now, you have such a lens in your own eye. And you know what a camera obscura is, where external objects are reproduced? Your eye is really a camera obscura, a dark room of this kind.” In a case of this sort where we show how the external world is built into the human organism through the sense organs — we are, once again, really appealing to the child's imagination. For what is built into the body is only seen in its external deadness when we take it out of the body, we cannot see it so in the living body.
Thus all the teaching, even what is given in geometry and arithmetic must consistently appeal to the imagination. We appeal to the imagination if, in dealing with plane surfaces, for instance, we endeavor (as we have been doing in our practical course) not only to make them comprehensible to the intellect, but to make them so thoroughly comprehensible that a child needs to use his imagination even in arithmetic and geometry. That is why I said yesterday (In another course of lectures to teachers) that I wondered that nobody had thought of explaining the theorem of Pythagoras in the following way. The teacher could say: “Suppose we have three children; the first has just so much powder to blow that he can make it cover the first square; the second so much that it will cover the second square; the third so much that it will just cover the little square. We shall be helping the child's imagination when we show him that the powder needed to cover the largest square is the same in quantity as that needed to cover the other two squares. Through this the child will bring his power of comprehension on the powder blown on the squares, perhaps not with mathematical accuracy, but in a form filled with imagination. He will follow the surfaces with his imagination. He will grasp the theorem of Pythagoras by means of the flying and settling powder, that would have to be blown moreover into square shapes (a thing impossible in reality of course, but calling out the exertion of imagination). He will grasp the theorem with his imagination.
Therefore in these years we should foster an intercourse alive with imagination between teacher and child. The teacher must keep alive all his subjects, steep them in imagination. The only way to do this is to permeate all that he has to teach with a willing rich in feeling. Such teaching has a wonderful influence on children in their later years.
A thing of the very greatest importance, a thing to be particularly cultivated during the later primary school years is the mutual intercourse, the complete harmony of life, between teacher and children. For this reason no one can be a good primary teacher unless he constantly endeavors to bring imagination into all his teaching; he must shape his teaching material afresh every time. For in actual fact the thing one has once worked out in an imaginative way, if given again years later in precisely the same form, is intellectually frozen up. Of necessity imagination must always be kept living, otherwise its products will became intellectually frozen.
This, in turn, throws light on what the teacher must be himself. He must never for a single moment in his life get sour. And if life is to be fruitful, two things must never meet, namely, the teaching vocation and pedantry. Should the teaching vocation ever be joined to pedantry the worst possible evil would result from this union. But I doubt if we need even imagine such an incongruity, as that teaching and pedantry have ever been united.
From this you see that there is a certain inner morality in teaching, an inner obligation, a true “categorical imperative” for the teacher. And this categorical imperative is as follows: Keep your imagination alive. And if you feel yourself getting pedantic, then say to yourself: for other people pedantry may be bad, for me it is wicked and immoral. This must be the teacher's attitude of mind. If it should not be his attitude of mind, then dear friends, the teacher would have to consider how he could gradually learn to apply what he had gained in his teaching profession to another walk of life. Of course in actual life these things cannot always come up to the ideal, but it is essential to know what the ideal is.
You will not, however, achieve the right enthusiasm for this educational morality unless you turn ever and again to fundamentals and make them part of yourself, You must know, for example, that the head itself is really a whole human being with the limbs and chest part stunted; that every limb is a whole human being only that in the limb man the head is quite stunted; and in the chest man, head and limbs are held in balance. If you have this fundamental ground, its force will bring the necessary enthusiasm into your educational morals.
The intellectual part of man is very apt to become lazy and sluggish. And it will become most intensely sluggish if it is perpetually fed with materialistic thoughts. But if it is fed with thoughts, with mental pictures, won from the spirit it will take wings. Such thoughts, however, can only come into our souls by way of imagination.
Now the second half of the nineteenth century has stormed against the introduction of imagination into teaching! In the first half of the nineteenth century there were brilliant men, men such as Schelling, for example, whose sounder thought embraced education as well. You should read the beautiful and stirring account written by Schelling of the methods of academic study — written, it is true, not about primary schools but for college life — but alive with the spirit of pedagogy of the first half of the nineteenth century. His work was attacked, in a veiled way, in the second half of the nineteenth century, when everything seeking access to man's soul by way of imagination was treated with scorn and abuse. This is because people had become cowards in what concerns the life of the soul, and because they believed that the moment they gave themselves up to imagination they would be falling into the arms of falsehood. They had not the courage to be free and independent in their thought and still to unite themselves with truth instead of falsehood. They were afraid to move freely in thought believing that if they did so they would straightway be letting falsehood into their souls. Thus in addition to the permeating of his teaching material with imagination, of which I have just spoken, the teacher must have courage for the truth. Without this courage for the truth he will find that his will in teaching will not serve him, especially when it comes to the older children. But this courage for the truth which the teacher develops must go hand in hand with a feeling of responsibility towards the truth.
The need for imagination, a sense of truth, a feeling of responsibility, these are the three forces which are the very nerves of pedagogy. And whoever will receive pedagogy into himself, let him inscribe the following as a motto for his teaching:
Imbue thyself with the power of imagination,
Have courage for the truth,
Sharpen thy feeling for responsibility of soul.
In man's chest there is in reality just as much head nature as limb nature. Limb nature and head nature are interwoven in the chest nature. The chest has a continuous upward tendency to became head, and a continuous downward tendency to fit in with the out-stretched limbs, with the outer world, in other words to become a part of the limb nature. The upper part of the chest nature has the constant tendency to become head; the lower part has the tendency to become limb man. That is to say: the upper part of the human trunk has the continual desire to become head, but it cannot do so. The other head prevents it. Therefore it produces continuously only an image of the head, something that represents so to speak, a beginning of the head formation. Can we not clearly recognize that in the upper part of the chest formation there is a suggestion of head formation? Yes, there we have the larynx, called Kehlkopf in German, from the native genius of the language, i.e., the head of the throat. The larynx is absolutely a stunted human head; a head which cannot become completely head and therefore lives out its head nature in human speech. The larynx continually makes the attempt in the air to become head; and this attempt constitutes human speech. When the larynx tries to become the uppermost part of the head we get those sounds which clearly show that they are held back by man's nature more strongly than any. When the human larynx tries to become nose it cannot, because the real nose prevents it. But it produces in the air the attempt to become nose, and this constitutes the nasal sounds. Thus in the nasal sounds the actual nose is checking the “air nose” which is seeking to arise. It is exceedingly significant how, when man speaks, he is continually making the attempt in the air to produce pieces of a head, and how these pieces of head are extended in wave-like movements which are then checked by the physically developed head.
You can now see what human speech really is. Therefore you will not be surprised that as soon as the head is more or less complete physically, i.e., towards the seventh year when the change of teeth takes place, opportunity is provided for the soul head — which is produced out of the larynx — to be permeated by a kind of skeletal system. But it must be a skeletal system of the soul. To achieve this we must now leave off developing language merely at random through imitation, and must devote our powers to the grammatical side of language. Let us be conscious that when the child comes to us in his seventh year we have to do for his soul a thing similar to that done by his body in pushing up into his organism the second teeth. Thus we shall impart power and firmness to his language (but a firmness of the soul only) by introducing grammar in a reasonable way: that is, the working of language in writing and reading. We shall get the right attitude of mind to human speaking if we know that the words man forms actually express a tendency to become head.
Now, just as the upper part of the chest system in man has the tendency to become head, so the lower part has the tendency to become limbs. And just as all that proceeds from the larynx in the form of speech is a refined head, a head formed out of air, so all that proceeds downwards from the chest nature of man to take on something of the limb organization, is a coarsened limb nature. The outer world pushes into man, so to speak, a densified, coarsened limb nature. And once natural scientists discover the secret that a coarsened form of hands and feet, arms and legs is present in man — more of the limbs being pressed inside than remains visible outside — then indeed they will have fathomed the riddle of sex nature. And then only will man find the right tone for speaking of these things. It is no wonder therefore that the talk prevalent to-day about sex instruction is mostly meaningless. For one cannot explain well what one does not understand oneself. And contemporary science has not the least understanding for the thing I have just barely touched on in characterizing the connection between the limb man and the trunk man. Just as one finds in the first years of school life that what penetrated the teeth before the age of seven is now pressing into the soul, so in the later years of schooling one finds pressing into the child's soul all that arises from the limb nature and comes to its rightful expression after puberty. This must be known.
Thus, just as the power to write and read is an expression of the teething of the soul, so all activity of imagination, all that is permeated with inner warmth is an expression of what the soul develops in the later school years, the twelfth, thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth years. In particular, there then appear all those capacities of the soul which can be permeated and filled with inner love, all that shows itself, namely, in the power of imagination. It is to this power of imagination that we must especially appeal in the latter part of the period between the change of teeth and puberty. We are much more justified in encouraging the child of seven to develop its own intellectuality by way of reading and writing than we are justified in neglecting to bring imagination continually into the growing power of judgment of the child of twelve. (It is from the age of twelve onwards that the power of judgment gradually develops.) We must arouse the child's imagination in all we teach him, in all the lessons he has to learn during these years; all history, all geography teaching must be steeped in imagination.
And we do really appeal to the child's imagination if, for instance, we say to him: “Now you have seen a lens, haven't you, a lens that collects the light? Now, you have such a lens in your own eye. And you know what a camera obscura is, where external objects are reproduced? Your eye is really a camera obscura, a dark room of this kind.” In a case of this sort where we show how the external world is built into the human organism through the sense organs — we are, once again, really appealing to the child's imagination. For what is built into the body is only seen in its external deadness when we take it out of the body, we cannot see it so in the living body.
Thus all the teaching, even what is given in geometry and arithmetic must consistently appeal to the imagination. We appeal to the imagination if, in dealing with plane surfaces, for instance, we endeavor (as we have been doing in our practical course) not only to make them comprehensible to the intellect, but to make them so thoroughly comprehensible that a child needs to use his imagination even in arithmetic and geometry. That is why I said yesterday (In another course of lectures to teachers) that I wondered that nobody had thought of explaining the theorem of Pythagoras in the following way. The teacher could say: “Suppose we have three children; the first has just so much powder to blow that he can make it cover the first square; the second so much that it will cover the second square; the third so much that it will just cover the little square. We shall be helping the child's imagination when we show him that the powder needed to cover the largest square is the same in quantity as that needed to cover the other two squares. Through this the child will bring his power of comprehension on the powder blown on the squares, perhaps not with mathematical accuracy, but in a form filled with imagination. He will follow the surfaces with his imagination. He will grasp the theorem of Pythagoras by means of the flying and settling powder, that would have to be blown moreover into square shapes (a thing impossible in reality of course, but calling out the exertion of imagination). He will grasp the theorem with his imagination.
Therefore in these years we should foster an intercourse alive with imagination between teacher and child. The teacher must keep alive all his subjects, steep them in imagination. The only way to do this is to permeate all that he has to teach with a willing rich in feeling. Such teaching has a wonderful influence on children in their later years.
A thing of the very greatest importance, a thing to be particularly cultivated during the later primary school years is the mutual intercourse, the complete harmony of life, between teacher and children. For this reason no one can be a good primary teacher unless he constantly endeavors to bring imagination into all his teaching; he must shape his teaching material afresh every time. For in actual fact the thing one has once worked out in an imaginative way, if given again years later in precisely the same form, is intellectually frozen up. Of necessity imagination must always be kept living, otherwise its products will became intellectually frozen.
This, in turn, throws light on what the teacher must be himself. He must never for a single moment in his life get sour. And if life is to be fruitful, two things must never meet, namely, the teaching vocation and pedantry. Should the teaching vocation ever be joined to pedantry the worst possible evil would result from this union. But I doubt if we need even imagine such an incongruity, as that teaching and pedantry have ever been united.
From this you see that there is a certain inner morality in teaching, an inner obligation, a true “categorical imperative” for the teacher. And this categorical imperative is as follows: Keep your imagination alive. And if you feel yourself getting pedantic, then say to yourself: for other people pedantry may be bad, for me it is wicked and immoral. This must be the teacher's attitude of mind. If it should not be his attitude of mind, then dear friends, the teacher would have to consider how he could gradually learn to apply what he had gained in his teaching profession to another walk of life. Of course in actual life these things cannot always come up to the ideal, but it is essential to know what the ideal is.
You will not, however, achieve the right enthusiasm for this educational morality unless you turn ever and again to fundamentals and make them part of yourself, You must know, for example, that the head itself is really a whole human being with the limbs and chest part stunted; that every limb is a whole human being only that in the limb man the head is quite stunted; and in the chest man, head and limbs are held in balance. If you have this fundamental ground, its force will bring the necessary enthusiasm into your educational morals.
The intellectual part of man is very apt to become lazy and sluggish. And it will become most intensely sluggish if it is perpetually fed with materialistic thoughts. But if it is fed with thoughts, with mental pictures, won from the spirit it will take wings. Such thoughts, however, can only come into our souls by way of imagination.
Now the second half of the nineteenth century has stormed against the introduction of imagination into teaching! In the first half of the nineteenth century there were brilliant men, men such as Schelling, for example, whose sounder thought embraced education as well. You should read the beautiful and stirring account written by Schelling of the methods of academic study — written, it is true, not about primary schools but for college life — but alive with the spirit of pedagogy of the first half of the nineteenth century. His work was attacked, in a veiled way, in the second half of the nineteenth century, when everything seeking access to man's soul by way of imagination was treated with scorn and abuse. This is because people had become cowards in what concerns the life of the soul, and because they believed that the moment they gave themselves up to imagination they would be falling into the arms of falsehood. They had not the courage to be free and independent in their thought and still to unite themselves with truth instead of falsehood. They were afraid to move freely in thought believing that if they did so they would straightway be letting falsehood into their souls. Thus in addition to the permeating of his teaching material with imagination, of which I have just spoken, the teacher must have courage for the truth. Without this courage for the truth he will find that his will in teaching will not serve him, especially when it comes to the older children. But this courage for the truth which the teacher develops must go hand in hand with a feeling of responsibility towards the truth.
The need for imagination, a sense of truth, a feeling of responsibility, these are the three forces which are the very nerves of pedagogy. And whoever will receive pedagogy into himself, let him inscribe the following as a motto for his teaching:
Imbue thyself with the power of imagination,
Have courage for the truth,
Sharpen thy feeling for responsibility of soul.