The Constitution of the General Anthroposophical Society

GA 260a — 20 April 1924

An Education Conference at the Waldorf School in Stuttgart

From April 7 to 13, we were able to bring together a large number of visitors in Stuttgart. The Executive Council at the Goetheanum and the teaching staff of the Waldorf School had issued an invitation to discuss questions concerning “The Place of Education in Personal and Cultural Life Today.” We felt this was an important topic, because the times call for self-reflection on how contemporary culture, which has achieved excellence only in the fields of understanding and controlling nature, can once again penetrate the inner life of human beings in such a way that the language of the soul, which is necessary for educators and teachers, can resound. In reality, knowledge of nature only encompasses what lies outside of human beings. In the heyday of the scientific worldview, it is believed that human beings can be studied and educated using scientific methods; but in truth, human beings remain an unknown territory for human beings if there is no understanding that something completely different prevails within human beings than outside of them. True knowledge of human beings, which rests on foundations as secure as knowledge of nature, but which does not seek to be knowledge of human beings merely by treating human beings as natural beings, is necessary in order to bring to education and teaching the life that so many miss in them today, without wanting to know anything about the ways in which such a life can be attained. True knowledge of human beings must explore the human being in body, soul, and spirit. For the human body is a work of the spirit and a revelation of the soul. If the educator wants to form the body, he must turn to the powers of the spirit in order to continue what the spirit sends into this body from pre-earthly life in the form of formative forces and allows to continue to work in earthly life. If he wants to form the soul, he must know the body in order to understand how the soul, which the spirit has hidden in this body, can be brought out of it. It is absurd to want to achieve physical education merely by influencing the body. For what is absorbed into the soul in childhood appears in adulthood as a healthy or unhealthy physical constitution. If the soul is deformed in the child, this deformation will spread to the physical constitution. For in the child, every soul impulse is transmitted into healthy or unhealthy breathing, into healthy or unhealthy circulation, into healthy or unhealthy digestive activity. What is unhealthy often does not yet become apparent in the child. It is only present in embryonic form. But the seed grows as the person grows. And many chronic illnesses in people in their forties are the result of psychological deformities in the first or second decade of life.

The way of thinking that has developed since the fifteenth century and has reached its peak in our time can find so little in the truths indicated that they may even seem absurd to it. That is why this way of thinking does not penetrate into a living pedagogical art that encompasses the whole human being and the whole of human life, from birth to death.

How humanity today unconsciously longs for the foundations that it consciously rejects should be presented at our education conference. The fact that many people today feel the need to reflect on the position of education in cultural life is evident in the fact that we could hardly accommodate all the visitors to the lectures in the Sieglehaus, which is not a small venue. The mood of the audience showed that the way in which this position was discussed made sense to many. This mood also showed that people felt that anthroposophical pedagogy gives education and teaching a position in human life that corresponds to what human nature itself demands.

It was very painful for me that I could only be at the conference for the duration of my lectures, from Tuesday evening to Friday morning; and even during this time, I was unable to attend the lectures given by our dedicated, self-sacrificing, tireless teachers, as I had other responsibilities. But I could gather from reports how beautifully this dedication, willingness to make sacrifices, and tirelessness bore fruit at this conference in the public representation of Waldorf school education.

In addition to the lectures, there were guided tours of the Waldorf school rooms to illustrate the achievements of the students. There were eurythmy performances by the children and artistic eurythmy presentations designed to reveal the essence and pedagogical-didactic value of eurythmy.

Discussions and debates sought to expand and clarify what had been heard and seen.

Our young anthroposophists held a youth assembly to discuss what anthroposophy can offer young people today in their search for meaning. The faces of these young friends revealed how their youthful sensibilities coincide with their feelings for anthroposophy. I look back on this part of the education conference with the deepest satisfaction.