5. The Physical World as an Expression of Spiritual Forces and Beings.

At the seventh year of life, then, the etheric body becomes free. It is the bearer of memories. In regard to a child's memory, the most important thing of all is that before the seventh year of life it shall not be developed by current pedagogical methods. Only from the seventh year onwards has the time come when a true art of education should influence the training of the memory. It is often argued that nature sees to it that the child uses memory long before the age of seven. That is true, but it is the preliminary work that is accompanied by nature. The eyes of a child have been made ready by nature before birth in the mother's body, but what would happen if you were to allow the sunlight to work upon the eye of the embryo? Precisely in order that later on the sunlight can have the right effect upon the eye, the preliminary work upon it must be done by nature, before birth. The same applies to the other organs before physical birth. Nature produces them in advance but they are protected by the outer covering of the maternal sheath. So up to the seventh year of life, the child's memory should be worked upon by nature in order that then, from the seventh year onwards, it can be further developed in the right way. How, from then onwards, ought one to work on the child's memory? Just in the way that nature works until the child's physical birth.