II. The Art of Teaching from an Understanding of the Human Being

Observation that is truly alive shows that spirit exists within the child no less than in the adult. However, that spirit lies hidden deep within the child and must first conquer the body. If we can see that spirit before it speaks to us through language or reveals itself through intellectual thought, we can receive an impression of the marvelous way spirit’s divine gift affects the child’s organism. You will then get an impression of why we certainly cannot say that the physical nature of the human being is one thing, and spirit another. In children you can see how spirit, much more so than with adults, works directly on the physical—that is, how spirit completely permeates the physical. As adults, we have spirit to the extent that we need to think about the world. Children, on the other hand, have spirit to the extent that they need to form their organism through spiritual sculpting. Much more than people believe, the human physical organism throughout all of earthly life is the result of how that spirit hidden within the child develops the physical organism. To avoid speaking abstractly, I would like to present some concrete examples.