XIV. Aesthetic Education

Here we must consider yet another point; students are now entering an age when, to a certain extent, they need to be grouped according to whether they will follow a more academic or practical career later on. At the same time, we must not forget that an education based on a real knowledge of the human being always strives for balance in teaching, and we need to know how this is done in practice. Naturally, we must equip students of a more academic disposition with what they will need for their future education. At the same time, if we are to retain the proper balance, any specialization (later on also) should be compensated by some broadening into otherwise neglected areas. If, on the one hand, we direct their will impulses more toward the academic side, we must also give them some concrete understanding of practical life so they do not lose sight of life as a whole. Thus, we actually fulfill the demands of the human astral body; when it guides conscious will impulses in one direction, it also feels the need for appropriate counter-impulses. A concrete example may help.