Lecture Five

At this stage, something appears in the subconscious being of a child. It is not, of course, anything that the child could express consciously, but we may characterize it in this way: until this time, children unquestioningly accepted as truth, goodness, and beauty whatever the authority, or revered teacher, presented as true, good, and beautiful. They were completely devoted to the one who was their authority. But at this point between the ninth and tenth year something comes over children—in the feelings, not in thinking, since they do not yet intellectualize things. Something comes over them, and it awakens in the soul as a kind of faint, dreamlike question: How does the teacher know this? Where does it come from? Is my teacher really the world? Until now, my teacher was the world, but now there is a question: Does not the world go beyond the teacher?