IV. The Key Points of the Social Question in the Necessities of Life In the Present and the Future

Believe me, I am familiar with all the objections that can be raised against what I have just said. I know that both the bourgeoisie and the proletariat will tell me: Well, when schools become free again, illiteracy will flourish once more, and similar things. You see, I would like to mention one thing in particular in response to the objections that may be raised by the Socialist side regarding what I have just said. The Socialists attach great importance to the so-called unified school. They say that in the future there must no longer be a class school; the children of all people must be taught in a unified school at least until the age of fourteen or fifteen. Very well, but do you believe that a school other than a unified school will exist when, for objective reasons, the independent intellectual organization, the intellectual organization independent of the state, sets up this school? I have written a little booklet: The Education of the Child from the Point of View of Spiritual Science. You may take whatever position you like on this point of view. I can fully understand any opposing position to this point of view; but if you disregard this point of view, if you disregard what can be said purely from the point of view of school philosophy about such a view, you will see that, when the education of the child is discussed, purely consideration is given to that which develops in the human being up to the age of maturity. When one speaks about the constitution of a school for objective reasons of spiritual life, one does not come to the idea of developing anything other than a unified school. It will be a need of spiritual life emancipated from the state that this spiritual life will have to prove itself effective every day anew in its representatives, that it will make its true essence and strength available to social life only when it is based on itself. Such a spiritual life will not live in abstract heights, it will not preach. Such a spiritual life will not cultivate unworldly science behind walls; it will educate people who, when they carry the thoughts of this spirituality within them, will become true leaders of economic life, our so complicated, so demanding economic life.