X. The Tasks of Schools and the Tripartite Social Organism

Regarding the question of teachers, it will arise from all kinds of prerequisites that in the future it will be important that there is a selection process for the teaching profession and that people are not admitted to the teaching profession merely by passing exams or acquiring a certain amount of knowledge. Knowledge can, under certain circumstances, be acquired later in a few hours, it can be caught up on from the various manuals. What matters is the whole personality, the innermost gift of the teacher. Of course, I do not mean that if one has not been immersed in this knowledge before, one can easily acquire it later in a few hours. Rather, if one needs it – one must of course have been in it before – then one can easily acquire it again later, where it is needed. What is important is that a certain guarantee be created for what should determine the teacher to teach, a guarantee that through his whole personality he is so immersed in human culture that something can pass from him to the pupil, which can then work in an authoritative way. These are things that must be considered much more deeply and thoroughly than is often attempted today, when such abstract things as “leadership” and “followership” or “school community” are put forward. I would also ask you to consider the fact that I spoke of “school communities.” What matters is that we take things as they are said, and not that we first translate them into an abstract program that we have made up ourselves.