X. The Tasks of Schools and the Tripartite Social Organism

What has been said about the authority exercised by the teacher not being intended to remain for life, but for the young person to break free from it, is either a matter of course or something has been misunderstood. For it is of course quite natural that one cannot be placed under the authority of a teacher for one's entire life. This authority should work towards one being able to say: What would it be like to become a teacher? Then, through what the teacher's authority has placed in one's soul, one would be able to become an authority oneself. But one must grasp things much more thoroughly and deeply, because a teacher's authority can indeed be maintained throughout one's entire life. I have already said that what the teacher gives in education cannot really be 'paid for'. Payment means something quite different. But what education can do is to shape the mutual relationship between teacher and student in such a way that the teacher can remain an authority for a person throughout their life. And I would like to ask what could be more beautiful than to remember a teacher later on, when one has reached the age of sixty and can look back to one's youth, and then say to oneself: This teacher was an authority for me, I still feel the greatest gratitude towards him today, I have become what I am partly through him! This authority can be retained and can live on in a lifelong gratitude towards the teacher. These are the things that a psychology that is equal to today's tasks must take into account.