The Essence of Anthroposophy

I can only give isolated examples of the practical effects of anthroposophy. Thirdly, I would like to mention the Waldorf School in Stuttgart, which has already found a certain following here too. This Waldorf School was founded by Emil Molt and is run by me. It is run in such a way that it is not intended to oppose the great achievements of pedagogy and didactics of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century. It is mindful of the great pedagogical maxims that are there. But precisely those aspects that are often expressed today in the field of education as a longing for reform show that something is needed to implement the well-intentioned maxims of the great educators in practice in the individual. Anthroposophy does not want to replace old maxims with new theoretical ones in this field, but to serve their practical implementation. That is why the Waldorf School in Stuttgart is definitely not a school where Anthroposophy is to be grafted into children; that is far from our minds. We have therefore quietly entrusted Catholic religious education to the Catholic pastor and Protestant religious education to the Protestant pastor. Only for those children who would otherwise be dissidents have we provided a free religious education. The religious aspect of the world view is not what gives the Waldorf School its specific character. What it seeks to achieve is that anthroposophical knowledge teaches us to recognize the human being in terms of body, soul and spirit, to recognize this in the child; that, based on our knowledge of the human being, we can read the curriculum for each school year, for each month, for each week from the child; that it is only through a true knowledge of the human being that we can truly establish the art of education and the art of teaching. In the practical side of education and teaching, in the “how” of how to carry it out, we should let what anthroposophy can give have its effect. And if people were not so opposed to anthroposophy, purely out of misunderstanding, as they are, then far more consideration would be given to such things as occurred this summer during the anthroposophical congress in Stuttgart.