The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Dr. Steiner: The teachers will understand their students better because each teacher will remain with his or her class. We must continue to work in this direction and use those things we discussed in the teachers’ seminar. When you can properly judge a child’s temperament, everything will come of itself. You should work toward reflecting the child’s temperament in the sound of your voice when you call the child.

The year-end report and a brochure are discussed.

Dr. Steiner: We should include something about the layout and plan of the school, as well as the curriculum, in the yearly report. We should also include something about the students and where they came from: 161 from elementary schools, 50 from middle schools, 64 from secondary schools, 12 beginning students—altogether, 287. And we should say something about the students’ religious affiliations.

Include something about the many volumes in the teachers’ library. Also, the collections and displays, but we should not discuss the individual collections, only provide a summary. Mention the students’ library, also.

Say something about eurythmy as a new subject. I would ask Mr. Baumann to report about that. We can also include something about handwork classes, perhaps including some remarks about the lack of industriousness. However, we should emphasize what is of lasting value.

The history of the school year should receive special treatment. Begin with the brochure. Later, however, we will replace the brochure with a report by a faculty member. For the present, we can simply include the brochure.

Each of you who wants to can write an autobiography to include in the yearly report. We should also have a description of each teacher, for example, what the teacher did before becoming a teacher. We can also include eulogies for those who died in the past year.

Often, we bring out things too strongly that belong behind the scenes.

A teacher remarks that Dr. Steiner’s leadership of the school should be emphasized.

Dr. Steiner: You can mention my courses and lectures as well as those that the teachers have given. We should also say something about the lecture series sponsored by the Waldorf-Astoria factory, although those lectures have less connection with the school than with the adult education school. Give a history of that school along with a list of lectures the teachers have held there. In fact, we should say something about the general educational activities at the factory. Mention also the activities and lectures by the teachers in the independent apprenticeship school, as well as the courses for social understanding given for young people. Say something about the archive also.

We need to have a separate section about the preparatory instruction for the Youth Festival. Actually, we need to discuss the activities of the Lutheran, Catholic and independent religious classes, but if we cannot have a special section for each of the religions, we should leave it out.

All the classes were then discussed. All the teachers gave a report about what they did in the course of the school year, how far they came, and what the state of the class was.

First, two teachers spoke about the main lessons in the first and second grades, and then a teacher spoke of the main lesson and foreign language in the third grade.

Dr. Steiner: In the foreign languages, you should not rely upon a dictionary and should not translate. You should also avoid giving the children the text in German. The best thing is to read the foreign language text first, and then to tell the children the content in your own words.

There is so much dust on the desks and dirt in the classrooms!

The teachers should collect information about psychological aspects, sort of an almanac about psychological abnormalities. It would be an almanac in a broad sense. From a spiritual scientific perspective, these things are quite obvious. You can talk about them, since many things have actually occurred.

Something interesting occurred today in the eighth grade. What was the boy’s name? He writes exactly like you do, Dr. Stein. He imitates your handwriting exactly. That is certainly an interesting thing. If someone has straight hair, he will learn the handwriting of the teachers. A child with curly hair would not have done that.

A teacher reports about the fourth grade. The children did not know anything about grammar, asking what it was.

Dr. Steiner: It would be good if, at the end of the main lesson, you had the children remember in reverse order everything they did that morning.

A teacher: What did you mean by the psychological “almanac”?

Dr. Steiner: It would be a collection for the faculty, and could be very important. You could include all kinds of interesting things. If you think about it, you can immediately find a barrelful of such things. Each teacher can take note of all the things observed. For the higher grades, you should provide information about what the children did not know when they came to us. You should describe the things the children were missing. If you could put that together for the first yearly report, I would be very grateful.

That the children asked, for instance, “What is German grammar?” is culturally significant. You should record observations of the children who entered the Waldorf School. You should note what the children forgot and what kinds of misbehavior they had. Then include things about the instruction. At the end of the collection, we could state that it is obvious that we did not completely realize our intentions with each of the grades in the course of the year, but only generally.

Two teachers report about the fifth and sixth grades.

Dr. Steiner: The children in the sixth grade write unbelievably horribly. They are really happy when they can write “lucky” with two “k”s. It is more important that they can write business letters and learn algebra than that they can spell “lucky” with two “k”s.

A teacher reports about the humanities in the seventh and eighth grades. It is difficult to complete the material for history. The children don’t know anything more than what they learned in religion class.

Dr. Steiner: In 1890, I went to the Goethe Archive in Weimar. The director, Mr. Suphan, had two boys and one of my tasks was to teach them. In that way, I gained some insight into the schools in Berlin. I have to admit that although history was well taught in Austria, you couldn’t detect that those children had learned any of it in Germany. Their textbooks contained nothing about it. There were thirty pages of introductory information from Adam to the Hohenzollern, then the history of the Hohenzollerns began. That is true of all Germany; there is really nothing appropriate in middle school history classes.

A teacher asks about Allah.

Dr. Steiner: It is difficult to describe that supersensible being. Mohammedism is the first manifestation of Ahriman, the first Ahrimanic revelation following the Mystery of Golgotha. Mohammed’s god, Allah, Eloha, is an Ahrimanic imitation or pale reflection of the Elohim, but comprehended monotheistically. Mohammed always refers to them as a unity. The Mohammedan culture is Ahrimanic, but the Islamic attitude is Luciferic.

A teacher: In the Templar records, a being by the name of Bafomet appears often. What is that?

Dr. Steiner: Bafomet is a being of the Ahrimanic world who appears to people when they are being tortured. That happens really cleverly, since they then bring a lot of visions back with them when they return to consciousness.

In 869 A.D., there was the Filioque Argument. History books say nothing about this, but you can read about it in Harnak’s “Dogmengeschichte” (History of dogma).

A teacher asks a question.

Dr. Steiner: The Catholic religious instruction is much further ahead, the Lutheran, very limited.

Compared to other biographies, the one on Goethe by the Jesuit priest Baumgartner is quite well written, though he complains a lot. Everything else is simply rubbish. The biography of Goethe by the Englishman Lewes is poor. Swiss folk calendar.

A teacher reports about the instruction in natural sciences in the 7th and eighth grades.

Dr. Steiner: You can interrupt the natural science instruction at any point.

The meeting continued on Saturday, June 12, 1920 at 3:00 p.m.

A brochure and yearly report are mentioned.

Dr. Steiner: What is the purpose of all this advertising? A teacher: We are going to send it to all interested people. Dr. Steiner: Then, is it an invitation? In that case, everything you have shown me is much too long. It will not be effective. If you want every potential member of the Waldorf School Association to read it, you should condense it into half a page. What you have here is a small book.

A teacher: I don’t think it is so thick.

Dr. Steiner: Think about Dr. Stein’s manuscript. It’s already thirty printed pages. It is too long and too academic. It’s more like a report to another faculty. It is directed more to pedagogical experts than to people who might want to join the Association. You should direct it to everyone interested in the school. They would never read so much. You did not mention this perspective last time. We always looked at the brochure from the standpoint of public relations.

This brochure could serve only to replace the usual academic presentation. There have always been formal presentations and something like this could provide a general presentation of the school. We could, for instance, describe the facilities and buildings and then go on to describe the pedagogy of the school and the individual subjects.

A teacher: We especially need material for the parents who want to send their children to us.

Dr. Steiner: That’s true. For such parents, we could summarize all the material we already have. For example, there is some good material in the Waldorf News. None of that, however, can replace a brochure that should be no longer than eight printed pages. There should be thousands of members, and we need to give them a short summary.

A teacher: That would not preclude also having a yearly report.

Dr. Steiner: You must remember how little interest people have in things. Today, people read in a peculiar way.

It’s true, isn’t it, that a magazine article is different. However, if you want to make something clear to someone and hope they will become a member and pay fifty marks, you don’t need to go into all the details. You need only give a broad outline. This brochure would be different. It would contain a request for payment of some amount. But, the yearly report might be more like what I would call a history of the school. There, we can include everything individual teachers put together. The reports need not be short. All reports can be long. If the brochure brings in a lot of money, Mr. Molt will surely provide some for the yearly report. All that is a question of republicanism. The number of names it mentions would make the yearly report effective. We should, however, consider whether we should strive for uniformity. One person may write pedantically and report about what happened each month. Another might write, at least from what I have seen, about things I could do only in five hundred years. (Speaking to Dr. Stein) You wrote this so quickly that you could also write the others.

Dr. Steiner is asked to write something also.

Dr. Steiner: That is rather difficult. If I were to write even three pages, I would have to report about things I have experienced, and that could be unpleasant for some. If I were to write it as a teacher, I would tend to write it differently than the brochure. The brochure should contain our intent, what we will improve each year. In the report, we should show what we accomplished and what we did not accomplish. There, the difference between reality and the brochure would be apparent. If I wrote something, I would, of course, keep it in that vein. It will put people out of shape afterward, but I can write the three pages.

A teacher reports about his remedial class with nine children.

Two teachers report about teaching foreign language in the first grade.

Dr. Steiner: The earlier you begin, the more easily children learn foreign languages and the better their pronunciation. Beginning at seven, the ability to learn languages decreases with age. Thus, we must begin early. Speaking in chorus is good, since language is a social element. It is always easier to speak in chorus than individually.

Two teachers report about the classes in Latin and Greek. There are two classes for Latin, but in the lower class, there are only two boys. The upper class is talented and industrious.

Dr. Steiner: There is good progress in the foreign languages.

A teacher reports about the kindergarten with thirty-three children. She asks if the children should do cut work in the kindergarten.

Dr. Steiner: If you undertake such artistic activities with the children, you will notice that some have talent for them. There will not be many, and the others you will have to push. Those things, when they are pretty, are pretty. They are little works of art. I would allow a child to work in that way only if I saw that he or she has a tendency in that direction. I would not introduce it to the children in general.

You should begin painting with watercolors.

You mean cutting things out and pasting them? If you see that one or another child has a talent for silhouettes, you could allow that. I would not fool around, don’t do that. You can probably work best with the children you have when you have them do meaningful things with simple objects. Anything! You should try to discover what interests the children. There are children, particularly girls, who can make a doll out of any handkerchief. The doll’s write letters and then pass them on. You could be the postman or the post office. Do sensible things with simple objects.

When the change of teeth begins, the children enter the stage when they want to imagine things, for instance that one thing is a rabbit and another is a dog. Sensible things that the child dreams into. The principle of play is that until the change of teeth, the child imitates sensible things, dolls and puppets. With boys, it is puppets, with girls, dolls. Perhaps they could have a large puppet with a small one alongside. These need only be a couple pieces of wood. At age seven, you can bring the children into a circle or ring, and they can imagine something. Two could be a house, and the others go around and live in it. In that game, the children are there themselves.

With musical children, you can play something else, perhaps something that would support their musical talent. You should help unmusical children develop their musical capacities through dance and eurythmy. You need to be inventive. You can do all these things, but you need to be inventive, because otherwise everything becomes stereotyped. Later, it is easier because you can connect with things in the school.

A teacher explains how she conveyed the consonants in eurythmy by working with the growth of plants.

Dr. Steiner: That is very nice. The children do not differ much. You do not have many who are untalented nor many who are gifted. They are average children. Also, you have few choleric or strongly melancholic temperaments. Those children are mostly phlegmatic or sanguine. All that plays a role since you do not have all four temperaments.

You can get the phlegmatic children moving only if you try to work with the more difficult consonants. For the sanguine children, work with the easier consonants. Do the r and s with the phlegmatic children, and with the sanguine children, do the consonants that only hint of movement, d and t. If we have other temperaments in the next years, we can try more things. It is curious that those children who do not accomplish much in the classroom can do a great deal in eurythmy. The progress is good, but I would like to see you take more notice of what progresses. Our task is to see that we speak more to the children about what we bring from the teaching material, that we look more toward training thinking and feeling. For example, in arithmetic we should make clear to the students that with minus five, they have five less than they owe to someone. You need to speak with them very precisely.

It is often good to drift off the subject. You then notice that the children are not so perfect in their essays. It’s true, isn’t it, that the children who are more talented in their heads write good essays, and those who are more talented in their bodies are good in eurythmy. You should try to balance that through conversation. When you talk with children, if you speak about something practical and go into it deeply, you turn their attention away from the head.

A teacher asks how to handle the present perfect tense. Dr. Steiner: I would speak with the children about various parallels between the past and the complete. What is a perfect person, a perfect table? I would speak about the connections between what is complete and finished and the perfect present tense. Then I would discuss the imperfect tense where you still are in the process of completion.

If I had had time today, I would have gone through the children’s reading material in the present perfect. Of course, you can’t translate every sentence that way, but that would bring some life into it. Eurythmy also brings life into the development of the head. There is much you can do between the lines. I already said today that I can understand how you might not like to drift off the subject. That is something we can consider an ideal, namely to bring other things in. For example, today I wanted to tease your children in the third grade with “hurtig toch.” In that way, you could expand their thinking. That means “express train.” That is what I mean by doing things with children between the lines.

The eurythmy room is discussed.

Dr. Steiner: I was never lucky enough that someone promised that room to me. Frau Steiner would prefer to have simply the field and a roof above it. Although you can awaken the most beautiful physical capacities in children through eurythmy, they can also feel all the terrible effects of the room, and that makes them so tired. We all know of the beautiful eurythmy hall, but someone forgot to make the ventilation large enough, so that we can’t use it. For eurythmy, we need a large, well-ventilated hall. Everything we have had until now is unsatisfactory for a eurythmy hall. We have only a substitute. Eurythmy rooms need particularly good ventilation. We have to build the Eurythmeum.

A teacher reports about the independent religious instruction in the beginning and intermediate classes. They discussed verses from the mystery plays and “Cherubinischen Wandersmann” (Cherubic wanderer).

Dr. Steiner: It is important that you don’t ignore the children’s level of feeling. Can you give a concrete example?

A teacher: In the upper class, I had the children recite, “Let me peacefully act in you.…”

Dr. Steiner: Do you think the children can work with that? Yes, then you can continue with it.

A teacher: Perhaps we could divide the courses.

Dr. Steiner: That is certainly true. I think that if we divided the beginning class in two and left the upper class as it is, things would go well in all three groups.

That is, grades 1-3, 4-6 and 7-9.

A teacher reports that he had used three hours for the preparatory instruction for the Youth Festival.

Dr. Steiner: Isn’t that too much for the students? How many are there?

A teacher: Twenty-six.

Dr. Steiner: It will be difficult to say anything until we have seen a real success. It is certainly good to try that. If it is not successful, then we will need to see how we can do it differently.

A teacher reports about the course in social understanding. There were two hours per week in the sixth through eighth grades, and also some for fifth grade.

Dr. Steiner: Of course, the age from eleven to fifteen is difficult, but this is a separate class.

A teacher: We are also visiting factories.

Dr. Steiner: If you do this really livingly, make it lively, and connect it with all the questions about life that arise at that age, then things will work. I would try to see if the children have too much to do, and then try to connect things to life concretely wherever possible.

I believe the children may be overworked now, and that will, of course, certainly come out in some odd place. It would be a good idea not to have eight hours on one day.

I don’t understand why it is necessary to spend three hours preparing for the Youth Festival. Why wasn’t one hour sufficient? In such questions, the amount of time is not so important as the time available for them. It would, perhaps, be better if we could limit those things we can definitely limit. We could do that for those children attending the Youth Festival by dropping the independent religious instruction as such and connecting it with the preparation for the Youth Festival.

A question is asked about who may attend the Sunday services.

Dr. Steiner: That is certainly a problem. We had never thought that anyone other than the parents would attend. Of course, having begun in one way, it is difficult to set a limit. How should we do that? Why did you admit people who are not parents at the school? If we allow K. in, there is no reason we should send other members away. Where does that begin and where does it end? It’s mostly people who think this is just one more tea party. We have also had other disturbances by people from outside the school being at the school. The thing that disturbed me most was that people who have absolutely nothing to do with the school became involved in discipline. I certainly have nothing against strictly limiting the admission to the services to the parents, no siblings and no tea parties. We did not create that service for that. Now there are no limits. We should admit only the parents or those whom the faculty recognizes as moral guardians.

A teacher asks again about an older member in connection with the Sunday services.

Dr. Steiner: She should stay away. You need to make that clear to her in an appropriate way. That is the problem. The moment we allow someone in who has no child, it becomes difficult to draw the line. Where we need to make exceptions is in the Anthroposophical Society, or we simply leave it as it is.

A teacher: That has been impossible to do.

Dr. Steiner: The exceptions should perhaps only be for once or twice, but they grow.

A teacher: It should not be strictly a school affair. It is separate from the school.

Dr. Steiner: We hold the Sunday services within the context of the school. They are a part of the school in just the same way as, for instance, a class for a particular craft would be. That would also be something special that would be within the school, but not a part of the school. We can do things only in that way, otherwise we will have all these problems. I was recently asked if we could arrange to have a Sunday service in H. for their anthroposophical youth. At the present, when we are under attack from every direction, that is total nonsense. There are already such areas of attack, such as when Mr. L. stands up and conducts a service for the anthroposophical children. He has already received permission to observe our service. I would certainly deny any association with a Sunday service outside the school. It only makes sense if there are a number of children receiving religious instruction from an anthroposophical basis and there is a Sunday service in our school for these children. Thus, we would never admit someone from outside the school.

A teacher: Then we should leave it that way.

Dr. Steiner: We could leave things that way, but there are exceptions. It is difficult to understand how we could turn someone away when we say that Mrs. G. said they could come. Then we would have to turn away Mr. Leinhas, but he is a member of the Waldorf School Association. Eventually this will become a kind of right and will include everything connected to the school in any way.

A teacher: Can we include the wives of faculty members?

Dr. Steiner: Of course, we cannot admit them. If they have no children, they also have no right to it.

A teacher reports about the deportment lessons. An attempt was made to teach the children a soul diet. The children brought all kinds of gossip into school.

Dr. Steiner: It is unavoidable that the anthroposophical children hear things at home. That is not dangerous as long as the parents are reasonable. The healthy attitude of the parents will keep the children from becoming too wild, even though those things may go in deeply. The things we have often had to struggle against, such as those you mentioned about O.R. may arise because the parents talk about silly things.

You will have noticed that the instruction is bearing fruit. I would mention that particularly in critical cases, you have had good success with stories that have a particular moral. If you are certain a child has a specific kind of misbehavior, then you can think of a story in which that type of misbehavior becomes absurd. Even with very young children, you can rid them of their greed for sweets and such if the mother tells a story that makes that behavior absurd. If you think of something along the lines of the dog who goes over the bridge with meat in his mouth, that strongly affects the child and has a lasting effect. That is particularly true if you allow some time to go by between the misbehavior and telling the story. Generally, you can achieve more when the child has slept, and you return to the subject the next day. To take up the behavior immediately after it occurred is the worst thing. That sounds very theosophical, but it is also quite true.

It would also be a good idea if we, as the entire faculty, could take up individual children, or groups of children, who are a source of concern and speak about them. That seems to me to be something very desirable. It requires only that we give some interest to it.

This morning I asked about P.I. He has disappeared. You remember that his father had told me certain complaints he had. It would be a good idea if we could compare what is happening with the boy to what the father is complaining about. The father appears to be a rather useless complainer, always blaming things. I will talk with the boy. It seems to me that the father always complains and picks up small things that bother the boy. Then he expands them into fantasies so that the boy does things the father suggests. The boy certainly does not know what he wants to do.

That is a major problem in every school because it is so difficult to keep everything under control. Precisely in such questions, we must have complete clarity within the faculty about the individual students.

Some things are very interesting when you look at the statistics in detail. I have looked at all the classes. It is striking to me that there are very few children lacking in talent and also few who are gifted, but there are a large number of average children. One sign of that is that they are all making good progress. I always want to differentiate between progress as such and the content of the progress. It is possible that some things have not gone forward, but the tempo is good.

In the fourth grade, there are actually only two slow children and three who are not really moving along. However, the others, at least according to their writing, are sufficiently talented children. It is possible that there may be a number of pranksters, but those whom we have called such are actually gifted pranksters. That certainly hits the nail on the head.

All that relates to something else. When we raise the general level of morality, then things will even out. A characteristic of the Waldorf School students is that they are terribly jealous about their teachers. They only like their own teacher, and that is the one who does things right. That is certainly the case. But, on the other hand, although that has its good side, it also has a darker side. The main thing is not to pay too much attention to it. You shouldn’t feel flattered when you hear such things. That is readily apparent during class when Mr. A. is no longer a human being. The children see him almost as a saint.

Why shouldn’t the children laugh? That is more in keeping with the school. If you know anything, you will know the most important people were pranksters. If you connect that with life, you will see it has another aspect.

It would be good if they were not so loud. The fourth grade is terribly loud. But, we should not take these things so seriously. Morally, it is very significant if you have changed a child’s obtrusive characteristic. For instance, if you can achieve that the fourth grade is not so loud, or if you can break B.Ch.’s habit of throwing his school bag ahead of him. If you can change such an obvious characteristic, regardless of whether you view that as good or bad behavior. It has great moral significance if you can break the boys in the fourth grade from all that terrible yelling. I would say it is a question of general didactic efficiency, how far the speaking in chorus goes. If you develop it too little, the social attitude suffers. That is formed through speaking in chorus. If you go too far, the capacity to comprehend will suffer because that has a strongly suggestive force. When they speak as a group, the children will be able to do things they otherwise have no idea of. It is the same as with a mob in the street. The younger they are, the more they can fool you. It is a good idea to randomly request them to do the same thing again individually, so that each has to pay attention to what the other says. When you are telling a story, you can give some sentences and then let the children continue. You should do things I have done, for instance, when I said, “You there, in the middle row at the left end, continue on,” “You there in the corner, continue,” so that they have to pay attention and that you can make the children move along with you. Speaking in chorus too much leads to laziness. The tendency to shout in music confirms that.

Particularly in the fourth grade, you should pay attention to the intangibles. I am speaking of the very real intangibles that exist in the tension within the entire class. For example, there is the ratio between the number of girls and boys. I don’t mean you have to change that. You need to take life as it is, but you should at least try to pay some attention to such things. If I am not mistaken, in the fourth grade there is the highest ratio of boys to girls. It occurs to me that the physiognomy of the class is related to the ratio of boys to girls. In Miss Lang’s case, the situation is different. You should pay attention to such things. In Miss Lang’s class, there are significantly fewer boys than girls. Today, there were certainly twice as many boys in the fourth grade, twenty-five boys and eleven girls. In the sixth grade, there are twelve boys and nineteen girls. That is something you should certainly pay attention to, don’t you agree? The fifth grade is interesting for its balance. Today there were twenty-five to twenty-five. (Speaking to Dr. von Heydebrand) Today was certainly a good opportunity, because you had brought some very interesting material to the class. That is the proper way to bring anthroposophy. Such things are what we should pay attention to.

A teacher: I believe I have perceived a relationship between the phlegmatic children and a deep voice, the sanguine children and a middle tone, and a higher voice with the cholerics. Is that correct?

Dr. Steiner: That is certainly true with the first two. The question regarding the higher voices is rather interesting. In general, it is true that phlegmatics have lower voices and the melancholic and sanguine children, middle tones. The sanguine children are among the highest voices. The choleric children spread out over all three. There must be some particular reason. Do you thing that tenors are mostly choleric? Certainly on the stage. The choleric element spreads out everywhere.

A teacher: How can we have such differing opinions about the temperament of a child?

Dr. Steiner: We cannot solve that question mathematically. We can certainly not speak in that way. In judging cases that lie near a boundary, it is possible that one person has one view and another, another view. We do not need to mathematically resolve them. The situation is such that when we see and understand a child in one way or another, we already intend to treat it in a particular way. In the end, the manner of treating something arises from an interaction. Don’t think you should discuss it.

There is a further question about temperaments.

Dr. Steiner: The choleric temperament becomes immediately annoyed by and angry about anything that interrupts its activity. When it is in a rhythmic experience, it becomes vexed and angry, but it will also become angry if it is involved in another experience and is disturbed. That is because rhythm inwardly connects with all of human nature. It is certainly the case that rhythm is more connected with human nature than anything else and that a strong rhythm lies at the base of cholerics, a rhythm that is usually somewhat defective. We can see that Napoleon was a choleric. In his case, the inner rhythm was compressed. With Napoleon you will find, on the one side, something that tended to grow larger than he grew. He remained a half-pint. His etheric body was larger than his physical body, and thus his organs were so compressed that all rhythmical things were shoved together and continuously disturbed one another. Since such a choleric temperament is based upon a continuous shortening of the rhythm, it lives within itself.

A teacher: Can we say that one sense predominates in such a temperament?

Dr. Steiner: In cholerics, you will probably generally find an abnormally developed sense of balance (Libra) and an external display of that in the ear canal through an autopsy. The experience of rhythm, the sense of balance and sense of movement, the interaction of these, rhythmic experience. In sanguines (Virgo), in connection with the sense of balance and sense of movement, the sense of movement predominates. In the same way, in melancholics (Leo) the sense of life predominates and in phlegmatics (Cancer) the sense of touch predominates physiologically because the touch bodies are embedded in small fat pads. That is physiologically demonstrable.

Now, it is not so that the touch bodies transmit sense impressions. What occurs is a reflex action, just like when you compress a rubber ball and allow it to spring back. The little warts are there to transmit it to the I, to transmit the impression in the etheric body to the I. That is the case with each of the senses.

A report is given about the eurythmy instruction.

Dr. Steiner: The enthusiasm for eurythmy is somewhat theoretical. We always have the desire for the Eurythmeum before us, but we do not have enough rooms. If we did more tone eurythmy, we would want to have someone who played the piano. That might be necessary. We have until now done relatively little tone eurythmy. Miss X. started a children’s tone eurythmy group in Dornach and has been very successful with it. One thing we should take note of is that except for those older children who are more talented, the younger children more easily learn eurythmy, that is, they more easily develop their grace through it so that in fact eurythmy has been quite fruitful. With the older children, it is more difficult because they don’t want to get used to properly springing up, but the younger children learn it quite gracefully. It would never occur to people that having the younger children spread their legs is something ugly. It is certainly not ugly, but I am convinced that would never occur to them.

A teacher reports about gymnastics. Some children are cutting the class.

Dr. Steiner: We certainly have to ask if those children are avoiding gymnastics, or if they only want to sneak away to fool around.

A teacher: M.T. is very graceful in eurythmy, but outside he is clumsy.

Dr. Steiner: Just in his case, I can imagine he is avoiding things in order to do something else.

A teacher: He is lazy.

Dr. Steiner: Since he is fooling around so much, he is certainly very active. He is a very good boy.

A teacher makes a remark.

Dr. Steiner: In my opinion, it is very good that O.N. copies the writing. You can see that in marriages where the husband often writes like the wife or vice versa.

There is a report about working in the garden and shop class. There are difficulties with some children who are unsocial and lagging and don’t want to help each other.

Dr. Steiner: Are there many? We can hardly do anything else than put all of them together, give them a certain area so they are ashamed when they don’t get anything done. They need something that would be obviously complete so that they will be ashamed of themselves when they finish only a quarter. But not a hint of ambition. What I said does not count upon ambition, but upon shame. We could also form a group that looks at what they have done in the presence of the children and brings some dissatisfaction to expression. I think that if Mrs. Molt and Mr. Hahn were called upon to look at what he did, then M.T. would certainly decide to work in order not to cause any words of displeasure. Another method would be that you take those children and keep them close to you during class, but that is difficult to do. We must make them feel ashamed when they do not finish. I would not arouse the feeling of ambition, but of shame.

A teacher asks if it might be possible to form a bookbinding shop.

Dr. Steiner: I am not certain if that is consistent with the school. Bookbinding is something normally contained in the curriculum for the continuing education school. We could, however, try binding. Is there someone here who could take up such a course for the continuing education school? One or two perhaps, since we can certainly develop bookbinding as an artistic craft. We had no transition from those beautiful old volumes, which are slowly disappearing, to these monstrous modern volumes. The things made now are mostly just trash. It is always intriguing to accomplish something through artistic craft. What are made today are really not books. We should make books again. That is something that falls within the realm of the crafts in the continuing education school.

As such, it is a simple job, but we certainly could accomplish something. Of course, we will need to master the technique. That would give the children something to improve upon. I mean, for instance, when it comes to gold leafing, there is certainly much that can be improved. What they need to learn is relatively simple, though. It is simply practice.

A teacher: I am not certain I could take that over.

Dr. Steiner: This is a question we must discuss in connection with the continuing education school.

A teacher: Should I give a few lessons in my class?

Dr. Steiner: Then we would come into the question of subject teachers. That is something we must avoid as long as we can. As long as someone is there who can do it properly, then that will do. A teacher: Two periods a week for handwork are not enough. Could we increase the number of hours?

Dr. Steiner: I notice that there is considerable ability in the handwork class. As soon as the Waldorf School Association provides us with many millions, we will be able to have many rooms and employ many teachers. Now we can hardly add more work time. We must accomplish everything else by dividing classes. Two hours per week should be sufficient. We must divide the classes and then that is only one hour.

A teacher: Should we take the boys and girls separately?

Dr. Steiner: I would not do that. I would prefer to begin by dividing the whole class into two halves. You let the boys do things other than knit in handwork, don’t you? The girls, of course, also. Nevertheless, I would not do it. I would not begin separating the boys and the girls. We need to find another solution.

A teacher: Should the preschool be like a kindergarten?

Dr. Steiner: The children have not started school yet. We cannot begin teaching them any subjects. You should occupy them with play. Certainly, they should play games. You can also tell stories in such a way that you are not teaching. But, definitely do not make any scholastic demands. Don’t expect them to be able to retell everything. I don’t think there is any need for an actual teaching goal there. We need to try to determine how we can best occupy the children. A teaching goal is not necessary. What you would do is play games, tell stories, and solve little riddles.

I would also not pedantically limit things. I would keep the children there until the parents pick them up. If possible, we could have them the whole day. If that is possible, why not? You could also try some eurythmy with them, but don’t spoil them. They shouldn’t be spoiled by anything else, either. As I said, the main thing is that you mother the children. Don’t be frivolous with them. You would not want to do anything academic with them. You can essentially do what you want.

In playing, the children show the same form as they will when they find their way into life. Children who play slowly will also be slow at the age of twenty and think slowly about all their experiences. Children who are superficial in play will also be superficial later. Children who say that they want to break open their toys to see what they look like inside will later become philosophers. That is the kind of thinking that overcomes the problems of life. In play, you can certainly do very much. You can urge a child who tends to play slowly, to play more quickly. You simply give that child games where some quickness is necessary.

There is a question about speaking in chorus.

Dr. Steiner: You can certainly do that. You can also tell fairy tales. There are many fairy tales you should not tell to six-year-olds. I don’t mean the sort of things that the Ethical Culture Association wants to eliminate, but the stories that are simply too complicated. I would not have the little children repeat the tales. However, if they want to tell something themselves, then listen to it. That is something you will have to wait on and see what happens.

A teacher asks about student reports.

Dr. Steiner: We spoke about that already. You will need to emphasize some things, but not pedantically. You should try to have a little bit of personal history at the beginning, and then go into each child individually. For instance, you could write something like, “E. reads well and speaks interestingly,” and such things, so that you create the text yourself. You create a sentence freely written in which you emphasize what is otherwise simply a subject. You may need to speak about all subjects, but perhaps not. I would print the report form so that it has only the heading, “Independent Waldorf School, Yearly Report for …” and then leave room for you to write.

Each of you will describe a student in your own way. If more than one teacher has had the child, then each should write something. It would, however, be preferable if the various statements were not too contradictory. For example, one of you says, “He reads quite well,” and another says something that supports that. The best is that the class teacher begins the description of the child and the others go from there. It certainly will not do if the class teacher writes, “He is an excellent boy,” and then someone else writes, “He is really a terror.” You will have to put things together.

A teacher asks about the reports from the religion teachers.

Dr. Steiner: Well, they will have to write their two cents worth, also. We must also include the religion teachers. Here, they will have to control themselves, or they won’t be able to write anything.

A teacher: Do we need to have the parents sign the reports?

Dr. Steiner: I would simply have an introduction that says that those parents who want to have their children return the following year should sign the report. If the children are not returning, then we don’t need to do anything, but if they are, the parents should sign it. We made it through without any midyear reports. Do the parents want a midyear report?

Yes, the children will simply report and bring their report cards. They will receive them again at the end of the year when the report is already a booklet. It can certainly be a booklet, but perforated. Suppose at the beginning a child is not very good, then you could write a criticism. Perhaps later the child is better and would want to have the previous report removed. The booklet can be perforated.

Then you can write something that is not praise. You cannot give these two children reports that say their writing was very good, but you could phrase it in a way that describes how well the child writes without criticism. With little M., I would write, “He has not accomplished more than copying simple words. He often adds unnecessary strokes to the letters.” Describe the children.

Another question is asked.

Dr. Steiner: We hold the child back. I would only differentiate between those moving on to the next class, and those we have determined will go into the remedial class if they return. I don’t want to keep children back. In the case of these two children, they came only after Christmas. Now that we have the remedial class, it is possible to place those children who will be unable to meet the goals of the class into the remedial class; for example, those who are slow learners. It is not a good idea to begin failing the others. We should have held them back when they began school. It would certainly be preferable not to fail children. I don’t see how we could do that. In your class, there are at most three others who might be held back, aside from those two who we could place in the remedial class. For now, you will have to bring them along by not excessively praising them, but also not criticizing. Simply state that they have not quite reached the goals of the class. It was our responsibility to place the children in the proper classes when they entered the school. It would not be wise to fail them. It is important that we discuss H. and how we will treat her. We had to put her in the third grade; after we promised that, we had to put her there. In general, we should not keep the children the entire year, especially those who come from other schools, and then let them fail. But, now they are in this situation. The children we need to carry along are really not so bad, but we should never put a child into a class that is too advanced.

A teacher: How should we place children from other schools? Should we go according to their age, or is there some other way?

Dr. Steiner: In the future, when the children come at the age of six and go through all the grades, then this will no longer happen. For now, we must attempt to put the children in the grade that is appropriate for them, both according to their age and to their ability.

A teacher asks if a child can be placed in the remedial class.

Dr. Steiner: I don’t think that is possible. Particularly in the first grade you should not go too far in separating children into the remedial class. I have seen the child, and you are right. But, on the other hand, not so very much is lost if a child still writes poorly in the first grade. If we can do it, it would be very good for all of the children like that if we could do the exercises I discussed previously with you.

If you have her do something like this (Dr. Steiner indicates an exercise): Reach your right hand over your head and grasp your left ear. Or perhaps you could have her draw things like a spiral going inward, a spiral going to the right, and another to the left. Then she will gain much. You need exercises that cause the children to enter more into thinking.

Then we have writing. There are some who write very poorly, and quite a number who are really first class. The children will not improve much when you want to make them learn to write better by improving their writing. You need to improve their dexterity; then they will learn to write better.

I don’t think you will be able to accomplish much with your efforts at improving bad handwriting simply by improving the writing. You should attempt to make the children better in form drawing. If they would learn to play the piano, their writing would improve. It is certainly a truism that this really poor handwriting first started when children’s toys became so extraordinarily materialistic. It is terrible that such a large number of toys are construction sets. They really are not toys at all because they are atomistic. If a child has a simple forge, then the child should learn to use it. I wish that children had toys that moved. This is all contained in Education of the Child. The toys today are terrible, and for that reason the children learn no dexterity and write poorly.

It would be enough, though we can’t do this at school, if we had those children who write poorly with their hands, draw simple forms with their feet. That has an effect upon the hand. They could draw small circles or semicircles or triangles with their feet. They should put a pencil between their toes and draw circles. That is something that is not easy to do, but very interesting. It is difficult to learn, but interesting to do. I think it would be interesting also to have them hold a stick with their toes and make figures in the sand outside. That has a strong effect upon the hands. You could have children pick up a handkerchief with their feet, rather than with their hands. That also has a strong effect. Now, I wouldn’t suggest that they should eat with their feet. You really shouldn’t do this with everything. You should try to work indirectly upon improving handwriting, developing dexterity in drawing and making forms. Try to have them draw complicated symmetrical forms. (Speaking to Mr. Baumann) Giving them a beat is good for developing reasoned and logical forms.

A teacher asks about writing with the left hand.

Dr. Steiner: In general, you will find that those children who have spiritual tendencies can write without difficulty as they will, left or right-handed. Children who are materialistically oriented will become addled by writing with both hands. There is a reason for right-handedness. In this materialistic age, children who are left-handed will become idiotic if they alternately use both hands. That is a very questionable thing to do in those circumstances that involve reasoning, but there is no problem in drawing. You can allow them to draw with either hand.

A teacher asks if they can tell fairy tales where bloody things occur.

Dr. Steiner: If the intent of the fairy tale is that the blood portrays blood, then that is inartistic. The significant point in a fairy tale is whether it is tasteful or not. No harm is done if there is blood in it. I once mentioned to a mother that if she absolutely avoided mentioning blood when she told her children fairy tales, they would become too tender. Later, they would faint when seeing a drop of blood. That is a deficiency in life. You shouldn’t make children incapable of facing life by setting up such a rule.

A teacher asks about L.G. in the third grade. She is nervous and stutters.

Dr. Steiner: It would help if you made up some exercises. I am uncertain whether we have any sentence exercises with k and p. You should have her do those and walk at the same time, and then she would also be able to say those sentences. It would also be a good idea for her to do k and p in eurythmy. However, don’t take such things too seriously because they usually disappear later in life.

A teacher asks about E.M. in the fifth grade, who also stutters.

Dr. Steiner: Yes, didn’t you present her to me before? I must have seen her. You will need to know what the problem is, whether it is organic or lying in the soul. It could be either. If it is a problem in the soul, then you could have her do specially formulated sentences. If it is an organic problem, then you would need to do something else. I will need to take a look at her tomorrow.

A teacher asks about A.W. in the fifth grade. He adds titles to his name and underlines “I.”

Dr. Steiner: That is a criminal type. He might become a forger. He has a clear tendency toward criminality. He can write much better. Clearly a criminal type. You will need to undertake a corrective action with his soul. You will have to force him to do three (not recorded), one after the other. I will take a look at him tomorrow. His father is infantile.

A teacher asks about a closing ceremony.

Dr. Steiner: I would make the closing ceremony such that, assuming I will be there, I would speak, then Mr. Molt, and then all of the teachers. We should make a kind of symphony of what we have to say to the children. There should be no student presentations. They can do that in the last monthly festival. We could review the past school year and then look toward a summer vacation that will awaken hope, then give a preview of the next school year. That is what I think.

A teacher mentions a woman who intends to make a film about the Waldorf School and three-folding.

Dr. Steiner: I don’t have any idea what to do here. If, for example, someone wants to photograph the buildings, that will certainly hurt nothing. There is nothing wrong with that. If she wants to make a film publicizing the Waldorf School, we would have nothing against showing that publicly, since it is not our responsibility. Our responsibility is that the Waldorf School be properly run. We are not responsible for what she photographs any more than you are responsible for what occurs if you are walking along the street and someone offers you a ride. We can tell her we will do what we can do, but there is nothing we can do. She may want to photograph the eurythmy lessons. I did that in Dornach, but it was not very good. That is a technical question. I don’t think much will come of it. She wants to film the three-folding? I was thinking, why shouldn’t the film contrast something good with something bad? We certainly can have no influence if she creates a scene in the film where two people speak about the Waldorf School, but we do not need to let her into the classrooms. She can certainly not demand that we allow her to photograph anything more than a public eurythmy performance by the children. Since she wants to publicize eurythmy, that would be her contribution to the members’ work. It is rather senseless if she wants to film the classes. She could film any school, there is nothing particular to see. She could, for example, record that terrible yelling in the fourth grade.

It would certainly not be proper to suppress offhandedly, due to false modesty, somebody who wants to publicize three-folding and the school. It would be better if we could hinder everything that is tasteless, but, due to false modesty, I would be hesitant to hinder anything. We have much interest in making the school as perfect as possible, but there is certainly nothing to be gained by preventing someone from photographing it. If she had set up and filmed my lecture, what could I have done against that?

A question is asked regarding the trip to Dornach for the First Class of the Anthroposophical University of Spiritual Science (Sept. 26–Oct. 16, 1920).

Dr. Steiner: Well, you see, those things are not so easy. We want to have a course this fall where various people present lectures. We have invited Stein and Stockmeyer, and it would, of course, have been nice if many could come. But, finding lodging in Dornach is just as difficult as in Stuttgart. It is not so easy to invite people, the exchange problems, and so forth. It is, however, possible, if the exchange problems are resolved by then, that we could find room for a number of people. My desire is that everyone coming from the Entente will pay for two others coming from Central Europe. However, that does not need to be too cozy. We could do it as we did for the physicians’ course, that would be possible. However, you need to remember that we don’t have rich people in Dornach and Basel.

A teacher remarks that there are also difficulties in obtaining a visa.

Dr. Steiner: Generally, when people travel to Switzerland for vacation, they can obtain a visa. You only need to be careful that you are not going for another reason. You cannot travel in Switzerland in order to earn money. We are treated terribly there. Now they allow people to move there so that they will pay taxes. Otherwise, you cannot. We are being hit very hard. That is one of the major problems we have with the Goetheanum. If there is not another attitude toward the Goetheanum, people outside Switzerland will soon be unable to visit it.

There was some discussion about reproductions of the paintings in the cupola of the Goetheanum.

Dr. Steiner: What was painted in color in the cupola needs to be understood from the colors. If you reproduced it photographically, you could achieve something only if you enlarged it to the same size as in the cupola. It is just not something we can reproduce simply. The less the pictures correspond to those in the cupola, the better it is. Black and white only hints at something. It cries for color. I would never agree with those inartistic reproductions. They are only surrogates. I do not want to have any color photographs of the cupola paintings. The reproductions should not stand by themselves. I want to handle that so that what is not important is what is given.

It is the same with the glass windows. If you attempted to achieve something through reproductions, I would be against it. You should not attempt to reproduce such things exactly. It is not desirable that you reproduce a piece of music through some deceptively imitative phonograph record. I do not want that. I do not want to have a modern, technical human being. The way these paintings appear in the reproductions never reproduces them. The reproductions contain only what is novel, not what is important. You then have a feeling that this or that color must be there. That reminds me of something you can find in The Education of the Child—namely that you should not give children beautifully made dolls, but only those made from a handkerchief.

A teacher asks if the school should set up a public first-aid station since bandages and so forth would then be cheaper.

Dr. Steiner: I think we will have to buy those things by the case ourselves. Without doubt, it would be desirable if we had a room where we could take the children. On the other hand, it would not be so desirable if people from outside mixed in with that. There is no real value in that. It is good to have Dr. Kolisko here. The faculty should take care of that. Obviously, this can’t happen a couple of times every day, but with three hundred children, minor things will happen where we need a bandaging room we can sterilize and disinfect. Perhaps something will happen once a week, and it will be sufficient if we have a room. I think it is important that we have a doctor on the faculty, but the more we can close ourselves off from the outer world, the better it is. We should try to obtain bandaging material cheaply.

I had thought that there would be a number of questions. As I already said, we have generally made great progress. In the first year it was apparent that you struggled with the subject matter, but you made progress in all areas. What is important though, is what kind of progress you made and that in the coming years we work more with those ideas that are consistent with and related to the Waldorf School. I believe that progress lies in what the students have learned, as well as what the teachers have slowly discovered about how to treat the students. Everything has progressed, even the pranksters. The pranksters have become strong pranksters, but that doesn’t hurt anything. That is simply a side effect. Many have even become better behaved, more cultivated, more intellectual. That is very good and hurts nothing.

In my opinion, we must put more value upon psychology in the future. We must work with psychology. You should not understand that as abstractly or theoretically as it may appear. That might look as though we wanted to analyze the children. When we become accustomed to understanding the children psychologically, we will slowly find a relationship to them that results purely from our activity. That understanding of the children will not remain as a mere recognition, but will become another relationship if you really try to understand them. There is still much we need to catch up on in creating a proper relationship to the children. We need to be clear that when so much depends upon personal activities, as it does here, an intensive analytical understanding of the children is necessary. Then things that have occurred in the past will no longer happen.

It is difficulty to characterize individual cases, but that is not necessary. We should act psychologically. If you think about that, you will discover what I mean. I don’t so much mean that the children must achieve this or that, but that you ask yourselves what the children can achieve in accordance with their psychological makeup. Always work from the standpoint of the children. You can change individual behavior only if you really try to understand children in their different variations. Each child is interesting.

Miss Lang showed me a prankster, B.N. She had cried terribly, but today she skipped school again. That is interesting, and we will have to study it. I cannot promise she will keep her word. It may last for years. I can imagine that she spent some time with tightrope walkers; that is certainly a reason for being interested in her, isn’t it? If you create expectations about what a child is, you can easily define things. However, you can achieve a genuine psychological understanding of a child only through intense study. One of my thoughts is that we should consider learning to understand the children as one of the main things in the first year. We should never assume they must be one way or another.

There is something else that strongly disturbs me in nearly all classes. We should continually strive to integrate anthroposophy organically in the instruction. That truly enlivens the children’s strengths. Just the way that you, Dr. von Heydebrand, have done in anthropology and you, Dr. Stein, have done in history. That is something that is present intuitively with many of you. You cannot do eurythmy without Anthroposophy. You need to try to bring Anthroposophy into your teaching without teaching anything theoretical.

In my opinion, you include a great deal of Anthroposophy when you attempt, and that is the ideal, to bring what we call rhythm into your work. For instance, when you try to connect what the students learn in music, singing, and eurythmy with handwork. That has an extremely positive effect on the children. I would recommend that you read Karl Bücher’s book Work and Rhythm. We should have this book. All work is based upon musical work, threshing, blacksmithing, plastering. Today, you hardly hear that anymore. But if you had gone out into the country at an earlier time and listened to the threshing, you would have heard the flails swinging in rhythm. I think we can bring that into our work. That is what I mean when I talk about bringing the spirit into it. You will find that principle in Work and Rhythm, even though he states it rather pedantically.

Of course, I am also carrying the question about the end of school, about the closing ceremony. I definitely think it should include a certain amount of festivities. Today is the twenty-third, and I will not be able to attend. I simply cannot be there, though I surely would like to be. We need to begin the summer holidays on time. In my opinion, the teachers have done enough, and they will collapse otherwise. I would really like to be at the closing ceremony. Each teacher should give a short speech. Perhaps Mr. Baumann would be kind enough to take care of the musical part. Perhaps you could write something that could be presented through eurythmy, not a normal eurythmy presentation, but something that represents the close of school. It would be really wonderful if we could do that. Begin with a eurythmy presentation accompanied by music. Then go on into a musical presentation alone and close with eurythmy again. I would suggest your composition be connected with the closing of school. Perhaps Miss Röhrle could do something with two or three of the older girls. Then we must have something, and this is very important to me, that is a kind of speech about life, to let the children go and to receive them again. Something that has a connection with the children’s leaving school and their return.

Someone had written on a blackboard, “The sky is blue, the weather is nice, we want to go for a walk, dear teacher.” Dr. Steiner was rather angry about that.

Dr. Steiner: You haven’t seen that? Sometimes when the weather is too hot, you can let the children go. I don’t think it would be right to close earlier, though. I am not in favor of letting the children go as long as we can keep them here. We let them go earlier than we really should. We can, of course, make it easier for the children, but only when it is too warm. It would almost be better if we kept them and took them some place, but stayed with them. Don’t you think it is better when the children go to kindergarten. The longer we have them, the better it is. In that way, we can have the children who do not yet go to school. Right now we can generally take the children only when they begin elementary school. When the age of imitation ends, then we can begin. It would be nice if we could bring something into the child’s education during the first seven years. We will have to have something for the earlier years, later is less important.

Some people want some temporary school buildings, but I think we should discuss that in detail after school has closed. It is settled in general, but, nevertheless, we need to discuss it. There are some things we need to decide that cannot wait until after school has begun. We must expand the singing class, and we need a teacher for it. There are many other things we need to discuss if we have an additional grade. We must also carefully consider who will take over the first grade. We cannot assume that Stockmeyer’s and Stein’s work will cease. These are all things we need to discuss at an early enough time. For those reasons, I will have to be here when school ends unless something significant hinders that. I will probably need to be away only for four to six days. Today is too early.

How should we handle those children who arrive too late? I had to wait today as I came into the school. Three girls were coming in. They simply went in, not the least disturbed that they were late. The person I was walking with said to me, “It seems quite all right with them that they are late.” So, what do we do with the children who come late?

A teacher: Have them come a quarter of an hour earlier.

Dr. Steiner: Then we run the danger that they don’t come at all. We must avoid under all circumstances giving them a punishment we cannot carry out. We may never place ourselves in a situation where we may have to relent in a disciplinary decision. If we say that a child must come earlier, then we must enforce that. We must order the child to come earlier. The girls today were in the seventh or eighth grade. We lose all control the minute we look away. We will find ourselves on a downward path and will continue to slide. With punishment, we cannot relent. It is better to let it go. Under certain circumstances, it can lead to the opposite of what we want, with the children forming a group among themselves and saying, “Today I come late, tomorrow, you.” I don’t think that would work, because it would make us somewhat laughable. Of course, it’s just laziness. Having the children come earlier is not so good; it would be better if they stayed a quarter of an hour longer. That is something the children do not like.

Have you tried that to see if it works? If a child comes ten minutes late, having him or her stand for a half hour. If they have to stand three times as long, they will certainly think about every minute. Let them stand there uncomfortably. Your boy rubs the back of his head on the wall and amuses himself with all kinds of things. I think that in such cases, when there is some punishment connected with the misbehavior, you can be particularly effective if you allow them to stand in some uncomfortable place. The older children will then be careful that they do not come too late. We could also buy a number of little sheds, and then they will not come too late as a group. They may even get some cramps in their legs. We could have the sheds built in the shop class.

A teacher: What should we do if a teacher comes too late?

Dr. Steiner: Then we will have the children put the teacher in the pen. It is important, though, that we differentiate in such things. I would not punish the children as severely in winter as in summer. The moment the children notice there is some reason for the disciplinary action, they will agree to it. In the winter, we could discipline them less intensively and have them stand only twice as long. We need to stir them up. There are some who are inattentive. The industrious children will hardly come too late.

A teacher asks about the windows.

Dr. Steiner: Sometimes, when you go by, you want to climb in yourself. We will need to put some mesh up, so that they can’t climb in.

Concerning F.R. in the fourth grade.

Dr. Steiner: That is a very difficult case. If he leaves school, that will be a real problem, something not particularly desirable. On the other hand, he should not suffer. We should not serve our school on a silver platter to the school he next attends. There will certainly be teachers there who will happily hear that someone comes to them saying he could not stand it here. Tomorrow, I will take a look to see what we can do. This is a very difficult situation.

Here, we have the question of whether to try a parallel class. Right now, there is hardly anything else we can do other than place him in the previous or the following grade. I definitely do not want him in the previous class, so he would then go in your class in the next higher grade. I don’t think there is any other solution, but that will cause considerable upset with the children. We will need to do it in such a way that it appears to be an exception. We will have to think about how we will handle this. It would be a bad story if people knew we did this for personal reasons. Of course, we also run the danger that the children will say, “Well, he got out, we could also try.” What should we do with such a boy though, if we do not want to send him away? Perhaps I will visit the class tomorrow. He is actually not the problem. That is something he inherited, and it has a continuous effect upon him. It is something in the family. It would be best if we could help him past that hurdle. Perhaps he might even become a really good person. He is certainly enthusiastic about eurythmy and singing, he simply does not want the normal class instruction. He finds it horrible. Then there are other things that people take too seriously. He took five marks, but only in fun. You can reach him, he just needs a certain kind of objective treatment because everything at home is so subjective. We have all tried that. His father is a person like the teacher who says when a child is excited, “I will teach you what being relaxed is, I’ll show you what relaxed is.” That is how his father is.

We cannot allow him to remain in the fourth grade. We would run the danger that he would jump overboard, and that would certainly not be pleasant. I still recall a very horrible situation. At that time, I was at an engineering school.7 The janitor’s son was very ambitious. A teacher who was very hot tempered grabbed him by the scruff and walloped him. The boy left the class. He knew from his father where the cyanide was; he took it and poisoned himself. After that, the teacher became red when someone left the class during the period. (Speaking to Dr. von Heydebrand) I only mention all this because he will be coming to you in the fifth grade. He does not belong in the fourth grade. We made an error there.

Act psychologically! We must study the children’s feelings.

A teacher asks about lace making and embroidery.

A teacher: Should we have school on Peter and Paul’s Day?

Dr. Steiner: We can take the day off. “Peter and Paul is always quite lazy.”

The following was also noted.

Bad teeth, the cause lies in the soul/spirit.

Connection between eurythmy and the formation of teeth.

Handwork. Knitting develops good teeth. The children gain dexterity through knitting.

Dr. Steiner: Perhaps Mr. Molt would say a few words.

Mr. Molt thanks the teachers for their work in the past school year and gives particular thanks to Dr. Steiner. He recalls Dr. Steiner’s words about strength, courage, and light at the beginning of the course in 1919.

Dr. Steiner: I too must think of the time when we began our course last fall. It is certain that what we attempted to bring from spiritual life into our own spirits has had an effect upon our souls. I would like to recall that moment and again ask those good spirits who are watching over our deeds to bless us and give us strength for our work.

I would like to continue with what I briefly touched this morning. I said that it was particularly valuable at this important moment in human evolution to believe we need to use all our deeds and being in working toward the intent of the Waldorf School. I spoke of this at the beginning of the pedagogical course in Basel. At that time, I said that many teachers have done an enormous amount of work toward providing principles of education, and it is not our task as anthroposophists to replace everything people such as Pestalozzi or Fröbel right up through Diesterung and Dittes have done. I mentioned that the abstract foundations that have come down from the great pedagogues of the nineteenth century will certainly stand up to a didactic pedagogical critique and that people can justifiably criticize us when we speak of a renewal of pedagogy.

In reality, something quite different concerns us. If you read Pestalozzi, or Fröbel’s works, if you read from Herbart right up to Dittes, you will find they speak of many beautiful things in regard to pedagogy. However, if you look deeply at what the educational system does, if you look into what actually goes on in the Pestalozzi schools, you will recognize that the spirit active there does not correspond to those principles you can accept abstractly. You need only look at the critical remarks Fröbel wrote about the Pestalozzi schools. If you follow the development of education in the nineteenth century, you will see that, in spite of the fact that people often thought properly, the proper thing was not taken up, was not done. Why is that? There can be but one answer. Regardless of which realm of culture you look at, it is always the same. Namely, the entire nineteenth century was under the influence of materialism. If we formulate educational principles from our anthroposophical standpoint, they can sound identical to what the nineteenth-century pedagogues said. We must, therefore, mean it differently. We speak from the perspective of the spirit, whereas they spoke from the overwhelming impulse of the materialistic worldview. Regardless of how idealistic those things may sound, those thoughts nevertheless arise from the position of materialism. It is not important that we discover some new abstraction, but that we find a new spirit.

Today, I want to present you with something I have recently said repeatedly in various places, something we must take into account in our times. Modern people think, when you speak of materialism, that it is a false view of the world, that we lay it aside because it is not right. Unfortunately, things are not so simple. The human being is a being of soul and spirit and also a physical, bodily being. But, the physical body is a true reflection of the spirit and soul, to the extent that we live between birth and death. When people are as blinded by materialistic thoughts as they became during the nineteenth century and right into the present, the physical body becomes a copy of the spirit and soul living in materialistic impulses. In that case, it is not incorrect to say that the brain thinks. It is then, in fact, correct. By being firmly enmeshed in materialism, we have people who not only think poorly about the body, soul, and spirit, but people who think materially and feel materially. What that means is that materialism causes the human being to become a thinking automaton, that the human being then becomes something that thinks, feels, and wills physically. The task of Anthroposophy is not simply to replace a false view of the world with a correct one. That is a purely theoretical requirement. The nature of Anthroposophy is to strive not only toward another idea, but toward other deeds, namely, to tear the spirit and soul from the physical body. The task is to raise the spirit-soul into the realm of the spiritual, so that the human being is no longer a thinking and feeling automaton. I will say more about this tomorrow in my lecture, but human beings are in danger of losing their spirit-soul. What exists today in the physical as an impression of the spirit-soul, exists because so many people think that way, because the spiritsoul is asleep. The human being is thus in danger of drifting into the Ahrimanic world, in which case the spirit-soul will evaporate into the cosmos. We live in a time when people face the danger of losing their souls to materialistic impulses. That is a very serious matter. We now stand confronted with that fact. That fact is actually the secret that will become increasingly apparent, and out of which we can act fruitfully. Such things as the pedagogy of the Waldorf School can arise from a recognition that humanity must turn toward spiritual activity, and not simply from a change in theory. We should work out of that spirit.

We should all treasure having found ourselves here in this circle due to a feeling that we must so act, some of us more clearly, some of us less. You need only compare the seeds we have laid in the Waldorf School with all the terrible things giving rise to such a hostile storm.

The school was founded out of the echoes of our work in Stuttgart since April of 1919. Since that time, so many wonderful things have occurred. Nevertheless, we should not forget that what we intended in forming the Cultural Commission last year completely fell in the water. You can see why it failed by looking at the terrible scandals at the Goetheanum. The obvious demise of German cultural life reveals itself as a symptom through the things occurring at the Goetheanum. We will now have to use our strength very differently than we did before in order to counter that demise. That cannot, of course, occur only at the Waldorf School. Through the understanding that the Waldorf teachers have shown, through their dedication to their work, they are now called upon to act in a general anthroposophical cultural direction.

That struck me in such a living way today at the closing of the first school year, and was what I meant with the words I spoke in the presence of the children this morning. The children will not have understood those words, but that is unimportant. We know it is not so important that the children understand what we say to them, but that later many things brighten in their souls. I also received in the name of the spirit who is to permeate the Waldorf School the words of thanks given by Mr. Molt. That spirit will need to become more and more the spirit of Middle European culture. Those people who make themselves more materialistic, who lose their souls so that civilization will become materialistic, could still be saved today if what we have here in the spirit of the Waldorf School spreads out into the world.

Of course, we must protect the Waldorf School from every kind of false appearance. We should be clear that we must become increasingly reticent with those people who have heard of the founding of the Waldorf School, and now see it as their task to extend their world of loafing about into it. They also want to participate in the Waldorf School, to take part in what we offer, and to take some of that with them in order to make it into something similar elsewhere. We should be clear that we do not find it important to offer these loafers respite here, but that the anthroposophic spirit must be a part of the basis of any schools following the Waldorf School.

A few months ago someone came to me who wanted to found something similar to the Waldorf School in France, and asked if I could give some advice. She wanted to know if she could observe in the Waldorf School. I told her I could recognize what she wants to form in Paris as being in the spirit of the Waldorf School only if they formed the school in exactly the same way that we formed the Waldorf School. Thus, these friends in France would first have to be ready to call me there to hold a course, and they would also need to declare that their school arose from the same spirit. Otherwise, I would have to strictly deny that it was comparable.

You should not think that such answers are egotistical. You need to be clear that we will not move forward if we do not stand upon a firm anthroposophical viewpoint, that is, if we do not keep ourselves free from desires for compromise. If we take a clearly delineated standpoint, then it is not impossible that we would ourselves form a Waldorf school in Paris. What is important is that we cannot be moved to make any compromises. Today, you get the furthest if you have a clearly spoken standpoint. You can be outwardly conciliatory, but inwardly what is important is that you have basic principles, and that you stand by them. For that, you will need the strength to look at things in a radical way and not give in to a tendency for compromise. As you know, at least in the spirit of our endeavor, we have tried during this first year to work from such a firm position. I hope that will become clearer. As teachers in the Waldorf School, you will need to find your way more deeply into the insight of the spirit and to find a way of putting all compromises aside. It will be impossible for us to avoid all kinds of people from outside the school who want to have a voice in school matters. As long as we do not give up any of the necessary perspective we must have in our feelings, then any concurrence from other pedagogical streams concerning what happens in the Waldorf School will cause us to be sad rather than happy. When those people working in modern pedagogy praise us, we must think there is something wrong with what we are doing. We do not need to immediately throw out anyone who praises us, but we do need to be clear that we should carefully consider that we may not be doing something properly if those working in today’s educational system praise us. That must be our basic conviction.

To the extent that I feel in a very living way what it means to you to have devoted your entire person to work of the Waldorf School, I would like to say something more. As Waldorf teachers, we must be true anthroposophists in the deepest sense of the word in our innermost feeling. We must be serious about an idea often mentioned as a foundation of Anthroposophy, one of importance for us. We should be aware that we came down from the spiritual worlds into the physical world at a particular time. Those we meet as children came later and, therefore, experienced the spiritual world for a time after we were already in the physical world. There is something very warming, something that strongly affects the soul, when you see a child as a being who has brought something from the spiritual world that you could not experience because you are older. Being older has a much different meaning for us. In each child, we greet a kind of emissary bringing things from the spiritual world that we could not experience.

A consciousness of the message that the child brings is a positive feeling that can be, and in fact, is, taken seriously by the Waldorf faculty. This awareness counteracts the decline of our civilization. It also counteracts the traditional religious beliefs preached from all the pulpits about eternity, that eternity following death toward which people look with that clever soul egotism because they do not want to cease to exist. People do not cease to exist, but what is important is how you arrive at the conviction of the eternal soul, whether you come to it through egotism or whether you have a living perspective and comprehension of the eternal human soul. A living comprehension will lead you to see the pre-existence of the soul, to see what the human being experienced before birth, to see that human life in the physical world is a continuation of previous experiences. Traditional religions strongly oppose preexistence, which can make a human being selfless. They strongly oppose those things that do not strive toward a murky and numbing uncomprehending belief, but toward knowledge and the clear light of comprehension.

Such things become practical when we say a child came down from the spiritual world later than we did. From the child’s life before me, I can perceive what happened in the spiritual world after I left. To carry such a living inner feeling is a genuine meditation for teachers, one of tremendous value and significance. By enlivening anthroposophical nature in such a specific way, we will truly be teachers working from the anthroposophical spirit. The best we can develop in Anthroposophy is not what the lazy people of the world want to coax out of us. The best is what develops in your feelings and in your souls as the spirit of the Waldorf School. During this first year, that spirit has truly come alive in your souls. In the future, we will need to direct our efforts toward taking care of that spirit. That is what I wanted to say to you this morning.

We want to undertake all individual activities in that spirit. I am really very sorry that I could only come here today, and that I could not have been here for the preparation of the children’s reports. We must further develop what I said about the practical and pedagogical aspects of psychology. I can see how difficult it was for you to develop that psychology as a strength. We will continue to try because now that we have decided to be Waldorf teachers, something that arose from a cosmic impulse entering world history, out of that same impulse, we want to remain so.

Dr. Steiner, who had been standing until this time, sat down.

Dr. Steiner: We now want to continue our discussions. We need to discuss some things that have recently occurred and then see how to continue in our teaching.

A teacher reports about the year-end report meetings. Questions arose about whether some children were in the proper classes for their age and knowledge.

Dr. Steiner: That is an important question. We also need to take into account that the solution will not be very easy. If you came to particular impressions during your discussion about writing the school reports, then perhaps we need to go into those in detail. The question takes on a quite different aspect depending upon whether the situation concerns only some individuals, or whether a large number of the students are not in the proper class. We need to have an idea of how many children we should not move into the next grade, but keep in the lower grade. We need to go into detail about the numbers involved. Of course, a large redistribution of the children will reflect the inadequacy of our considerations at the beginning of school when we placed children in classes according to the information presented by their former school. We may need to disavow ourselves of things in that regard.

We will need to consider that in detail. I would ask that the teachers who have such children whom they believe were not properly placed say something about that. Can someone please begin?

A teacher mentions G.T. in the fourth grade who is too old.

Dr. Steiner: In regard to G.T., the question is not whether we should place him in another class, but whether we can bring him up to his grade next year. He is nearly twelve and I think we should try to do that. We can handle the question of French and English separately. He learns very well, and keeping him in the fourth grade would certainly be unjustified. We will need to do something about these differences.

(Speaking to Dr. von Heydebrand) Have you been able to accomplish anything with F.R.?

A teacher: He is very well behaved in class, but he does not know as much as the other children.

Dr. Steiner: He is, however, mature enough and will certainly come along. It was therefore not a mistake.

In that regard, could we perhaps go into the question that I heard gave you many headaches. I can certainly imagine how terribly difficult it would be, but we must objectively weigh whether we should form another sixth grade, given all the psychological peculiarities of the present fifth grade. We need to consider whether it might be better to create an additional class. We would not need to split the class down the middle. We can certainly arrange it so that you, as the present teacher, would have full say. Now, there are fifty-one children, so I think we could arrange it so that you could select your sixth grade class, which would then consist of thirty, and we would move twenty. I would certainly think that everyone has absolute freedom in that regard. You should choose fifteen boys and fifteen girls.

A teacher: I have a list of twenty-six for me.

Dr. Steiner: As you wish. The choice lies entirely with you. However, it seems we should do it this way since the class was somewhat too large.

Do you have something against dividing the class? I know that you like them all so well that you do not want to give up any. Still, it would be better. You could certainly achieve the sixth grade goals if you had no more than thirty. If you could keep those you believe should stay, and then split off a class of twenty, would you agree? That would be the right thing to do. Then it will be easier to work with children like G.T. Is there another child we should consider? A teacher: I had A.S.K. in the sixth grade. He is epileptic and had to stay away from school for several months.

Dr. Steiner: He must certainly repeat the sixth grade. He could go into the new sixth grade class. We need to be careful with those children we are holding back. We should speak about him with his parents.

A teacher: This is a tricky thing. The parents will not understand. They do not have a very positive attitude. There are always problems with the boys.

Dr. Steiner: Well, that is certainly no reason. Certainly not. The father is a reasonable person, though not a strong person; he is certainly reasonable. It would be best to speak with him and not with his wife. The boy is neglected, and it would certainly not matter if we kept him in the sixth grade. The question is whether he should be removed from school and whether we should let it come to that. If he really is removed, then that will be the end for him. If he remains, he will at least not sink further.

According to his report, there is really not much possible other than leaving him in the sixth grade. For the time being, I would suggest that you speak with his father, but that only needs to happen at the beginning of the new school year. There are advantages in having the boy do the sixth grade again. I would simply present that to the father objectively. From the way you judge him, it appears that he hears things only intermittently, and if he were to hear them again, that might be good. If you see that the father is going to remove him, then we will put him in the seventh grade. This is certainly difficult. Are there only these few cases?

A teacher asks about F.M. in the fourth grade.

Dr. Steiner: There is no real reason not to put him forward. He is a weak student and difficult to handle. For the time being, we will need to put him forward and try to do some things so that he learns and catches up. Otherwise, we would contradict ourselves too strongly.

A teacher asks about K.A. in the fifth grade and suggests that he be placed for a quarter of a year in the remedial class.

Dr. Steiner: (speaking to Dr. Schubert) Perhaps you could take him on for a quarter year and bring him along. It appears that there is a kind of mental weakness in the family. I would advise you to work with him.

H. will remain with you in the remedial class, and then you can decide when you think she has caught up enough and should go into a class. The remedial class will remain as it was.

I thought that M.G. would not move on to the second grade. She was in the remedial class quite a long time, but one beautiful day the light will go on in that girl. It may happen. Let’s keep her in the remedial class and decide later. If she wants to, it would harm nothing if she participated in the lowest grade. She can also do that, so let her participate in the lowest grade. In general, we do not need to make any major changes. We can resolve the cases we have. We do not need a complete revision.

In teaching foreign languages, it will be less difficult because we do not have to divide the children so strictly according to grade. We should not teach foreign languages so strictly according to grades. Things have developed that way; in general, we do not need to arrange the foreign language classes according to the grades.

In teaching foreign languages, there is a tremendous difference between speaking in chorus and individual speech. The children can all easily speak in chorus, but individually they cannot. We should use that fact. We will discuss that in the pedagogical questions next year, namely, that we should try to have the children speak individually immediately after they have said something in chorus. That should become a basis of learning, without doubt.

A teacher mentions that it will be difficult to carry out the class schedule if children from one class have foreign language with other classes.

Dr. Steiner: It would be best, but this is not possible practically, if we had groups of two different ages together, so that one child could learn from another. It is good when the younger children learn a language from older ones. It helps when weaker and better children are together. For now, we cannot do that, but when it becomes possible, we should mix the weaker and better children together in the language class.

A teacher: What should we do with the new children in the language classes? Should we tutor them?

Dr. Steiner: We will need to tell the parents immediately that there will be a lesson in the afternoon. There is nothing else we can do other than simply to push harder. Are there really so many new children?

A teacher: Since Christmas, I have fourteen new students.

Dr. Steiner: We certainly do not want to set up any rules in this regard, but look into each case separately. In general, if there is no particular reason, it would be best to advise people to remain at their present school until the end of the year, but we do not want to be completely unfriendly.

We must form an extra class in foreign languages for such children. That is absolutely necessary since otherwise we cannot take children into the upper grades. If only that is possible! We need to do what needs to be done. In general, we can say that in the language classes it may be possible to have older and younger children since the younger children will learn from the older ones, and the older children will move forward by helping the younger ones. We can certainly mix up the ages.

A teacher asks about increasing the number of hours of language.

Dr. Steiner: You want more hours, but on the other hand, we really have the children in school long enough. We cannot increase the number of hours. I don’t think we can do anything there. Later, in the higher grades, we can think about it. Perhaps in the ninth and tenth grades we could do some more language. We cannot take any time away from the main lesson, not one half hour can be removed. We cannot keep the children in school even longer; they are already here most afternoons.

A teacher: What is the maximum number of hours we can teach children during elementary school? In the first grade, we have them for twenty-six hours, but in the higher grades there are already many more hours, due to Latin.

Dr. Steiner: We cannot increase the number of hours. Why didn’t you present eurythmy as a separate subject in the reports, instead of combining it with music? I see that as a shortcoming.

Dr. Steiner: With music it is certainly possible that we can do something. It is certainly true that there are not enough hours. Do you want to make a specific proposal about how many hours you want in each class?

A teacher: We could do that differently. We could arrange things so that we have separate classes for choral singing and for practice in listening, or we could give choral instruction at particular times around the times of the festivals. That would be my preference. I assume I will have the classes as they now are. In classes that are too large, I cannot meet each of the children adequately.

Dr. Steiner: How many hours would you need for music in the first grade? We already have twenty-six-and-a-half hours there.

A teacher: One hour.

Dr. Steiner: Then you could also meet each child individually. We still need to do much with the class schedule. Certainly this one hour is possible, also in the second and third grades. The question is whether we should always have choral instruction in the upper classes. That is something we could do from case to case. I think that you could divide the time you have for teaching music into individual and choral instruction.

Then there is also the deportment class. That is not a problem, and we can certainly add that, I mean, add it to the other hours, but it should not detract from music. What you want when we have the new teachers is to have individual students by class and not combined. We must do that.

In addition, as soon as we have the capacity, we will need to add some gymnastics. We can certainly include gymnastics so that we can say “gymnastics and eurythmy.”

That would be quite good. We could bring them together so that we have physiological gymnastics alongside psychological eurythmy. If anyone asks, we can say we have not ignored it, it is included. We cannot have less eurythmy, we must have a special period for it. It would probably be enough if we had a half hour of gymnastics per week connected with eurythmy, or if we mixed the exercises in both. We need exercises with standard gymnastic equipment.

There is a problem with gymnastics. We cannot put the boys and girls together. The division is a space problem. We cannot have the boys and girls together when we work with the gymnastic equipment. With the floor exercises, we could certainly put them together if the children have gym clothes. That would certainly be possible, everything else is simply prejudice.

An objection is made.

Dr. Steiner: Why do you think so? Often the girls do not do what the boys can do. You could form groups and work with them alternately. In the one case, the girls could work on the parallel bars and the boys with the high bar. The girls would need to have gym shorts. We would need to have decent pants made down in the factory.

The question now is, who could take over the gym class so that you are not overburdened? Already, everything in the school concerning singing, eurythmy, and music lies with you. In general, much depends upon you.

A teacher (who had previously done some gymnastics): If we have eleven classes, there is a question whether that is possible. Could the class teachers also provide some instruction in gymnastics? Not always, but here and there?

Dr. Steiner: The class teachers are already burdened. The lower three grades do not need any gymnastics. We can take care of the first and second grades with eurythmy alone. Afterward, however, we will need to have gymnastics. It would also be good to do it. It would be quite nice if we could connect it with eurythmy, so that the children first have eurythmy and then do gymnastics.

Gymnastics would be a little too much for you. I had not thought of that. There must be a way to give someone else that period. Actually, two need to be there. The eurythmy teacher needs to be there also, but that is not difficult.

Well, we need to look at that. Either we can let gymnastics go, or we find a way to have a gym teacher. It would be enough to have an hour of eurythmy and then, right after, a half hour of gym. But, then, we would have too many hours.

(Turning to Mrs. Baumann) Now you have two hours of eurythmy. Wasn’t that too much?

A teacher: I often had fifty-one children at once. In the third grade, I had forty-eight. I handled that by having half of them watch while the others did the eurythmy.

Dr. Steiner is in agreement with that.

A teacher wants to divide the classes.

Dr. Steiner: We will do that when we see what the other classes need. That is something we need to determine at the beginning of the next school year. The size of the classes is not yet clear, but there are more children coming. How many children do you think will be in the first grade next year?

A teacher: Fifty-six.

Dr. Steiner: Of course, we must make two classes of that. For the second grade, we don’t need to consider it. The future fourth grade is also so large, it has over fifty children. There are so many new children. I also thought of giving the youngest children to Miss Lämmert for singing, as it will be too much for Mr. Baumann. It would also be too much for gymnastics. We have to see how we can work with the faculty we have.

We must also discuss the question of the faculty. The number of new classes is increasing, and we need new teachers. There are now two temporary buildings under construction, which we hope to complete by the beginning of the new school year. If they are ready, we will have just enough room. There may even be enough when we divide the future second and fourth grades since they are both more than fifty children. It will, however, be tight with the rooms. All we can do is keep the number of specialty classrooms down. We will have to put this off. We could just make it with the structures we now have. However, we are missing, at least for the time, a room for singing. A room is missing for the kindergarten, and we are also missing the rooms for the additional classes we will have in the following years. We do not have a library or a gymnasium. We lack rooms for the continuation school, but perhaps we can leave the continuation school aside for now. We still need a room for the physician, as we discussed before. We are missing a whole number of things. These are all things that we recently discussed. Perhaps we should try to solve these things by adding an extra floor.

A teacher: We can’t do that.

Dr. Steiner: Why is that impossible? Why did we want to add a floor and now we can’t do that?

A teacher: The foundation is inadequate.

Dr. Steiner: I don’t understand. What does the architect say? Didn’t he know that already? It is terrible when ideas come up that turn out to be impossible. Of course we can, we are told, and then afterward everything has to be changed. The building code should have been thought about earlier. In Dornach, I would never allow anyone to present a plan if we were not absolutely certain we could complete it. We only lose time with such things. We go around with ideas, and then nothing comes of them. We had counted upon having the eurythmy room upstairs. I mean, we counted upon it. You told me about that in Dornach.

A teacher: Not as a fact, but as a possibility.

Dr. Steiner: I don’t want to know about possibilities. If someone tells me about something, I assume it to be real. Otherwise, it is nothing. You should always get a definite answer from the Building Department first, and then the architect must know he can count on it.

Now the only possible plan is to build a gymnasium and attach the other rooms I mentioned to it. That would then be the first part of a rationally designed school building. Our concern now is where we should build it.

That is something we need to consider carefully. Is there enough money? The main question is whether we have enough money. We need to spend the money, even if the purchase is not entirely necessary. It is there, people have given ten million marks. Now everyone wants to do things without risk. This is entirely a question of courage. We must build upon that basis. The spiritual value will certainly come from the school, and not from other things. As a result, we must have the courage to undertake risky projects. However, we should not do more shaky things than we can balance with solid things.

We will need to travel around in the next six weeks to raise the money. The question is how we should do that. We need to see how we can find some way of doing it. We need to get some money, so it will be necessary to enlarge our plan for the school association. It is easily possible that we could get some money if we form a World School Association, that is, a general association for such schools, one that is international. Now everywhere we go, people say that Berlin has no interest in paying for the Waldorf School. If we form a World School Association, it might be possible to use some of the income for Stuttgart. It is unlikely that we would get very much if we ask people to pay for the Stuttgart Waldorf School. We need to see to it that we find some way to get some money. A number of things are in progress, but they are not going very quickly. We have something very promising in Dornach, a shaving soap and the hair tonic, “Temptation,” but we can’t get that going quickly enough. We cannot invent things fast enough to have a gymnasium, a eurythmy room, and a music room in the fall. Before we have that, all the baldies would have to grow hair.

A teacher: At the risk of my wife not recognizing me, I want to try it.

Dr. Steiner: Our eurythmy ladies have already decided to try the hair tonic so that their mustaches grow. Then they will shave them off with the shaving soap. The thousand-mark bills will grow on peoples’ heads. There is still some money. The members of the Anthroposophical Society do not know how important the Waldorf School is. I recently spoke with some women, and they had no idea it was so pressing. Everywhere people are saying we should form schools. All that we need to do is to ask people, but we should not give the impression that we want to spend everything here. For that reason, I said that we don’t want to center everything here in Stuttgart, but instead travel around to various cities and prepare people. We don’t want to send things out and dictate to people. That was how the thought arose of creating a school in Berlin. We should not try to have people put off their school plans. What is important is that we do not offend people, so we will have to travel. We could go to The Coming Day for capital we would then pay interest on. We could afford the interest for four hundred thousand marks, so what we need to do to keep things moving, we should do immediately. Enlarging the school further is another thing. If we want to continue the school beyond next year, and want it to continue to grow as it has, then we will need a great deal more room.

A teacher: Perhaps it would help if we used one of the larger classrooms as a music room in the afternoon.

Dr. Steiner: Perhaps we could work that way until we build the gymnasium. We have now come to a question that we have to solve in some way, as otherwise the school cannot continue. We must solve the problems of classroom space and future teachers.

There is a discussion about the need to build housing for the teachers.

Dr. Steiner: The whole problem of space remains unresolved. We have resolved the space question only to the extent that we have room for the classes. The other rooms we need are to a large extent insufficient or not there at all.

How many new classes will we have? A first grade, a sixth, a ninth. We are also missing the gymnasium and an art room. The gymnasium would be the eurythmy room. We will need to make ends meet, only it must be large enough for eurythmy. We will have to see how we can build the gymnasium and the other additional rooms.

It seems to me that today we have made a list of only what is absolutely necessary. We can see from this situation that we will not move forward if we think only about the minimum. If we were to begin with the gymnasium now, the situation would improve so much by Christmas that we would really have acceptable conditions. Everything is hanging in the air, and no one knows if it will be different two weeks from now. We need specific information about what things cost. We cannot negotiate the way things are now.

A meeting with the architect was set up for the following day.

A teacher: It is our own fault, because we have only taken care of the present. There have been so many new enrollments that the situation completely changed within three weeks.

A teacher: We must look at what we must do, and in addition, we must raise the money. The question of money must be secondary. We haven’t yet had any personal discussions with the parents who certainly have a real interest in the continuation of the Waldorf School. Some of the them have given loans, but we need to work with them personally. What we cannot get together in that way we will have to borrow from The Coming Day. We need to create a comprehensive plan for raising money in the next few days. In my opinion, the progress of the Waldorf School should not depend upon financial things.

Dr. Steiner: Yes, we need something concrete. We cannot negotiate anything when we see that the architect says he can make the hall, and then says he can’t. To work in that way is terribly inefficient. We already discussed in our last meeting that we need a eurythmy hall. We have known that for some time. We based our plan upon that impression, namely, that the architect had said we could build it. In any event, we have lost three weeks since the architect claimed we could add a new floor, and today that is no longer true. We do not want any temporary structures. We must see that we build the new things with an eye toward a longer period. We definitely need to meet again tomorrow.

You could also inquire at the Building Department before you officially present something whether they might approve what we want to do. In any event, we cannot discuss it further until we have a plan. That is the main thing I wanted to say.

Dr. Steiner is asked to say something about the problem of the faculty housing.

Dr. Steiner: It is difficult for me to say anything since I am not in a position of putting up the money. That is the first thing you need to know. As long as we do not have the money, the question of teachers’ housing remains purely academic. Apart from teachers’ housing, there are other things we need to do. Either we will carry things out or they will not be done. It is important to avoid making the mistake of planning only for the minimum. We need to do things as they should be done, independent of the financial situation.

I am certain, since the self-sacrifice of the teachers has so elevated things, that things will move forward spiritually, that there will be no spiritual fiasco. The events of the first year have shown that we can hold on. Whether the world will give us money? I hardly believe anymore that the world will give money for such things. People have no understanding for them. That is something that causes me tremendous distress. What I said at the beginning of this meeting is certainly correct for the spiritual realm. We need to place material questions upon a reasonable foundation.

What can we do? How far we can expand the school is an important question. Somehow we must find a limit, or we must have people behind us who can give millions. The situation is impossible because we have accepted every enrollment. For that reason, I would propose that, in the sense of my introductory remarks, we declare we will continue the school as it was, and that we will not accept new children if we cannot build a gymnasium. We can tell people that we receive no support. We need to do that in the most effective way. We will continue the school as we did in the previous year, but we must, unfortunately, reject those children we have already accepted. The world should know what the situation is. We should tell people about this. We can say, hypothetically, that if we do not receive the finances we need, if we are not able to build a eurythmy hall and gymnasium for the fall, then we must limit the school to its present size. If we do not state things this radically, we will not move forward. We will also not be able to pay the teachers.

A teacher: Could we raise money by traveling around and giving lectures?

Dr. Steiner: We can certainly do that. However, I do not believe that your work will be fruitful if we don’t draw people’s attention to it. I also do not believe that we will be able to work if things stay as they are. I certainly think it will make an impression if we keep the children we now have, but do not enroll anyone new and turn away the new enrollments we have. If we tell people this, I think it would help. If we remain in this difficult financial situation, no one knowing where the money will come from, we will not move forward. It should be a “back against the wall” declaration that indicates what the work of the faculty can achieve here, and that the world has failed to provide the financial support that it should.

A teacher: People ask why they should give everything to Stuttgart. People in Hamburg and Berlin have no interest in what we are doing here in Stuttgart.

Dr. Steiner: The important thing is for the spiritual movement to continue. We cannot say that what is important is that we are creating something here that is for everyone. We certainly cannot say that people should give for the work in Stuttgart and ignore other things. We should certainly not imply that we are forming a central organization in Stuttgart and demand that people give to it.

A teacher: Should we put an announcement in the newspapers that the number of students has grown unexpectedly, so that we now need to employ more teachers in order to continue the school in its original spirit? Also, that we depend upon their support?

Dr. Steiner: We should say in a positive way that we are ready to continue the school as it has been, but that we can no longer accept new enrollments if people do not help to support us. We need to say a radically serious word. We will not consider the formation of new classes with regard to new enrollment.

Dr. Steiner: I would first like to ask if anyone has something to say now that we have had time to think about things.

A teacher would like to know more about the financial situation of the school.

Dr. Steiner: I would ask Mr. Molt to answer that question, since he is better informed.

Emil Molt reports about the financial situation of the school.

A teacher asks if they could ask the audience at tonight’s public lecture to help.

A statement written by Dr. von Heydebrand and Dr. Hahn is read.

Dr. Steiner: That statement is excellent and will certainly have an effect. In my opinion, though, that will happen only if we also say that we can continue to work only if the public provides the necessary financial means.

A teacher: I would like to wait before turning back the new enrollments.

Dr. Steiner: Why shouldn’t we tell people now that we must reject the newly enrolled children if we do not receive the funds? Through just that, our appeal will be effective. We need to turn away the children because we cannot employ new teachers. I think it is necessary in order to be effective.

These requests have their difficulties. First, the public thinks the school is a Waldorf-Astoria school, and many people call it that. People think the Waldorf-Astoria Company supports the school financially, and they are surprised that this is not the case. Well, that is one thing. We must find some means of counteracting that kind of public surprise. We must clearly say that public support is necessary. That is one thing.

The second thing is that it is difficult to obtain money outside [Stuttgart for] the Waldorf School Association we are founding in Stuttgart. It is not the same as with the other central organizations in Stuttgart. Clearly The Coming Day and the Threefold are headquartered in Stuttgart. That is something for the world. Before people want to give money to the Waldorf School, they will want to send their children here. They ask us why we cannot raise the money here in the Stuttgart area, where most of the children come from. You can require people who bring their children from further away to pay so much to have their children here. We could demand a high tuition. If we expect people from outside to give money for a school association that is, in principle, for the Waldorf School, we must make it clear that we want to carry the Waldorf School we have begun in Stuttgart to the entire world. Of course, everyone asks why we don’t raise the money here in Stuttgart and vicinity. Those are difficulties we can counter by saying that we cannot extend the school beyond its present size. We will have to turn the children away if we do not receive financial help. I do not think we have reason for much optimism about that. Those two problems play an important role.

A teacher: Could we transform the Waldorf School Association into a world association if we could agree upon it?

Dr. Steiner: We formed the Waldorf School Association as a local group, to an extent under the assumption that the stockholders of the Waldorf-Astoria Company would be impressed and would provide some money. For that reason, I imagined we would have to create the World School Association separately.

A teacher: Dr. Steiner, you said we could take up the World School Association when we had moved forward.

Dr. Steiner: I meant that we would need to form the foundation from which it could grow, that we could clearly see the difficulties that exist in creating interest for the World School Association.

A teacher asks whether it would be possible to interest the Swiss members.

Dr. Steiner: The Swiss members are having so many difficulties because of the exchange rate that they can hardly do anything. In a brochure we recently sent out, we had to remove some words indicating that members in Middle Europe could do almost nothing because of the exchange problems. I am not terribly happy about pressuring the Swiss members anyway, since they do not easily open their wallets. We need to form a World School Association that does not include the Stuttgart school in its program, but has as its purpose the formation of schools according to our principles. The first responsibility of that association will be to undertake to support the Waldorf School.

Marie Steiner: I think we should first complete the Goetheanum, since otherwise the earlier projects would suffer because of the later projects. Members in Middle Europe can do much for the school. The people in Sweden and Norway are open to giving money. If we tap foreigners too much for the school, we will never complete the Goetheanum.

Dr. Steiner: It is certainly true that if we form a World School Association, then it would also be important that it could freely determine how to use the money, and that it could support the Free University in Dornach with that money. My idea was to centralize the entire financial organization. We want a central financial organization so that all money donated for anthroposophical use will go to one central organization. That was what we wanted to do in those days when we worked toward forming The Coming Day and The Future. Then things became confused because the Waldorf-Astoria Company could no longer help, and we had to form the Waldorf School Association. We also had to found a number of things in Dornach, but all of them are only formalities. We could also include the Association for Goetheanism when necessary. We need to create everything we need so that in the end, everything leads to a central organization.

That was also our intention when we founded The Coming Day. It cannot accept yearly membership fees. An organization like the World School Association does not represent any kind of decentralization. It is not so that The Coming Day would be the central administration; it is only an organization that would participate. What I am thinking of as a central administration would be much broader. I did not say you should consider The Coming Day a central administration. The intention was to have all the money we receive go into a unified central fund, and then be distributed according to what is needed. If we founded a World School Association, it could administer its own money, but we would have to found it so that it could be a part of that central organization, just as the Association for Goetheanism in Dornach could be when we have someone to administer it. Purely objective principles must prevail here. We can found the World School Association in the same way. All we need is that its bylaws state that the money it receives can go to an elementary school as well as to the Free University.

Marie Steiner: Otherwise, everything would be at the expense of the Goetheanum.

A teacher: The way things are, I do not think the name “Waldorf School Association” is correct. We could use it for the lower eight grades, but for what is beyond, we need an “Association for the Founding of Rudolf Steiner Schools.”

Dr. Steiner: Under no circumstances can we do that.

Dr. Steiner: We need to find a much more modern name. Much of the opposition we encounter is due to the emphasis of the name. You will notice that people often say it with much emphasis. I can tell you that publishers accepted essays I wrote anonymously at one time or another, but when I included my name with them, the situation reversed. We could have another company name, but we will improve nothing by giving it a personal name. Marie Steiner: Could we perhaps talk about what name would be desirable?

Dr. Steiner: It would certainly be quite good if we did that, then we would settle things. Perhaps the Goetheanism School, or the School of The Coming Day. It needs something like that, something that looks toward the future. We also need to think of something that indicates it is not a state school. The name needs to express the independence from the state, the foundation of the school without the state. We can achieve that only through a neutral designation. We did that in the Waldorf School by using “Independent.” The designation “Independent Waldorf School” was good for the beginning, and had things continued as they had been, and had we not needed to form the Waldorf School Association, there would be little to say against that name. However, things have not gone on as they were. We need to express somehow the principle of independence from the state. We need something to indicate a school system created out of the independent cultural life. The question is whether we will be able to form the World School Association.

A teacher: Could we use “Anthroposophy” in the name?

Dr. Steiner: No, we need to leave that out.

A teacher: We should retain the name “Waldorf School” until the school reaches a certain size, so that interest does not wane. Dr. Steiner: Leaving the ninth grade aside, it is already so that we can no longer work with the eight classes as before. Without subsidies, we cannot continue the eight grades as we want. We will have to turn away new children for the eight grades unless we receive a subsidy. We can keep only the current level of activity. Then, there is the question of space. We cannot increase the number of students without increasing our space. With the fourth grade at fifty-three and the second grade at fifty-six children, there is also the question of additional teachers. In my opinion, if the classroom was large enough, a teacher could handle even a hundred children. Simply because we do not have the space, because our classrooms are too small, we will need more teachers. That will especially affect the future fourth and second grades that we will have to divide. In any event, we need to divide the first and fifth grades. The space problem is quite acute. There is still the problem of the eurythmy and gymnastics hall.

A teacher: Cultural School.

A teacher: I had thought of Independent Cultural School.

Marie Steiner: Perhaps someone else will think of something.

Dr. Steiner: It is not important to go into changing the name now. What is important is whether or not we receive the two million marks. We have this problem because we have accepted every child. The Waldorf-Astoria Company has done nothing wrong.

A teacher: It would be important to differentiate between the Waldorf School Association and the Waldorf School. We could leave the Waldorf School as the “Waldorf School.”

Dr. Steiner: The financial association does not need to carry that name. That would not hurt the Waldorf-Astoria Company. The Waldorf School is a historical fact that should remain. On the other hand, though, we do not need to expect that we should extend into other areas of Germany and Austria under the name of the Waldorf School in Stuttgart. I think that for the purely practical reason that people will not give any money for it. We should limit announcements for the association to Stuttgart and Württemberg. On the other hand, though, it seems clear to me that we should do things so we can have an international outreach.

A teacher: Are we deciding to drop the association?

Dr. Steiner: I am convinced that continuing the first eight grades is a salary problem. How much do we have in the School Association account? We need to know, otherwise we will never come out of this murky situation. We will be clear about our situation only when the School Association exists, and the Waldorf-Astoria Company increases the amount of its contribution. Then we would have money in the Association’s account. We need to be able to say exactly how much the Waldorf-Astoria Company will need to provide, either as a certain donation per child or a particular amount we can count upon. Right now, that is all unclear.

I have the feeling that the financial basis of the school depends upon the Waldorf-Astoria Company and, to a large extent, upon the private wealth of Mr. Molt. We need to differentiate those two things. My feeling is that Mr. Molt has financially supported the Waldorf School himself. In addition to what he personally gave, the Waldorf-Astoria Company also provided support. Perhaps it is not appropriate to say so now, but Mr. Molt’s private resources are strongly involved.

Emil Molt: It is difficult to discuss this. The school is registered as my private property. I paid for the construction. The school pays no rent, and I also paid other amounts for the other school buildings.

Dr. Steiner: It is good that we know this. The problem we have is that the Waldorf-Astoria Company has come out a little too good in the picture of the Waldorf School. I do not find it responsible to give all the credit for the existence of this school to the Waldorf- Astoria Company when they were really not so enthusiastic about becoming the patron of the school, whereas, Mr. Molt actually did most of it. We could at best say that the Waldorf-Astoria Company is a member of the School Association.

It is certainly not right when people from out of town pay only what it costs for their child. They should also pay a part of the other costs, like the desks, and so on. However, this completely justifiable situation should be compensated for by not making the school purely a concern of Stuttgart. People need to understand that they will not have to pay so much when the school becomes an international organization.

A teacher: The tuition would be a thousand marks, since each child costs us about that much.

Dr. Steiner: If we knew the Waldorf-Astoria Company would pay that amount for the children of its employees, that would not help much, since we would not be able to accept other children without donations. We must maintain our principle of accepting children who cannot pay the tuition. The school suffers from the fact that, aside from the children of the Waldorf-Astoria Company, it is a capitalistic school. We can say these things publicly. In Switzerland, I was always in favor of saying that if every citizen gave a few marks, we could easily finish the Goetheanum. If we were to put that to people strongly, they would realize that what we are doing is for the general good, namely, that we accept poor children, for whom wealthier people pay the tuition. What I wanted to say before was that we cannot set the tuition for outside children according to what we are lacking. Therefore, we must continue to try to obtain public donations. We can reach this goal only when a wealthier person pays the tuition for a poor child.

Have we included patronages in the Waldorf School Association?

A teacher: I had thought that the membership would be a thousand marks for patrons. There are not many patrons yet.

A teacher: People could give bricks to the Waldorf School.

Dr. Steiner: We can certainly do that. Collecting is good work. Of course, when we tell people they can give a small amount, then they will give a small amount. The members should go out and collect.

The main question is the formation of the World School Association. We must connect everything else with it. I still have not heard how much the Waldorf School Association has in its account. I would like to know that.

A teacher: Sixty to eighty thousand marks.

Dr. Steiner: So that is approximately what we have.

A teacher: The Waldorf factory pays 170,000 marks per year.

Dr. Steiner: Can we count on such donations in the coming years?

Emil Molt: If the economic situation does not break down, the amount will be raised to 200,000.

Dr. Steiner: And if that does not happen?

Emil Molt: That is why I am at the head of the company, in order to influence things enough.

Dr. Steiner: So, that would be the costs to the Waldorf-Astoria Company. We have so many wealthy parents who could afford to pay an appropriate amount, and who cannot demand that the company gives large donations. We need to approach those people who have an interest in the school if it does not fade as soon as we ask them to open their wallets. Otherwise, it is better the children do not come. We are not here to enroll children simply because the school is close. We will see what happens in the next week. If nothing happens, we will have to go back on the enrollments. There will be a parting of the ways if people say a unified school is one where no one pays anything, where everybody is equal, and they have nothing against that. We do not need to consider it an honor that the children of high government officials attend, but that in the future the children of wealthy people will sit next to those of poorer people.

Perhaps we can still gain some clarity about the question of the World School Association. In all these things we may not forget that we have great difficulty in obtaining money for the building in Dornach. We will have fewer difficulties in funding a school, particularly in America. We would have the least number of difficulties if we would create a sanitorium. People understand that we need a sanitorium, but they have less understanding that we need schools. However, they have no understanding for the building in Dornach.

A teacher: Then we will have to connect a sanitorium with the school.

Dr. Steiner: Our schools are built differently, but we have no way to express that. Otherwise, we could form a World Association for Young Invalids. A “School for Health.” That would be effective. However, that wouldn’t work. We will have to connect things in our circulars so that we have a common fund that will pay for sanitoriums and schools. If we want to start schools, we would have to give the Association the right to use the money for Dornach, also. Otherwise, the Association would be counterproductive in regard to Dornach and would suck up all the donations. If we transform eurythmy into curative eurythmy, we would soon have a sanitorium. I will try to do something in a very limited way to show what can be done. I have been asked if we can use eurythmy curatively. I will try to do that, and you will see that people will come.

We must emphasize that the school as such is independent of the state, and that it is created out of an independent cultural life.

A teacher: We should try to make specific proposals concerning the World School Association. Before we approach the public, we should do that and then wait to see the effect. We should not give the impression we cannot continue.

Dr. Steiner: We have so many applications that we can accept them only if we receive more donations. Do you think our appeal gives the impression that we feel we are failing? I wanted the faculty to emphasize what we have achieved with the school that would interest the public enough that they make some donations. The number of applications was emphasized. It appeared to me important that we wait with the numbers. There are already a hundred we cannot accept unless we receive financial support. I propose we write in a circular that the children are pouring in. I would also suggest that a teacher say that, because it makes more of an impression. Now we need only find a way of saying that so that people don’t say to us, “Well, if the children are pouring in, then their parents should pay.” It is one of our principles that we do not require every child to pay tuition. That is the reason for our difficulties, namely, that we accept children who cannot pay tuition.

A teacher proposes that Dr. von Heydebrand and Mr. Hahn prepare a statement to be read this evening.

Dr. Steiner: I have nothing against that since it is not actually a meeting. We could do that. I think, though, we should state it more clearly so that people become more concretely aware. I don’t think such a public statement would act against private activities. Perhaps it would be good to say this publicly.

There is a proposal that we continue this discussion again, and that you come ready to fire from both barrels. Is there anything against that? If you want to call another meeting today, you should do that. I cannot be here this afternoon.

A teacher asks about the curriculum of the ninth grade and about building a dormitory. Some people have offered to take children as a means of making a living or simply as a secondary income. There was also a question about the Abitur.

Dr. Steiner: Concerning the ninth grade curriculum, a primarily pedagogical question, we will take care of that at the beginning of the next school year. I will present that as a course of five to seven new lectures, which I still need to prepare. I will give them to the faculty at the beginning of the school year. Planning the curriculum for the ninth grade is something that will take five or six days, and to that extent we should put it off until the beginning of the next school year. Now we need only decide who will take the individual classes.

We also have the problem of the Abitur. That is a not so simple a question. If we were working toward official recognition of our middle school, we would have to be untrue to our principles. We would then be dependent upon the state and could no longer speak of an independent school. We can remain true to our principles only if we tell the children that they will have to take the state examination if that they want a position with the state, or that they will need to take the examination that gives them the right to attend a university. As soon as we begin to negotiate with the state, we will become dependent upon it. The state will probably demand that some state inspector be at our graduation examination. We may not allow that kind of substantial modification of our instruction. If they want to look at the school, they should do it, but we cannot allow ourselves to enter into any real negotiations. We will not be untrue to our principles if the state examines those children who want the security of civil service.

Forming a ninth grade really makes sense only if we intend to form a completely independent college. It makes sense only if we intend to form an independent college at the same time, and then it will not matter whether we have an Abitur or not. Then we will have to look only at the question of who may attend the college, but that is a question we can put off. By then, the situation will have changed enough that [the state] can ignore the accreditation of such a college.

A dormitory would be desirable. That is something connected with accepting children from far away. It would be quite nice. A lot of people talk about wanting to send their children here. We would immediately have the two X boys from Dornach. At present, they are only circling overhead, but soon they will land on the nose of the housemother. That is certainly an enticing prospect.

There is a question about what color to paint the desks.

Dr. Steiner: We could certainly paint the desks. Perhaps lilac, light bluish. We can do that with normal paint. The paints used in Dornach are too expensive to use here.

I brought some drawings from a few of the children in Dornach that Mr. B. has brought along quite well. These are drawings by the children who were given a theme, and we see the result for each of the children. When we have some time, I would like to go through these drawings and discuss them with you. They are important if you are thinking about publishing something. When I mentioned to little G.W. that we would display her drawings in the Waldorf School, she said she was making clay models, also. In this way, the children’s individual personalities are wonderfully expressed. I have no thought whatsoever of making a rule in that regard. Someone else might do it differently, but you can learn much from that. Mr. B. tells the children one thing or another, then, after giving them a little instruction, allows them simply to bring their ideas into some form. The children discuss it among themselves.

In the afternoon, there was a discussion with an extended group, but without Dr. Steiner, about how to raise money and about the formation of a World School Association. In the evening, Dr. Steiner gave the lecture “The Decline of the West” [July 29, 1920, contained in GA 335, not published in German or English].

A teacher: We need to discuss hiring new teachers.

Dr. Steiner: Yes, we have the personnel problem. The problem is that our present shop teacher has not done what we expected, so we need to think of a replacement. We probably do not need to go into the details. I am not certain to what extent you are familiar with the problem that he could not handle the large classes. He has said that the children in the upper grades did not do the work. You can see that, since the children in the upper grades did not finish what they should.

He found it difficult to work in that area. What I have seen indicated that he does not have sufficient practical talent so that the children could not do their work well because he himself did not have an eye for what the craft demanded. Many of the projects remained at the level of tinkering and were not what they should have been. The children did not learn how to work precisely with him. In the gardening class, the work remained with each child having a small garden where each did what he or she wanted, with the result that it was more like a number of small children’s gardens than a school garden.

The worst thing was that he simply had no heart for his work. His main interest is in studying, but what we actually needed, namely, someone who could teach gardening thoroughly, did not occur. From my perspective, there is nothing else to do other than look for a better teacher. I don’t believe he is able to really bring the artistic into the shop instruction. As things have developed, it is impossible to keep him on the faculty. He doesn’t seem able to find his way into the spirit of the school.

A teacher: Since we brought him here, we should, of course, find a way to take care of him so that he does not become an enemy of the school when we remove him from the faculty.

Emil Molt: I will see that he is taken care of in some way. A teacher: I need to say that I don’t quite understand all this. He certainly gave considerable effort to finding his way into the spirit of the school. He definitely handled my children well and in the gardening class, my class also did well. He will find his way into the artistic aspect.

Dr. Steiner: That will be difficult. What I said about the artistic was in connection with the shop instruction. He will hardly find his way into that.

A teacher: He has the best will, and it will be difficult for him to understand. During the holidays he wants to learn cabinetmaking better and also shoemaking.

Marie Steiner: There is something trusting about him. Dr. Steiner: There is no doubt that he likes to work with children, and that he is serious about it, but there are some things lacking. When I saw certain things that occurred, I had to conclude that it was impossible to leave this work to him.

A teacher: Is there a reason we would need to get rid of him or could we employ him somewhere else, for example in the library? Dr. Steiner: It is certainly difficult to make a clear decision. I think it will be difficult for him to find his way into the real spirit of the school because he hasn’t the spirit in him.

It is certainly possible to carry someone along, but do you really believe that he could do the shop class alone permanently? He could never teach all of the shop classes. Possibly he could teach the four lower classes if we had a teacher for the upper grades. I have my doubts whether he has the spiritual capacity to handle the upper grades in shop. I have watched how he works, and it is really quite nice for the younger children if they put themselves to it. However, for later, when a certain feeling for the craft is necessary, it is a question whether he can gain that feeling. This is very difficult, and we would need to change our thinking if he were to remain. My impression is that this is the general opinion of the faculty.

He has poetic ambitions, but he imagines himself to be much better than he is. He has a wonderful amount of goodwill. I feel sorry for him because I think he will probably develop a lot of resentment. It is always difficult when someone brings a certain personal quality to things when they work at the school. He injects a personal note into everything and is not as objective as he should be. He wants to be someone who becomes a Waldorf teacher, he wants to be a poet. He wants the children to trust him. All of the characteristics he has certainly bring out sympathy for him. We will need to find another position for him. Nevertheless, it would remain difficult since he does not understand certain things about the spirit of the Waldorf School, particularly the shop class. In an area where objectivity is necessary, it is very difficult when sympathy plays a role. All that leads off the path.

Is there some possibility that we could resolve the situation by having him in the lower four grades? That would be desirable, but we would end up with a huge budget. The school is getting bigger.

Emil Molt: We don’t have the money to give him a soft job. As we saw recently, we must count every penny. What we need to do is to take care of him somewhere in the company so that he is not harmed, and we don’t hurt him.

Dr. Steiner: We certainly must take care of him, but we will need to see how to do that. A difficult situation.

We can objectively say that he was not fit for the task. He does not have an artistic feel. I don’t think he would find his way into the subject. As I said, it would hurt nothing if he took the lower grades and someone else, the upper classes. Often, that is the best way and the children will simply work. Later, when they need to show what they can do, things will be better. There is certainly nothing to object to for the lower grades, but for the upper classes, he simply will not do.

A teacher: Do you intend to have one person do it all?

Dr. Steiner: That is a budget question. In the shop class, we must stretch to the limit. It would be best if we strongly developed shop. If we had a good shop teacher, we could start in the sixth grade, but it is a different situation in the gardening class. That needs someone who really understands the subject. If we had two teachers, I would prefer that each would give shop in one year and gardening in the other.

We must realize that if we retain him, other difficulties will arise in the school.

I had the impression that was the opinion of the whole faculty. At the beginning, I thought this was already decided, but now I see that is not so. It is good we have discussed the matter so that we all understand it.

A teacher: Isn’t it possible to see that someone is inadequate for a position earlier?

Dr. Steiner: I already noticed it some time ago, and mentioned it at Christmas and in February. I didn’t go into it then because it is so difficult for me, but it comes up so often, namely, that we shut people out. Recently, there have been many times when the situation seemed to have improved.

Well, there is nothing left to do other than look for another solution. We will need to find another solution.

A teacher: In any event, we will need to find a first-rate shop teacher. It would be possible to have him as an assistant to the main teacher. Some time ago, Mr. X. wanted to take over the shop class.

Dr. Steiner: I already said that it would be best if someone who is one the faculty would learn how to make shoes. I didn’t think we should employ a shoemaker. The instruction in shop must come from the faculty, but suddenly Y. was there. It was only fleetingly mentioned to me, and it was certainly not intended that he completely take over the teaching of shop.

A teacher: He sort of grew into the faculty without a decision that he should become a part.

Dr. Steiner: Now we’re rather caught in the situation. We shouldn’t allow such things to happen. Recently when we were talking, I was quite surprised that someone who was not at all under consideration for the faculty was at the meeting. Those who are not on the faculty should not be at the meetings.

A teacher: I certainly think we can take him on as an assistant. Dr. Steiner: It would be too much for one teacher to do the gardening and the shoemaking, but then we would have to be able to pay him.

Emil Molt: I would say that budget considerations should be subordinate to the major considerations.

Dr. Steiner: It was certainly not harmful that he was there, but the harm may first arise when he is left out. He has become a teacher in a way I have often encountered in Stuttgart. If you ask how they reach their position, you find out that people have simply pushed their way in. They suddenly appear. I don’t understand how people move up. It is certainly true that we cannot continue in that way.

You need to realize, Mr. X., that one thing builds upon the other. As we decided, you were to create the shop instruction. Mr. Molt asked if we could consider Y. as an assistant for you, then, suddenly, he was sitting here in the faculty. He was never under consideration as a teacher for the Waldorf School. We can see that clearly because he is an employee of the Waldorf-Astoria Company that they sent over. Thus, there was not the least justification for him to be on the faculty.

A teacher: I don’t think we can work intimately if someone is here who does not belong.

Dr. Steiner: If he is already here, we can’t do that. If he has been teaching the subject and if other difficulties did not arise, we could not say that Y. is no longer on the faculty.

A teacher: It was a mistake to let him in.

A teacher: Yes, but we were the ones who made the mistake.

Dr. Steiner: The Waldorf School will pay for it. Just as people have made mistakes in the Anthroposophical Society, and in spite of the fact that people make these same mistakes time and again, I was the one who had to suffer. I had to suffer for each person we threw out. It is clear that in this case, the Waldorf School will have to suffer, but I think it is better that it suffer outwardly rather than within.

Following further discussion:

Dr. Steiner: Well, we will just have to try to keep him if there is no other way.

[After further discussion on the next day, of which there are no notes, Y. was told that he would no longer work in the Waldorf School.]

Dr. Steiner: It is certainly not so that we will include every specialty teacher in the faculty. The intent is that the inner faculty includes the class teachers and the older specialty teachers, and that we also have an extended faculty.

A teacher: My perspective is that we should include only those whom Dr. Steiner called to the faculty, and thus that someone’s mere presence in some position does not mean that he or she will automatically be part of the faculty.

A teacher: Who should be on the faculty?

Dr. Steiner: Only the main teachers, those who are practicing, not on leave, should be on the faculty. In principle, the faculty should consist of those who originally were part of the school and those who came later but whom we wish had participated in the course last year. We have always discussed who is to be here as a real teacher. If someone is to sit with us, he or she must be practicing and must be a true teacher.

Berta Molt: Well, then, I don’t belong here, either.

Dr. Steiner: You are the school mother. That was always the intent. Mrs. Steiner is here as the head of the eurythmy department and Mr. Molt as the patron of the school, that was always the intent from the very beginning.

If we have discussed it, then there is not much to say. That was the case with Baravalle. He was here as a substitute, but we discussed that. It was also clear that he would eventually come into a relationship to the school, because he would eventually be a primary teacher.

We still have the question of whom to consider as a teacher.

A teacher: Must the new teacher be an anthroposophist, or can it be someone outside?

Dr. Steiner: That is something I do not absolutely demand, we have already discussed it.

I propose that we talk with Wolffhügel regarding the shop class and see if he wants to take it. I think that Wolffhügel would be quite appropriate. That would be really good. He is a painter and works as a furniture maker. That would be excellent.

Now we need know only which of the new teachers should attend our meetings. Of course, Wolffhügel should.

I was only in the handwork class a few times, but once I had to ask myself why a child did not have a thimble on. I have always said that we must get the children accustomed to sewing with a thimble. They should not do it without a thimble. We cannot allow that.

We cannot know ahead of time whether a teacher can keep the children quiet. Often we can know that, I think, but we can also experience some surprises. You just don’t always know.

We need two teachers for the first grade. For the 1B class, I would propose Miss Maria Uhland and for the 1A class, Killian. I think we should hire them provisionally and not bring them into the faculty meetings.

We then have Miss von Mirbach for the second grade, for the third grade, Pastor Geyer, for the fourth grade, Miss Lang, for the fifth grade, Mrs. Koegel. Dr. Schubert will have the weaker children, the remedial class, and Dr. von Heydebrand, the sixth grade.

We still need someone. Baravalle would be good for the second sixth-grade class. I think we should take him. He can also do his doctoral work here.

Dr. Kolisko will take over the whole seventh grade.

I also think we should do the eighth and ninth grades as we did the seventh and eighth. How did that work?

A teacher: We took the classes in alternating weeks. Our impression is that if we alternate it daily, we would not know the class well enough.

Dr. Steiner: Then your perspective is that it is better to teach for a week, better than alternating daily?

A teacher: The reason why we two did not know our classes very well is unclear to me. The fact is that I knew the children the least of all our colleagues. Could you perhaps say what the problem was?

Dr. Steiner: That will not be better until you are more efficient in regard to the subject matter and how you treat it. You felt under pressure. You had, in general, too little contact with the children and lectured too much.

Dr. Steiner: What do we need to discuss? Who wants to say something?

A teacher: I want to ask how we will divide the foreign language classes.

Dr. Steiner: In general, the foreign language classes will continue as they were, and the teachers who taught them will continue next year. However, there will be something new with the first grade. How many class teachers have taught foreign language in their class themselves? Miss Lang and Mrs. Koegel, both languages. Geyer, Dr. von Heydebrand, Miss von Mirbach, and Kolisko, one language each. Next year, Miss Uhland will take over both languages in her first grade and perhaps Mr. Killian in his.

Dr. Schubert will have the beginning fourth grade Latin class and Geyer, the fifth and sixth grades. We will have to see how many want to take Latin. The interest is not too great.

Hahn will have the independent religious instruction for the first through third grade group and also the seventh through ninth graders. Then, we need someone only for the fourth, fifth and sixth grades. What should we do there? How about asking Mr. Uehli? That might be a solution. He doesn’t have much time, but two hours per week might be possible. I think we should consider Mr. Uehli for the fourth through sixth grades.

If there is nothing else, I would like to bring up something I know some of you want, namely, the problem of the World School Association.

A teacher: We thought we should immediately found the World School Association so it can begin collecting money, whether for schools or for the Goetheanum. The Waldorf School Association would be a member of the World School Association.

Dr. Steiner: How do you imagine we would collect the money and administer it from one place? We certainly cannot do what was requested after the lecture last night. We would collect that for the Waldorf School. What we collect for the Waldorf School should not be forgotten. Should we have a meeting and tell people that besides what we did last night, we will also do this other thing?

There was then considerable discussion about the events of the previous evening.

A teacher: What happened yesterday relates particularly to collecting for the Waldorf School. What we can do through the World School Association is to obtain money for all the activities so that there is no competition between these different collections by different groups.

Dr. Steiner: In a certain sense, competition already exists. We could wait until the things discussed last night are done, and then begin to think about founding a World School Association. Only when it is quite clear what will happen with the Waldorf School Association can we approach people about founding the World School Association. We cannot continue to try different things. What happened yesterday blocked the plan for the World School Association, and I do not think that is all that bad. We cannot do two such things at the same time.

A teacher: Couldn’t we found the World School Association in Dornach?

Dr. Steiner: We don’t need to decide that here. That would certainly not hinder collecting for the Waldorf School. If it were done in Dornach, we would need to stand behind it.

A teacher: We cannot postpone the plan for the Eurythmeum. We certainly cannot drop it.

Dr. Steiner: Well, because of the whole attitude that arose, it is certainly at an end. It was silly that I had to defend myself in that way, but it did happen, and we will now have to take the consequences. The dumb things we do exist so we can improve them, but important things should not suffer for that. Individual events express the whole.

A teacher: Dr. Steiner, you asked us to think about the name of the school. We should certainly assume that the whole business of the World School Association concerns us.

Dr. Steiner: I said that the name should indicate independence from the state. What I meant was that forming a World School Association could circumvent the difficulties that arise when people from out of town want to have their own schools, because the Association would exist to form such schools everywhere. I also said that could begin by supporting the Waldorf School with the money it needs. I did not mean we should spend our time on that. That would be important only if people wanted it. That is certainly the case. For now, we can only put things off until yesterday’s appeal takes effect. We cannot simply stand up now and say, “Yesterday we stood here and said we need to collect 256,000 marks for the Waldorf School, but today we’re going to give all that a new name. Today, we will collect for the World School Association.”

A teacher: That is not what I meant. What I meant is that we want to support the idea of creating a World School Association.

Dr. Steiner: Well, what does that mean? If you had added that we want to form a World School Association to what you said yesterday about how effective the school has been and our need for more donations, then that would now be on the table. We cannot form the World School Association ourselves. It was not my opinion that the faculty would form the World School Association. We certainly would not move one step forward regardless of how determined we are to do that.

A teacher: My understanding was that we wanted to ask you for some further suggestions.

Dr. Steiner: This seems premature to me. It is certainly premature to say anything about the work of such an organization. It is not yet urgent. You see, it might have helped had we stood firm upon the statement that we would not continue the school if we could not make the world understand that it must make sacrifices for this thing. That was the initial idea of the statement we wanted to present, but the picture shifted, primarily because, out of all we need, only a laughably small amount was presented. That is an illusion, because we will need two and a half times that much. It is certainly clear that we will receive the amount we asked for, and thus reach the first goal.

A teacher: Should we put announcements in the Norwegian and Dutch newspapers? Would that help?

Dr. Steiner: Certainly, if someone were to do it. All these things are good if they are done, very good. We do not need to decide things, someone can do them.

Well, then we’ve taken care of all the questions, if there is nothing more. I am certainly very sorry that a number of things happened that disturbed the harmony among us.

I want to say only that I’m sorry things did not end better. We will not meet again for some time. I wish you all a good and fruitful new year. For many of you, it will be a very difficult year if you are to achieve anything we have discussed. I cannot give you a longer speech now. Let’s begin the next school year fresh and strong.

Following the third lecture of the cycle Balance in Teaching.

Dr. Steiner: Professor Abderhalden was in Dornach. He didn’t understand the significance of the anterior and posterior nodes of the vertebrae. That is where most such people have problems. They don’t go into anything, but rather think to themselves that if they were to delve into a subject, they would be uncomfortable. It’s better to stay away.

Otherwise, he has rather radical views. He said, “What you said about gymnastics—from a physiological perspective, gymnastics is barbarous.” I said to him, “Please tell people that. You have the position of a professor. If someone else says that, people become angry. Physiologists can easily say that to people.”

One thing was very interesting. He mentioned that during the time of the revolution some people found themselves out on a limb. He proposed that each professor teach the subject as he or she saw fit. The others could not imagine it. That is what he said.

Well, let us begin our pedagogical work. Today, we need to come to some clarity about a number of things that I had to leave somewhat in the dark, partially because of all the other work I had.

There had been a difference of opinion regarding the relationship of the school and the faculty to the Waldorf-Astoria Company. Bylaws had been prepared saying, among other things, that the teachers would no longer be employed by the Waldorf-Astoria Company, and designating Dr. Steiner as the head of the school.

Dr. Steiner: Do you want to say something Mr. Molt?

Emil Molt speaks in detail about the difficulties, particularly about his own position within the faculty, the bylaws, and the proposal to choose Dr. Steiner as chairman.

Dr. Steiner: From what our dear friend Mr. Molt just said, I believe we clearly can eliminate appointing me chairman. I don’t believe those paragraphs of the bylaws would change anything concerning me at all.

I ask you to recall, also, that we have always discussed the naming of new teachers among the faculty. That is something I would like to continue. I think we should certainly work toward the ideal of arranging things so that the faculty would look into certain things concerned with hiring a new teacher, and that we should pay attention to the faculty’s judgment. I would always report what occurs there. I would never exclude the possibility that when someone makes a proposal, I will look into it. Bylaws cannot firmly determine these sorts of things. If you make a firm rule, it will not be accurate. The bylaws should, perhaps, be no more than an indication of direction so that still more misunderstandings do not arise.

I have the impression that other things are in the background that could explain much of this. When I heard about it while I was in Berlin, it seemed to me to be rather superficial, but I also felt there were some problems living beneath the surface. Those things certainly have nothing to do with Mr. Molt, the patron of our school, and the faculty, but with certain other problems. It would certainly be desirable if we could look into the genuine basis, into the real common problems. External influences can play no role here. It is better to discuss our problems, like this one, which come to such an explosion, while they are only problems than to allow them to end in an explosion. Who would like to say something?

A teacher: I wrote the bylaws to delineate the form of our working together. What was important was the independence of the faculty in cultural matters, as a group of cultural workers. Part of that is also the hiring and firing of teachers. It was important to me to find a form that properly expressed Dr. Steiner’s relationship to the faculty.

Dr. Steiner: It is difficult for me to take a position in regard to these bylaws, since they are really unimportant to me. We can do things only as we need to do them from day to day. Bylaws are necessary for the external world, so that what we are doing looks like something. It is very difficult for me to take a position regarding these bylaws because they are really so useless to me. I don’t think such bylaws would change anything significant.

We can truly clarify the situation only when we speak as friends among friends. That is, when the faculty itself says how we are to understand these things, how we think, and how things should become.

A number of teachers describe their positions.

Dr. Steiner: You see, that is just what I meant. Some things that are actually interwoven into life have surfaced in the explosion of the bylaws. In the bylaws, we could separate them. We can see those problems that way. For instance, we could discuss for a long time whether or not the faculty is responsible for administering the finances of the school. You could show it would be proper to involve the faculty with the finances, but at the same time, we would need to feel certain the school will continue. We cannot eliminate that feeling of certainty or uncertainty regarding the continuation of the school. The last straw exploded in the last few days. It was already smoldering, but it burst out, and I think we can see that through this discussion. It burst out through what happened at the end of the past school year in the discussion of the school finances for the coming year. The things we discussed then were of such a nature that I said to myself at the time, “We certainly cannot know how things will look at our Waldorf School next Easter.” It is not so much that we do not have the money. Of course, we have to take into consideration that we do not have it. What appears necessary to me is that the teachers of the Waldorf School unite about how to achieve financial security for the future of the school. It is not possible for you to work as teachers if you have to work in absolute uncertainty about the future. The problem was most obvious when, at the end of last year, we couldn’t see how things would stand in regard to the future of the Waldorf School. I, myself, have no idea where we stand or how we will manage the more than 100 newly enrolled children. However, I said to myself that we will confront exactly the same problem next Easter. I had the feeling that the present relationships between the Waldorf School, the Waldorf School Association, and the faculty would render it impossible to imagine anything that would provide sufficient security for the future of the school. It seems to me that is what more or less quickly occurred. Through all these things, the question quickly arose about how to move forward.

I have to admit this troubled me greatly. You see, if we have to give up the Waldorf School someday, that would mean we would lose something that gives the entire anthroposophical movement a firm foundation. The Waldorf School must continue, it simply must succeed because it puts anthroposophy to the test. There are only two reasons why it may fail. First, because the school could no longer continue due to a change in the education laws, but we could endure that reason. The second reason would be that the school fails because the world does not sufficiently understand us and what we are doing and, therefore, does not finance us. The moment we say the school failed due to lack of understanding about the finances, the school fails in such a way that we can survive. I can think of no other possibility.

However, just that third possibility arose in what occurred in the last days, and that possibility is that differences arise within the faculty, to which Mr. Molt also belongs. That would make the world happy and that is what I perceive. Now something can happen that should not happen. Although we could fail with honor for financial reasons, we certainly may not endanger our position with discord. That would hide our financial miseries in a very horrible way. For that reason, I think it is much better to call things by their names. I think this whole thing has spilled out of the worries about what will happen with the Waldorf School. In all of these conflicts, I really see nothing other than a financial conflict. Why tiptoe around it?

I am certainly not criticizing anything. As you know, it is terribly difficult to talk about these things, because there is no interest in our circles for what is necessary. Until now, we have found no way of putting our ideas into practice, of actually doing them, because people have a sort of inner opposition and are unwilling to work to financially support our ideas. People are willing to undertake all kinds of confused business, but they have a certain kind of inner opposition to working in our way. This is most apparent in those people who must officially consider such things objectively. That is one of our main problems, and for that reason, we will have to do it ourselves. We, ourselves, must continue the work.

A teacher: Our desire to separate the school from the Waldorf- Astoria Company then carried over to Mr. Molt personally. That was certainly a misunderstanding. The faculty, of which Mr. Molt is also a part, represents the Waldorf School. The relationship of the faculty to the Waldorf School Association and to the Waldorf- Astoria Company is not clear, even today. The conflict we have is simply an expression of the fact that the faculty wants to take over the leadership of the school.

Dr. Steiner: In a certain way, we have now come to the core of the problem. The faculty is prepared to go with Mr. Molt in all the things resulting from the historical relationship, but it does not want to have anything to do with the Waldorf-Astoria Company. To the extent I am involved, that is what we have actually done. I most certainly wanted to work with Mr. Molt, but I could have nothing to do with the Waldorf-Astoria Company, simply because it wanted nothing to do with me. That is the problem, and we must overcome it in a wise and positive way. We should not simply say we are taking over the school, but instead, form the school so that we will have control.

You should also not forget what we had at the end of the last school year, namely, a spiritual profit due to the faculty and an absolute financial deficit that stood in sharp contrast to it. We must, therefore, conclude that the faculty understood the Waldorf School, but there was little understanding from those who certainly should have stepped forward to help resolve the problem of the school’s limited financial means. That is, from those within our circle who could certainly do something. You will recall that at the end of the last school year I mentioned, as an example, that the Waldorf-Astoria Company did not provide the building, that Mr. Molt provided it.

In my personal opinion, the school is simply a nightmare for the company, and Mr. Molt had considerable difficulty overcoming that and bringing about what lay in his heart. Those are the difficulties, and you can see that in the desire to separate the school from the company. That, of course, assumes Mr. Molt belongs to the faculty as the protector of the school and absolutely not just its financier.

If we accept that, we can also begin to discuss the problem in a healthy and objective way. We need only want to see Mr. Molt for himself and not in connection with the company. If we move onto this healthy ground, we can understand one another better. I think that is the core of the problem. The problems will become larger if we do not try to find some financially stable ground on our own. I don’t see any possibility other than that we come to a healthy basis ourselves.

Emil Molt: If the school had not grown beyond its original intent, these difficulties would not have arisen. The Ministry of Culture accepted the school because of the good name of the Waldorf- Astoria Company, and that good name continues to exist.

Dr. Steiner (speaking to Molt): It is certainly necessary in connection with what is said, to protect yourself from the opinions expressed about the Waldorf-Astoria Company. It is not quite correct that the school was dependent upon the Waldorf-Astoria Company children. We could have created such a school with anthroposophical children, and it most certainly would have succeeded. What is of value is that you were the first member of the Society who took up the idea of founding a school. That has nothing to do with the Waldorf-Astoria Company at all, but with your own person. I see no reason why you should identify yourself with the Waldorf-Astoria Company. They would not have understood it. This was your personal act. For that reason, I have spoken of the founding by Mr. Molt. That was absolutely intentional on my part. The fact that the workers’ children were involved lay entirely in the circumstances of the inauguration of the social movement in 1919. What we have here as a question of confidence is your trust in Anthroposophy, and what we have now arose from that. I certainly do not believe that the Württemberg Department of Education would have allowed less for you than for the good name of the Waldorf-Astoria Company. That is something we should clearly remember.

In a certain way, the desire to be independent of the Waldorf- Astoria Company is justifiable, because we must continue our work under all circumstances. At the time we presented the school to the world, it was not my intent to limit it to the Waldorf-Astoria Company, but to make clear to the world that it needed to do something so that the school not remain a Waldorf-Astoria school. According to their statements and present attitude, the Waldorf-Astoria Company would rejoice if you said someday that we should throw the school out. Perhaps that would in some way improve the name of the Waldorf Astoria Company, since perhaps it has sunk in some people’s opinions because of the founding of the school. You do not actually have a real reason for connecting the school with the company. You were, in fact, the person who understood the need to start such an initiative. It seems to me that we want to have everything to do with you and nothing to do with the company. Suppose someone else were in your position at the company. Then, the cultural fund would not have been increased by another 80,000 marks. That has nothing to do with the Waldorf-Astoria Company, but only with you. That is why, to use an unpoetic expression, this amount was coaxed out, not because the Waldorf-Astoria Company had any intent of making that money available. How many Waldorf children do we have? How many other children?

A teacher: We have 164 Waldorf children, 100 anthroposophic children, and 100 others.

Dr. Steiner: Now, the relationship of the numbers is the most unfavorable thinkable. If there were free access in Stuttgart, the number of enrollments would be limitless. There is no doubt of that. We have an extremely large number of requests that do not result in enrollments because the children have no place to stay. People cannot send their children or we would have many more from outside Stuttgart. For the time, the situation is such that the school is fairly ineffective in the outer areas. This is when we should have said that we will not accept the other hundred children because we do not have the money. We could have done that at the end of the last school year. Then, we would have only 365 when we opened the school this year instead of 465 children in the old rooms. We could have made things clear and said that the Waldorf-Astoria Company is paying for the classes. It is important now that we learn from the Waldorf School Association what the real budget is.

A teacher: We are preparing one.

Dr. Steiner: These things are always in preparation! You told me that just as I was leaving before. You must see to it that you prepare these things while I am away. All of these financial matters are always in preparation when I leave and usually still are when I return.

It is certainly clear that everything depends upon the financial question. Now that things have begun, we can certainly not so easily stop them as we could have done at the end of the last school year. Next Easter, we will be in the same situation. We need to get some money. It is certainly clear that the Waldorf School will need more financial support. The question is, though, whether the Waldorf School Association is the proper way to get it. At least according to its present capacities, it is not.

A teacher: Would a possible way be to tell parents now enrolling their children that we have nothing more?

Dr. Steiner: That would be a scandal. We could do that next Easter, but for now it would be better to see that we get some money. If we could only put this on a broader basis! It would be good to find some way of doing that. People also want to do something for the university course in Dornach. We must attack the problems of the school in another way.

I already said that we get the least amount of money for Dornach. It is easiest to obtain money for a sanitorium. Getting some money for schooling lies in between. We had an instance where we could see that a group of people had the least interest in doing anything for Dornach. Someone else wanted to do something like a sanitorium—that was taken up with the greatest interest. Everybody was like quicksilver. As soon as something like that is brought up, you get money. Schooling would likely fall somewhere in the middle. People would know how to find the way if hindrances were not always placed in front of what we have already done. What is important is that all the people working with us act together, and that we don’t have the kind of inner opposition we now have.

For now, we have the greatest desire to keep track of everything we spend, but we have not the least idea about what we receive. People have said they are ready to work all night when it comes to spending money, but when it comes to what is important, namely, to bringing in money, we find opposition.

If we do not place our financial affairs upon a firm basis, we will hardly be in a position to obtain money from people. We must find people who can administer the money we receive. For now, we cannot find any other people except those who want to create a new position for themselves by writing down a few numbers. I say that among us here in the faculty, but don’t let that be known. On the other hand, those working faithfully with us should know where the problem lies. The problems at the school relate directly to the fact that we have an extreme deficiency of people who can handle business affairs. That is our sickness. But, we don’t have to stay in that mire. Mr. Molt knows that as well as I, and he is suffering terribly under it. He is weighed down by the impossibility of extending the work in the economic area because he can find no one who can do it.

Credit for the school goes to you. The others have simply been passive. When people publicly speak about the Waldorf Company, we can do nothing about it. But, when they speak of the Waldorf School, it must be separate. They did not give the money, you coaxed it from them. They said they were in agreement in just the same way that a father is in agreement when the son spends too much. In the end, that’s how things are.

We will need to have a short faculty meeting, but first we must see to it that the board of the Waldorf School Association meets. Afterward, we will have a faculty meeting so that we can bring things into some sort of order.

Dr. Steiner: I would like to say a few words before we go into the individual points of discussion. Now that we are at the beginning of a new school year we need to clarify some things. There has been some discussion of things, including my own position, in relationship to the faculty. Today, I do not want to discuss the external relationship, only the inner. That seems appropriate this evening because you brought up my inner relationship, at least between the lines. In those things connected with our spiritual movement, I feel I am an esoteric among friends and cannot feel I am anything else. Running the Waldorf School is one of these spiritual things, at least to the extent it is a spiritual matter and to the extent the faculty takes up pedagogical questions and belongs to our anthroposophical movement. I need to say some things today about the position of an esoteric and how an esoteric perceives him- or herself, which you will need to apply to the particular case of the Waldorf School.

Someone who brings things from the spiritual world to his or her fellow human beings assumes, of course, that people do not necessarily accept them because of authority, but at least because they feel the things result from scientific research revealing a content that can perhaps be made known only by the person undertaking it. People can understand these things, of course, once they are said, but someone must first say them as a result of his or her own investigation. As you hear such truths, you are not exactly in a relationship to authority, but you somehow recognize that the things said can only arise from such a source.

Much of what I have recently had to say to you may appear simple, but I did not discover it in a simple way. Much of what we can learn about such a special area as pedagogy can become available only by going through a great deal, by experiencing a great deal, which is possible only after many years’ experience with this type of investigating. Understanding it is easy and can occur in a short period, but the investigation itself is not at all so simple and requires a path of initiation. However, when someone tells fellow human beings of such investigation, he or she never does so out of a desire to speak as an authority in the normal sense, that is, as the exoteric world understands authority.

I would ask that you take what I have to say about this very seriously and precisely. You should not accept what I have to say simply upon authority in the normal sense of the word. You see, if you did that, it would have no effect. You would not receive it through the necessary intangible forces. The relationship must be entirely different. The relationship must be one in which you accept everything said through a completely free will. Your acceptance may not in the least depend upon the will of the speaker. Everything must depend upon the will of the listeners. That is as exact a description of the relationship that must exist as is possible in human speech. I tell you things not to place them in the proper light, but because, in our times, we can base the effectiveness of esoteric work upon them.

If in our times we wanted to achieve something through authority, whether it be the authority of suggestion or any of the other numerous ways of affecting the soul, then that would eventually reveal itself as a great mistake. We now exist in the stage of human development when people mature enough to do so put more and more impulses of freedom into the world. Specifically, when we work as teachers we may not under any circumstances accept those things that arise out of the spirit and will move the world forward through an authority forced upon the soul. We must accept everything through goodwill, through the insight of the listener when the listener feels that the person speaking has something to say. No other relationship may exist. If the intent is that the listeners undertake some work based upon those statements, work that people can undertake communally, any other relationship would have a negative effect. If the spiritual researcher is to participate, then the capacity to speak free of authority and to listen through free will must be the basis of the entire relationship.

Nothing else may be the basis of the external relationships. Therefore, my relationship to the faculty must be one, right to the dotting of the i’s and crossing of the t’s, that neither I nor anyone else wants something against the will of any member of the faculty. The entire faculty as a whole must accept and desire it in their hearts. Whether something would pass in an election or not is unimportant. It requires that kind of inner relationship. The moment that is no longer so, the proper relationship would no longer exist. We need to somewhat keep an eye on that relationship.

Groups form in this area, not the way associations form, but more like a gathering around one person who has something to say in the sense that I mentioned. That is, those who want to hear something freely gather around someone. Regardless of what the external world may or may not expect of such a group, what I have said is all that is inwardly acceptable.

You will certainly feel that I want to describe my inner relationship to the faculty in that way, and I would ask that you understand it in that way. All healing forces of the future will be based in this. Specific things also lie in that direction. You need to feel that I have harmonized and do always intend to harmonize my decisions with each of you, that is, what you bring to me for a decision, because those who ask a question do so out of their own insight. If you think this through, you can clearly discern the nature of our esoteric relationship and the positive results of that esoteric relationship.

I wanted to make this our starting point today. You may have already found from your many experiences that things arising out of the spirit proceed properly only when such an understanding of spiritual relationships is their basis. Thus, in an exoteric organization you should separate the things that are simply necessary for the external world from what must lie between us. We can then move forward not only in the most rational manner, but also in the most spiritual work. We will move forward.

I wanted to say this to you now as a kind of inauguration of our work for this year, an inauguration of our work through which I would particularly like spiritual forces to flow. You can be certain that I will continue to pray for a blessing upon your work as a whole and the work of individuals in this coming year from the spiritual powers that carry our entire movement. If you are aware that is the case, if you not only act together, but think together and feel together, and thus receive the good spiritual forces in this thinking together, feeling together into the harmony of the entire soul life, then our work in this year will succeed.

Now we can go on to specific points. Does anyone want to say something about our agenda for today?

A question is asked about the official recognition of the Waldorf School as an elementary school.

Dr. Steiner: This is something that can go in one direction or another and depends upon the goodwill of the educational bureaucracy. We will achieve a certain degree of security about the future existence of the school only if we can negotiate through personal contacts. I wish to state expressly that we should not do this by telephone. If we can work through personal discussions and personal contact with all the possibilities of emphasis that arise in a personal conversation, if we can create an attitude through that, then we will achieve a certain degree of security. We will be unable to avoid being confronted with the same problem in the future if we handle this question in a strictly bureaucratic manner.

For that reason I think it would be best if Mr. Molt could do something personally, if you were personally involved. The situation is such that we will feel secure about the Waldorf School only if you personally speak with those people who have some influence. I am convinced that if an exchange of this sort occurs, and it forces the officials to say something in recognition of the school, that will offer us the best protection. Sending memos back and forth will achieve nothing. Particularly here in Württemberg, we can achieve more than in Prussia. In Prussia, after the final decision, we would have to dismantle this school within a short period of time.

We need to work on the problem in that way. We should not forget that some school principal or a teacher from a normal school will often come along and want to have the Waldorf School pedagogy. They will ask what they can do to help their schools. That is pure nonsense. The first thing they need to do is to free themselves from the state, and that gives rise to such a difficult problem that only a few people can think about it consequentially.

What is important is that what we could call our school movement, namely, a movement for independent schools, gets into more people’s heads so that a genuinely large movement toward educational freedom arises as a part of the Threefold Movement. We can use the opportunity that the excuse about a unified school provides. I must admit that I have always found a concrete definition of a unified school unpleasant, even though we had to use that term. It was unpleasant for me because it emphasized we wanted what the state defines as a unified school, but a unified school was less important than an independent school. That will come about by itself. What the present German government wants as a unified school is actually the opposite. We would be signing on to something terrible if we give in on this question. Somehow we need to feel our way through this. We need to be aware that such things happen in life, but we should realize that they do not arise inwardly—that would be deceptive—but from without, and that we should do them with a certain mental reservation. We should be aware that we need to do things, but not inwardly, to achieve at least the minimum of what we want, and that we will need to speak with people while inwardly tweaking their noses.

Emil Molt: I will do what I can to bring things into order.

A teacher asks about the lessons for the ninth grade.

Dr. Steiner: I will write it down for tomorrow, but we will get farthest if we see it as a continuation of what we have already done. I would, therefore, ask you to provide me with all the information about what you have done and achieved in German and literature.

A teacher: I went through Goethe, Schiller, and Herder, but that was all. I was able to bring into history some discussion of things like Dante’s Divine Comedy, but mostly it was Goethe, Schiller, and Herder. In grammar, we wrote essays and I attempted to work on spelling from the perspective of speech. We did nothing with grammar as such.

Dr. Steiner: Well, what you will need to do in literature is to take care of Jean Paul. In particular, you will need to look at some sections of Aesthetics, or the Schooling of Beauty with the ninth grade—particularly the ones concerning humor. You should not pay too much attention to history. That would be about a semester’s work. Afterward, you would then go on with the students to something very different. They are, after all, fourteen and fifteen years old, and you could read and discuss some of the chapters in Herman Grimm’s lectures on Goethe. That is what you need to do in literature.

In German, I would recommend that you not go too deeply into grammar in the first semester. Discuss the phonetic law, particularly Grimm’s law. In the essays, I would recommend that you handle historical themes. The students should work primarily with the material you gave them last year in history. You will certainly have adequate opportunities to discuss grammar and syntax in connection with corrections. Before you have the children write an essay, though, you should have the children from last year orally discuss the theme for the new children in the class.

Now, what did you do in history?

A teacher: We went up to the Reformation and took Luther’s biography in detail. I then worked with Buckle’s History of Civilization in England, and attempted to use it to shed some light on the present.

Dr. Steiner: I would recommend that you for the time do not go further, but go through it again with a spiritual scientific perspective. Follow that with Lecky’s History of Modern Civilization.

A teacher: I now have a combined eighth–ninth grade class in German.

Dr. Steiner: It would perhaps be best if you precede Herman Grimm with Goethe, so that you could then catch part of the class up with what you already said about Goethe, Schiller, and Herder. That would be good for both classes, and then you could leave Jean Paul for later. You could teach both classes the same history, so that we have only geography left.

A teacher: We mainly did the Ice Age, the movement of land and water and so forth. In general, we focused on the geology of that period.

Dr. Steiner: In connection with all that, I would recommend that you thoroughly examine the Alps, the northern limestone Alps, the southern limestone Alps along with the river valleys that form the boundaries, the mountain ranges—in other words, the different sections. Then something about the landscape and about the geological qualities beginning with the Lake Alps all the way through Switzerland to the Austrian Alps. In this discussion of the Alps, you could also point out that the structure of the Earth forms a kind of cross, and that these mountainous formations represent that. Then continue the Alps toward the Pyrenees and all the way through to the Carpathians, and then go on with the forested mountains right through to the Altaic range, so that you then have an east-west range that continues under the Earth and encloses the Earth like a ring. The Rocky Mountain-Andes Cordillera crosses that at a right angle, forming another ring. You can explain these two rings crossing one another so nicely as the structure of the Earth. Through that the students can get an idea that the Earth has an inner organization. You can do all this, but allow yourself enough time. You do not need to handle everything in geography at once.

Then we have mathematics. You have already taken up equations, haven’t you? How far have you come in exponents? Squaring, cubing, and more general exponents? Have you already cubed binomials and trinomials?

A teacher: There were no difficulties, but there was no reason to do the binomial law, that is, \((a + b)^2\), \((a + b)^3\), \((a + b)^4\).

Dr. Steiner: How do the students do that?

A teacher: I had them multiply them out.

Dr. Steiner: What I mean is, do your students know that \((a + b)^3 = a3\) and so forth? Can they do that? If you have not required that they learn it as a formula, then you have not begun with raising numbers to a power, and you have not had them figure the formula \(3553\) or \(3552\). I would continue in this way by having the children do the cubes for numbers using a formula. Then have them do the square roots and cube roots.

A teacher: I did not think it was important.

Dr. Steiner: In such things, it is not so important that children do things the way they will need them later, but that they practice a particular form of thinking. The form of thinking that they practice in finding the cube or square, or by taking the root of a number, has the peculiarity that it abstracts from the concrete numbers and then puts the numbers together in another way. Such work in the depths of the numerical construct is so formative for thought, that they have to do it.

Then they need more practical computations. I would certainly find it proper if you had children figure things that have a practical content, which is certainly in accord with your intentions. I would say, for instance, that if a watering can is cylindrical or conical, it contains a certain amount of water. How much water is that if the diameter of the base of one can is half that of another one?

I would then go on to approximations so that the children get an idea of that. Begin with a transit and how to find the average value in such practical things as weighing things with a balance scale. You could then continue on with examples in the exchange of money. Then, of course, we need to consider geometry. You should, of course, begin with computing volumes of bodies, and then I would advise you to begin with descriptive geometry.

A teacher describes what he did in physics.

Dr. Steiner: In physics you should try to do two things. In the first case, present acoustics and electricity, to which magnetism also belongs, so that the children can understand the telephone. In the second case, cover heat and mechanics and everything else the children need to understand a locomotive. That is enough for the ninth grade.

A teacher: Last year, we divided geography and I presented something about astronomy.

Dr. Steiner: Of course, in that connection, we should look at the Doppler Effect, that is, the movement of the stars in the line of vision. You did not discuss the movement of stars in the line of vision? You need to include everything the children need in order to understand the movement of the stars in the line of vision. You should work toward that goal.

A teacher: Then you don’t want any optics in physics? Only heat, mechanics, and electricity?

Dr. Steiner: You can add as much of optics as you need to explain the Doppler Effect. Be sure to also include acoustics.

A teacher: Are the conclusions about the movement of stars from shifts in spectral lines justified?

Dr. Steiner: Why not? It is certainly correct to conclude that if you have two spectra and find one line in one position and the same line in a different position in the other one, that has something to do with different distances. That is a proper conclusion.

A teacher: We could conclude that about the Sun.

Dr. Steiner: I would use the Doppler Effect only with double stars; I would not generalize it. You should use it only to show that the stars rotate around each other, since the general assumption is that the stars move cyclically in the direction of vision. Only go that far. Then, we have chemistry. What we already did in the eighth grade, the fundamentals of organic chemistry, what an alcohol is, what an ether is, we should continue in the ninth grade.

Anthropology: Continue with that so that the children gain a proper understanding of anthropology. That should move in concentric circles from grade to grade in such a way that you connect the remaining natural sciences with it.

Mr. Baumann, what do you think about music and singing in the ninth grade?

A teacher: I was unable to accomplish what I wanted because the students had so little previous training in music.

Dr. Steiner: Could you give the music lessons in the eurythmy hall if they do not conflict with eurythmy?

A teacher: There is hardly space for eurythmy.

Dr. Steiner: Then, we will never be able to bring the music instruction into order until we have the large hall. The musical instruction will never be what it should be until we have the large hall.

Two things are important. We should teach music as completely as possible. If we want to prepare the children, we cannot do too much with instruments since hearing poor instruments will ruin their sense of tone. That is an important point. We could certainly do well with the old style of church singing.

A teacher: I want to say something about the majors and minors and about the color of sound in pure tones.

Dr. Steiner: That is the exact material for the ninth grade, and it is certainly something we should strive for under all circumstances. We should look at some things a little theoretically and also give something for the feeling. Major and minor should become a feeling.

A teacher: In deportment class, I went into the differences between men and women. The children seemed interested in that.

Dr. Steiner: I think it would be nice if you connected that with singing and made the connection with male and female voices. Not much has been tried in this direction. It is quite certain that teaching this age child about observed differences between male and female singing voices would counteract the false sexual feelings that are so strong today. That would certainly have a good effect.

It is painful for me that you cannot move forward with the instruments. Playing instruments is something we cannot replace. Regarding private lessons, well, private lessons are private lessons. Here we must remember that, as we understand it, children should take up musical instruments in the general context of education. Private lessons do not help in that regard. It is certainly too bad we cannot do that. I fear it will be a long time before we get to it. A teacher: We have some instruments, but we need rooms, and we really need a teacher.

Dr. Steiner: We already discussed that. Is it only a question of rooms?

A teacher: We have about fifteen instruments. If we had even the chorus room, we could do things like Hayden’s “Children’s Symphony.”

Dr. Steiner: That would be good.

A question is asked about language class.

Dr. Steiner: At that age, I would emphasize recitation. You can learn much about the mastery of language through recitation. The children can gain a sense for idioms through recitation and then learn to apply that to other things. We can continue that in eurythmy and grammar.

In the shop class, I had thought we could cultivate things about art and a feeling for art indirectly. In shop, it is important to have the children do different things and always complete them. I wouldn’t have them make only useful things, but toys also, reasonable toys. I think it would be very nice if the children made little blacksmiths that make each other move alternately. The children will become dexterous. They can also make presents. I would work in that direction.

If we could also do something festive for the children, that is, have them gather moss and make Christmas crèches, so that they make the little sheep and so forth and paint it, they will learn a great deal. Of course, we shouldn’t neglect useful objects. They are particularly happy when they can make something like a ratchet noisemaker, things that are like a little practical joke.

We rattle, we rattle the twelve together.
The bells are coming from Rome.

A teacher: There is still the question of the handwork teacher. I have spoken with Miss S. She is a drawing teacher, but can also teach handwork.

Dr. Steiner: That would be just the thing if someone who was artistic took over the handwork class. We would have to be certain, though, that she is capable of it. She would fit in well.

Under certain circumstances, there is something else we should consider. She does not have one characteristic that another lady has. Miss Hauck is from here and is the daughter of the former professor Guido Hauck, who wrote an article, “Arnold Böcklin’s Realms of the Soul and Goethe’s Faust.” He also wrote “A Technical Explanation of Faust.” Hauck was one of the last. If she could decide to become a handwork teacher, we would have the advantage that she is from Schwabia, something that would be quite good. She has been teaching at a workers’ school, and for that reason I would consider not calling her here, because it would be good if she taught the people there. The workers’ schools say that people don’t need to learn frivolous things like geometry. Only things such as class struggle and preparation for the revolution should be taught. That is one thing, and the other is a recent event, namely, that the technical school has fired her. Perhaps Mr. Strakosch could give an opinion about whether it is necessary for factory mechanics to learn something about geometry. I would ask you to give your own opinion, but I think architecture and mechanical engineering would cease if technical schools no longer teach geometry. Everything would sink into barbarism. In mechanical engineering, you can’t put a peg into a hole. People can’t construct anything like that. This is all pure nonsense.

I think she would be suitable, but I fear that under our present circumstances, she might be too much. She was an assistant at the technical university for many years. We should consider these two women. For personal reasons, Miss S. would prefer not to be asked. Perhaps we could telegraph Miss Hauck tomorrow and ask if she can come.

For the seventh, eighth, and ninth grade independent religious instruction we could move into a freer form and give a theoretical explanation about such things as life before birth and after death, and all the consequences of a life before birth. We could give them examples. We could show them how to look at the major cultural connections and about the mission of the human being on Earth. You need only to look at Goethe or Jean Paul to see it. You can show everywhere that their capacities come from a life before birth.

We could then go on with a good picture that really reaches into the religious if we explained the body of the Laocoön. With the Laocoön the etheric body actually separated; thus, the physical body made such contortions. You can illustrate much through the breaking of the Laocoön’s physical body. You would need a group, but you can lift the discomfort about the dissolution of the human body into the religious.

We have decided about the Sunday services. We need to name somebody to replace Mrs. Koegel in teaching the children. I would ask for suggestions. The person needs to feel called upon to do this. Does someone want to do that? Would you like to do it with Miss Röhrle?

A teacher: A deaf and dumb girl has enrolled.

Dr. Steiner: She cannot come to the Waldorf School.

A class teacher asks about another child who has enrolled.

Dr. Steiner: What is with him? I feel bad about the boy.

A teacher: He is impossible in class.

Dr. Steiner: That may be only a passing thing. When I spoke with him, he certainly seemed as if he could improve. I am also convinced that if you do what I suggested with him, he will improve in half a year. We can certainly not hope he will improve if we completely isolate him. We can’t do that.

A teacher: Then my other children will be shortchanged.

Dr. Steiner: I think it is only temporary. It is probably connected with the fact that he just came into the school. That could certainly have an effect.

A teacher: He was terribly nervous.

Dr. Steiner: The child’s constitution is quite irregular. This is a boy who has something like—well, you can break your arm or leg on your physical body, but you cannot break your head—but this boy has a broken etheric head, and for that reason he is, of course, always nervous. That is more evident with him than with other children, but I think it is only temporary. In any event, we will have to tell the parents that they will need to be patient until we have the remedial class. Have you known him long? Was he always that way? His whole life becomes chaotic with every event. Is he taking any medication? Has he had childhood illnesses? I thought so. You said he had a mental dysfunction. You can counteract that with hypophsis cerebri. Does he have any siblings? There is a disturbance in his growth caused by something the mother had before he was born.

A teacher: She once told me she was half crazy the whole time.

Dr. Steiner: The boy came into this situation through the pregnancy. Then we will work with him and take him into the school as soon as Dr. Schubert’s remedial class begins.

Surely, you have more questions.

The question of Dr. Steiner’s position in the school organization is brought up again.

Dr. Steiner: Defining my position has only opportunistic value. It would have been good if I had been included at the time the faculty was reported to the government. It is important now only because government officials require us to be exact.

A teacher: Perhaps we could send them a complete list and put you at the top.

Dr. Steiner: That always looks strange, because they will compare it with the old lists.

A teacher: We still need to fix it, though.

Dr. Steiner: There isn’t much we can do other than to write and say we forgot it and want to revise the list. “We unfortunately forgot this last time and want to make a revision.” I don’t know of any other way around this. It certainly would look funny if we did nothing, or if we made a new list.

A question is asked regarding the opponents of anthroposophy.

Dr. Steiner: These rumors are always coming up. You see it everywhere in Switzerland. We are now trying to trace all the different variations of these despicable things with the goal of wiping away all traces of their machinations, and of their being able to say that I had done something with Anthroposophy and turned things around. These people spread teachings they say are mine and then they wipe away their tracks.

Is there anything else?

A teacher asks about the World School Association, which is to be situated in Dornach, but work in Germany. If a German section were to be founded now, then everything could be brought into order during the courses in Dornach.

Dr. Steiner: Don’t we need a World School Association before we can form a German section? Now the path toward a World School Association must begin from an international center.

We could center the World School Association in Dornach, but we do not need to begin it there. Before, we had a particular presentation that sharply emphasized that we still have only a small school, but we cannot grow since we must turn away many children. We can no longer say that, so we must now begin the World School Association differently. Of course, if we have a large number of visitors in Dornach, we could begin by creating a good attitude. I don’t think it should begin here, because we can no longer say there are a hundred children waiting at the gates of the school.

We now need to begin it differently. We could work in Dornach, but I had also thought we could begin in a more international place, The Hague, for instance. We still have reason to believe we can do something for our movement, but we would ruin everything if we founded the World School Association here. We can do all kinds of things for the Waldorf School. There is such a positive attitude here, but we may not found the Association here. At the time I had thought we could begin an energetic campaign, but I would now favor a foundation arising in London. That, however, is not yet achievable. Apart from that, I still hope that other things will move more quickly.

[Editor’s note: The remaining notes of this meeting are very erratic and uncertain, as to both the content and the speaker. Possible missing parts are indicated by an ellipsis.]

Dr. Steiner: I had thought before that I would have to do that with the World School Association. We have a number of anthroposophists in The Hague.

A teacher: I think they are all mixed up.

A teacher: You cannot depend upon H. He will never say he is an anthroposophist.

Dr. Steiner: If I were to go to The Hague, H. would certainly help. A teacher: As long as you are there!

Dr. Steiner: It doesn’t need to be more … it is enough if he can do one thing, and if he prepares the way.

A teacher: He blocks the way. He has hidden the fact that there is a Goetheanum. The students were surprised when they heard that it exists, although they were brought to Switzerland under H.’s guidance.

Dr. Steiner: That’s how people are, but you cannot move forward if you do not take people as they are.…

In addition to The Hague, Zurich and Geneva also came under discussion.

A teacher: Don’t we have to do some preparation here? We should think about the names of the individual schools. We do not see your goals.

Dr. Steiner: I do not believe it is particularly urgent to find names for the individual schools. What kind of conditions do you want to create from here?

A teacher: I am not really certain we have thought of everything.

Dr. Steiner: In the end, what is important is that you master the situation at the proper moment, and that is today. I already mentioned that. If we could provide our movement with such basic principles, we would get somewhere. We need to comprehend the world situation.

We must use things as they come. You see, for example, we started the publishing company here, but it has done little until now. However, two books appeared, Dr. Stein and the one by Polzer. These were only beginning works, but in large editions. We sold both books in only a few weeks. Someone said today that the book against Traub also sold out. People are just sleepy there. The movement would move forward if people would just move with the stream. As such, the stream is already there, but no one is swimming in it. We can certainly say that the current is there, but no one is swimming in it. You can see that from the fact that my public lectures are always well attended. It is certainly true that movement is there, but no one thinks about the fact that there is such movement.

In reality—the things I have to say are confidential, but I need to make a remark—the leadership of The Coming Day does not realize there is a threefold movement. That is not something that we need to advertise. We need only to know that a sleepiness exists. Many things begin and then stop. If I am to give everyone an individual task, then I can say only that everything can happen. Then our meetings should definitely not last until three in the morning. You will find the least amount of support in Berlin. There is no interest there. But even in Berlin, we could accomplish something if I could be there for a week. I cannot do it in three days. In Berlin, people don’t see beyond the walls of their own city.

A teacher: When could we do something in The Hague?

Dr. Steiner: When I see there is some interest, we can begin to think about doing something in that connection in Dornach. A teacher: Then we will have to decide how we can generate some interest.

Dr. Steiner: Yes, you see we have to learn how to generate interest in a more noble sense. If you look at the Haaß-Berkow Group with all their noise, you can see they certainly have a knack for creating interest. It must be possible, for example, when people come from outside, to have other titles for our presentations. It is important that we create interest, but we do not need to do it in a negative way. It is important to generate interest rather than simply discuss how. When so many people gather in one place, there is much we can do from person to person.

For the purposes of founding the World School Association, it is important to generate the proper interest. Suppose you can get fifty people to believe we should found such a World School Association. If the people from Dornach then travel and work in the proper way, that would mean that three weeks later, five hundred, and six weeks later, five thousand, would believe we should found a World School Association. You need to have the guts to create such an opinion in a number of people.

A teacher: Could the Waldorf teachers work in that way following the lectures?

Dr. Steiner: Of course, you can do that, but creating the opinion would have to move in parallel. Why is it that an esprit de corps, in the best sense of the word, never arises in something like the Anthroposophical Society?

Several teachers attempt to answer that question.

Dr. Steiner: As long as we were simply the Anthroposophical Society, all that was not important. We did not need money. Now, we have the misfortune that we do need it. It is not that we are greedy, but somehow we must support the movement. We can accomplish that only by generating interest. Now, this is very painful for me, many people who should be doing something have a certain kind of inner opposition. They do not do what I think is right, but something else. They have considerable resistance. That is common in our time, as though we could work out of the spirit and need no money. If you need money, you have to do something. It does not have to be unidealistic, but you must do something. I believe there is much more opposition than you might suppose, an inner opposition. Thus, there is a resistance. There is a sleepiness, a formation of cliques. It would be good if we could develop an esprit de corps.

We cannot form a section of something that does not yet exist.

A teacher: Well, the impetus must arise somewhere.

Dr. Steiner: It must come from a more extended group.

A teacher: Perhaps we could approach the representatives of the local school movements and warm them to the idea of the World School Association. For example, Principal B. in Br.

Dr. Steiner: It is not our concern to publicize the name of the World School Association, but to put such an organization into the world. B. is interested enough. The moment we have the World School Association, he will join and be active. For B. in Br., that means nothing more than another opportunity for more freeloading. It is unimportant whether you go around and gather money as the Waldorf faculty or as the World School Association. That is only a new name for the same thing. We need to create a real organization, an organization in itself.

A teacher: We need to make use of the time of the Dornach course.

Dr. Steiner: We will have to get those people to carry the thoughts of political agitation. We cannot get much from them directly, they are just poor wretches who would rather receive something. We certainly have such people. What is important is that these people carry the thoughts and spread them. We will have to keep those agitators warm. If we inaugurate something in The Hague—it does not need to be an association, we only need to begin political agitation—if we can begin to do that in The Hague, we should not forget that there is also a strong interest in doing something to help Central Europe. People already want that. If we can find the right tone, something will happen. We will need to try to articulate the feelings that exist so they go in the right direction. The perspective already exists, and that is something we could achieve. We could soon achieve something if the souls would awaken. You are already awake enough. It would be good if you could send forth something clever from Dornach with the same strength.

It would be better if the beggars and hoboes did not form the association as something to combat poverty, but that people who have something in their pockets do it.

There is some discussion concerning the course to be held in Stuttgart in the coming winter, and there are reports about what the teachers intend to present.

Dr. Steiner: There has been much talk, but we must do something. My only desire is that you do not offer college level lectures that then fall flat. That would be terrible. I would say something about Anthroposophy and philosophy.

A teacher: We had considered giving lectures each semester.

Dr. Steiner: We could group the subjects differently. I wouldn’t do it in the old way. I would group them more objectively. Mr. von Baravalle, you can certainly take care of Einstein’s theories and quantum theory.

A teacher: I think we can present it more easily to the students. The people here will certainly understand it.

Dr. Steiner: I think the ideas of projective geometry are very promising. I agree with what you have presented as a program. The people will certainly have a very different kind of picture when, aside from being able to determine an ellipse from an equation, they can comprehend the creation of an ellipse from a bundle of rays. That is quite a lot.

Perhaps it would be interesting to first give, for example, the basic concepts of analytical geometry and then those of projective geometry. You could then handle conical sections analytically and projectively. Now, there is usually a course for analytical geometry and then one for projective. It would be very interesting to teach the whole theory of conical sections analytically and projectively.

I think we need to close for today. I would certainly advise you to consider the courses in Dornach. Bring your plans with you. In Dornach, our direction is more toward people, but students want to have it more toward subjects. We could certainly specialize things. Dr. Schubert, there is certainly not much research about the soul of language.

I hope that our working together will develop more in the way I mentioned at the beginning today.