Schiller and Our Times

A WORD TO THE READER

The following is a copy of the lectures which I gave between January and March at the Berlin Freie Hochschule dealing with Schiller. The copy is based entirely on the notes which two of the audience made during the lectures. For myself I have been quite unable to look through the notes; and it is only in response to an earnest request that I can agree to the printing of the lectures. I do not really believe that lectures can be reproduced in print. The spoken word is meant to be heard and not to be read, and on that its style depends. ‘Spoken’ treatises or ‘spoken’ books are a monstrosity; and so are books which have their origin in the manuscript copy of a lecture. Anyone who has a feeling for style will agree with me. But exceptions may be made in isolated cases; and this is one of the exceptions — which seems to me to prove the rule.

Rudolf Steiner.

Berlin, April 1905.