LECTURE XI
MEMORY,
TEMPERAMENTS,
BODILY
CULTURE AND
ART
16th
August, 1923.
There are two
sides to be considered in teaching and education. One is connected with
the subject-matter of the lessons and the other with the child whose
faculties it is our task to unfold in accordance with what we learn
from a true observation of the human being. If we adopt the methods
described in these lectures, our teaching will always appeal to the
particular faculties that should be unfolded during the different
life-periods. Very special attention, however, must be paid to the
development of the child's memory and here it must be realized that
on account of a deficient understanding of the being of man our
predecessors have been prone to burden the memories of children and,
as I said yesterday in another connection, there has been a reaction
from this to the very opposite extreme. The tendency in the most
modern systems of education is to eliminate memory almost entirely.
Now both methods are wrong. The point really is that the memory ought
to be left alone up to the time of the change of teeth, when in the
ordinary way the child is sent to school. I have already said that
during this period of life physical body, etheric body, astral body
and Ego-organization are working in unison. The way in which the
child works out by imitation everything he unconsciously observes
around him has the effect of stimulating, even in the physical body
itself, the forces underlying the development of memory. During these
years of life therefore the memory must be left to develop without
interference.
On the other
hand, from the time of the change of teeth, when the nature of soul and
spirit is in a certain sense released from the body, systematic training
of the memory is of the greatest importance. Through the whole of a man's
life the memory makes claims on his physical body. Unless there is an
all-round development of the physical body the memory will be
impaired in some way. Indeed it is well known to-day that any injury
to the brain at once results in defective memory.
When we are
dealing with children, it is not enough to notice how in illness an element
of soul is involved. As teachers, we must always be on the alert for
every little intimate effect that is being produced on the bodily
nature of the child by the soul and spirit. An undue development of
memory will injure the child for the whole of life, will even injure
his physical body.
How then can
we rightly unfold the faculty of memory? Above all we must realize that
abstract concepts, concepts built up by the rationalizing intellect, are
a load on the memory in the period of life between the change of teeth
and puberty.
Perceptions of
a living nature, plastic ideas conveyed to the child in his art lessons on
the other hand call forth those living forces which play down even into
the physical body and allow the memory to unfold in the right way.
The best
foundation for the full development of memory is laid when the whole
teaching during the Elementary School period is informed with artistic
quality.
Art rightly
taught leads to perfect control of bodily movement. If we are able to
stimulate the child to self-activity in art, if as he paints, writes or
draws, his bodily nature bestirs itself together with his qualities of
spirit, we shall rightly unfold the forces that must proceed from the
soul and come to the aid of memory in the physical body. In
to-morrow's lecture I will explain how this is achieved in Eurhythmy.
We must not fall into the error of believing that a complete
elimination or an insufficient feeding of memory can ever be of
benefit to the child.
There are three
golden rules for the development of memory: Concepts load the memory;
Concrete artistic activity builds it up; activities of will
strengthen it. We have
splendid opportunities for applying these three golden rules if we
teach nature-study and history in the way I have been indicating
during these lectures. Arithmetic too may be used for the same end,
for in arithmetic we ought always to begin with an artistic
understanding of things. But when the children thoroughly understand
the more simple operations with numbers up to ten or twenty, let us
say, we need not be afraid of working upon the memory afterwards. It
is not more right to overload the child with too many concrete
pictures than it is to put too great a strain on his powers of
memory, for concepts carried too far into complexity have the same
effect. We must therefore carefully observe how the memory is
unfolding in the case of each individual child. Here we see how
necessary it is for the teacher and educationalist to have some
understanding of tendencies to health and disease in the human being.
Strange experiences have often come one's way in this connection. A
gentleman whose whole life is concerned with education once
came to visit the Waldorf School and I tried to explain the spirit
underlying the teaching there. After a little while he said:
“Yes, but if you work on those lines the teachers will have to
know a great deal about medicine.” It seemed to him quite
impossible that they could understand medicine to the extent
necessary in such a school. I said that even though this would arise
naturally out of a knowledge of the nature of man, a certain amount
of medical instruction ought to form part of the training course for
teachers. Questions concerning health ought not to be left
entirely to the school doctor. I think we are particularly fortunate
at the Waldorf School in that our school doctor himself is on the
staff of the College of Teachers. Dr. Eugen Kolisko is a doctor by
profession and besides looking after the children's health, he is
also a member of the teaching staff. In this way everything connected
with the bodily health of the children can proceed in fullest harmony
with their education.
This, in effect,
is necessary: our teachers must learn to understand matters connected
with health and sickness in the child. To give an example: a teacher
notices a child growing paler and paler. Another child may lose his
natural colour because his face begins to be excessively red. The
teacher will find, if he observes accurately, that the latter child
is showing signs of restlessness and peevishness. We must be able to
connect all such symptoms in the right way with the spiritual nature.
Abnormal pallor, or even the mere tendency to it, is the result of
over-exertion of the memory. The memory of such a child has been
overstrained and one must put a stop to this. In the case of a child
with an abnormally high colour, the memory has not been given enough
to do. This child must be given things to memorize and then we must
make sure that he has retained them in his mind. The memory of a
child who grows paler and paler must therefore be relieved, whereas
in the case of a child with excessive colour, we must set about
developing the memory.
We only approach
the whole human being if we are thus able to handle his nature of soul
and spirit in intimate harmony with his physical body. In the Waldorf
School, the child, the growing human being, is handled according to
his qualities of spirit, soul and body, above all according to his
particular temperament.
In the classroom
itself we arrange the children in a way that enables the various temperaments
— choleric, sanguine, melancholic or phlegmatic — to be
expressed and adjusted among themselves. The very best way is to make
the choleric children or again the melancholic children sit together,
for then they tone each other down. One must of course know how to
judge and then deal with the different temperaments, for this in turn
affects the very roots of bodily development.
Take the case
of a sanguine child, inattentive in his lessons. Every impression coming
from the outer world immediately engages his attention but passes away
again as quickly. The right treatment for such a child will be to reduce
the quantity of sugar in his food, not unduly, of course. The less
sugar he absorbs, the more will the excessively sanguine qualities be
modified and a harmonised temperament take their place.
In the case of
a melancholic child who is always brooding, just the opposite treatment
is necessary. More sugar must be added to his food. In this way we
work right down into the physical constitution of the liver, for the
action of the liver differs essentially according to whether a large
or small quantity of sugar is taken. In effect, every activity of
outer life penetrates deeply into the physical organism of man.
At the Waldorf
School we take the greatest care that there shall be an intimate contact
between the teaching staff and the parents of the children. A really
intimate contact of course is only possible to a certain degree, for
it depends on the amount of understanding possessed by the parents.
We try however to the greatest possible extent to induce the parents
to come to the different teachers to obtain advice as to the most
suitable diet for the individual children. This is just as important
as what is taught in the classroom.
We must not
imagine in a materialistic sense that the body does everything, for
obviously a child with no hands cannot be taught to play the piano. The
role of the body is to be a suitable instrument. Just as one cannot teach
a child with no hands to play the piano, one cannot rid a child whose
liver is over-active, of melancholy, no matter what physical measures
are employed by abstract systems of education. If, however, the
action of the liver is regulated by increasing the quantity of sugar
in the child's diet, he will be able to use this bodily organ as a
fit instrument. Then only and not till then will spiritual measures
begin to be effective.
People often
imagine that reforms can be introduced into education by the reiteration
of abstract principles. All the world knows what is desirable in
teaching and how education ought to proceed. Yet true education
demands an understanding of the human being that can only be acquired
little by little, and so, although I neither attack nor belittle the
knowledge possessed by nearly everyone on the subject of education, I
say that it is of no practical use. This kind of knowledge seems to
me just like someone who says: “I want a house built; it must
look nice, be comfortable and weather-proof ...” And then off
he goes to someone who knows quite well that the house must have all
these qualities and thinks he can set about building. But to know
these things is of no practical use. That is approximately as much as
people in general know about the art of education and yet they think
they can bring about reforms. If I want a house properly built, I
must go to an architect who knows in detail how the plans must be
drawn, how the bricks are to be laid, how massive the girders must be
to bear the weight upon them and so on. The essential thing is to
know in detail how the human being is constituted, and not to speak
vaguely about human nature in general as one speaks about a house
being weatherproof, comfortable and beautiful to look at.
The civilized
world must realize that technique, a spiritualized technique of course,
is necessary in every detail of the art of education. If it becomes
general, this realization will indeed be a boon to all the very
praiseworthy efforts in the direction of educational reform that are
making themselves felt to-day.
* * *
The significance
of these principles is revealed above all when we come to consider the
very different individualities of children. It has become the practice
in schools not to allow children who cannot keep up with the work in a
particular class to go on to the next. Now in an art of education
where the child is taught in accordance with his particular age of
life, it must gradually become out of the question to leave a child
behind in a class, for then he will fall out of the sequence of the
kind of teaching that is suited to his years. In the Waldorf School,
of course, each class consists of children of one particular age. If
therefore, a child who ought to go up to the fourth class is left
behind in the third, the inner course of his education comes into
variance with his age. As far as we can we avoid this in the Waldorf
School. Only in very exceptional cases does it happen that a child
stays behind in his class. We make every effort to handle each child
individually in such a way that it will not be necessary for him to
stay behind.
Now as you all
know, there are children who do not develop normally, who are in some
way abnormal. At the Waldorf School we have instituted a special
‘helping’ class for these children. This helping class
provides for children whose faculties of thinking, feeling and
willing are under-developed and it has become very dear to our
hearts. A child whom we cannot have in a class because of a weakness
of some power of soul is taken into this separate class. And it is
really delightful at the Waldorf School to find a kind of competition
among the staff of teachers arising round a child when it is found
necessary to move him from his normal class into the helping class.
After all I have been saying, you will realize that there is the
greatest harmony between the members of the teaching staff at the
Waldorf School, but there is always a certain struggle when such a
thing has to be done. It means that Dr. Karl Schubert to whom, on
account of his wonderful qualities, the helping class has been
entrusted has to face a regular onset! The teachers never like giving
up a child to him. The children too feel it rather against the grain
to have to leave their normal class and the teacher whom they love to
go into the helping class. But again it is a blessing that before
very long they do not want to leave the helping class because they
have such a love for Dr. Schubert. He is extraordinarily well-fitted
to have charge of this helping class on account of his qualities of
character, temperament and his great capacity of love. This
capacity of love, devotion and unselfishness — and they are
really the foundation of the art of teaching — are specially
needed when it is a matter of bringing on children in an isolated
class of this kind to a point where they can again return to the
class corresponding to their age; and this is the goal we set
ourselves with the aid of the helping class.
True knowledge
of the nature of man brings the following facts to light. It is really
nonsense to speak of abnormalities or disease of the spiritual part
of man's being, although of course in colloquial language and for the
purposes of everyday life there is no need to be fanatical and
pedantic about such matters. Fundamentally speaking the spirit and
the soul are never ill. Illness can only occur in the bodily
foundation and what then passes over from the body into the soul.
Since however in earthly existence the being of soul and spirit can
only be approached through the instrument of the body, it is above
all necessary in the treatment of so-called abnormal children to know
that the body, precisely through its abnormality, makes this approach
to the soul and spirit impossible. As soon as we overcome a defect of
body or of body and soul in the child and are able to approach his
nature of soul and spirit, we have done what is necessary. In this
connection therefore our constant aim must be to perceive the delicate
and intimate qualities and forces of the bodily nature of man.
If we observe
that a child is slow of apprehension, that something hampers him from
connecting concepts and ideas, we must always realize that there is some
irregularity in the nervous system. Individual treatment will do much
in such a case, perhaps by going more slowly in the teaching or
particularly in rousing the will and the like. When a child is
abnormal, our treatment must always be individual and we shall do
infinite good by such measures as I have indicated, perhaps by
teaching slowly or stimulating the element of will into greater
activity. Great attention of course must be paid to bodily training
and culture in the case of such a child. Let me explain certain
principles by giving you a simple example.
Suppose it is
difficult for a child to put together ideas. We shall achieve much by
giving the child physical exercises in which his own body, his whole
organic system is made to act in accordance with an activity in his soul.
We may tell him for, instance, to touch the lobe of his left ear with
the third finger of the right hand and make him quickly repeat the
exercise. Then we may tell him to touch the top of his head with the
little finger of the left hand. Then we may alternate the first and
second exercises quickly, one after the other. The organism is
brought into movement in such a way that the child's thoughts must
flow swiftly into the movements he makes. Thus by stimulating the
nervous system we make it into a good foundation for the faculty
which the child must exercise when it is a question of connecting or
separating ideas.
In such ways we
can experience how the spiritual nature of the child may be stimulated
by the culture of the body. Suppose, for example, a child returns again
and again to one fixed idea. This tendency is obviously a great
weakness in his soul. He simply cannot help repeating certain words
or returning over and over again to the same ideas. They take a deep
hold of his being and he cannot get rid of them. If we observe such a
child closely, we shall generally find that he walks too much on his
heels and not with the toes and the front part of the foot. (All
these symptoms of course take an individual form in each child and
that is why a true knowledge of the human being, by means of which
one can make individual distinctions, is so necessary.) Such a child
needs exercises in which he must pay attention to every step he takes
and these must be repeated until they gradually become a habit. And
then, if it is not too late — in fact a great deal can be
achieved in this direction between the seventh and twelfth years
— we shall see an extraordinary improvement in the inner
condition of the child's soul. We should, for example, understand too
how movement of the fingers of the right hand influences the speech
organism, and how movement of the fingers of the left hand works upon
all that which comes to the help of thinking out of the speech
organism. We must know too how walking on the toes or walking on the
heels reacts upon the faculties of speech and thought, and specially
on the will. The art of Eurhythmy, working as it does with normal
forces, teaches us a great deal when we come to deal with the
abnormal. The movements of Eurhythmy also, although they are founded
upon that which is normal, are extremely valuable where the abnormal
is concerned. For while for the normal human being they are artistic
in their nature, for abnormality they can be adapted for therapeutic
use. Since the movements are derived from laws of the human organism
itself, the faculties of spirit and soul, which always need stimulus
during the period of growth, are given an impulse that proceeds from
the bodily nature. This proves how very necessary it is to realize
the unity between spirit, soul and body when we have to deal with
abnormal children at school.
The excellent
course of teaching that is being developed by Dr. Schubert in this branch
of work at the Waldorf School is achieving really splendid results. A
great power of love and unselfishness is of course necessary when it
is a matter of individual treatment in every case. These qualities
are absolutely essential in the helping class. In many cases, too,
resignation is required if any results at all are to be achieved, for
one can only work with what is there or can be brought out of the
human being. If only a quarter or a half of what would make the child
absolutely normal is attained, the parents are apt not to be quite
satisfied. But the essential thing in all human action that is guided
and directed by the spirit is to be independent of outer recognition
and to become more and more deeply aware of the sustaining power that
grows from a sense of inner responsibility. This power will increase
step by step in an art of education that perceives in these intimate
details of life the harmony between the child's spirit, soul and
body. Insight, perception, observation, these are what the
teacher needs; if he has these qualities, speech itself will come to
life in his whole being. Quite instinctively he will carry over
into his practical teaching, what he has learnt from observation of
the human being.
At a certain
age, as I told you yesterday, the child must be led on from the plant-
and animal-lore which he grasps more with his faculties of soul, to
mineral-lore, to physics and chemistry, where greater claims are made
on his conceptual faculties and intellect, but it is all-important
that these subjects shall not be taught too soon. During this period
of life when we are conveying the idea of causality to the
child and he learns of cause and effect in nature, it is essential to
balance the inorganic, lifeless elements in nature-study by leading
him into the domain of art.
If we are to
introduce art to the child in the right way, not only must all our teaching
be artistic from the beginning, but art itself must play its proper part
in education. That the plastic-pictorial arts are to be cultivated
you can see if only from the fact that the writing lessons begin with
a kind of painting. Thus, according to the Waldorf School principle,
we begin to give painting and drawing lessons at a very tender age of
childhood. Modelling too is cultivated as much as possible,
albeit only from the ninth or tenth year and in a primitive way. It
has a wonderfully vitalizing effect on the child's physical sight and
on the inner quality of soul in his sight, if at the right age he
begins to model plastic forms and figures. So many people go through
life without even noticing what is most significant in the objects
and events of their environment. Learning to see is what we must
learn, if we are to stand rightly in the world. And if the child is
to learn to observe aright, it is a very good thing for him to begin
as early as possible to occupy himself with modelling, for what his
head and eyes perceive is thus guided into the movements of fingers
and hand. In this way we shall not only awaken the child's taste for
the artistic around him, in the arrangement of a room perhaps, and
distaste for the inartistic, but he will begin to observe those things
in the world which ought to flow into the heart and soul of man.
By beginning
musical instruction with song, but leading on more and more to instrumental
playing, we develop the element of will in the human being. This
musical instruction is not only a means of unfolding his artistic
qualities, but also his purely “human” qualities,
especially those of the heart and will. We must of course begin with
song, but we must pass on as soon as possible to an understanding of
instrumental music in order that the child may learn to distinguish
the pure element of music, rhythm, measure, melody from everything
else, from imitative or pictorial qualities of music and the like.
More and more he must begin to realize and experience the purely
musical element. By leading the child into the sphere of art, by
building a bridge from play to life through art, we can begin,
between the eleventh and twelfth years, and that is the proper time,
to teach him to understand art. In the principles of education which
it is the aim of the Waldorf School to realize, it is of vital
importance for the child to acquire some understanding of art
at the right age. At the age when the child must realize that Nature
is ruled by abstract law, by natural law to be grasped by the reason,
when he must learn in physics the link between cause and effect in
given cases, we must promote an understanding of art as a necessary
counterpoise. The child must realize how the several arts have
developed in the different epochs of human history, how this or that
motif in art plays its part in a particular epoch. Only so will those
elements which a human being needs for all-round development of his
nature be truly stimulated. In this way too, we can unfold the
qualities which are essential in moral instruction.
If he acquires
an understanding of art, the relation of the human being to his
fellow-men will be quite different from what it could be without such
understanding. For what is the essence of the understanding of the
world, my dear friends? It is to be able at the right moment to
reject abstract concepts in order to attain insight into and true
understanding of the affairs of the world.
The mineral
kingdom and also the domain of physics can be understood in the light of
cause and effect. When we come to the plant-world, however, it is
impossible to grasp everything through logic, reason and intellect.
The plastic principle of man's being must here come into play, for
concepts and ideas have to pass into pictures. Any plastic skill that
we develop in the child helps him to understand the formations
contained in the plants. The animal kingdom can only be comprehended
if the ideas for its understanding are first implanted and developed
in us by moral education. This alone will activate such inner powers
as enable us to understand the forces building up the animal
structure from the invisible world. How few people, how few
physiologists to-day know whence the form of an animal is derived!
Indeed the origin of the animal form is the structure of organs
which, in man, become the organs of speech and song. That is the
origin of the organic forms and structure of the animal. The animal
does not come to the point of articulate speech; it only comes to the
point of song as we know it in the birds. In speech and song,
form-giving forces stream outwards, giving shape to the air-waves,
and sound arises. That which in the organism of speech and song
develops from out of a vital principle passes back into
the form of
the animal. It is only possible to understand the form of an animal
if we realize that it develops, musically as it were, from organs
which at a later stage are metamorphosed in the human being into the
organic structures connected with the element of music.
To understand
man we need an all-round conception of art, for the faculty of reason can
only comprehend the inorganic constituents of man's being. If at the right
moment we know how to lead over the faculty of mental perception to
artistic feeling, then and only then is a true understanding of man
possible. This understanding of man's being must be awakened by the
teaching we give on the subject of art. If the teacher himself is
possessed of true artistic feeling and can introduce the child to
Leonardo's “Last Supper” or Raphael's “Sistine
Madonna” at the right age, not only showing the definite
relations between the various figures, but how colour, inner
perspective and so forth were treated in the time of Leonardo or
Raphael, in short, if nature and history alike are imbued with an
inner quality of soul through teaching that conveys an
understanding of art then we are bringing the human element
into all education.
Nothing must
be left undone in the way of imbuing the child with artistic feeling at
the right age in life. Our civilization will never receive an impulse of
ascent until more art is introduced into schools. Not only must the whole
teaching be permeated with art, but a living understanding of art,
called into being by the teacher's own creative power, must set up a
counterpoise to prosaic conceptions of nature and of history.
We deem this
an all-essential part of Waldorf School education. True indeed it
is, and every artist has felt the same, that art is not a mere
discovery of man but a domain wherein the secrets of nature are
revealed to him at a level other than that of ordinary intelligence,
a domain in which he gazes into the mysteries of the whole universe.
Not until the moment when man realizes the world itself to be a work
of art and regards Nature as a creative artist, not until then is he
ready for a deepening of his being in the religious sense. There is
profound meaning in these words of a German poet: ‘Only through
the dawn gates of beauty canst thou pass into the realm of
knowledge.’ It is so indeed; when we understand the whole being
of man through art, we generate in others too an all-embracing
conception of the world. That is why our aim in education
should be to add to what is required by prosaic culture and
civilization, the purely human element. To this end, not only must
cur teaching itself be full of artistic feeling, but an understanding
of art must be awakened in the children.
Art and science
will then lead on to a moral and religious deepening. But as a preliminary
to religious and moral progress, education and teaching must set up this
balance: in the one scale lie all those things that lead into prosaic
life, that bind men to the earth; in the other scale lie the
counterbalancing factors leading to art, factors that enable man at
every moment of his life to sublimate and raise to the spirit what
must first be worked out in the ‘prose’ of life.
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