Part 1

THE EDUCATION OF CHILDREN

FROM THE STANDPOINT OF THEOSOPHY

BY RUDOLF STEINER PH. D. (VIENNA)

AUTHORIZED TRANSLATION FROM THE SECOND GERMAN EDITION

[Colophon]

AMERICAN EDITION

_THE RAJPUT PRESS._

[Further colophon]

_CHICAGO._

1911

COPYRIGHT 1911, BY WELLER VAN HOOK, IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

IN VIEW OF THE MANY UNAUTHORIZED TRANSLATIONS OF DR. RUDOLF STEINER’S WORKS, THE PUBLISHER BEGS TO GIVE NOTICE THAT ALL AUTHORISED EDITIONS, ISSUED UNDER THE EDITORSHIP OF MR. MAX GYSI, BEAR THE SYMBOL OVERLEAF (CROSS IN PENTAGRAM).

MAX GYSI, Editor, “Adyar,” Park Drive, Hampstead, London, N. W.

THE EDUCATION OF CHILDREN

FROM THE STANDPOINT OF THEOSOPHY

(TRANSLATED BY W. B.)

Present day life calls into question many things which man has inherited from his ancestors hence the numberless questions of the day, as for example: the Social Problem, the Woman’s Movement, Education and School Questions, Law Reform, Hygiene, Sanitation, and so forth. We try to grapple with these questions in manifold ways. The number of those who bring forward this or that remedy in order to solve this or that question, or at least to contribute something towards its solution, is immeasurably great, and every possible shade of opinion is manifested in these endeavors; radicalism, carrying itself with a revolutionary air; the moderate view, full of respect for existing things and desirous of fashioning out of them something new; or conservatism, up in arms, whenever old institutions and traditions are tampered with; and besides these main attitudes, there are all sorts of intermediary points of view.

He who is able to probe deeply into life cannot help feeling one thing with regard to these phenomena—that the claims which are placed before men in our time are met repeatedly by inadequate means. Many would like to re-form life, without really knowing it from its foundations. He who would put forth a proposition as to life in the future, must not content himself with merely learning to know life superficially. He must probe it to its depths.

Life is like a plant that contains not only that which is visible to the eye, but also a future condition concealed within its secret depths. He who has before him a plant that is just in leaf, is well aware that later on blossoms and fruit will be added to the leaf-bearing stem. The germs of these blossoms and fruit are already concealed within the plant. But it is impossible for one who merely regards it in its present condition to say how these organs will ultimately appear. Only he who is acquainted with the nature of the plant can do so.

Human life also contains within itself the germs for its future. But to be able to say anything about this future one must penetrate into the hidden nature of man, and this, the present age, has no real inclination to do. It busies itself with the surface and thinks itself treading on unsafe ground should it advance into that which is hidden from external observation. With the plant it is true the matter is considerably simpler. We know that its like has often and often brought forth flowers and fruit. Human life exists but once and the flowers which it is to bring forth in the future were not previously there. None the less they exist in human life in embryo, just as much as the flowers of the plant which at present is only just bearing leaves.

And it is possible to say something about this future, when one penetrates beneath the surface, into the heart of human nature. The different reformatory ideas of the present can only become really fruitful and practical, when they are the result of this deep research into human life.

Theosophy is suited by its very nature to present a practical philosophy, comprehending the whole sphere of human life. Whether or not Theosophy, or that which in our time so often passes for it, is justified in putting forth such a claim, is not the point. The point concerns rather the nature of Theosophy and what, by means of this nature, it is able to accomplish. It ought not to be a colorless theory to satisfy the mere curiosity of knowledge, nor yet a medium for those men who, out of selfishness, would like to win for themselves a higher grade of evolution. It can contribute something to the most important problems of present day Humanity, in the development of its well-being.

Of course if it acknowledges a mission of this kind it must expect to meet with all manner of opposition and doubt. Radicals, Moderates and Conservatives of all departments in life will surely raise such doubts against it. For at first it will be unable to please any one party, because its doctrines reach far beyond all party motives.

And these doctrines have their roots wholly and solely in the true understanding of life. Only he who understands life will be able to take his lessons from life itself. He will draw up no capricious schemes, for he knows that no other fundamental laws of life will prevail in the future than such as prevail in the present. Theosophy will therefore of necessity have respect for the existing state of things. Even, should it still find in what is existent, very much that might be improved, yet it will not fail to perceive in the present the germs of the future. But it knows, too, that for all things nascent there is a growth and a development. Therefore the germs for a transformation and for a future growth will appear to Theosophy in the existing state of things. It invents no schemes, it only calls them forth from what already exists. But that which is so called forth becomes in a certain sense itself a scheme, for it contains within itself the nature of evolution.

For this very reason the theosophical way of delving into the nature of man must yield the most fruitful and practical means for the solution of the vitally important questions of the present time.

It is my purpose to apply this to one such question, namely that of education. We do not intend to advance any claims or pronounce a learned dissertation, but to portray simply the child nature. From a study of the nature of the growing man, the educational standpoint here suggested will develop quite naturally. But to proceed rightly with such a study it is necessary to contemplate the hidden nature of man in general.

That which is cognised by the physical perception, that which the materialistic view of life considers to be the only important element in the nature of man, namely, his physical body, forms, according to spiritual research, only a part, a principle of human nature. This physical body is subject to the same laws of physical life, is composed of the same matter and forces, as all the rest of the so-called lifeless world. Theosophy, therefore, maintains that man possesses this physical aspect in common with the whole of the mineral kingdom. And it considers as physical body that part only in man which is able to mix, unite, to build up and to dissolve the very same materials, and after identical laws, as are also at work in the mineral world.

Now besides this physical body, Theosophy recognizes a second element in the constitution of man—namely a vital or etheric body. And that there may be no cause for the physicist to reject the term etheric body we would point out that etheric is here used in a different sense from the hypothetical ether of physics, and it must be taken to mean here that which is about to be described.

It has been considered for some time past a most unscientific proceeding to speak of an “etheric body” of this kind. At the end of the eighteenth and in the first half of the nineteenth century, it is true, it was not considered “unscientific.” It was then said that matter and force operating in a mineral could not of their own power form themselves into a living being. For this there must be an especial indwelling “force,” which was termed “vital force.” It was represented indeed that such a force operates in plants, in animals, and in human bodies, and produces the phenomena of life just as magnetic force in the magnet causes attraction. In the succeeding period of materialism this theory had been abandoned. It was then said that a living being builds itself up in the same way as a so-called lifeless being; no other forces prevail in an organism than those which are in the mineral—they only operate in a more complicated manner; they build up a more complex structure. At the present time, only the most obstinate materialists cling to this denial of the “vital force.” A number of natural philosophers have taught that one must nevertheless admit some such thing as a vital force of a life-principle.

Thus the new science approaches in a certain sense the teaching of Theosophy in regard to the vital body. Nevertheless there is a considerable difference between the two. Science today, by means of intellectual observations founded on the facts of ordinary perception, has accepted the idea of a kind of vital force. But this is not the method of a truly spiritual research, such as Theosophy aims at, and from the results of which proceed the theosophical teachings. It cannot be pointed out too often, how Theosophy on this point differs from the current science of the day. The latter considers the experience of the senses to be the basis of all knowledge, and whatever is not built upon this basis it treats as unknowable. From the impressions of the senses it draws deductions and conclusions. But anything that goes further it puts aside, as being beyond the limits of human knowledge. To Theosophy such a prospect resembles the view of a blind man who only takes into consideration those things that he can touch, and what he may infer from the touched object by reasoning, but who sets aside the statements of those who can see as being beyond the faculty of human perception. For Theosophy shows that man is capable of evolution, that through the developing of new organs he may conquer for himself new worlds. Around the blind man there is color and light, but he cannot perceive them, because he does not possess the requisite organs. Around man, so Theosophy teaches, there are many worlds, and he can observe them, if only he develops the organs necessary for the purpose.

Even as the blind man looks upon a new world as soon as he has undergone a successful operation, so can man, through the developing of higher organs, perceive worlds quite different from those which he observed at first with his ordinary senses. Now whether or not it is possible to operate on one who is bodily blind depends on the conditions of the organs; but those higher organs by which one may penetrate into the upper worlds, exist in embryo in every human being. Anyone can develop them, who has the patience, endurance and energy to make use of those methods which are described in my two books entitled “The Way of Initiation” and “Initiation and Its Results.”[1]

Theosophy does not speak of limitations to man’s knowledge through his organism; but says, on the contrary, that he is surrounded by worlds for which he has the organs of perception. It indicates the means by which to extend the temporary limits. It also occupies itself with the investigation of the vital, or etheric body, and to what in the following may be called the yet higher principles of human nature. It admits that only the physical body can be accessible to the investigation of the bodily senses, and that from this standpoint one can at most only chance on something higher by a train of reasoning. But it gives information as to how one can open up for oneself a world in which these higher principles of human nature appear before the observer, just as the colors and light of objects appear before the blind-born person after his operation. For those who have developed the higher organs of perception, the etheric or vital body is an object of actual observation, and not a theory resulting from intellectual activity or a train of reasoning.

Man has this etheric, or vital body, in common with the plants and animals. It causes the matter and forces of the physical body to form themselves into the manifestations of growth, of reproduction, of the internal motions of the fluids, etc. It is also the builder and sculptor of the physical body, its inhabitant and its architect. The physical body can therefore also be called an image or expression of this vital body. Both are approximately the same in man as regards form and size, yet they are by no means quite alike. But the etheric body in animals and still more in plants, differs considerably from the physical body with regard to its shape and dimension.

The third principle of the human being is the so-called body of feeling, or astral body. It is the vehicle of pain and pleasure, of impulse, desire, passion, and so forth. An entity composed merely of a physical and an etheric body has nothing of all this, to which may be ascribed the term—sensation. The plant has no sensation. If many a learned man of our time concludes that plants have a certain power of sensation, from the fact that many of them respond to a stimulus, by movement, or in other ways, he merely shows that he does not know the essence of sensation. The point is, not whether the being in question responds to an outward stimulus, but rather whether the stimulus reflects itself through an inner experience, such as pleasure or pain, impulse, desire, etc. If this be not the standard of sensation, one would be justified in asserting that blue litmus paper has a sense of feeling for certain substances, because on coming into contact with them, it turns red.[2]

Man has the astral body in common with the animal world only. It is thus the medium for the life of sensation and feeling.

One must not fall into the error of certain theosophical circles and think that the etheric body and astral body consist merely of finer matter than that which exists in the physical body. For this would mean simply the materialisation of these higher principles of human nature. The etheric body is a form of living forces; it is composed of active forces, but not of matter—and the astral body or body of feeling is a form consisting of colored luminous pictures revolving within themselves.[3]

The astral body differs in form and size from the physical body. It appears in man in the form of an oblong egg, in which the physical and the etheric bodies are embedded. It projects on all sides beyond these two like a luminous cloud.

Now in the nature of man there is a fourth principle which he does not share with other earthly creatures. This is the vehicle of the human “I”. The little word “I” as we call it in English is a word that separates itself from all other words. He who duly reflects on the nature of this word, gains access at the same time to an understanding of human nature. Every other word may be used by all men in the same way to suit some corresponding object. Anyone can call a table “table,” any one can call a chair “chair,” but with the word “I” it is not so. No one can use it as an indication of some one else, for each person can only speak of himself as “I”. Never can the word “I” sound in my ears as a reference to myself. For a man in designating himself “I”, must name himself within himself. A being that can say to himself “I” is a world in himself. Those religions which are built up on the basis of Theosophy have always felt this. They have therefore said that with the “ego” the God begins to speak within—the God who, among lower beings, is manifested only from without in the surrounding phenomena.

The vehicle of this lastly developed capacity is now “the body of the ego,” the fourth principle of the human being.[4] This body of the ego is the vehicle of the higher human soul, and through it man is the crown of all earthly creation. But the ego in present humanity is by no means a simple entity. Its nature can be recognized when a comparison is made between men of different stages of evolution. Take for instance the uneducated savage and the average European, and compare these again with a lofty idealist. Each one of them has the faculty of saying to himself “I” for the “body of the ego” is existent in each of them. But the uncivilized savage gives way with this “I” to his passions, his impulses and appetites, almost like an animal. The more highly developed man allows himself to follow certain inclinations and desires, others he checks or suppresses. The idealist has formed, in addition to the original inclinations and passions, others that are higher. This is all due to the fact that the “ego” has been at work on the other principles of the human being. And it is precisely the mission of the “ego” to ennoble and purify the other principles by its own power.

So the lower principles, under the influence of the “ego,” have become more or less changed within a man who has surmounted the conditions in which the outer world has placed him. Take the case of the man who is just raising himself above the level of the animal—when his “ego” flashes out he still resembles the animal with regard to his lower principles. His etheric or vital body is solely the medium of the living constructive forces of growth and propagation. His astral body only gives expression to such impulses, desires and passions as are stimulated by his outer nature. All the time that the man is struggling on through successive lives, or incarnations, from this degree of culture to an ever higher evolution, his ego is remodelling the other principles. In this way the astral body becomes the medium of purified pleasurable and unpleasurable sensations, refined desires and longings. And the etheric, or vital body, also transforms itself. It becomes the vehicle of habits, of permanent inclinations of temperament and of memory. A man whose ego has not yet influenced his vital body has no remembrance of the experiences he undergoes. He lives just as he has been brought up by Nature.

The whole development of civilisation expresses itself for man in this working of the ego upon the subordinate principles. This working penetrates even to the physical body. Under the influence of the ego, the physiognomy, the gestures and movements, the whole appearance of the physical body, change.

One can also discern how differently the various mediums of civilisation affect the individual principles of the human being. The common factors of civilisation influence the astral body. They bring to it other kinds of pleasure, displeasure, impulse, etc., than it originally had. Absorption in a work of art influences the etheric body, for a man obtains through a work of art, the presentiment of something higher and nobler than that which is offered by the environment of the senses, and thus transforms his vital body. A powerful means for the purification and ennoblement of the etheric body is religion. Religious impulses have, in this way, their sublime mission in the evolution of humanity.

That which is called conscience is nothing but the result of the work of the ego on the vital body, through a succession of incarnations. When a man perceives that he must not do certain things, and when through this perception, an impression is made on him, deep enough to communicate itself to his etheric body, the conscience begins to be formed.

Now this work of the ego on the subordinate principles can either be one that belongs rather to the whole human race, or it can be quite individually a work of the single ego upon itself. In the first change of man, to a certain extent, the whole human race takes part; the latter must depend on the inner activity of the ego. When the ego grows strong enough entirely to remodel the astral body through its own strength, then that which the ego makes of this astral body or body of feeling is called the “Spirit-Self” (Geistesselbst)[5] or as they say in the East, Manas. This transformation consists essentially in an imbuing, in an enriching of the inner being with higher ideas and perceptions. But the ego can arrive at yet higher and more intimate work with regard to the special entity of man. This occurs when not merely the astral body is enriched, but when the etheric or vital body becomes transformed. Man learns a certain amount in the course of life, and when he looks back on his life from any point, he is able to say to himself: “I have learnt much,” but how much less is he able to speak of a change of temperament and character, of an improvement or deterioration of the memory, during life. Learning affects the astral body, whilst the latter transformations affect the ethic or vital body. It would therefore be no inapt simile to compare the change of the astral body in life to the movement of the minute-hand of the clock, the change of the vital body to that of the hour-hand.

When a man enters upon the higher, or so-called occult training, the chief thing to bear in mind is that he at once begins this latter transformation by the innermost might of the ego. He must work quite consciously and individually at the changing of habits, temperament, character, memory, etc. As much of this vital body as he works upon in this way becomes transformed into the “Life-Spirit” (Lebensgeist), or as the Eastern expression has it, into Buddhi.

On a yet higher stage of evolution man attains to powers by which he can effect a transformation of his physical body (as for example, changing the pulse and the circulation of the blood). As much of the physical body as is transformed in this way, is called “Spirit-Man” (Geistesmensch)—Atma.

The changes which are effected in the lower principles by man, not as an individual, but rather as a whole group of the human race, or a part of it, such as a nation, a tribe, or a family—have in Theosophy, the following names. The astral body, or body of feeling, when transformed by the ego is called the emotional soul; the transformed etheric body becomes the rational soul, and the transformed physical body, the self-conscious soul. But it is not to be supposed that the transformation of these three principles takes place successively. It takes place in all three bodies simultaneously, from the moment when the ego flashes out. Indeed the work of the ego is not generally speaking perceptible until a part of the self-conscious soul is formed.

It is seen from the foregoing paragraph that there are four principles in the Being of Man: the physical body, the etheric or vital body, the astral or body of feeling and the ego-body;—the emotional soul, the rational soul, the self-conscious soul—and indeed the yet higher principles of human nature also,—the Spirit-Self (Manas), the Life-Spirit (Buddhi), the Spirit-Man (Atma) appear as the products of the transformation of these four principles. In speaking about the sources of our human capacities, only these four principles can be taken into account.

As a teacher works upon these four principles of the human constitution, one must, in order to work in the right way, penetrate into the nature of these divisions of man. Now it must by no means be imagined that these parts develop themselves in man in such a way that at any one moment of his life—say at his birth—they are all equally advanced. On the contrary their development takes place at the various life-periods in a different way. And the right foundations for education and instruction depend on the knowledge of this law of the evolution of human nature.