Introduction by Christopher Bamford
These lectures are exceptional among Rudolf Steiner’s many lectures on Waldorf education for their breadth, depth, daring and accessibility. They were given at Mansfield College, Oxford, England, to an audience that was one of the most prestigious Steiner ever addressed.
In this setting Steiner begins by stating that Waldorf education is based entirely upon spiritual scientific knowledge of the human being. He speaks openly and directly about the spirit as “the reality of hidden depths,” and he gives numerous examples of this reality and how to become aware of it. he examines the nature of the human being as a threefold organism: the question of education as an “art” and teachers as artists in education; as well as the actual organization of a Waldorf school. He ends by showing, with anecdotes and examples, the importance of teachers, the core of any pedagogy, as exemplars of a way of life: “A heart that is open to changes in life – its unexpected and continuous freshness – must be a Waldorf teacher’s basic nature and mood.”