Dateline Ilkley, England: (Frau) Doktor Hat Gesagt
by Douglas Gerwin
An update on the mystery concerning who crafted one of the most commonly cited statements concerning the purpose of Waldorf education.
A couple of years ago, we revealed in this newsletter that one of the most often-cited passages concerning the mission of Waldorf education originated not with Rudolf Steiner but with his wife, Marie von Sivers.
The passage, which can be found in countless Waldorf school catalogues, reads: “Our highest endeavour must be to develop free human beings who are able of themselves to impart purpose and direction to their lives.” It is to be found in A Modern Art of Education, a cycle of lectures that Rudolf Steiner delivered in 1923 to an English-speaking audience from the small Yorkshire town of Ilkley in northeast England.
However, this passage actually comes from the foreword to this book and was written by Marie Steiner, who attended this lecture cycle and later took on the responsibility of publishing her husband’s complete works––over 350 volumes in all––after his death in 1925.
In our initial report, we noted that this foreword is missing from the current German edition of this lecture cycle, raising an intriguing question as to its original publication and even its original language. But after visiting the Steiner archives in Haus Duldeck, adjacent to the Goetheanum in Dornach, Switzerland, earlier this year, we can confirm that Marie Steiner’s foreword was indeed included in the original German-language publication of this lecture cycle in 1927 but, for some reason, was dropped in subsequent German editions.
For those readers of German who might like to know the original version of this popular citation, we offer it here in full:
“Ist der Mensch in ganz menschlichem Sinne erzogen worden, lernt er sich auch as ganzer Mensch fuehlen und empfinden. Er ist zur eigenen freien Religiositaet und Sittlichkeit erweckt worden. Dieses Hinschauen auf den freien Menschen, der da weiss, sich eine Richtung im Leben selber zu geben, muss vor allen Dingen erstrebt werden: das Entlassen in das Leben in Freiheit.” [Rudolf Steiner, Gegenwaertiges Geistesleben und Erziehung (Dornach: Philosophisch-Anthroposophischer Verlag, 1927), p.xxxv.]
The official English-language translation of this passage states:
“If the child has been educated in a wholly human sense, he will learn to feel and know his full manhood. His own free religious and moral nature will have been awakened. Our highest endeavour must be to develop free human beings who are able of themselves to impart purpose and direction to their lives.” [Rudolf Steiner, A Modern Art of Education, Collected Works GA 307 (London: Rudolf Steiner Press, 1972), p.23.]
Not exactly a close translation, but nonetheless accurate and clear –– and a full line shorter!
* * * * * * * * * * * * * *
For those who missed our initial article on this subject, it is excerpted below:
In response to a recent question, we took on the task of tracking down the original German formulation of this statement. An Internet search established that this quote comes from A Modern Art of Education, the title given to a translated cycle of lectures that Rudolf Steiner gave between the 5th and 17th of August, 1923 in the small Yorkshire town of Ilkley in the far northeast of England.
In the course of his life, Steiner made ten visits to England, and although he understood (and could even speak) English, he opted to deliver these lectures at Ilkley––as he did on other occasions––in his native Austrian, with George Adams then freely rendering them into English. Under the terms agreed by these two men, Steiner would speak for 40 minutes to an hour and Adams would then summarize Steiner’s remarks in roughly half that time.
The first published edition of these lectures in English appeared five years later and was subsequently twice revised and expanded. In German the lectures were published as No. 307 in Steiner’s complete edition under the title Gegenwaertiges Geistesleben und Erziehung (“The Spiritual Life of the Present and Education”).
The well-known quote in question appears on the final page of what turns out to be a foreword to the English edition. At the bottom of the page the author of this foreword is identified as “Marie Steiner”. Based on this evidence, it would appear that the quote attributed to Rudolf Steiner actually comes from the pen of his wife.
Whatever the original language of this passage, the upshot of this research is that Marie Steiner (who, as it happens, was in attendance at her husband’s lectures in Ilkley) is the author of one of the most popular formulations of the mission of Waldorf education: “Our highest endeavour must be to develop free human beings who are able of themselves to impart purpose and direction to their lives.”
––from the research of Douglas Gerwin, editor of Center & Periphery