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The Rudolf Steiner Archive

a project of Steiner Online Library, a public charity

Spiritual Ground of Education
GA 305

Given during a conference on spiritual values in education and attended by many prominent people of the time, Steiner's Oxford lectures gave him a rare opportunity to present the principles of Waldorf education at the highest cultural level.

His lectures, well received, were reviewed in The Manchester Guardian: “Dr. Steiner's lectures brought to us in a very vivid way an ideal of humanity in education. He spoke to us about teachers who, freely and unitedly, unrestricted by external prescription, develop their educational methods exclusively out of a thorough knowledge of human nature. He spoke to us about a kind of knowledge needed by the teacher, a knowledge of the being of man and the world, which is at the same time scientific and also penetrates into the most intimate inner life, which is intuitive and artistic.”

These 9 lectures were given at Manchester College: Oxford, England, August 16–25, 1922. Also known as: The Fundamental Spirit-Soul Power of Education. In German: Die Geistige-Seelische Grundkraefte der Erziehungskunst Spirituelle Werte in Erziehung und sozialem Leben.

Foreword
I.The Necessity for a Spiritual Insight August 16, 1922
II.Spiritual Disciplines of Yesterday: Yoga August 17, 1922
III.Spiritual Disciplines of Yesterday and To-day. August 18, 1922
IV.Body Viewed from the Spirit August 19, 1922
V.How Knowledge Can Be Nurture August 21, 1922
VI.The Teacher as Artist in Education August 22, 1922
VII.The Organisation of the Waldorf School August 23, 1922
VIII.Boys and Girls at the Waldorf School August 24, 1922
IX.The Teachers of the Waldorf School August 25, 1922