Following a lecture of November 27, 1919, requested by the Basel Department of Education, sixty members of the audience invited Rudolf Steiner to return and deliver a complete lecture course on his approach to education. These lectures are the result.

Rudolf Steiner begins by outlining the gradual development of the child with the help of spiritual forces and enlightened educational practices, which form the basis for Steiner's approach to education. He describes the problems that modern educators face and provides practical solutions. Steiner explains the effects of morality on real freedom and how the development of a child's will leads to a free, flexible ability to think. He describes the lifelong effects that teachers have on children through the ways they teach in the early grades.

The subjects of these lectures cover a broad range, from the threefold nature of the human being to the teacher's responsibility toward their students' future; from arts such as music and eurythmy to the problems involved in training teachers; from zoology and botany to language, geography, and history.

Like many of Steiner's lectures to public audiences, these are accessible and practical and provide a real overview to his ideas for renewing modern education.