Additional Contributors Are Fred A. Miller And William G. Woods. Foreword By J. B. Edmonson And Ralph W. Tyler.

In this fine introduction to Waldorf education, written out of a series of lectures given in 1924, Steiner provides one of the most comprehensive introductions to his pedagogical philosophy, psychology, and practice. Steiner begins by describing the union of science, art, religion and morality, which was the aim of all his work and underlies his concept of education. Against this background, many of the lectures describe a new developmental psychology. On this basis, having established how children's consciousness develops, Steiner discusses how different subjects should be presented so that individuals can grow and flourish inwardly. Only if the child absorbs the right subject in the right way at the right time can the inner freedom so necessary for life in the modern world become second nature.

The author, a Waldorf teacher of many years' experience, provides a lucid explanation of the events happening in the life of a child between the ninth and tenth years. This is the time when the child's ego incarnates more deeply. As a result, children at that age often experience themselves for the first time as separate individuals, different from their parents and peers, and essentially alone. As Koepke points out, this inner experience is often accompanied by a first encounter with death in the child's environment, a first inkling that life is fragile and does not go on forever.