Colloquium on English - Research Institute for Waldorf Education

There are some natural philosophers today who consider themselves most wise and say, “Why
should not plants, too, have a will life and a feeling life? Are there not plants, the so-called carnivorous
plants, that attract small animals that fly near them and then snap shut on them when they have settled?”
These are beings that seem to have a will relationship with whatever comes into their vicinity, but we
cannot claim that such outward signs are really characteristics of will. When I meet this attitude of mind, I
usually use the same form of logic and say: “I know of something that also waits till a live creature comes
near it and then encloses and imprisons it—a mouse-trap.” The mere workings of a mousetrap might
therefore just as well be taken as proof that it possesses life as the nature of the Venus-flytrap is taken as
proof that it possesses consciousness. We must be profoundly conscious that the power of articulate speech
is a human possession. And we must also be aware of our position in the world compared with the other
three kingdoms of nature. When we are conscious of it, we also know that our I is very much bound up
with everything that constitutes speech, even though today’s way of speaking has become very abstract for
us. But I would like to make you aware of something that will give you a new respect for language. In
ancient times—in the Jewish culture, for example (though it was yet more pronounced even further back)—
the priests, or those who administered and represented the cults, would stop speaking when they came to
certain concepts while celebrating the rites. They interrupted their speech and communicated the names of
high beings—not in words but in silence—through the appropriate eurythmic gestures. Then they continued
the spoken rites. For instance, the name that sounds so abstract to us, rendered in Hebrew as “I AM the
I AM,” was never spoken aloud. The priest spoke only up to the point where this name appeared, made the
gesture, and resumed speaking. What was expressed in this gesture was the pronounceable name of God in
humankind.
Why was this done? If this name had been spoken and repeated straight out, people were so sensitive
at that time that they would have been stunned. There were sounds and combinations of sounds in
speech that could stun the people of ancient cultures, so great was the effect of such words on them. A state
like fainting would have taken them over if such words had been spoken and heard. That is why they spoke
of the “unutterable name of God,” which was profoundly significant. Such names could be spoken only by
the priests, and even by them only on special occasions, for were they to be spoken before unprepared
listeners heaven and earth would collapse. This means that people would fall unconscious. For this reason
such a name was expressed only in a gesture. Such a feeling is an expression of what speech really is. Today
people thoughtlessly blurt out everything. We can no longer vary the feeling nuances, and it is very rare to
find a person who can be moved enough, without being sentimental, to have tears in their eyes when they
come across certain passages in a novel, for example. This is today quite atavistic. The lively feeling for what
lies in speech and sensitivity to language have become very dulled. This is one of the many things that need
to be enlivened again today; when we do enliven it, it will enable us to feel more clearly what we really have
in speech. We have speech to thank for much that lives in our I-being, in our feeling of being a personality.
Our feelings can rise to a mood almost of prayer: I hear the language around me being spoken, and through
the speech the power of I flows into me. Once you have this feeling for the sanctity of summoning the I
through speech, you will be able to awaken it in the children by a variety of means. Then, too, you will
awaken the feeling of I-being in the children, not in an egoistic manner but in another way. There are two
ways of awakening the feeling of the I-being in a child. Done wrongly, it serves to fan the flames of egoism;
done rightly, it stimulates the will and encourages real selflessness and willingness to live with the outer
world.
I said these things to you because as teachers and educators you must be permeated by them. It will
be up to you to use them in teaching language and speech. We shall speak tomorrow about how we can
permeate them with consciousness to awaken in the children the sense for a consciousness of personality.
Practical Advice to Teachers (55-61)
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