"It is necessary for human beings to remember not only what they already understand, but to come to understand what they already know--that is, what they have acquired by memory in the way the child acquires language.... In a certain sense, understanding things through concepts should proceed from the stored-up treasures of the memory. The more children know in memory before they begin to understand through intellectual concepts the better." (p. 31)

As early as 1884, while tutoring a boy with special needs, Steiner began a lifelong interest in applying spiritual knowledge to the practical aspects of life. Steiner originally published the essay at the core of this book in 1907. It represents his earliest ideas on education, in which he lays out the soul spiritual processes of human development, describing the need to understand how the being of a child develops through successive "births," beginning with the physical body's entry into earthly life, and culminating in the emergence of the "I"-being with adulthood.

Also included are several early lectures on education, ranging from 1906 to 1911, well before the birth of the Waldorf movement in 1919.