This brief article attempts to give an overview of the History of Childhood and Education, and present some key personalities who have brought new educational ideas into the world.

In far distant times, children imitated their hunter-gatherer elders, mixed with extended families, and after ritual ceremonies which required courage and skills, they became adults. Later, on farms, children imitated the adult work of planting, harvesting, preserving foods and animal care by being alongside the grown-ups.

From the 15^th century, with the invention of machinery, such as the printing press and weaving machines, man’s connection to nature began to dwindle. People left the farms and went to the towns to work in factories and occupations to support city and technological life. This is remembered as the 17^th century Industrial Revolution. Children too were used from early ages in factories and mines.

At this time churches dominated society at every level. Puritans tried to enforce strict moral standards on the young because of their notion of ‘Original Sin’. Universities were guided by religious doctrines, but at the same time, their dogmas were being questioned by a few. Nonconformists or free thinkers were censored, excommunicated, or even burnt for heresy.

Gradually through the destiny and deeds of individuals, there came humanitarian ‘reforms’ and young children could no longer be exploited in workplaces. However, ’Spare the rod and you spoil the child’ was the maxim for bringing up children. This was the view of English philosopher John Locke (1632-1704). He said the child is born as a blank slate (‘tabula rasa’), onto which moral and religious instruction must be quickly and firmly planted, or the child will become wicked and interested in pleasure.

It must have seemed that putting children into schools with strict teachers was a perfect solution! Compulsory mass education followed, where children were grouped according to age and drilled, without joy, in separate and ‘testable’ subjects. Thus, our education has become focused on the development of head-users, intellectuals who know how to study to pass an exam. Unfortunately, we have also been shut away from real life, and only in recent times are schools integrating the curriculum and the arts.

Shortly after Locke, a Swiss-French philosopher, Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) refuted ‘Original Sin’. He declared the child to be full of goodness. Sadly, like Socrates and St Paul, his criticisms of the immorality of adults and his courage to speak out led to his persecution. His book Emile was banned, though it was an overnight success. A warrant was issued for his arrest, and he lived and died as a fugitive.

Rousseau’s book about natural childhood education, ‘Emile’, awoke the romantic and moral consciousness of men. He inspired many subsequent educational reformers and thinkers such as Pestalozzi, Froebel, Fichte, Schiller, Goethe, Montessori and Steiner.

Many of Rousseau’s words read like golden maxims – profound, yet seeming like common sense:

• Zealous teachers, be in no hurry to act (p60)
• Take advantage of the spirit of imitation and natural liveliness (p95)
• To control the child, you must control yourself (p59)
• Don’t preach virtues, but fulfill them yourself (p67)
• Hold the child in reverence (p71)
• At 20years, the child must no longer imitate (p296)

Twentieth century science began to study the child, but without permitting themselves to consider the terms soul or spirit. These first psychologists would only describe what they could see objectively with their eyes, and categorized many stages of development, yet they did not come close to understanding the inner human. Meanwhile, schoolchildren struggled on, deprived of warm adult-child relationships, and forced to be kept seated and beaten for misdemeanors.

A.S. Neill (1883-1973) brought the idea of total freedom in education in his school, Summerhill, but he could not acknowledge the spiritual essence of the child. Then came Dr Maria Montessori (1870-1952) and Dr Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925) with their different educational methods, but with the same central view of the child as a spiritual being and the importance of working with the invisible soul in the child.

Mme Montessori brought forward her instructional, ‘didactic’ methods and equipment as a response to the 9-12yr old slum children in Italy, who would be more employable if they could do basic household tasks, such as washing, ironing, sewing, tying shoelaces, counting, writing and reading. In contradiction to Lockian thought, Mme Montessori felt the soul of each child was innately religious, and that up to the age of 6 or 7 was the time to nourish their spiritual development. She asked the teachers to become sensitive to the inner life of the child and the ‘unconscious guiding principle’ which she said develops best in freedom. She hoped the adults would strive to ‘cross the abyss’ and learn to observe the ‘hidden nature and hidden energy’ in every child. She said, ‘the kingdom of childhood is the kingdom of heaven’.

Rudolf Steiner, a scientist by training, who was also a clairvoyant, put his descriptions of the soul as scientifically as was possible. His perceptions of the human being, with its evolving stages of development also include the concepts of reincarnation, karma and the working on earth of the forces of evil. They form an enormous body of science of the spirit, which has been given the name Anthroposophy, or wisdom of man. Steiner’s indications have been applied in many practical areas, such as biodynamic agriculture.

One example of his practical advice to teachers, was that before the 2^nd set of teeth begin to appear (when the child is 6 or 7), children need to learn not through instruction or admonition, but through imitation. The reason behind this, is that the child’s own invisible forces which, from conception, are working to mould and sculpture the physical body, its inner organs and senses, must not be distracted from this vital task.

The loss of the milk teeth, (formed by the mother’s forces), and the presence of teeth built up by the child’s own forces, (brought with them from the spiritual world), are the outer expression that these architectural forces have achieved their high task, which culminates in forming the body’s most hardened structures - the teeth. Only now can these ‘etheric’, building-up forces be freed to metamorphose into forces of thinking. Steiner said that in the 7-14 yr stage, the child is ready to listen to the guidance of a teacher, and can work in a healthy way with concepts and meanings, brought imaginatively at first.

From 0 to 7 years, he suggests the environment must be prepared so that children may naturally imitate honest, simple activities from the adult world in their free play. At Steiner Kindergartens, children are still cooking, building cubbies, helping in the garden etc until they are 6. They are told imaginative stories, they paint and draw with beautiful colours, to enrich the soul-sphere. They are given plenty of time for free-play, and are encouraged to be in movement with songs and dance. Children can then come naturally to stillness, when the carefully prepared food is ready, at a small ceremony, or as a story is about to be told. Free play, has since been scientifically shown to promote language, physical, social and mental development in the early childhood years, and is thus promoted throughout mainstream kindergartens and childcare centres.

Steiner considered the ‘environment’ to include not just the equipment or program, but even the adult’s actions, thoughts and feelings and motives behind them. He saw that negative thoughts and feelings have the power to harm the child. He said teachers must conduct themselves so that they are worthy of imitation, and that ‘all education is mainly a matter of self-education of the adult’.

Dr Masaru Emoto has recently scientifically proved that the power of thoughts can change physical crystal structures in water. He found that the word, ‘Thankyou’ created the most beautiful forms. One hundred years ago, Steiner also emphasized that the feeling of ‘gratitude’ , a feeling of thankfulness, must be nurtured at an early age. He saw this quality could then be transformed into love when the child enters the 7-14 year stage of development. Thus the mood of ‘giving thanks’ for out food, each new season, and the working of the cosmic into the passing moment is a living feeling in Steiner teachers.

To conclude, these new educationalists would agree that children need to be in the presence of adults who are self-aware, and who have reverence for the child and for life, and have an interest in the true being of each child. Teachers with such moral integrity would clearly be reluctant to use a curriculum prepared by some distant beauracracy, which hopes to funnel into children, a testable body of information, which after many years of instruction will provide each child with a ‘score’, to represent their worth in the world!

Emoto, M. The Hidden Messages in Water.

Montessori, M.The Child, Society and the World.

Neill, A.S. Summerhill. A Dominie in Doubt.

Rousseau, J.J. Emile.

Steiner, R. The Kingdom of Childhood. The Child’s Changing Consciousness and Waldorf Education.