"In the context of Sorath's activity, the number 1998 (3 x 666) was mentioned by Steiner only once. (This was to Friederich Rittelmeyer and other priests of the Christian Community.) It refers directly to the end of the century when this being will once again activate his evil influence among mankind." [p. 69]
***
"The great problem facing men in the years ahead is, therefore: Will it be possible for us to counteract, through the forces of white magic, the destructive and divisive magical will-effects of the adversaries? The powers of white magic become active through the cooperation of human beings who out of responsibility toward the spirit think, feel, and work together. The common intent of those who resolve to dedicate themselvews to the continuance of the spiritual life--this will determine the fate of mankind at the end of the century." [p. 70]
[Schroeder, Hans-Werner. "Sorath and the End of the Century." Journal for Anthroposophy. No. 68, Spring 1999, p. 67.]Akua Desta wrote:
I am looking for as many quotes dealing with literacy and why Anthroposophists prefer to have their children learn to read and write as late as possible. There had been some talk about this preferably happening after the second set of teeth being broken around the age of 8 or 9. Can someone verify this for me.

CHANGE OF TEETH
The life of an individual can be divided into periods of seven years. The first period, in which the physical body simply builds its forms, extends from birth to the change of teeth at the age of seven. The second period, in which the etheric body is active in growth and forming, continues until puberty. The forms are defined until the age of seven and the already-defined forms are then enlarged. From fourteen to twenty-one the astral body is especially predominant, and at twenty-one the true I is born and becomes independent. [Steiner, Rudolf. The Universal Human: Four Lectures given between 1909 and 1916 in Munich and Bern. (1909-1916) Trans. edited by Christopher Bamford and Sabine H. Seiler. Anthroposophic Press, 1990, p. 45]
***
Dr. Steiner: No child can have finished changing his teeth in class 1, for that does not happen until the eighth year. The question with regard to school age is only whether they have begun to cut their second teeth. [Steiner, Rudolf. Conferences with the Teachers of the Waldorf School in Stuttgart 1921 to 1922: Volume Two: Being the end of the Second Year together with the Third Year. (1922) Forest Row, U.K.: Steiner Schools Fellowship Publications, 1987, p. 18]

People will object that the children then learn to read and write too late. This is said only because it is not known today how harmful it is when the children learn to read and write too soon. It is a very bad thing to be able to write early. Reading and writing as we have them today are really not suited to the human being till a later age- the eleventh or twelfth year - and the more the child is blessed with not being able to read and write well before this age, the better it is for the later year of life. A child who cannot write properly at thirteen or fourteen (I speak out of my own experience because I could not do it at an early age) is not so hindered for later spiritual development as one who early, at seven or eight years, can already read and write perfectly. [Steiner, Rudolf. The Kingdom of Childhood. Revised translation, Hudson, NY: Anthroposophical Press, 1995, pp. 26-27 (KC p. 44)]
***
I understood that part of the reason reading was delayed at Waldorf schools had to do with the development of memory. If one can read and write something, one need not remember the information. The ancient story-tellers of every culture disappear as civilization becomes more literate. Was this progress? I didn't know. The children at Waldorf schools memorize a great deal. Does this improve their memories? [Gorman, Margaret. Confessions of a Waldorf Parent. Fair Oaks: Rudolf Steiner College Publications, 1990, p. 11]
***
The undesirability of appealing directly to the intellect of the child before puberty has already been discussed from the spiritual-scientific point of view, but the rationale behind the reluctance to teach the children to read before the age of eight or nine was not specifically dealt with. It may be recalled that, at about the age of nine the child develops or acquires a heightened sense of selfhood; it feels more of an individuality. It feels less sympathetic-in the technical sense-towards its surroundings, it feels less at one with them. Conversely, it feels more antipathetic to its environment, and this it is which helps to induce the enhanced self-consciousness; the child is capable of greater powers of objectification and therefore a sharpened capacity for the intellectual process of apprehending concepts. It would follow, therefore, that it is most appropriate for the child to learn to read at the age of eight or nine, and Steiner frequently reiterated this. [Childs, Gilbert. Steiner Education: in theory and practice. Edinburgh: Floris Books, 1991, pp. 92-93]
***
The conventional method of teaching reading must be turned inside out in order to take advantage of children's naturally developing
capacities for learning. And this is precisely what happens in Waldorf Schools. On the very first day of kindergarten, children in a
Waldorf school begin learning to read. True, it is not the technical, dry, outer aspect of reading that they are asked to work on.
Instead they are engaged with the far more important inner aspect of reading. Working with a real knowledge of the developing child, Waldorf
teachers begin teaching reading by cultivating children's sense of language and their inner capacities to form mental images. Vivid
verbal pictures and the use of rich language are constantly employed in the classroom. Difficult vocabulary and complex sentence structure
are not held back in the telling of tales. Children sing and recite a vast treasury of songs and poems that many learn by heart. Children
live into the world of imaginative inner pictures, totally unaware that they are developing the most important capacities needed for

reading comprehension, for reading with understanding. [Sokolov, Barbara. "There's more to reading than meets the eye." Renewal online: http://www.awsna.org/publications-renewal-reading.html (11/4/01)]
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[I]t is a mistake to believe, what one sometime hears, that Waldorf schools do not teach reading before the third grade. From day one of grade one, the basis for reading-and for a lifelong relationship to language-is being formed in a very methodical yet unique, holistic manner. ... [W]hat is the price of shortening an organically determined phase of development? What is the long-term effect of hurrying children into an adult, intellectual mode before they have had an opportunity to finish the truly profound work of the young child? ... [A]re there any physical ramifications to starting early? At about the ninth year, a maturational shift occurs in the eye. The development of foveal vision accelerates. Before this time, visual experience is more connected with peripheral vision, which takes in a scene as a whole continuum. It is foveal vision that is used extensively in reading. This change reflects the general inner progression from an experience of the whole to the parts.

What about the youngster who is clamoring to read early? Since young children are in a stage of imitation, we can expect them to want to do all the things they see adults doing. If the environment includes opportunities for a variety of healthy, age-appropriate activities, the young child will find many other satisfying outlets for his or her interests. ... [T]he reading level of fourth-graders in a Waldorf school is on a par with that of students taught to read earlier. [Toole, Bill. "Approaching Reading." Renewal: A Journal for Waldorf Education, Spring/Summer 1996. p. 13, pp. 16-17]
***
If children learn too soon, and it can be that they learn well, and, you know they're reading at a first or second grade level in kindergarten, and by second grade they're reading at a sixth grade reading level, and so on. This is great, but often they peak -sometimes third or fourth grade - and then their interest in reading starts to decrease. It starts to go way down. And I've talked with
public school colleagues who speak often of the third grade drop out. [Eugene Schwartz, "The Best of our Knowledge" Show # 434, Aired January 11, 1999, WAMC, Northeast Public Radio]
***
Besides the superficial process of decoding words on a page, there is a corresponding inner activity that must be cultivated for true reading to occur. Waldorf teachers call it "living into the story." When a child is living into a story, she forms imaginative inner pictures in response to the words. Having the ability to form mental images, to understand, gives meaning to the process of reading. Without this ability, a child may be able to decode the words on a page, but he will remain functionally illiterate. ... [R]eading is being taught in a way that is not appropriate to the child's natural capacities...How tragic that, in most schools, kindergarten and primary-grade students are diverted from developing and strengthening

***
Up until the end of fourth grade students use only crayons. At the end of fourth grade, in a special ritual or closing ceremony, teachers present students with their own fountain pens, symbolically marking their passage into the senior grades. By grades 6 and 7 students have reached a stage where there is more freedom in what they write down, although even here much of the work is dictated or suggested by the teacher. [Henry, Mary E. School Cultures: Universes of Meaning in Private Schools. (Washington State University) Norwood, New Jersey: Ablex Publishing Corp. 1993, p.109]
***
Picard...writes on the board. "Zita shared Fatinelli's warm cloak with a beggar. After church the" The story stops.
The children pull out thread-bound notebooks of construction paper. They turn to a blank page, take out a crayon purse and shade the paper with yellow, orange and brown stripes. They write Picard's story onto the stripes.
Picard visits each child to critique his or her work. When he is satisfied he tells them to darken the letters while he completes the story on another board. "Beggar and the cloak were gone. Pagano and Zita were upset. During Christmas dinner, in a blaze of light the beggar returned the cloak." More stripes, more writing. [Horseman, Jeff. "Schools of a Different Color." Equal Time: A Social and Political Issues Magazine." Syracuse University: Spring, 1999, p. 31, pp. 32-33]
***
My son David (9, 2nd grade) hasn't been finishing his writing assignments for main lesson. And, he doesn't get his math work done because, while he knows the answers, he's terribly slow writing.

His teacher sent home his main lesson book this weekend for us to work together on it, and it was terribly painful for him. He says that he "doesn't know how" to write the letters, although he has had a lot of practice and does know how when you ask him to write a letter not copying it but just telling him to write the specific letters.I noticed when I was working with him this weekend that he painstakingly copies the letters *exactly* as they are written... he says he's "drawing" the letters. If I give him typewritten material to copy (my handwriting is terrible myself), he tries to imitate the font. If I give him hand-printed material, he copies the handwriting style. he is, indeed, drawing the letters rather than writing them.
Has anyone run into anything like this before? Do you have any advice for me to help him?

***
(and a note from the side of science and reason:)
Premature vs. Developmentally Appropriate Instruction: Suppose for a moment that parents were advised that the opposition of premature vs. developmentally appropriate content has been the means of withholding knowledge from young, disadvantaged children, whereas many advantaged children gain such knowledge at home. Suppose, in addition, parents were informed that young children of comparable ages in other lands were learning such so-called "premature" knowledge with great benefit and no ill effects. And suppose it were shown that the label "developmentally appropriate" is generally applied as a dogmatic gut reaction rather than as an empirically determined fact accepted by the research community. It is hard to believe that parents informed of these complexities would not question the implications of "developmentally appropriate" for their children's education. [Hirsch, Jr., E.D. The Schools We Need: And Why We Don't Have Them. New York: Doubleday, 1996, pp. 9-10]

And last but not least one of the favourite anthroposophist excusing when trying to counter criticism claiming one who has not attended *the* School of Spiritual Science is incompetent to comment or judge Steiner's work.

There are disclaimers that are published in many Anthroposophical books:
Privately printed for the members of the College of Spiritual Science at the Goetheanum. No one is considered competent to pass judgment upon these writings who has not acquired the prerequisite knowledge demanded by this school, either through the school itself or in a manner approved by it.