Steiner to UK #6

London, Kings Langley, Stratford

It was on this trip that Dr Steiner met Miss Cross. He seems to keep a good record of what he gets up to:

“On the same day [Easter Sunday 1922],’ continued Rudolf Steiner in his account, ‘I and other friends took up an invitation from Miss Cross, who showed us over her school at Kings Langley.’

Once more the thought arose of adapting this school to the spirit in which I conceive the further development of the art of education. Frau Prof. Mackenzie was among those with whom I was able to discuss this matter.

I may mention here that a circle of people gathered around Frau Prof. Mackenzie and Miss Cross want to make it their aim to bring this thought to effect. This opens up a prospect for educational principles given in the spirit of the Goetheanum at Dornach, and on which the Waldorf School was founded in Stuttgart, to be understood and fostered in England.”

In another report given on his return to Dornach, he went into further details:

“On the Sunday afternoon we were in the environs of London at a school the Kings Langley boarding-school-run by that lady, Miss Cross, who was also here at the Christmas education course. We could see how a number of children are brought up and educated in a boarding-school of this kind. It is extremely interesting how children in precisely this boarding-school are in a way actually brought into proximity with life out of certain ideals of the present. The roughly forty to forty-five children in the boarding-school have to do everything; there are actually no servants there. The children have to get up early and care for the whole institution themselves, as well as cleaning their own shoes and clothes. They have to make sure there are enough eggs through breeding poultry, which they also do, and various other things you will be able to think of. They clean everything themselves, cook everything themselves and look after the garden. They have themselves first grown, harvested and cooked the vegetables which come onto the table, and then also eat them. A child is thus led into life in a many-sided way and learns a whole mass of things.

During the Christmas course Miss Cross formed an intention to organize this boarding-school in the manner of a Waldorf school. This is being considered as a quite serious plan. Mrs. Mackenzie, who was also one of the chief moving forces for my being invited to the Shakespeare festival, is very much in favour of our school movement, supported by Anthroposophy, Winning a certain terrain in England. There is now an endeavour to form a committee for organizing this school from an anthroposophical background, according to our education.

This will be a very significant and important step forward. If so energetic a will stands behind it as exists in the personalities of Miss Cross and Professor Mrs. Mackenzie, it can be taken for granted that after various hind, overcome, something of the kind will be able to come about

We are all hoping that the course I shall be holding at Oxford in will contribute towards furthering this plan.

Eurythmy will then also come to the fore, which this time could be included, at least not in an official way. The hope is that this will a good contribution to the anthroposophical school movement in England.”