The pedagogical relation, the idea of a special, affectively-charged relationship between teacher and child, has long been a central theme or "problem" in descriptive, philosophical and phenomenological studies of education and pedagogy. More broadly, concern with 'student-teacher relations' and "pedagogies of relation" is common in both empirical and theoretical literature. The German educationist Herman Nohl (1879-1960) was the first to give the phrase "pedagogical relation" explicit description and definition: As a "passionate (or "loving,"leidenschaftlich) relation between a mature (reif) person and one who is becoming, specifically for the sake of the latter (seiner selbstwillen), so that he comes to his life and his form." Further original characterizations have yet to be translated and systematically explicated. This paper undertakes such a translation and explication by referring to phenomenological theories of alterity and inter-subjectivity (Bernhard Waldenfels). In the light of ongoing reinterpretation and critique, the paper addresses the question: Is the pedagogical relation relevant or even possible and desirable in the 21st century – and if so, in what form?