HERBART AND HIS DISCIPLES.
"Then, only, can a person be said to draw education under his control,
when he has the wisdom to bring forth in the youthful soul a great
circle or body of ideas, well knit together in its inmost parts--a body
of ideas which is able to outweigh what is unfavorable in environment
and to absorb and combine with itself the favorable elements of the
same." (Herbart.)
Herbart was an empirical psychologist, and believed that the mind grows
with what it feeds upon; that is, that it develops its powers slowly by
experience. We are dependent not only upon our habits, upon the
established trends of mental action produced by exercise and
discipline, but also upon our acquired ideas, upon the thought
materials stored up and organized in the mind. These thought-materials
seem to possess a kind of vitality, an energy, an attractive or
repulsive power. When ideas once gain real significance in the mind,
they become active agents. They are not the blocks with which the mind
builds. They are a part of the mind itself. They are the conscious
reaction of the mind upon external things. The conscious ego itself is
a product of experience. In thus referring all mental action and
growth to experience, in the narrow limits he draws for the original
powers of the mind, Herbart stands opposed to the older and to many
more recent psychologists. He has been called the father of empirical
psychology.
Kant, with many other psychologists, gives greater prominence to the
original powers of the mind, to the _innate ideas_, by means of which
it receives and works over the crude materials furnished by the senses.
The difference between Kant and Herbart in interpreting the process of
apperception is an index of a radical difference in their pedagogical
standpoints. With Kant, apperception is the assimilation of the raw
materials of knowledge through the fundamental categories of thought
(quality, quantity, relation, modality, etc.) Kant's categories of
thought are original properties of the mind; they receive the crude
materials of sense-perception and give them form and meaning. With
Herbart, the ideas gained through experience are the apperceiving power
in interpreting new things. Practically, the difference between Kant
and Herbart is important. For Kant gives controlling influence to
innate ideas in the process of acquisition. Our capacity for learning
depends not so much upon the results of experience and thought stored
in the mind, as upon original powers, unaided and unsupported by
experience. With Herbart, on the contrary, great stress is laid upon
the _acquired fund_ of empirical knowledge as a means of increasing
one's stores, of more rapidly receiving and assimilating new ideas.
Upon this is also based psychologically the whole educational plan of
Herbart and of his disciples. As fast as ideas are gained they are
used as means of further acquisition. The chief care is to supply the
mind of a child at any stage of his growth with materials of knowledge
suited to his previous stores, and to see that the new is properly
assimilated by the old and organized with it. This accumulated fund of
ideas, as it goes on collecting and arranging itself in the mind, is
not only a favorable condition but an active agency in our future
acquisition and progress. Moreover, it is the business of the teacher
to guide and, to some extent, to control the inflow of new ideas and
experiences into the mind of a child; to superintend the process of
acquiring and of building up those bodies of thought and feeling which
eventually are to influence and guide a child's voluntary action.
The critics therefore accuse Herbart of a sort of _architectural_
design or even of a _mechanical_ process in education. If our ability
and character depend to such an extent upon our acquirements, and if
the teacher is able to control the supply of ideas to a child and to
guide the process of arrangement, he can build up controlling centers
of thought which may strongly influence the action of the will. In
other words, he can construct a character by building the right
materials into it. This seems to leave small room for spontaneous
development toward self-activity and freedom.
Herbart, on the other hand, criticises Kant's idea of the
transcendental freedom of the will, on the ground that, if true, it
makes deliberate, systematic education impossible. If the will remains
absolutely free in spite of acquired knowledge, in spite of strongly
developed tendencies of thought and feeling; if the child or youth, at
any moment, even in later years, is able to retire into his
trancendental _ego_ and arrive at decisions without regard to the
effect of previously acquired ideas and habits, any well-planned,
intentional effort at education is empty and without effect.
John Friedrich Herbart, the founder of this movement in education, was
born at Oldenburg in 1776, and died at Göttingen in 1811 [Transcriber's
note: this should be 1841]. He labored seven years at Göttingen at the
beginning of his career as professor, and a similar period at its
close. But the longest period of his university teaching was at
Königsberg, where, for twenty-five years, he occupied the chair of
philosophy made famous before him by Kant. His writings and lectures
were devoted chiefly to philosophy, psychology, and pedagogy. Previous
to beginning his career as professor at the university, he had spent
three years as private tutor to three boys in a Swiss family of
patrician rank. In the letters and reports made to the father of these
boys, we have strong proof of the practical wisdom and earnestness with
which he met his duties as a teacher. The deep pedagogical interest
thus developed in him remained throughout his life a quickening
influence. One of his earliest courses of lectures at the university
resulted in the publication, in 1806, of his Allgemeine Pädagogik, his
leading work on education, and to-day one of the classics of German
educational literature. His vigorous philosophical thinking in
psychology and ethics gave him the firm basis for his pedagogical
system. At Königsberg, so strong was his interest in educational
problems that he established a training-school for boys, where
teachers, chosen by him and under his direction, could make practical
application of his decided views on education. Though small, this
school continued to furnish proof of the correctness of his educational
ideas till he left Königsberg in 1833. This, we believe, was the first
practice-school of its kind established in connection with pedagogical
lectures in any German university. It should be remembered that, while
Herbart was a philosopher of the first rank, even among the eminent
thinkers of Germany and of the world, he attested his profound interest
in education, not only by systematic lectures and extensive writings on
education, but by maintaining for nearly a quarter of a century a
practice-school at the university, for the purpose of testing and
illustrating his educational convictions. Lectures on pedagogy are
more or less common-place, and often nearly worthless. The lecturer on
pedagogy who shuns the life of the school room is not half a man in his
profession. The example thus set by Herbart of bringing the maturest
fruit of philosophical study into the school room, and testing it day
by day and month by month upon children has been followed by several
eminent disciples of Herbart at important universities.
Karl Volkmar Stoy (1815-1885) in 1843 began his career of more than
forty years as professor of pedagogy and leader of a teachers' seminary
and practice-school at Jena. (A part of this time was spent at
Heidelberg.) During these years more than six hundred university
students received a spirited introduction to the theory and practice of
education under Stoy's guidance and inspiration. His seminary for
discussion and his practice-school became famous throughout Germany and
sent out many men who gained eminence in educational labors.
Tuiskon Ziller, in 1862, set up at Leipzig, in connection with his
lectures on teaching, a pedagogical seminary and practice-school,
which, for twenty years, continued to develop and extend the
application of Herbart's ideas. Ziller and several of his disciples
have attained much prominence as educational writers and leaders.
A year after the death of Stoy, 1886, Dr. Wilhelm Rein was called to
the chair of pedagogy at Jena. He had studied both with Stoy and
Ziller, and had added to this an extensive experience as a teacher and
as principal of a normal school. His lectures on pedagogy, both
theoretical and practical, in connection with his seminary for
discussion and his practice school for application of theory, furnish
an admirable introduction to the most progressive educational ideas of
Germany.
The Herbart school stands for certain progressive ideas which, while
not exactly new, have, however, received such a new infusion of
life-giving blood that the vague formulae of theorists have been
changed into the definite, mandatory requirements and suggestions of
real teachers. The fact that a pedagogical truth has been vaguely or
even clearly stated a dozen times by prominent writers, is no reason
for supposing that it has ever had any vital influence upon educators.
The history of education shows conclusively that important educational
ideas can be written about and talked about for centuries without
finding their way to any great extent into school rooms. What we now
need in education is definite and well-grounded theories and plans,
backed up by honest and practical execution.
The Herbartians have patiently submitted themselves to thorough-going
tests in both theory and practice. After years of experiment and
discussion, they come forward with certain propositions of reform which
are designed to infuse new life and meaning into educational labors.
The first proposition is to make the foundation of education immovable
by resting it upon _growth in moral character_, as the purpose which
serious teachers must put first. The selection of studies and the
organization of the school course follow this guiding principle.
The second is _permanent, many-sided interest_. The life-giving power
which springs from the awakening of the best interests in the two great
realms of real knowledge should be felt by every teacher. Though not
entirely new, this idea is better than new, because its deeper meaning
is clearly brought out, and it is rationally provided for by the
selection of interesting materials and by marking out an appropriate
method of treatment. All knowledge must be infused with feelings of
interest, if it is to reach the heart and work its influence upon
character by giving impulse to the will.
Thirdly, the idea of _organized unity_, or concentration, in the mental
stores gathered by children, in all their knowledge and experience, is
a thought of such vital meaning in the effort to establish unity of
character, that, when a teacher once realizes its import, his effort is
toned up to great undertakings.
Fourthly, the _culture epochs_ give a suggestive bird's-eye view of the
historical meaning of education, and of the rich materials of history
and literature for supplying suitable mental food to children. They
help to realize the ideas of interest, concentration, and apperception.
_Apperception_ is the practical key to the most important problems of
education, because it compels us to keep a sympathetic eye upon the
child in his moods, mental states, and changing phases of growth; to
build hourly upon the only foundation he has, his previous acquirements
and habits.
Finally, the Herbartians have grappled seriously with that great and
comprehensive problem _the common school course_. The obligation rests
upon them to select the materials and to lay out a course of study
which embodies all their leading principles in a form suited to
children and to our school conditions.
Some of the principal books published in English bearing on Herbart are
as follows:
De Garmo, Charles. Essentials of Method. D. C. Heath, Boston.
Felkin. The Science of Education; a translation of some of Herbart's
most important writings on education, with a short biography of
Herbart. D. C. Heath & Co., Boston.
Lange. Ueber Apperception, translated by the Herbart Club and edited
by Dr. De Garmo. D. C. Heath & Co., Boston.
Lindner's Psychology, translated by Dr. De Garmo. D. C. Heath & Co.,
Boston.
Smith, Miss M. K. Herbart's Psychology, translated. International Ed.
series. Appleton.
Van Liew. Outlines of Pedagogics, by Rein and Van Liew. C. W.
Bardeen, Syracuse, N. Y.
The latter book contains a full bibliography of the German works of the
Herbart school as well as of those thus far published in English.