Herbart’s View of Education

Johann F. Herbart (1775-1841) attempted to systematize pedagogy as a science. In doing so, he incorporated ethics and psychology into pedagogy, as its basis, whereby he established ethics as the aim of education, and psychology as the means of education.

First, following Kant, Herbart considered a “good man” to be the image of an ideal person; and the “cultivation of a moral character” as the goal of education. Next, he outlined the method of education, proposing that what forms the foundation of human spiritual life are the presentations in one’s mind; therefore, by cultivating one’s circle of thought, or one’s collection of presentations, a person’s moral character can be cultivated. In other words, he advocated building moral character through teaching knowledge.

Herbart pointed out the importance of instruction in the formation of representations, and explained the process of instruction. According to the Herbartian school, which later revised Herbart’s theory, the process of instruction consists of five stages:
(1) prepare the students to be ready for the new lesson,
(2) present the new lesson,
(3) associate the new lesson with what was studied earlier,
(4) use examples to illustrate the lesson’s major points, and
(5) test students to ensure they had learned the new lesson.