Johann Friedrich Herbart was a renowned German philosopher and educator who led the nineteenth-century interest in Realism and is considered among the founders of modern scientific pedagogy. He studied under Johann Gottlieb Fichte at Jena in 1794 and in 1808 became Immanuel Kant’s successor as professor of philosophy at K?nigsberg. He developed a philosophy of mind and pioneered a new theory of education that became known as “Herbartianism.” He stressed the study of the psychological processes of learning as a means of devising educational programs based on the aptitudes, abilities, and interests of students. By maintaining that a science of education was possible, Herbart furthered the idea that education should be a subject for university study.
　　Herbart and Herbartianism
　　The widespread and increasing influence of Herbart and his disciples in the work of education makes a brief treatment of this German philosopher and educationist desirable in the present work. John Frederick Herbart, b. at Oldenburg, 1776; d. at G?ttingen, 1841. He was the son of a lawyer whose wife, a woman of brilliant parts, was subsequently divorced from her husband. The child was delicate and was at first educated by an able tutor under the supervision of his mother. He exhibited extraordinary precocity, was of quick intelligence and retentive memory, and showed remarkable aptitude for mathematics, physical science and music. He began logic at eleven and metaphysics at twelve; he went to the gymnasium of his native town at thirteen and, after a distinguished course there, passed to the University of Jena at the age of eighteen to study law. This subject he neglected, becoming an enthusiastic student of philosophy under Fichte, then at the zenith of his fame. Herbart, however, was of too critical a mind to be content with Fichte's Idealism, and at the age of twenty began the elaboration of a philosophic system of his own. In 1807, after three years, his course still incomplete, he left the University to become a private tutor in the family of a German nobleman. The education of the three sons aged 14, 10, and 8 was entirely entrusted to Herbart on condition that he should write a lengthy report by letter to the father every two months. This was Herbart's first and most important experience in the work of teaching. Five of the letters which remain are amongst his most interesting writings and contain some of his main educational ideas. During this period he visited Pestalozzi at Burgdorf. In 1799 he resigned his tutorships, devoted himself for a couple of years to the study of philosophy and wrote some small works on education including appreciations of Pestalozzi's writings. In 1802 he went to G?ttingen, obtained his degree of doctor and began lecturing on philosophy and pedagogics at the modest stipend of $225 per annum. Between 1802 and 1808 he published several pedagogic works, including the "?sthetic Revelation of the World" and the "Science of Education"; also works on metaphysics and logic. In 1809 he was appointed to the chair at K?nigsberg formerly occupied by Kant, where he lectured on philosophy and pedagogics for over twenty years. His chief interest, however, was in the latter subject. With the approval of the Minister of Education he founded a pedagogic seminary having a practicing school attached. In this he himself taught for an hour daily. In 1809 he married an Englishwoman. During the remainder of his life he lectured to large audiences, and published sundry works on education. He returned to profess at G?ttingen in 1833, where he laboured till his death in 1841.
　　General Philosophical Views
　　Though Herbart was an able and original thinker his influence in philosophy has not been considerable. In metaphysics his scientific temper led him to advocate a system of Realism in opposition to the Idealism then in vogue. In ethics he approximates towards Kant's teaching in some respects; but instead of Kant's Categorical Imperative he puts forward five Practical or Moral Ideas--the Ideas of Inner Freedom, Perfection, Benevolence, Right, and Equity--as the frame-work of his moral system. In psychology he rejected the doctrine, generally accepted from Aristotle to Kant, of a soul endowed with certain native faculties or powers. For this he substitutes a simple soul with presentations, states, or impressions. As, however, in his view, we know nothing about this simple soul in itself, after it has once been postulated as the arena for the operations of the presentations, the soul becomes, for all practical purposes, merely the series or mass of these presentations, whilst their permutations, interactions, and combinations constitute the entire fibre of our mental life. Herbart strove to apply mathematics to the working of these presentations and to establish quantitative laws describing their mutual interactions. This attempt had in itself no success, but indirectly stimulated the subsequent allied movement in favour of experimental measurement of mental states carried on by Fechner Weber, Wundt, and others. There is remarkable similarity between Herbart and the English Associationist school in their common mechanical view of the nature of mental life, though Herbart is spiritualistic whilst their tend towards Materialism.
　　Herbart's main interest in philosophy however, is the problem of Education--its object, its method, its possibilities. Education is in fact both the starting point and the goal of all his philosophical inquiries. The end of education is, he holds, determined by ethics. It is the formation of noble, cultivated, moral character. Morality is goodness of will. Moral conduct cannot be embraced, as Kant imagined, under one principle. It is best included under the five practical ideas. Ideal character is to be attained by "many-sided interest". The full development of the individual, the realization of all his capabilities should be then the constant aim of the process of education. The main foundations on which Herbart's whole theory of education rests are his doctrines of apperception and interest. Apperception, with Herbart means the act or process of assimilating, appropriating and identifying an object, impression or idea. All progress in knowledge after the first percipient act is a process of apperception, and the character of each new perception is determined by those which have gone before. The first sensation or impression affords no knowledge, but results in a presentation which persists in existence gradually sinking down below the surface of consciousness. This original presentation existing in the sub-conscious state of our mental life will be partially wakened and called up into conscious activity by the next impression. Thus aroused it modifies the reception of the latter and partially fuses with it. Again this pair of presentations or this compound state similarly sinking down into subconscious life still remains ready to appropriate the next impression assimilating it in like fashion. But the method of the reception and the character of the appropriation is constantly varying with the increasing collection of presentations or ideas already in the mind. The facility and completeness with which each fresh idea is assimilated is determined by what has gone before. Herein, according to the Herbartian school, lies the importance of directing the process of apperception by judicious selection of the materials which are to constitute the experience of the child. As the mind, in this view is simply built up entirely out of the ideas which it has received, the kinds of ideas presented to it and the order in which they come are of the utmost moment in the work of education. Ideas or objects are assimilable or apperceivable when partially familiar; a totally foreign idea has no friends already lodged in the mind to welcome it.