Outlines of Educational Doctrine

by Johann Friedrich Herbart

[338.] The school system and its relations to local authorities, on the one hand, and to the general government, on the other, form a vast and difficult subject involving not merely pedagogical principles, but also such aims as the maintenance of higher learning, the dissemination of useful information, and the practice of indispensable arts. In university lectures a few words on such topics suffice, since young men who accept a school position assume, at the same time, obligations which for a long time to come prescribe for them the path they must follow.

[339.] They must, in the first place, consider the character of the school in which they are to instruct. The school programme provides them with information concerning the scope of the curriculum, the established relations of the branches of instruction to one another, and the various stages in each subject. The teachers’ conference affords them an insight into multiplex relations to authorities, parents, and guardians, and to the pupils, also relations leading to coöperation, more or less perfect, on the part of the teachers. The whole of the educational effort directed upon younger, intermediate, and older pupils is presented in one view; it is known also where the pupils come from, with what kind of preparation, and where as a rule they go upon leaving the school.

[340.] It must obviously make a vast difference whether pupils look forward to the university, or whether the gymnasium is filled with boys who do not intend to pursue higher studies; whether a burgher school sets a final examination to mark the stage of general culture to which the school is expected to advance the pupils, or whether the pupils enter and leave without well-defined reasons according to what seems best to their respective families; whether an elementary school is conducted merely as an institution preparing for gymnasia or burgher schools, or whether its course provides for the suitable education, during his whole boyhood, of the future artisan, etc.

The American school system possesses this great advantage over that of Germany,—it has an educational ladder planted in every elementary school upon which any child from any social class may mount as high as his ambition incites, or his means and ability permit. It is the only suitable system in a democracy, where opportunity should be open to all. Even to obtain greater perfection than the German school system has ever attained, a democratic nation cannot afford to impair its present organization, in so far as it makes advancement possible to every aspiring soul.

[341.] In each case the official activity entered upon must adjust itself properly to the whole, the outlines of which are given. These determine the proportion and the subdivision of the store of learning to be kept ready for use, the degree of confidence to be shown to pupils as to knowledge already acquired, and the manner in which they are to be addressed. It is important that the teacher should appear before his class adequately prepared and with confident self-possession, that he should look about attentively at every one and make each pupil feel at once that it would not be easy for him to undertake anything without being noticed.

[342.] The questions to be put to the pupils need to be formulated clearly and concisely, and they must follow each other in easy sequence. The answers must be corrected and, when necessary, repeated, in order that all may hear them. No pause should be unduly prolonged; no explanation to the weaker pupil should be allowed to become oppressively tedious to the more advanced. Those who are at work at the moment must be assisted, but ought not to be disturbed by much interrupting talk. The current of thought is to be invited and accelerated in all, but not hurried, etc.

Such requirements instruction will meet with greater or less difficulty, according as classes are small or large and the inequality of pupils great or slight.

[343.] In the assigning of work the capacity of each pupil must be taken into account as much as possible, in order that no one may surrender to ill-humor and discouragement on account of excessive demands, nor any one permit himself carelessly to abuse a task too easy for him.

[344.] Inequalities of division resulting from rearrangements of classes, or other changes, must be pointed out to the authorities as clearly as possible, for the purpose of urging a more even distribution and a reduction of excessive numbers.