Outlines of Educational Doctrine

by Johann Friedrich Herbart

[ CHAPTER VI
The Material of Instruction from Different Points of View]

[95.] Differences in point of view give rise to conflicting opinions concerning not only the treatment, but also the choice of subject-matter for instruction. If, now, first one opinion then another wins predominance over the rest, the harmony of the purposes underlying both learning and teaching is wanting. Not only that, but the pupils suffer also directly through the lack of consistency where work is begun on one plan and continued on another.

[96.] The teacher in charge of a given branch of study only too often lays out his work without taking account of pedagogical considerations. His specialty, he thinks, suffices to suggest a plan; the successive steps in its organized content will, of course, be the proper sequence for instruction to follow. In teaching a language, he insists that pupils must master declensions and conjunctions in order that he may read an author with them later. He expects them to understand ordinary prose before he passes on to elucidate the finished style of a poet, etc. In mathematics, he demands that pupils bring to the subject perfect facility in common arithmetic; at a more advanced stage they must be able to handle logarithms with ease before formulæ requiring their use are reached, etc. In history, the first thing for him to do is to erect a solid chronological framework to hold the historical facts to be inserted afterward. For ancient history, he presupposes a knowledge of ancient geography, etc. This same view which derives the principle determining the sequence of studies from the instruction-material itself, as though it had been unconditionally and finally settled that such and such things must be taught, asserts itself on a larger scale in requirements for admission to higher grades or schools. Children are to be able to read, write, and cipher well before being allowed to enter the grammar school; promotions to higher grades are to take place only when the goal set for the grade immediately preceding has been reached. The good pupil, accordingly, is one who fits into and willingly submits to these arrangements. The natural consequence of all this is, that little heed is paid to the condition of attention, namely, the gradual progress of interest.

[97.] But still another consequence ensues, occasioning a different point of view. Pupils are commiserated on the ground that they are overburdened. All sorts of doubts spring up as to the wisdom of teaching the branches causing the trouble. Their future utility is called in question. A host of instances is adduced of adults neglecting and forgetting—forgetting without appreciable loss—that which it cost them so much toil to learn. Of course, examples showing the opposite to be true may also be cited, but that does not settle the question. It cannot be denied that there are many, even among the educated, who aspire to nothing higher than freedom from care by means of a lucrative calling, or a life of social enjoyment, and who, accordingly, estimate the value of their knowledge by this standard. Such a state of things is not mended by a kind of instruction that awakens little interest, and that in after years constitutes the dark side of reminiscences connected with early youth.

[98.] What is urged in reply is, generally speaking, true: youth must be kept busy; we cannot let children grow up wild. And their occupation has to be serious and severe, for government ([45]–[55]) must not be weak. But now, more than ever, doubt fastens on the choice of studies. Might not more useful things be offered for employment?

If, by way of rejoinder, the ancient languages are commended as being preëminently suited to give pupils diversity of work, this fact is accounted for by the faulty methods pursued in teaching the other subjects. With the proper method the same many-sided activity would be called forth. For the modern languages especially, the claim is made that they, too, are language studies involving reading, writing, translating, and training in the forms of thought. To this argument the unfortunate answer should not be returned, that the classical high schools must retain their Latin and Greek because they are educating future officials to whom the ancient languages are just as useful, nay, indispensable, as the modern languages to other classes. For, if the classical studies have once been degraded to the level of the useful and necessary, the door is thrown open to those who go a step farther still and demand to know of what use Hebrew is to the country parson, and Greek to the practising jurist or physician.

[99.] Controversies like these have often been conducted as if the humaniora or humanistic studies were radically opposed to the realia and could not admit them to partnership. In reality, the latter are at least as much a legitimate part of a complete education as the former. The whole matter has been made worse by the practice of some of the older generation of teachers who, in order to make the prescribed studies more palatable, descended to all kinds of amusement and play, instead of laying stress on abiding and growing interest. A view that regards the end as a necessary evil to be rendered endurable by means of sweetmeats, implies an utter confusion of ideas; and if pupils are not given serious tasks to perform, they will not find out what they are able to do.

We must, however, note in this connection that there are legitimate occasions even for the sweetening of study, just as in medicine there is a place for palliatives, notwithstanding the firm conviction of the physician that remedies promising a radical cure deserve the preference. Harmful and reprehensible as habitual playing with a subject is when it usurps the place of serious and thorough instruction, in cases where a task is not difficult, but seems so to the pupil, it often becomes necessary to start him by a dexterous, cheerful, almost playlike presentation of that which he is to imitate. Superfluous prolixity and clumsiness, through the ennui alone that they produce, cause failure in the easiest things. All this applies especially to the teaching of younger children and to the first lessons in a new subject, e.g., learning to read Greek, the beginning of algebra, etc.

[100.] If, among the conflicting opinions referred to, there is any vital point of controversy, it lies in the a priori assumption that certain subjects must be taught ([96]). Such an assumption educative instruction cannot allow to be severed from the end aimed at: the intellectual self-activity of the pupil. This, and not mere knowledge, any more than utility, determines the point of view with regard to the instruction-material. Experience and social intercourse are the primary sources of the pupil’s ideas. It is with reference to these two factors that we estimate strength or weakness in the ideas, and decide what instruction may accomplish with comparative ease or difficulty, at an earlier or at a later period. Good child literature turns to these sources even while children are only just learning to read, and gradually enlarges their range of thoughts. Not until this has been done can the question of instruction in one or the other department of knowledge claim consideration.