Outlines of Educational Doctrine

by Johann Friedrich Herbart

Niemeyer, in his widely read work, opens his treatment of the particular laws of instruction with a chapter entitled: “The First Steps in awakening Attention and Reflection through Instruction, or Exercises in Thinking.” These exercises are no other than the elementary processes of analytic instruction. He says: “When the age, the health, and the strength of children have made instruction proper seem expedient, the first lesson should be one of the kind described in the chapter heading. Such exercises might be profitably continued in some form or other until the ninth or tenth year, and probably even later. The fact that it is not easy to describe them in a word very likely explains why we fail to find them in most programmes of private and public schools. That at last some attention is being given even in the common schools to this matter is one of the venerable Canon Rochow’s imperishable services to education.”

Pestalozzi, in his book for mothers, strikes out in the same direction. It will not serve the purpose, to be sure, to confine oneself, as he does, to a single object; still, the kind of exercises is indicated very definitely by him; indeed, more definitely, in some ways, than by Niemeyer.

[113.] The notions of pupils about surrounding objects, that is, notions in which the strongest impressions predominate ([111]), must be made to approach uniformity first. This is accomplished by uniform reproduction.

On this point Niemeyer says, “The teacher should begin by talking with his pupils about those objects which are, at the time, affecting their senses directly. Pointing to these objects, he asks the pupils to name them. He then passes on to things that are not present, but that the children have seen or felt before. At the same time he exercises their powers of imagination and expression by making them enumerate what they are able to recall. Suitable material: everything in the schoolroom; the human body; everything pertaining to food, dress, comfort; things found in the fields, in the garden, in the yard; animals and plants so far as they are known by the children.”

[114.] The next step consists in pointing out the main facts of a given whole, the relative position of these parts, their connection, and their movability, if they can be moved without damage. To this are properly linked the simplest facts concerning the uses of things. At the same time children are taught how they must not use things, and how, instead of ruining them, they ought to look after them and use them with care. The abundance and number of things, their size, form, and weight, should likewise be referred to as early as this stage, and should furnish occasion for comparisons.

But something more is needed to give distinctness to the ideas of pupils, and to prepare the way for future abstract thinking. Beginning first with the objects, we derive from them the predicates by searching out the attributes; this done, we must in turn make the predicates our starting-point, and classify the objects under the heads thus obtained. This distinction has been made before by Pestalozzi; it is one of fundamental importance in the preparation for generalization. While engaged in such work pupils will of themselves learn to compare, to discriminate, and, in some instances, to observe more accurately: erroneous notions due to an active imagination will be corrected by the appeal to experience as the source of knowledge.

[115.] Of what remains to be done, the most important task consists in securing a comprehensive view of a somewhat extended time-series, of which objects, together with their natural or artificial origins, are members. An elementary knowledge will thus be gained, especially of the simplest facts about manufacturing processes, and about intercourse among human beings, which facts will serve subsequently as the groundwork for instruction in natural history and geography. But for history also the way must be prepared by referring, although only in the most general way, to times when the utensils and tools of the present had not yet been invented, when the arts of to-day were as yet unknown, and when people were still without those materials that are now imported from foreign countries.

[116.] It does not follow, because no definite periods are set apart for the instruction described, that it is not being given at all. We may find it incorporated, to a large extent, with something else, particularly with the interpretation of elementary reading matter, which forms part of the first work in the mother-tongue. Nevertheless, a subject that is taught only incidentally is always liable to suffer, if not from indifference, at least from inadequate treatment.

On the other hand, we cannot fail to recognize that the appointment of separate periods for analytic instruction may prove difficult, owing to the fact that the rate of progress depends so largely on the stock of ideas pupils bring with them, and on their readiness to utter what they think and feel. Besides, while Niemeyer expressly says, “Children taught in this manner know nothing of tedium,” he also hastens to add, “but it is easy to spoil them by too rapid changes of subject.” The same, or similar bad consequences, may result from other school exercises where the teacher himself supplies a profusion of instruction-material, and so relieves his pupils of the trouble of gathering such material from their own recollections. On the whole, therefore, it will be well enough to set apart but few hours, or weeks, for the first attempts; and these can be made a part of the lessons in the mother-tongue.

In private instruction the difficulty spoken of is not encountered. Besides, the ample opportunities afforded for observing the pupil’s store of ideas make it easy to devise a suitable plan for the earliest analytic teaching.