Outlines of Educational Doctrine

by Johann Friedrich Herbart

[143.] Our will activities result from ideas. Different masses of ideas give rise to different will action; hence the difficulty experienced in harmonizing and unifying the manifold acts of will.

The various groups of ideas do not simply succeed one another in consciousness; the relation of one to the other may also be that of apperception. Apperceiving attention is not confined to sense-perception ([77]); it embraces inner perception as well. The process of apperception, however, consists rarely or never in mere perceiving. It involves more: one mass of ideas exerts a determining influence on the other. Now, since each may be the source of will action, it happens that often one act of will accepts or rejects another. Again, conscious of himself preëminently as a being that wills, man gives commands to himself and decides concerning himself; he seeks to acquire self-control. In such efforts he makes himself more and more the object of his own observation. That part of his will activity which his self-observation reveals to be already in existence, we call the objective part of character. To the new will action, on the other hand, which first springs into existence in and with self-examination, we give the name subjective part of character.

The subjective side of character can attain its full development only during the years of maturity. Its beginnings, however, reach back into boyhood, and its normal growth during adolescence is noticeably rapid, due allowance being made for variations of kind and degree in different individuals.

The assumption of the unconditional primacy of ideas can no longer be seriously entertained. Just as there is an unfolding of ideas in sensation, perception, apperception, and rational insight, so there is an unfolding of our volitional life in impulse, conscious will action, and the control of conduct in accordance with the regulative principles of moral obligation. Knowledge and will doubtless spring from a common root, but they are not primarily so related that volition waits on knowledge. Impulse is antecedent to idea, while in the last analysis and in the highest realm of mind, the actual is subordinate to the ideal, the ought is more powerful than the is. In other words, there is, as Dr. Harris maintains, a sense in which the will is self-determining, even though the extent to which this self-active control obtains is uncertain. As Natorp says,[14] “It is folly to call upon the weak to be strong, to concentrate consciousness upon the categorical imperative, so that the inflexible demands of the ought shall be complied with.” Yet even in the weak there is a bar of consciousness or perhaps conscience before which judgment must be pronounced as to the worthiness or unworthiness of a given line of conduct. It is the function of moral education—and this includes all education—to make the weak strong, to strengthen the good impulses, to clarify the insight, to accustom the mind to dwell on the right set of ideas, to cultivate desirable feelings and interests. In this process of moral development, the world of ideas has perhaps all the validity claimed for it by Herbart. What is here called the “subjective” side of character pertains to that regulation of conduct which arises from its examination before the bar of consciousness as to its agreement or disagreement with the regulative principles of moral obligation. It is that advanced stage of development in character in which the mind is consciously self-directive. Naturally it is later than the “objective” side, where action is more spontaneous, more governed by impulses, more subject to hypnotic suggestion; in short, more subordinated to “ideo-motor” activity and less governed by reflection.

[14] Natorp, “Socialpädagogik,” p. 9, tr. Fromman, Stuttgart, 1899.

[144.] In view of the very manifold volitional elements which the objective foundations of character may obviously contain, it will facilitate a survey if we distinguish (1) that which the pupil does or does not endure willingly, (2) that which he does or does not long to have, (3) that which he does or does not like to do. Now one, now the other class predominates, the strongest controlling and restricting the rest. But this restriction is not always an easy matter. Accordingly the objective phase of character attains at first to inner harmony only with difficulty.

[145.] In consequence of frequent repetitions of similar acts of will, general concepts are gradually formed in the subjective side of character, concepts comprehending both the similar will actions already present under similar circumstances, and the requirements man sets up for himself with a view to determining his willing one way or another.

These requirements fall largely within the province of prudence; they pertain to forethought and cautious reserve, or, may be, to action, in order that an end may be gained by the choice of suitable means. The boy wants to be wiser than the child; the youth wiser than either. In this way man seeks to rise above himself.

[146.] Moral conduct is not always furthered by man’s effort to surpass himself, so that the teacher’s task becomes a twofold one,—a watching and directing not only of the objective but also of the subjective side of character. Temperament, native bent, habit, desire, and passion fall under the former; to the latter belong the frankness or cunning displayed by the pupil, and his habitual method of practical reasoning.