Outlines of Educational Doctrine

by Johann Friedrich Herbart

At all his jokes, for many a joke had he;

Full well the busy whisper, circling round,

Conveyed the dismal tidings when he frowned.”

[167.] Second. Training is to exert a determining influence; it is to induce the pupil to choose ([147]). Under this head falls the discrimination spoken of above between varieties of volitional impulse—the will to bear, to have, and to do; hence also experiential knowledge of the natural consequences of doing or of failure to do ([157]), for unless these are taken into consideration, the manifold of will cannot be reduced to harmony. Now the first point to be noticed in connection with this aspect of training is that the teacher does not choose for the pupil. The pupil himself must choose, for it is his own character that is to be determined. He must himself experience a part, although only the smallest part, of that which is desirable or harmful. That the flame burns that a pin pricks, that a fall or knock hurts, this lesson even the little child must learn; and similar experiences must be gained later, provided they do not carry the pupil to the verge of serious danger. Everything essential has been accomplished if, in consequence of actual experiences confirming the teacher’s words of warning, the pupil believes other warnings without waiting for confirmation.

Not second in importance to the act of choosing is the content of the choice. If conduct must have a social outcome, all the activities of the school will focus at this point. In order to have rational choice there must be first of all social intelligence. This it is the function of instruction to develop. According to a well-known doctrine of Herbart, it is the chief duty of instruction to make a progressive revelation to the pupil of the ethical world, in order that his puny will may gradually be reinforced by race experience. The instruments for this revelation are the studies on the one hand, and the conduct of the school according to social principles on the other. In the second place, that the ethical choice may truly express the pupil’s inward state, rather than his outward constraint, it must grow out of his insight as suffused by his social responsiveness to ethical ideas. In other words, his disposition should confirm his intellectual perception of the right line of conduct. This raises the whole matter of interest as related to will.[17] Here again natural, spontaneous, almost unconscious attitude is vastly superior to morbid introspection, no matter how ‘good’ the pupil’s disposition may prove to be. A boy should not have to ‘reflect’ as to whether he will rob a bird’s nest or not.

[17] See Dr. John Dewey, “Interest as Related to Will,” National Herbart Society, reprint for 1899.

[168.] Pleasure and pain arise so largely out of social relations that the pupil must grow up amidst a social environment in order to become somewhat acquainted with his natural place among men. This requirement gives rise accordingly to solicitous precautions against a bad example and rudeness. On the other hand, a boy’s companions should not be chosen with such anxious care as if the intention were to spare him the feeling of pressure which in all human society is generated by the efforts and counter-efforts of men. Too great complaisance on the part of playmates causes delusions as to the actual conditions of life.

Again, society and seclusion must alternate. The social current is not to carry everything else along with it, and to become more powerful than education. Even the boy, and much more the youth, must learn to be alone, and to fill up his time profitably.

Unbroken association of the child with his mates tends to bring him too exclusively under the influence of imitation and of acting impulsively upon those forms of unreasoning suggestion which sway the crowd, the gang, and the mob. To quote Professor Baldwin:[18] “The characteristics of the social suggestions upon which the crowd act show them to be strictly suggestions. They are not truths, nor arguments, nor insights, nor inventions.... The suggestible mind has very well known marks. Balzac hit off one of them in ‘Eugénie Grandet’ in the question, ‘Can it be that collectively man has no memory?’ We might go through the list of mental functions asking the same question of them one by one. Has man collectively no thought, no sense of values, no deliberation, no self-control, no responsibility, no conscience, no will, no motive, no purpose? And the answer to each question would be the same, No, he has none. The suggestible consciousness is the consciousness that has no past, no future, no height, no depth, no development, no reference to anything; it is only in and out. It takes in and it acts out—that is all there is to it.” It is here that we find the source of the youthful escapade so common to street, school, and college, as well as of the adult deeds of diabolism that have so often shocked the moral sense of the American people. The child needs frequent opportunities to be alone, when he can “come to himself” as a responsible person. Even where the association with his mates is perfectly innocent, there is a growing responsiveness to mere suggestion. This tendency is corrected by attention to individual tasks and responsibilities.

[18] “Social and Ethical Interpretations,” pp. 236–237.