Outlines of Educational Doctrine

by Johann Friedrich Herbart

There is a host of minor faults, blunders, and even acts resulting in damage, which tax the patience of the teacher severely; but it would imply a mistaken conception of the difficulty of moral education, if he should repel the frankness of his pupils by harsh treatment of such offence. Frankness is too essential a factor to be sacrificed; once gone it will hardly ever wholly return.

[322.] But the first lie uttered with evil intent, the first act of theft, and similar actions positively detrimental to morality or health, have to be dealt with severely, and always in such a way that the pupil who thought he was permitting himself a slight fault, is made to experience most thoroughly both fear and censure.

[323.] Serious treatment of a first offence is demanded also where pupils try to see how far they may safely disregard authority and command. It is important, however, not to overestimate the intention of these attempts; important also to exhibit strength, but not anger. Yet there are cases where the teacher must seem to act with some warmth, because the necessary treatment, if combined with coldness, would only intensify bitterness and cause pain an inordinate length of time. But very likely as much feeling as is expedient will show itself upon simply laying aside the assumed coldness.

[324.] On the restoration of perfect order after a period during which government and training were lacking, a large number of faults will disappear of themselves, and accordingly do not require to be combated one by one. Respect for order, and incentives sufficiently strong to regular activity, are the main things.

[325.] Faults which the pupil seems to possess are often only the borrowed maxims of the society which he hopes to enter. Here it becomes the business of education to set him right, if possible, and to elevate his view of human relations, in order that he may disdain the false appearances he before held in esteem.

[326.] Faults which an older pupil actually possesses rarely occur singly. Moreover, they are seldom fully disclosed; their appearance is determined by a prudent regard for circumstances. During the period of education such faults can, indeed, be largely prevented from growing worse, but the radical improvement of those who are secretive from prudence is rarely to be thought of before they have become more prudent still, too proud for concealment, and more susceptible to the true estimate of moral values.

Where older boys and young men are found to possess unused talents, and where instruction can be so arranged as to develop them, there is some prospect of supplying a counterbalance to those habits which have been contracted. But, in general, efforts looking toward a lasting reform are successful only when made at an early age. At all events, where there is much to amend, the feeling of dependence on strict training must be kept alive for a long time.

[327.] More success is likely to attend the endeavor to correct those faults which are not tolerated within the social class of which the pupil regards himself a member. Two factors determine the proper mode of procedure: the importance of making the pupil acquainted with the worthiest side of his social group, and, on the other hand, the unavoidable necessity of causing him to see its less noble features in case he discovers in it free scope for his inherent faults.

[328.] Here the pupil’s capacity for education, as well as the limits of that capacity, are brought home to the teacher. As boys approach manhood, they let birth and external circumstances designate for them that class of society to which they will belong. The class defined, they seek to acquire its form of life, and to get into its main current. On the way thither they accept and take along so much of higher motives, of knowledge and insight, as, on the one hand, instruction offers and training favors, and as, on the other hand, the individuality of each one, which the earliest impressions have further determined, is ready to assimilate. Those are rare exceptions who, through the development of an absorbing interest of some kind, in religion, or science, or art, have become less susceptible to the attractive force of their social class. Their course has been marked out by the instruction which induced the absorption; henceforth they are self-actively engaged in the pursuit of whatever accords with the end in view, and accept only a small part of what is presented to them.