The naturalism of mechanical materialism is one of the characteristics of bourgeois culture, which is manifested in many aspects of bourgeois culture. The influence of naturalism on education is mainly manifested in the theory and practice of natural education of Rousseau, Pestalozzi and She Wei.

Rousseau, as a famous enlightenment scholar, made many contributions and made great achievements in educational thought. He put forward the theory of good human nature in view of the evil human nature in Christianity. He believes that children are born good, and the primary purpose of education is to protect this innate good nature and develop children's potential. To protect a child from the bad influence of the environment until he has the ability to resist evil, he must be educated according to his natural goodness. His theory of natural education was fully expounded in Emile's Theory of Education.

Rousseau started from the goodness of human nature and emphasized acquired education. There are three sources of acquired education: one is from nature; Second, people around you; The third is external things. Only when these three kinds of education are in the same direction and can cooperate satisfactorily can children receive a good education. Of these three kinds of education, natural education is not decided by people. Therefore, teachers should cherish children, cherish childhood, let nature take its course and teach students in accordance with their aptitude. Education that follows nature must be free education, because the most important natural right of human beings is freedom. Nature education must protect children's kind nature and let them develop freely physically and mentally. Rousseau believes that labor is of great significance to human survival, and only those who earn their own living are truly free people. Education is to cultivate free people who don't depend on others for a living and don't grab the fruits of others' labor. Rousseau also advocated that education should be carried out in stages according to the natural process of children's development. To this end, he divides children's education into four stages: the first stage is that the baby is from birth to five years old, and the main task is to ensure the baby's health; The second stage is from five to twelve years old, continuing physical exercise, developing various senses and cultivating children's self-confidence, satisfaction and independence; The third stage, from 12 to 15 years old, requires extensive study, including geography, astronomy, natural science, agricultural knowledge and handicraft technology, labor education and so on. The fourth stage is 15 to 20 years old, and the main task is moral education, because before that, individual development was limited by physical conditions, and rationality was just born. It's different now. With the natural development of nature, lust appears, and he needs a heterosexual partner, which can lead to all higher virtues. In this period, teenagers should study psychology, ethics and sociology, overcome all kinds of evil thoughts with the help of teachers, and cultivate noble sentiments such as friendship, love, justice, kindness, gratitude and sympathy.

Rousseau's natural education thought has a great influence on later generations. We can clearly see this influence from Pestalozzi and Shecheng.

Pestalozzi (1746— 1827) is a famous Swiss educator. At school, he was influenced by French enlightenment thinkers. He understands the sufferings of the broad masses of lower classes and gives them deep sympathy. To this end, he devoted his life to the education of orphans.

He inherited and developed Rousseau's educational thought. He believes that man is an organism that develops according to certain laws. Underground seeds will grow and produce beautiful flowers, and so will newborn children. As long as there is a certain environment, he can develop his inherent nature and become an excellent citizen. The responsibility of teachers lies in discovering this development law and establishing an educational structure that can effectively reflect this law. He believes that through persuasion, enlightenment and education, people's good wishes can be stimulated and the living conditions of the poor can be fundamentally changed. Therefore, he advocates that all people should receive education. Regarding the role of education in people, he particularly emphasized the principle that education should adapt to nature, that is, education must stimulate and develop children's natural abilities and strengths. Starting from the principle of conforming to nature, he regards the development of human nature and the cultivation of perfect people as his educational purpose. To achieve this goal, we must develop human nature in an all-round and harmonious way and become a person with all-round development in morality, intelligence and physique. His educational thought of harmonious development includes three aspects: first, physical education and labor education. He regards sports as an important part of the harmonious development of human beings. He believes that the task of sports is to develop all physical strength in the human body. He also regards physical education as the primary stage of labor education, and thinks that without the development of all kinds of physical strength, labor education is impossible. Because he regards labor education as a means to cultivate children's independent living ability, he pays special attention to the combination of labor and education. However, the combination of education and labor he wants here is only for the children of working people, not for the children of the rich. This shows the limitations of his thought. The second is moral education. He believes that moral education is the key to the whole education system. According to his idea, moral education must be linked with family education, and through the maternal love for children, children's seeds of love, trust and gratitude can be stimulated and awakened. He attaches great importance to the exemplary role of teachers. The third is intellectual education. He believes that intellectual education plays an important role in the harmonious development of human beings. In his view, all people are born with various talents. Intellectual education lies in stimulating children's talents. But he also admitted that the development of intelligence is inseparable from the accumulation of some knowledge. It is from this basic point of view that he advocates that in primary school, students should be allowed to acquire a wide range of knowledge, and as much as possible through observation and practice.

Pestalozzi devoted his life to education. He runs many schools, such as burgdorf School and Evanton School. He suffered many setbacks in running a school, but he was not discouraged. His educational activities attracted the attention of the western world, and Napoleon visited his school in Everton. Teenagers from many countries come to study. For example, in 1808, the Prussian government sent seventeen young people to Pestalozzi school for three years. After returning to China, these students became the backbone of Prussian education reform. The Pestalozzi movement was launched in western European countries, which greatly promoted the development of bourgeois education. In recognition of his educational achievements, the French government awarded him the title of "citizen of the French Republic" in 1792, and was knighted by Russian emperor Alexander in 18 14.

Dewey (1859— 1952) is a famous American educator. His educational thought also has a strong color of natural education. His works are very rich, including School and Society, Children and Curriculum, etc. Dewey discussed the essence of education from the following aspects according to his own educational theory. Firstly, based on the theory of biological psychology, Dewey regards education as a process to promote the growth of children's natural instinct and desire. Secondly, from the perspective of education is growth and the relationship between education and social life, Dewey proposed that the essence of education is life. Thirdly, from the perspective of acquiring knowledge, Dewey regards the transformation or reorganization of experience as the essence of education.

Learning by doing is the basic principle of all Dewey's teaching theories, which runs through all aspects of teaching. In terms of textbooks and courses, he strongly opposes the textbooks centered on existing knowledge used in traditional education and the subject courses composed of such textbooks. He urged that the source of a textbook is the direct experience formed by children's own activities. He pointed out that various activities such as carpentry and ironwork occupy a central position in the course. In terms of teaching methods and steps, he advocates activity teaching. In his view, activity homework centered on children's direct experience is both a teaching material and a teaching method. Teaching steps, that is, through several steps of learning activities to achieve the continuous transformation of students' experience. In the form of teaching organization, he advocated activity teaching. In class, we should prepare a place for children to have full activities, and there are various teaching materials and tools suitable for children's activities. We should set up laboratories, workshops, gardens and so on. In school, children can study in the activities they do, instead of sitting quietly on neat tables and chairs and listening to the teacher's systematic lectures. Regarding the role of teachers, he believes that teachers no longer play a leading role in teaching, but only play an auxiliary role in assisting students' activities.

Dewey is a world-class figure. He not only attracted thousands of students to study with him at Columbia University, but also often served as a visiting professor, lecturer and consultant. 19 19 taught philosophy and mathematics at imperial university in Tokyo. In the next two years, he served as a visiting professor in Peking University, China. He was also invited to help the governments of Turkey, Russia, Mexico and other countries to formulate education systems.