Obuchi believes that human psychology has three functions: knowledge, emotion and intention, and accordingly, as an axiology, it has three values: truth, goodness and beauty. As cultural expression, there are three worlds: philosophical world (including extensive knowledge as a whole), moral world and artistic world. Religion is a super world of knowledge, morality and art, and a mysterious realm of extrasensory, so it is called "sacred".
He also believes that the essence of Plato's "supreme goodness" based on truth, goodness and beauty is religion. He attaches great importance to religion. As can be seen from the list, Xiaoyuan regards truth, goodness, beauty and sacredness as absolute values, while sacredness is the highest value. As for the value of health and wealth as a means, Xiaoyuan also made some arguments in this book. He said: "People have both physical and psychological aspects. In order to make the body become the source of life preservation and spiritual activities, health must be required. This requires the value of' health'. But in any case, health is only the value of means. " Because the meaning of health is not simply living, not simply being strong, but all activities that supply and help people. People don't live to eat, but eat to live. He added: "Wealth is an indispensable means of spiritual activities. In order to make spiritual activities more effective and powerful, there are many categories of wealth. Such as invention, planning, transportation, politics, diplomacy, industry, military, law and so on. , all belong to the big category of seeking money. However, in the final analysis, wealth is a means value. Like the value of health, it is an indispensable means value for vigorous spiritual activities. " We should be masters of wealth, not enslaved by it. Become a slave to wealth. These are the values of Ogara's holistic education. Obuchi believes that people have ideals. Educators and educatees have their own ideals, although they have different understandings. Everyone will determine their ideals according to the culture, spirit and ideals of the times, plus their own views on human nature, the universe and life. Educational ideals at all times and all over the world include individualism, socialism, nationalism, internationalism, idealism, materialism, religionism, subjectivism, humanism and cultivation, plus mechanism and naturalism in methods, which have various forms of expression. He said, I believe that there is only one ultimate goal of education (referring to cultivating people-author's note), and all the above theories are all aspects of the only educational ideal. A society that ignores individuals cannot prosper, and individuals who ignore society will not develop. A country resented by other countries can't get peace, and people can't live without national disunity. Simple religious education, art education, moral education and industrial education all make people develop abnormally. Mechanical bondage can't expect people to grow up, and laissez-faire freedom is not real freedom. How to solve this contradiction of binary opposition? I turned to Hegel's dialectics, that is, to unify the duality of opposites by carrying forward and sublating. I advocate abandoning all doctrines and concepts and returning to "human education" and "holistic education", which includes six aspects:
1. Knowledge education lies in truth. Ogara Guofang believes that knowledge education in Japan is simply a long story. There are cramming education, rote learning education, winning the exam competition education, making a name for yourself education, and even cheating education. These are not true knowledge, but false knowledge. He said, "As China scholars say, the first is wisdom, and the second is learning". He believes that teaching should not be a simple professor, but should be centered on learning; It should not be cramming, but should be creative; Knowledge should not be taught to students by teachers, but should be mastered by students themselves; The improvement of learning quality should not rely on the increase of quantity and learning burden, but should make students interested in learning. He quoted Confucius' famous saying that "knowing is not as good as being kind, and being kind is not as good as being happy". He hoped that teachers and university professors in primary and secondary schools and kindergartens in Japan would do everything possible to stimulate students' enthusiasm for knowledge, arouse students' interest in learning, and let them master the pickaxe to tap the treasure house of knowledge. That is, the method of learning.
Secondly, he believes that seeking truth and knowledge must arouse students' sense of surprise and doubt. He believes that the ancient Greeks began to study with a sense of surprise and doubt. He said "learning" was curious in ancient Greece. It is because of doubts about the mysteries of the universe that Galileo, Newton and others have a thirst for knowledge and a heart of exploration. However, cramming teaching, rote memorization and hard work for exam competition will kill the desire for knowledge, the heart of exploration, the seeds of doubt and surprise, so there is no real knowledge. Therefore, arousing students' sense of surprise and doubt is the basic theory that must be followed in the teaching of various subjects. In his view, in order to gain true knowledge in the teaching of science courses, experiments must be carried out. He was very dissatisfied with the science teaching in many primary and secondary schools in Tokyo at that time. Generally, he doesn't do experiments, but memorizes the entrance exams. In his view, it is impossible to seek true knowledge.
2. Moral education lies in goodness. In his long-term educational practice, Oghara Guofang put forward that the goal of moral education is to train students to "be able to meet the most difficult, unfavorable, painful and troublesome things in life with a happy smile". Students must be educated to be pioneers in life and the spirit of serving mankind. All for service, all for others. This is goodness. He unswervingly maintains the important position of moral education in education. His reasons for maintaining moral education are: (1) moral education is the central subject; (2) Ethical knowledge is the orientation of moral education; (3) From the national character, Japanese people, especially Japanese women, need moral education very much; (4) the need of ethical philosophy; (5) the need to complete a harmonious personality. He believes that the task of moral education is to enable students to: (1) understand the dignity of personality value, respect their own personality and respect the personality of others; (2) Seeking a reliable outlook on life, which can transcend emotions and all feelings; (3) Deeply understand the meanings of good, evil and distress, and know the sublimity of repentance for evil; (4) Understand the importance of moral life, the dispute between desire and reason, and the contradiction of life; (5) Shaping students into beautiful, honest, reliable and consistent people. He opposes empty moral preaching in the teaching process and advocates personality influence and "equivalence" (intimacy and equality between teachers and students). He said: "Personality is the whole spiritual activity with personality as the object, which is the essence of holistic education." He said: "The education in Jade Biography is actually the education from the teacher's mind to the student's mind, and the education from the teacher's personality to the student's personality." It can be seen that he attaches great importance to the teacher's words and deeds in teaching and education activities.
3. Art education lies in beauty. Obuchi believes that art is an indispensable part of saving human moral degeneration.
How does the school carry out art education? He believes that through art and music teaching, reciting and pondering famous works, and appreciating good paintings and music, especially drama, have great power to cultivate personality. He paid special attention to the performance of "school drama", which is a kind of drama suitable for children's appreciation level and performed by children themselves. Its content mostly belongs to some themes of warmth, friendship, justice, honesty, self-sacrifice, solidarity and mutual assistance and scientific fantasy. These contents and characters have great charm in forming children's artistic hobbies. Therefore, since the establishment of Zicheng Academy and Yuchuan Academy, he has been actively advocating "school drama" under the pressure of the Ministry of Education for more than 50 years. In music education, he criticized Japanese primary schools for not appreciating songs enough and singing too little. I hope to double it, preferably triple it. Everyone can learn a musical instrument. He criticized the phenomenon that Japanese junior high school teaching occupied music time everywhere for the senior high school entrance examination, and there was no music class in senior high school, and art education was not valued. In addition, he paid special attention to the artistic influence of natural beauty on students. He said that even in the era when science is omnipotent, we should still respect nature and be close to its beauty.
In Chinese teaching, he advocates that students should read Aesop's fables, Andersen's fairy tales, Hugo's Les Miserables, Dante's Divine Comedy, Shakespeare's three tragedies and comedies, Goethe's Faust and Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment. He believes that these books are classics of human beings, textbooks for self-cultivation and treasure books for shaping people. In addition, he also emphasized the role of myth.
4. Religious education is sacred. Ogasahara Guofang spoke highly of the influence of religion. He believes that religion is "sacred" and has the highest value, and it is the core concept that runs through "holistic education". His so-called "sacredness" is to guide students into a mysterious and agnostic situation. He led the temporarily unknown scientific phenomenon to religious mysticism. Therefore, the religious education in Ogara's holistic education is a negative educational factor, because it damages the scientific truth.
5. Physical education lies in health. Ogara believes that the fundamental purpose of sports is not to win flags, medals and records, but to cultivate strong physique, coordinated physique, dexterous movements and longevity. Therefore, we must first pay attention to the knowledge of physiology and basic sports. He thinks that the most basic sport should be gymnastics, especially Danish gymnastics. Because Danish gymnastics includes three aspects: basic gymnastics, neat and graceful gymnastics and dexterous gymnastics. Xiaoyuan also attaches great importance to skiing. He thinks skiing is a whole-hearted sport. It not only exercises a strong, tenacious and dexterous body, but also cultivates noble moral qualities such as temperance, courtesy, self-denial, courage, cooperation and patience.
6. Life education lies in wealth. Xiaoyuan believes that the ideal of life education lies in wealth, but it is not "to be rich in pursuit of wealth", but to be rich in order to support, develop and cultivate the four absolute values of truth, goodness, beauty and sacredness.
In order to realize the ideal of life education and the harmonious development of holistic education of truth, goodness, beauty, holiness and health, Ogasahara Guofang paid special attention to labor education. He thinks that "fatigue" is sweat on his forehead and "work" is creative work rather than homework. He said, "Seeing is believing, and seeing is believing." Through sweaty labor, you can transplant and cut rice by yourself, experience the joy of harvest, and understand the truth that "a grain of rice is a drop of sweat for farmers". I planted tomatoes, radishes, pumpkins, watermelons and taro through my own labor, and I smelled the fragrance of the earth. And all kinds of labor, creating wealth, will inevitably produce economic value, and also get vocational education. However, labor education is not only the education of producing economic wealth, but also the education of all-round development. Real intellectual education can be achieved not by injection, rote memorization and hard study for exams, but by hard work, hands-on production, experience, experiment, thinking and practice. True moral education is also produced in activities, and there is no other way to achieve it except the experience of labor. Work can exercise a strong will, and can practice and cultivate "integrity, patience, self-denial, temperance, cooperation, friendship, loyalty, courage, happiness, struggle, independent work, service and gratitude". And all kinds of labor activities, such as ploughing, working, trying, sewing, dyeing, pasting, repairing, washing and sweeping, are the real aesthetic education. As for swinging a hammer, raising cattle, picking soil, chopping wood, transporting fertilizer, and swinging a hoe to grow fresh vegetables for your own consumption, you get a strong and healthy body. So he thinks that labor education is "real education", "real human education" and "whole person education". In the last part of holistic education theory, Obuchi Guofang discusses the importance of teachers. He believes that the implementation of the above theory is ultimately completed by teachers. He said: "system, ideal, curriculum, teaching materials, equipment, methods, everything belongs to people"! That is, teachers. He advocated a strict review of teachers and a review of teachers' competence every five years or 10 years. Newly established universities, especially national universities that train teachers, should be paid attention to. He said: "The education departments of Tokyo University, Kyoto University, Otsuka University of Education and Hiroshima University are the worst. What a terrible thing for the country! " He shouted, "Prime Minister! Tibetan map! Wen Xiang! You must regard education, especially teachers, as the highest, biggest and most far-reaching issue in all political activities. " "Wen Xiang should at least be a real power figure at the level of deputy prime minister." In order to express his urgent demands, in the last paragraph of the whole article, he once again appealed: "Prime Minister! Tibetan map! Wen Xiang! Congressmen and senators! All of you! Please consider' education first'! ..... Only the education fee is the best investment ". Teachers first, education investment first. This is Xiao Yuan's teacher theory.