Herbart first put forward the principle of education and teaching, and expounded the relationship between education and teaching. He made it clear: "I don't think there is any education without teaching. On the contrary, I don't recognize any teaching without education." He believes that teaching is the most basic means to form moral concepts and cultivate moral quality, and emphasizes that moral education should be based on knowledge education; Moral education should be carried out through teaching, and the purpose of teaching is to cultivate students' virtue.
Herbart regards ethics and psychology as the theoretical basis of pedagogy. The former points out the purpose. He believes that the highest purpose of education is to improve morality and cultivate good social citizens. The latter points out the ways, methods and obstacles of pedagogy. Herbart bases his moral theory on ethics, his teaching theory on psychology, and applies apperception in psychology to teaching, emphasizing the scientific nature of educational discipline.
Character introduction:
In the history of western education, Herbart is known as "the founder of scientific pedagogy" and "the father of educational science" in the history of world education. At the same time, Herbart is also the "father of modern pedagogy" and the representative of traditional education. Therefore, he is an extremely important representative in the history of education. His representative work, General Pedagogy, is recognized as the first pedagogy work with a discipline system, which indicates that pedagogy has become a standardized and independent discipline.
In the history of modern education, his educational thought had a great, extensive and far-reaching influence on the development of school education practice and educational theory at that time and even a hundred years later. Herbart's educational thought is a common test point in the teacher recruitment examination. In order to facilitate candidates to prepare for the exam, we generally summarize his thoughts as "one principle", "two foundations", "three centers" and "four stages".