First, formal education.

Formal education was formed in the17th century, and the representatives are mainly British educator Locke and Swiss educator Pestalozzi. Formal educators believe that the main task of teaching is to develop students' intelligence by offering Greek, Latin, logic, grammar and mathematics, and the practical significance of the subject content is irrelevant. Formal education is based on functional psychology.

Second, substantive education.

Substantive education appeared at the end of 18 and the beginning of 19. The main representatives were German educator Herbart and British educator Spencer.

According to the theory of entity education, the main task of teaching is to teach students useful knowledge for life, such as physics, history, geography, astronomy, chemistry and law. As for students' intelligence, there is no need for special training and cultivation, and substantive education is based on associative psychology.

Third, comparative memory.

The viewpoint of both formal education and substantive education is one-sided, which artificially separates the mastery of knowledge from the development of intelligence. Although regular educators emphasize the necessity of training students' intelligence, they fail to see that the development of intelligence depends on the mastery of knowledge. Without the mastery of basic subject knowledge, the effect of training thinking forms is not good.

Although substantive educators emphasize the necessity of imparting knowledge to students, they can't see the difference between the development of cognitive ability and the mastery of knowledge. They think that mastering knowledge will naturally develop intelligence, but they ignore the development of intelligence in essence. Therefore, in today's teaching, we should prevent and correct prejudice on this issue.