However, Herbart's educational psychology pursues scientific education, but its idealism, speculation and deduction ultimately affect the scientific nature of his theory, which is manifested in the limitations of the development of psychological science itself, the neglect of educational experiments and the lack of understanding of the education and teaching process.
The essence of Herbart education;
Herbart's educational psychology is characterized by its thoroughness and its correlation with ethics. He did not apply a certain kind of psychological knowledge to a certain educational problem, but incorporated it into macro theoretical research and system construction, and infiltrated into micro educational work and concrete practice.
So no matter how scientific his psychology is, his psychology is the most thorough compared with his predecessors. This thoroughness stems from his understanding of the autonomy of educational disciplines. Pedagogy should have its own space for independent development. On the one hand, we should gradually improve the discipline self-discipline mechanism and establish the academic norms of the knowledge community.
On the other hand, Herbart is eager to make great theoretical contributions. He tried to establish a scientific theoretical system. He demanded that "general pedagogy must put basic concepts before all discussions" in order to establish the autonomy of pedagogy and describe the whole educational concept system.