Aristotle first put forward the principle that "education should follow nature" in the history of education.

Aristotle, like Plato, advocates that education is the function of the state and schools should be managed by the state. He first put forward the idea of children's physical and mental development stages, supported the education of Athens bodybuilding and harmonious development, and proposed the combination of morality, intelligence and physique to promote people's various development.

Historical influence

This idea has attracted the theoretical interest of many modern naturalist educators, such as Comenius, Rousseau, Pestalozzi, Froebel and Stowe. Let them constantly change their angles and explore endlessly. It is this new problem that has laid the basic idea and ideological direction of western naturalistic educational thought and constituted the mainstream of modern educational thought.

As the Soviet educational historian Midinsky said: "Aristotle's thought about the natural adaptability of education is short, but his thought is profound and rich in content;" These thoughts involve some of the most important issues, that is, what will become of educators who study the principle of natural adaptability later. "

It is in these senses that most scholars in our country generally believe that Aristotle's theory initiated the educational thought of "education follows nature" of the later bourgeoisie and sprouted the tendency of "endogenous theory" of the later bourgeoisie.