Herbart's General Pedagogy marks the formal birth of pedagogy as a standardized independent discipline. This book is divided into two parts, describing the general purpose of education, various interests and the cultivation of students' character. Herbart proposed that teaching can be divided into four stages: clarity, association, system, method or application.

Based on psychology, the book requires teachers to carry out teaching activities according to children's psychological status and its laws, which is of great significance to the development of modern western teaching theory.

The research object of pedagogy:

The research object of pedagogy should be "educational problems" based on "educational facts" and guided by educational values, with the purpose of exploring and revealing the regular relationship between educational activities and serving educational practice.

Educational problems mark the bud of pedagogy; The development of educational problems is the internal motive force to promote the development of pedagogy, and the transformation of educational problems is manifested in the change of educational research tradition and paradigm; Different answers to the same question have formed different educational thoughts and ideas and their factions. Pedagogical research should have "problem consciousness" to prevent the emergence of "false problems" and deepen the problems continuously.