2. The role of education and teaching
Herbart convinced him through his own thoughts, personal experiences and experiments that education and teaching have amazing effects. Individuals who have achieved "all-round development" through teaching, after "careful consideration" in the future, will easily be competent for everything they are determined to do. He can always think of clear moral ideals, learn more with joy, and rely on "the power of his own personality" to make continuous progress and realize his ideals.
When Herbart was a tutor in Switzerland, he was determined to prove the feasibility of "education through teaching" not only in theory but also in practice. He achieved this through the teaching of aesthetics and literature, mathematics and natural science. Herbart teaches students perfect language skills, exquisite knowledge of history and classical literature, provides students with in-depth mathematics training, and even introduces emerging natural sciences to students through experiments. However, these teaching methods are not only for imparting knowledge, in fact, what he seeks is to educate students through deliberately arranged teaching as the most important means of moral education. The purpose of literature teaching is to inspire students to pay attention to the feelings of others. Mathematics teaching is not only because of its practical value and technical importance, but more importantly, mathematics should be regarded as a means of training concentration, that is, mathematics teaching is to help students cultivate their character. Herbart thinks that mathematics always seems to be the only effective way to strengthen character through experiments. Therefore, in his book "Aesthetic Expression", he shows that education will generally not succeed without teaching. So how to teach is more conducive to the cultivation of virtue? The key is the teaching method. A lot of useful knowledge and skills must be taught in a proper way to avoid hurting students' personality, which is helpful to the cultivation of virtue. Herbart solved the problem of teaching methods with his psychological theory "interest". Interest is of great significance to education and teaching. First of all, it is the intermediate goal of education and teaching. Only a variety of interests can give the will the necessary inner freedom, and students can control their actions with correct views. Secondly, interest is an important means of education and teaching. Only continuous interest can make people open their minds easily, get in touch with the world and sincerely share their destiny with their compatriots. Interest is the key to the smooth progress of education and teaching. In this way, Herbart established education and teaching on the basis of psychological theory, which made it have certain scientific value.
Herbart's thought of education and teaching reflects the internal relationship between knowledge and morality, intellectual education and moral education. He emphasized that the thought of moral education through teaching was not only correct at that time, but also correct today, which has positive significance. However, he did not realize the relative independence of moral education and intellectual education, and teaching is not the only way to implement moral education. In this respect, he is one-sided.
About the management of children
Herbart divides education into three parts: management, teaching and discipline (namely moral education). He puts management first, which embodies his idea of management first. He pointed out that management should be placed at the forefront of the whole education process, which is an independent task. It is not the same as the educational process itself, but the first and indispensable condition for the smooth progress of teaching and moral education. He believes that only by establishing external conditions through management, maintaining external order and enforcing discipline can education and teaching work proceed smoothly. He said: "If you don't firmly and gently grasp the reins of management, it is impossible to teach any lessons."
Why manage first and then teach? He believes that children are born with a kind of "seed of blind impulse" and "fierce driving him everywhere", and management is a powerful means to prevent children from blind impulse and fierce development. This means is mandatory, it does not require children to have any purpose in mind, but only uses mandatory measures to restrain children. This kind of "strength" and "impulse" will not only be difficult to succeed in school, but may also develop into an "anti-social direction" in the future.