Kerschensteiner believes that the characteristic of most citizens is to engage in manual labor voluntarily, and only a few people are suitable for mental labor, so he advocates different education for people of different classes. Ethnic schools set up for the vast majority of people should be changed into labor schools, giving them vocational training in manual labor; Set up middle schools for the children of a few privileged classes and carry out necessary education in order to train them into future ruling talents. To this end, he spared no effort to maintain the dual-track academic system that Germany has formed. Kerschensteiner put forward three basic tasks for public schools: ① training or preparing for professional training; (2) Professional accomplishment ethics; (3) Ethicization of individuals in groups. What he is talking about is ethicalization, that is, by experiencing the growth of one's inner value, he voluntarily does what he should do. These three tasks are closely related. Labor education and civic education are also closely linked, and the implementation of labor education is to complete the purpose of civic education.
The concrete measures to transform ethnic schools into labor schools in Kerschensteiner are to implement specific work plans in each ethnic school, and to add practice workshops, campuses, cooking rooms, sewing rooms and laboratories to systematically cultivate students' interests, habits and skills in manual labor. In reeducation-through-labor institutions, labor teaching is regarded as an independent subject, and teachers with technical training are hired for specific guidance in order to receive better teaching results. Kerschensteiner believes that the past endorsement education is no longer the national education and humanities education needed today. Instead of letting students learn a lot about death, it is better to let them acquire spiritual development, ethical adaptability and work skills. Therefore, he advocates that in ethnic schools, students should be given less knowledge materials and more character cultivation, so that students can develop better adaptability, work interests and skills and better fulfill their obligations as national citizens. Kerschensteiner has also set up some cram schools in Munich to recruit enterprise workers and provide them with 2-3 years' cram education. Business owners are required to allow workers to study 8- 10 hours in their spare time every week, and at the same time, they are given civic education and training, so that they can safely produce for business owners and create more profits for business owners. Under the influence of Kerschensteiner and the appreciation of the bourgeoisie, labor schools were established all over Germany, which once formed a new educational movement.
Kerschensteiner was a famous advocate and reformer of vocational education in modern Germany. His theory of "labor school" greatly promoted the development of vocational education in Germany in the early 20th century, and then promoted the economic and social progress in Germany. At present, China is in a critical period of vocational education reform and development. It is of great practical significance to examine and absorb the essence of Kerschensteiner's vocational education thought from a historical perspective for building a vocational education system with China characteristics.