Outlines of Educational Doctrine. Johann Friedrich Herbart
of our personality, so that these ends would, on the one hand, have to be made interesting, or, on the other, struggled for without regard to interest. This assumption is an error. The ends for which we strive must be conceived as internal, our efforts being regarded as attempts at self-realization in definite directions. The purpose of our action is therefore an end desired. In this we have an interest surely. As an educational doctrine, however, interest concerns chiefly the means of reaching these ends. If interest in the means is wanting, the child works with a divided attention. He gives only so much to the means as he must; the remainder is devoted to his own affairs—the past or coming ball-game, the picnic, the walk in the woods, the private enterprises of home or school. But if a lively interest is felt in the means to the end, then the whole self is actively employed for the time being in the accomplishment of the purpose of the hour. The attention is no longer divided, it is concentrated upon the matter in hand. This in the school is work. When the attention is divided we have drudgery. This signifies that the interest felt in the end, say a dollar, is not felt in the means of attaining it, say a day’s labor. However inevitable drudgery may be in life, it should have no place in the schoolroom. The teacher must so present the studies that the pupil can perceive at least a fraction of their bearing upon life. This awakens an interest in them as ends. He must, then, by conformity to the psychological order of learning, by enthusiasm and ingenuity, so teach the subjects that the natural interest in the end will be constantly enhanced through a lively interest in the daily lesson as the means of reaching it. The result is unified attention, zeal in the pursuit of knowledge, hospitality for ethical ideals.
[4] “Interest as Related to the Will,” second supplement to the Herbart Year Book, revised and reprinted, Chicago University Press, 1899.
64. As regards the bearings of interest on virtue, we need to remember that many-sidedness of interest alone, even of direct interest such as instruction is to engender, is yet far from being identical with virtue itself; also that, conversely, the weaker the original mental activity, the less likelihood that virtue will be realized at all, not to speak of the variety of manifestation possible in action. Imbeciles cannot be virtuous. Virtue involves an awakening of mind.
The conception, that by awakening many-sided direct interest in the studies we can powerfully affect character, is perhaps peculiar to the thought of Herbart. Yet when we consider that the knowledge taught in the school goes to the root of every vital human relation, that, in other words, the studies may be made instruments for progressively revealing to the child his place and function in the world, it follows as a necessary consequence, that to interest the pupil thoroughly in these branches of learning, is to work at the foundation of his character, so far, at least, as insight into duty and disposition to do it are concerned. Even if interest in ethical things is not of itself virtue, it is an important means for securing virtue. This idea adds to the teacher’s resources for the development of character. It also opens up to him a new realm for research. All literature, history, science, mathematics, geography, language, may be examined from this new standpoint, both with respect to selection and to methods of presentation. Select the portions that pertain intimately to life; teach them so that their important bearing upon it may be seen.
Note.—As has been stated already (17), the most immediate of the practical ideas demanding recognition from the teacher is the idea of perfection. Now, with reference to this idea, three factors are to be considered: the intensity, the range, the unification of intellectual effort. Intensity is implied in the word interest; extension is connoted by many-sidedness; what is meant by unification will be briefly indicated in the next paragraph.
65. Scattering no less than one-sidedness forms an antithesis to many-sidedness. Many-sidedness is to be the basis of virtue; but the latter is an attribute of personality, hence it is evident that the unity of self-consciousness must not be impaired. The business of instruction is to form the person on many sides, and accordingly to avoid a distracting or dissipating effect. And instruction has successfully avoided this in the case of one who with ease surveys his well-arranged knowledge in all of its unifying relations and holds it together as his very own.
This section points to the correlation of studies, a subject to be considered hereafter in detail. It also throws light upon the modern system of elective courses or elective studies in secondary and higher education. The teachable subjects have now become so numerous that election is imperative unless what is to be taught is determined arbitrarily without regard to the needs or inclinations of students. Furthermore, election is made imperative by the fact that the higher education is now open to all minds of all social classes, and that differentiated industry calls for many kinds of education. But the need for mental symmetry, no less imperative now than in the past, is reinforced by the need for social symmetry. Education must put the student into sympathetic touch with the whole of life, not a mere segment of it. Since many-sidedness cannot be interpreted to mean knowledge of all subjects, this being impossible, it must be interpreted to mean knowledge of all departments of learning. Election may be permitted to emphasize departments of study, but not to ignore them entirely. There are four or more languages worth teaching, many departments of history, numerous sciences, and various branches of mathematics, not to speak of the economic, political, and social sciences. Enough of each department being given to insure intelligent sympathy with the aspect of civilization it presents, the student may be allowed to place the emphasis upon such groups of studies as best conserve his tastes, his ability, and his destination in life.
CHAPTER III
The Conditions of Many-sidedness
66. It becomes obvious at once that a many-sided culture cannot be brought about quickly. The requisite store of ideas is acquired only by successive efforts; but unification, a view of the whole, and assimilation are to be attained besides (65), whence an alternation, in time, of absorption and reflection. The apprehension of the manifold is of necessity a gradual process, and the same is true of the unification of knowledge.
In absorption the mind surrenders itself to the acquisition or contemplation of facts. Thus a child will stand in open-eyed wonder at beholding a novel spectacle, the scientist becomes absorbed in watching the outcome of a new experiment, the philosopher loses consciousness to all about him in the unfolding of some new train of thought. Not only may absorption concern momentary experiences, but it may in a broad way be said to cover considerable periods of life, as, for instance, when a student becomes absorbed in the mastery of foreign languages having no immediate relation to his daily life. Reflection is the assimilation of the knowledge gained by absorption. The mind, recovering from its absorption in what is external, relates its new-found experience to the sum of its former experiences. New items of knowledge in this way find their appropriate places in the organic structure of the mind. They are apperceived. The many-sided thus comes to unity.
Rosenkranz calls absorption and reflection, self-estrangement and its removal. “All culture,” he says, “whatever may be its special purport, must pass through these two stages—of estrangement, and its removal.” Again, he says, “The mind is (1) immediate (or potential); but (2) it must estrange itself from itself, as it were, so that it may place itself over against itself as a special object of attention; (3) this estrangement is finally removed through a further acquaintance with the object … it feels itself at home in that on which it looks, and returns again enriched to the form of immediateness (to unity with itself). That which at first appeared to be another than itself is now seen to be itself.”[5] This is an abstract statement of the fact that (1) in learning the mind becomes absorbed for a time in external objects, ignoring temporarily their inner meaning and relation to self, and (2) this period of absorption is succeeded by one of reflection, in which the mind perceives the significance of what has been observed, noting the laws and principles underlying the phenomena and thus assimilating them to what it conceives to be rational.
Owing to the fact that absorption and reflection may