| Summary: | "What do we owe to Herbart, and what is the secret of the strange fascination which he exercises over the educational thinkers of today in Germany and America, and by which England is not altogether untouched Two things are usually cited as the legacy we owe to him: 1. Clearer views on the doctrine of apperception. As his predecessor Kant, in opposition to the sensational school of Locke and Hume, insisted on the necessary forms of thought, so has Herbart insisted on the importance of the subjective in every apperception, shown how every conception is modified by all precedent experience, by the 'content' of the perceiving soul. 2. He has insisted on the unity of the Subject, protesting against the mode of regarding the soul as a collective noun, consisting of many faculties. Herbart fixes our attention on the One rather than on the Many. He deprecates all the one-sided developments which mar the completeness of character. As we study his psychology, however, we find there is much that will not fit into our universe of thought. The great advance in science, especially in physiological science, has much enlarged our knowledge of the relation of the mind to the body, and we think at first that it is impossible for us to follow him, or benefit by his teaching. But before we can understand Herbart, we have to transport ourselves into a different thought-world. As we cannot read Dante or Milton without a clear vision of their cosmos, so neither can we follow the psychology of Herbart without translating our conceptions into the language of his thought; and then, though his poetic figures are not ours, yet the truths expressed are brought vividly before us by his imagery"--Preface. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved).
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