John Dewey (October 20, 1859 - June 1, 1952) was an American philosopher and educator.

He
was an early originator of pragmatism, a philosophical school of thought popularized at the
beginning of the 20th century that emphasized a practical approach to problem solving through
experience. Dewey was instrumental in the progressive movement in education, and his belief
that the best education involves learning through doing is still a practice studied and used by
modern educators.1

I believe that education, therefore, is a process of living and not

a preparation for future living.
— JOHN DEWEY, "MY PEDAGOGIC CREED" (1897)

Education and Career

Growing up, Dewey attended public schools in Burlington, Vermont. At the age of 15, Dewey
enrolled at the University of Vermont, where he studied philosophy for four years.

After graduating second in his class, Dewey spent three years as a teacher at a seminary in Oil
City, Pennsylvania. He then spent a year studying under the guidance of G. Stanley Hall at Johns
Hopkins University in America's first psychology lab. After earning his PhD from Johns
Hopkins, Dewey went on to teach as an assistant professor role at the University of Michigan for
nearly a decade.

In 1894, Dewey accepted a position as the chairman of the department of philosophy,

psychology, and pedagogy at the University of Chicago. Although his prior studies of philosophy
and psychology would also influence his later work, it was at the University of Chicago where
Dewey began to formalize his views that would contribute so heavily to the school of thought
known as pragmatism.

He worked to develop pragmatism, with its central tenet being that the value, truth, or meaning
of an idea lies in its practical consequences. 

Dewey also helped establish the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools. There, he was able
to directly apply his pedagogical theories in practice to study their impact on students. Dewey
eventually left the University of Chicago and became a professor of philosophy at Columbia
University from 1904 until his retirement in 1930.

In 1899, Dewey was elected president of the American Psychological Association, serving a one
year term. He also served for one year as the president of the American Philosophical
Association in 1905.

Contributions to Psychology
Often considered one of the greatest thinkers of the 20th century, Dewey heavily influenced
psychology, education, and philosophy. His emphasis on progressive education contributed
greatly to the use of experimentation rather than an authoritarian approach to knowledge.

Dewey's influence as a pioneer in the field of pragmatism allowed future thinkers and researchers
to delve deeper into how a person's experience is connected to their ability to gain knowledge.
Over time, this has allowed others to make strides in modern clinical education and functional
psychological study.2

Dewey was also a prolific writer. Over his 65-year writing career, he published more than 1,000
books, essays, and articles on a wide range of subjects including education, art, nature,
philosophy, religion, culture, ethics, and democracy.

Selected Works
 Dewey J. "The School and Society." The University of Chicago Press; 1900.
 Dewey J. "The Child and the Curriculum." The University of Chicago Press; 1902.
 Dewey J. "How We Think." D.C. Health & Co., Publishers; 1910.
 Dewey J. "Experience and Nature." Kessinger Publishing, LLC; 1925.
 Dewey J. "Philosophy and Civilization." Kessinger Publishing, LLC; 1931.
 Dewey J. "Knowing and the Known." Beacon Press; 1949.

 The Origins of Psychology

Educational Philosophy
Through his writings, it is known that Dewey firmly believed that education should be more than
teaching students mindless facts they would soon forget. Instead of relying on rote memorization
to learn, he thought education should consist of a journey of experiences, building upon each
other to create and understand new ideas.

Dewey saw that traditional schools tried to create a world separate from students' everyday lives.
He believed that school activities and the life experiences of students should be connected to
make real learning would possible.

Cutting students off from their psychological ties (i.e., society and family) would make their
learning journey less meaningful and thereby make learning less memorable. Likewise, he
believed that schools needed to prepare students for life in society by socializing them. 

Although Dewey's educational philosophy has been challenged by the rigorous academic
standards of modern day,3

English AR. John Dewey and the role of the teacher in a globalized world: imagination, empathy, and ‘third
voice.’ Educational Philosophy and Theory. 2016;48(10):1046-1064. doi:10.1080/00131857.2016.1202806
 educators still lean on his ideals and principles to shape their teachings as well as the minds of
future generations.

Dewey's educational theories were presented in My Pedagogic Creed (1897), The

Primary-Education Fetich (1898), The School and Society (1900), The Child and the
Curriculum (1902), Democracy and Education (1916), Schools of To-morrow (1915) with Evelyn
Dewey, and Experience and Education (1938). Several themes recur throughout these writings.
Dewey continually argues that education and learning are social and interactive processes, and thus
the school itself is a social institution through which social reform can and should take place. In
addition, he believed that students thrive in an environment where they are allowed to experience
and interact with the curriculum, and all students should have the opportunity to take part in their
own learning.
The ideas of democracy and social reform are continually discussed in Dewey's writings on
education. Dewey makes a strong case for the importance of education not only as a place to gain
content knowledge, but also as a place to learn how to live. In his eyes, the purpose of education
should not revolve around the acquisition of a pre-determined set of skills, but rather the realization
of one's full potential and the ability to use those skills for the greater good. He notes that "to prepare
him for the future life means to give him command of himself; it means so to train him that he will
have the full and ready use of all his capacities" (My Pedagogic Creed, Dewey, 1897).
In addition to helping students realize their full potential, Dewey goes on to acknowledge that
education and schooling are instrumental in creating social change and reform. He notes that
"education is a regulation of the process of coming to share in the social consciousness; and that the
adjustment of individual activity on the basis of this social consciousness is the only sure method of
social reconstruction".
In addition to his ideas regarding what education is and what effect it should have on society, Dewey
also had specific notions regarding how education should take place within the classroom. In The
Child and the Curriculum (1902), Dewey discusses two major conflicting schools of thought
regarding educational pedagogy. The first is centered on the curriculum and focuses almost solely
on the subject matter to be taught. Dewey argues that the major flaw in this methodology is the
inactivity of the student; within this particular framework, "the child is simply the immature being who
is to be matured; he is the superficial being who is to be deepened" (1902, p. 13).[66] He argues that
in order for education to be most effective, content must be presented in a way that allows the
student to relate the information to prior experiences, thus deepening the connection with this new
knowledge.
At the same time, Dewey was alarmed by many of the "child-centered" excesses of educational-
school pedagogues who claimed to be his followers, and he argued that too much reliance on the
child could be equally detrimental to the learning process. In this second school of thought, "we must
take our stand with the child and our departure from him. It is he and not the subject-matter which
determines both quality and quantity of learning" (Dewey, 1902, pp. 13–14). According to Dewey, the
potential flaw in this line of thinking is that it minimizes the importance of the content as well as the
role of the teacher.
In order to rectify this dilemma, Dewey advocated an educational structure that strikes a balance
between delivering knowledge while also taking into account the interests and experiences of the
student. He notes that "the child and the curriculum are simply two limits which define a single
process. Just as two points define a straight line, so the present standpoint of the child and the facts
and truths of studies define instruction" (Dewey, 1902, p. 16).
It is through this reasoning that Dewey became one of the most famous proponents of hands-on
learning or experiential education, which is related to, but not synonymous with experiential learning.
He argued that "if knowledge comes from the impressions made upon us by natural objects, it is
impossible to procure knowledge without the use of objects which impress the mind" (Dewey,
1916/2009, pp. 217–18).[67] Dewey's ideas went on to influence many other influential experiential
models and advocates. Problem-Based Learning (PBL), for example, a method used widely in
education today, incorporates Dewey's ideas pertaining to learning through active inquiry. [68]
Dewey not only re-imagined the way that the learning process should take place, but also the role
that the teacher should play within that process. Throughout the history of American schooling,
education's purpose has been to train students for work by providing the student with a limited set of
skills and information to do a particular job. The works of John Dewey provide the most prolific
examples of how this limited vocational view of education has been applied to both the K–12 public
education system and to the teacher training schools that attempted to quickly produce proficient
and practical teachers with a limited set of instructional and discipline-specific skills needed to meet
the needs of the employer and demands of the workforce.

In The School and Society (Dewey, 1899) and Democracy of Education (Dewey, 1916), Dewey

claims that rather than preparing citizens for ethical participation in society, schools cultivate passive
pupils via insistence upon mastery of facts and disciplining of bodies. Rather than preparing students
to be reflective, autonomous and ethical beings capable of arriving at social truths through critical
and intersubjective discourse, schools prepare students for docile compliance with authoritarian
work and political structures, discourage the pursuit of individual and communal inquiry, and
perceive higher learning as a monopoly of the institution of education (Dewey, 1899; 1916).
For Dewey and his philosophical followers, education stifles individual autonomy when learners are
taught that knowledge is transmitted in one direction, from the expert to the learner. Dewey not only
re-imagined the way that the learning process should take place, but also the role that the teacher
should play within that process. For Dewey, "The thing needful is improvement of education, not
simply by turning out teachers who can do better the things that are not necessary to do, but rather
by changing the conception of what constitutes education" (Dewey, 1904, p. 18).
Dewey's qualifications for teaching—a natural love for working with young children, a natural
propensity to inquire about the subjects, methods and other social issues related to the profession,
and a desire to share this acquired knowledge with others—are not a set of outwardly displayed
mechanical skills. Rather, they may be viewed as internalized principles or habits which "work
automatically, unconsciously" (Dewey, 1904, p. 15). Turning to Dewey's essays and public
addresses regarding the teaching profession, followed by his analysis of the teacher as a person
and a professional, as well as his beliefs regarding the responsibilities of teacher education
programs to cultivate the attributes addressed, teacher educators can begin to reimagine the
successful classroom teacher Dewey envisioned.

Professionalization of teaching as a social service[edit]

For many, education's purpose is to train students for work by providing the student with a limited set
of skills and information to do a particular job. As Dewey notes, this limited vocational view is also
applied to teacher training schools who attempt to quickly produce proficient and practical teachers
with a limited set of instructional and discipline skills needed to meet the needs of the employer and
demands of the workforce (Dewey, 1904). For Dewey, the school and the classroom teacher, as a
workforce and provider of social service, have a unique responsibility to produce psychological and
social goods that will lead to both present and future social progress.
As Dewey notes, "The business of the teacher is to produce a higher standard of intelligence in the
community, and the object of the public school system is to make as large as possible the number of
those who possess this intelligence. Skill, the ability to act wisely and effectively in a great variety of
occupations and situations, is a sign and a criterion of the degree of civilization that a society has
reached. It is the business of teachers to help in producing the many kinds of skills needed in
contemporary life. If teachers are up to their work, they also aid in the production of
character."(Dewey, TAP, 2010, pp. 241–42).
According to Dewey, the emphasis is placed on producing these attributes in children for use in their
contemporary life because it is "impossible to foretell definitely just what civilization will be twenty
years from now" (Dewey, MPC, 2010, p. 25). However, although Dewey is steadfast in his beliefs
that education serves an immediate purpose (Dewey, DRT, 2010; Dewey, MPC, 2010; Dewey, TTP,
2010), he is not ignorant of the impact imparting these qualities of intelligence, skill, and character on
young children in their present life will have on the future society. While addressing the state of
educative and economic affairs during a 1935 radio broadcast, Dewey linked the ensuing economic
depression to a "lack of sufficient production of intelligence, skill, and character" (Dewey, TAP, 2010,
p. 242) of the nation's workforce.
As Dewey notes, there is a lack of these goods in the present society and teachers have a
responsibility to create them in their students, who, we can assume, will grow into the adults who will
ultimately go on to participate in whatever industrial or economic civilization awaits them. According
to Dewey, the profession of the classroom teacher is to produce the intelligence, skill, and character
within each student so that the democratic community is composed of citizens who can think, do and
act intelligently and morally.

A teacher's knowledge[edit]
Dewey believed that successful classroom teacher possesses a passion for knowledge and
intellectual curiosity in the materials and methods they teach. For Dewey, this propensity is an
inherent curiosity and love for learning that differs from one's ability to acquire, recite and reproduce
textbook knowledge. "No one," according to Dewey, "can be really successful in performing the
duties and meeting these demands [of teaching] who does not retain [her] intellectual curiosity intact
throughout [her] entire career" (Dewey, APT, 2010, p. 34).
According to Dewey, it is not that the "teacher ought to strive to be a high-class scholar in all the
subjects he or she has to teach," rather, "a teacher ought to have an unusual love and aptitude in
some one subject: history, mathematics, literature, science, a fine art, or whatever" (Dewey, APT,
2010, p. 35). The classroom teacher does not have to be a scholar in all subjects; rather, genuine
love in one will elicit a feel for genuine information and insight in all subjects taught.
In addition to this propensity for study into the subjects taught, the classroom teacher "is possessed
by a recognition of the responsibility for the constant study of school room work, the constant study
of children, of methods, of subject matter in its various adaptations to pupils" (Dewey, PST, 2010,
p. 37). For Dewey, this desire for the lifelong pursuit of learning is inherent in other professions (e.g.
the architectural, legal and medical fields; Dewey, 1904 & Dewey, PST, 2010), and has particular
importance for the field of teaching. As Dewey notes, "this further study is not a sideline but
something which fits directly into the demands and opportunities of the vocation" (Dewey, APT,
2010, p. 34).
According to Dewey, this propensity and passion for intellectual growth in the profession must be
accompanied by a natural desire to communicate one's knowledge with others. "There are scholars
who have [the knowledge] in a marked degree but who lack enthusiasm for imparting it. To the
'natural born' teacher learning is incomplete unless it is shared" (Dewey, APT, 2010, p. 35). For
Dewey, it is not enough for the classroom teacher to be a lifelong learner of the techniques and
subject-matter of education; she must aspire to share what she knows with others in her learning
community.

A teacher's skill[edit]
The best indicator of teacher quality, according to Dewey, is the ability to watch and respond to the
movement of the mind with keen awareness of the signs and quality of the responses his or her
students exhibit with regard to the subject-matter presented (Dewey, APT, 2010; Dewey, 1904). As
Dewey notes, "I have often been asked how it was that some teachers who have never studied the
art of teaching are still extraordinarily good teachers. The explanation is simple. They have a quick,
sure and unflagging sympathy with the operations and process of the minds they are in contact with.
Their own minds move in harmony with those of others, appreciating their difficulties, entering into
their problems, sharing their intellectual victories" (Dewey, APT, 2010, p. 36).
Such a teacher is genuinely aware of the complexities of this mind to mind transfer, and she has the
intellectual fortitude to identify the successes and failures of this process, as well as how to
appropriately reproduce or correct it in the future.

John Dewey's Philosophy of Education

Dewey defines education as the ' development of all those capacities in the individual which will
enable him to control his environment and fulfill his possibilities". It is a process that begins with
the very birth of the child, and goes on throughout the whole life. It is a process which has two
sides- one psychological and the other sociological.

The main aims of education as advocated by Dewey are:-

Social Efficiency: According to Dewey the development of social efficiency is one of the aims of
education. To him school is a social institution. The school should be organised in such a way
that the activities of the outer world are reflected.

Education is life: Dewey emphasises that education is not a preparation for life, it is life itself.
The child lives in the present. The future is meaningless to him. Hence it is absurd to expect him
to do things for some future preparation.
Education is experience: Dewey favoured an education by, of and for, experience. Every new
experience is education. An old experience is replaced by a new experience. The human race he
gained experience in its struggle to meet the needs of life. This ' struggle for existence ' is a
continuous process.
Education should combine theory & practice: The aim of education, according to Dewey should
be create a balance between theoretical and practical activities. He has stressed equal
importance to both action and thought. These two should go hand in hand.

Dewey on School Curriculum

• Dewey advocates that broader curricular programmes are needed and emphasis should be
placed in the total development of the person as being equally important as the intellectual and
the academic.
• The teacher is a guide and director he steers the boat, but the energy that people it must come
from those who are learning. The more a teacher is aware of the past experience of students of
their hopes, desires, chief interests the better will be.
• The teacher is engaged not simply in the training of individuals but in the formation of the
proper social life. In this way the teacher always is the prophet of the true God.
Dewey's Method of Teaching
Dewey's method of teaching is based on his pragmatic philosophy. He is of the opinion that
direct experience is the basis of all method. Knowledge takes place from concrete and
meaningful situations. Hence knowledge should come from spontaneous activities of the
children. Dewey's method of teaching are based on the principles of learning by doing activities
in connection with the life of the child.
The project or problem method which Dewey advocated, the child's interests and purposes are
the most important things.
For his problem or project method, Dewey laid down the following five steps as essential.
(1) The pupil should have a genuine situation of experiences.
(2) A genuine problem should arise from this situation and should stimulate the thinking of the
child.
(3) The child should obtain information or make observation needed to deal with the problems.
(4) The suggested solution(s) should occur to him.
(5) He should have an opportunity to test his ideas by application.

Dewey's contribution to educational thought and

practice

(1) Dewey's social theory of education coupled with the logic of experimental method has been
very influential in the development of modern education practices.
(2) The greatest change has been in the recognition of the worth of the expense of the child. The
child is no longer regarded as a passive subject meant for the imposition of external information
but is considered an active living being those interests have to be stimulated by participation in
socially significant experience.
(3) Dewey has been one of the significant leaders who have tried to introduce a more human
touch in the processes of education.
(4) He has been a powerful influence in interpreting the school as a commonly for the realization
of the significance of the immediate experiences and present opportunities of the child if he is to
be a contributor to the march of the social process.
(5) His insistence on activities of diverse kinds in school is also an other aspect of his social
theory of education.
(6) The pragmatic method of instrumentalitic experimentation reacts against all kinds of
mysticism, transcendentalism and absolutism.
(7) The supreme contribution of Dewey to a philosophy of education is the theory of scientific
democratic humanism.
(8) Dewey is quite right in pleading for the wide use of the experimental method of science in
education.
Comments
Guest Author: Ram30 Apr 2014

it was actually very useful to me,so thank you admin!

Guest Author: Secondsiambache18 Sep 2015

Really this guy did a splendid job because now many souls are living following his principles which are
in the heart of education such an influential man.
Guest Author: Alisha11 Dec 2016

Really helpful article to know about the contributions of John Dewey to education.
Guest Author: Emmanuel Samuel01 Feb 2021

This is really a well-articulated article with scholarly progression. John Dewey is indeed a great
thinker and a philosopher. From his time he could foresee what will happen in the future. Imagine,
what he addressed during his time is taking effect by these centuries. We believe that our dear
country's educational system which is plagued with problems will come to the final amendment.
Thanks.

Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi, (born Jan. 12, 1746, Zürich—died Feb. 17, 1827, Brugg,
Switz.), Swiss educational reformer, who advocated education of the poor
and emphasized teaching methods designed to strengthen the student’s own abilities.
Pestalozzi’s method became widely accepted, and most of his principles have been
absorbed into modern elementary education.

Pestalozzi’s pedagogical doctrines stressed that instructions should proceed from the

familiar to the new, incorporate the performance of concrete arts and the experience of
actual emotional responses, and be paced to follow the gradual unfolding of the child’s
development. His ideas flow from the same stream of thought that includes Johann
Friedrich Herbart, Maria Montessori, John Dewey, and more recently Jean Piaget and
advocates of the language experience approach such as R.V. Allen.

Pestalozzi’s curriculum, which was modelled after Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s plan

in Émile, emphasized group rather than individual recitation and focussed on such
participatory activities as drawing, writing, singing, physical exercise, model making,
collecting, map making, and field trips. Among his ideas, considered radically innovative
at the time, were making allowances for individual differences, grouping students by
ability rather than age, and encouraging formal teacher training as part of a scientific
approach to education.
Pestalozzi was influenced by the political conditions of his country and by the
educational ideas of Rousseau; as a young man he abandoned the study of theology to go
“back to Nature.” In 1769 he took up agriculture on neglected land near the River Aare—
the Neuhof. When this enterprise near Zürich collapsed in 1774, he took poor children
into his house, having them work by spinning and weaving and learn simultaneously to
become self-supporting. This project also failed materially, although Pestalozzi had
gained valuable experience. He also took an active interest in Swiss politics.

As practical realization of his ideas was denied him, he turned to writing. Die

Abendstunde eines Linsiedlers (1780; “The Evening Hour of a Hermit”) outlines his
fundamental theory that education must be “according to nature” and that security in
the home is the foundation of man’s happiness. His novel Lienhard und Gertrud (1781–
87; Leonard and Gertrude, 1801), written for “the people,” was a literary success as the
first realistic representation of rural life in German. It describes how an ideal woman
exposes corrupt practices and, by her well-ordered homelife, sets a model for the village
school and the larger community. The important role of the mother in early education is
a recurrent theme in Pestalozzi’s writings.

For 30 years Pestalozzi lived in isolation on his Neuhof estate, writing profusely on
educational, political, and economic topics, indicating ways of improving the lot of the
poor. His proposals were ignored by his own countrymen, and he became increasingly
despondent. He would have accepted the post of educational adviser anywhere in
Europe had it been forthcoming. His main philosophical treatise, Meine
Nachforschungen über den Gang der Natur in der Entwicklung des
Menschengeschlechts (1797; “My Inquiries into the Course of Nature in the
Development of Mankind”), reflects his personal disappointment but expresses his firm
belief in the resources of human nature and his conviction that people are responsible
for their moral and intellectual state. Thus, Pestalozzi was convinced, education should
develop the individual’s faculties to think for himself.

Johann Pestalozzi believed that the school environment should be as similar

to the home environment as possible because emotional security is
necessary for learning. He also thought that students should be taught in the
same way that they experience new things in life - by moving from familiar
things to new things.Jun 3, 2022
he founder of what became known as the 'Pestalozzi Method' for the education of young
children, Zurich‐born Pestalozzi believed that children should learn through activity and
through the handling and use of material objects rather than simply through words.

Friedrich Froebel, Froebel also spelled Fröbel, in full Friedrich Wilhelm August

Froebel, (born April 21, 1782, Oberweissbach, Thuringia, Ernestine Saxony [now in
Germany]—died June 21, 1852, Marienthal, near Bad Liebenstein, Thuringia), German
educator who was founder of the kindergarten and one of the most
influential educational reformers of the 19th century.
Froebel was the fifth child in a clergyman’s family. His mother died when he was only
nine months old, and he was neglected as a child until an uncle gave him a home and
sent him to school. Froebel acquired a thorough knowledge of plants and natural
phenomena while at the same time beginning the study of mathematics and languages.
After apprenticeship to a forester, he pursued some informal university courses
at Jena until he was jailed for an unpaid debt. He tried various kinds of employment
until he impulsively took a teaching appointment at a progressive model school in
Frankfurt run by Anton Gruner on lines advocated by the Swiss educator Johann
Heinrich Pestalozzi. Froebel became convinced of his vocation as a teacher at the school.

Friedrich Froebel, 19th-century wood engraving.

After two years as assistant to Gruner, Froebel went to Yverdon, Switz., where he came
into close contact with Pestalozzi. Though he learned much at Yverdon, he quickly
discovered the weakness of organization that characterized Pestalozzi’s work. In 1811
Froebel entered the University of Göttingen, where military service in the Napoleonic
Wars soon interrupted his studies. During the campaign of 1813 he formed a lasting
friendship with H. Langenthal and W. Middendorff, who became his devoted followers
and who joined him at a school he opened at Griesheim in Thuringia in 1816. Two years
later the school moved to Keilhau, also in Thuringia, and it was there that Froebel put
into practice his educational theories. He and his friends and their wives became a kind
of educational community, and the school expanded into a flourishing institution.
During this time Froebel wrote numerous articles and in 1826 published his most
important treatise, Menschenerziehung (The Education of Man), a philosophical
presentation of principles and methods pursued at Keilhau.

In 1831 Froebel left Keilhau to his partner and accepted the Swiss government’s
invitation to train elementary school teachers. His experiences at Keilhau and as head of
a new orphan asylum at Burgdorf in Switzerland impressed him with the importance of
the early stages of education. On returning to Keilhau in 1837 he opened an infant
school in Blankenburg, Prussia, that he originally called the Child Nurture and Activity
Institute, and which by happy inspiration he later renamed the Kindergarten, or “garden
of children.” He also started a publishing firm for play and other educational materials,
including a collection of Mother-Play and Nursery Songs, with lengthy explanations of
their meaning and use. This immensely popular book was translated into many foreign
languages. Froebel insisted that improvement of infant education was a vital
preliminary to comprehensive educational and social reform. His experiments at the
Kindergarten attracted widespread interest, and other kindergartens were started.
Unfortunately, because of a confusion with the socialist views of Froebel’s nephew, the
Prussian government proscribed the kindergarten movement in 1851. The ban was not
removed until after 1860, several years after Froebel’s death in 1852.

One of Froebel’s most enthusiastic disciples, the Baroness of Marenholtz-Bülow, was

largely responsible for bringing his ideas to the notice of educators in England, France,
and the Netherlands. Later they were introduced into other countries, including
the United States, where the Froebelian movement achieved its greatest success.
There John Dewey adopted Froebel’s principles in his experimental school at
the University of Chicago. Kindergartens were established throughout Europe
and North America and became a standard educational institution for children of four to
six years of age.

Froebel was influenced by the outstanding German idealist philosophers of his time and
by Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Pestalozzi. He was a sincerely religious man who,
because of his belief in the underlying unity of all things, tended toward pantheism and
has been called a nature mystic. His most important contribution to educational theory
was his belief in “self-activity” and play as essential factors in child education. The
teacher’s role was not to drill or indoctrinate the children but rather to encourage their
self-expression through play, both individually and in group activities. Froebel devised
circles, spheres, and other toys—all of which he referred to as “gifts” or “occupations”—
that were designed to stimulate learning through play activities accompanied by songs
and music. Modern educational techniques in kindergarten and preschool are much
indebted to him.
His most important contribution to educational theory was his belief in
“self-activity” and play as essential factors in child education. The
teacher's role was not to drill or indoctrinate the children but rather to
encourage their self-expression through play, both individually and in
group activities.Jun 17, 2023
he German educator, Friedrich Froebel, was one of these pioneers of early childhood
educational reform. He believed that every child possessed complete educational
potential by birth and an appropriate educational environment is required to support the
child to grow and develop in an optimal way (Staff, 1998).
Herbert Spencer (27 April 1820 – 8 December 1903) was an English polymath active as
a philosopher, psychologist, biologist, sociologist, and anthropologist. Spencer originated the
expression "survival of the fittest", which he coined in Principles of Biology (1864) after
reading Charles Darwin's 1859 book On the Origin of Species. The term strongly suggests natural
selection, yet Spencer saw evolution as extending into realms of sociology and ethics, so he also
supported Lamarckism.[1][2]
Spencer developed an all-embracing conception of evolution as the progressive development of the
physical world, biological organisms, the human mind, and human culture and societies. As a
polymath, he contributed to a wide range of subjects, including ethics, religion, anthropology,
economics, political theory, philosophy, literature, astronomy, biology, sociology, and psychology.
During his lifetime he achieved tremendous authority, mainly in English-speaking academia.
Spencer was "the single most famous European intellectual in the closing decades of the nineteenth
century"[3][4] but his influence declined sharply after 1900: "Who now reads Spencer?" asked Talcott
Parsons in 1937.[5]

Early life and education[edit]

Spencer was born in Derby, England, on 27 April 1820, the son of William George
Spencer (generally called George).[6] Spencer's father was a religious dissenter who drifted
from Methodism to Quakerism, and who seems to have transmitted to his son an opposition to all
forms of authority. He ran a school founded on the progressive teaching methods of Johann Heinrich
Pestalozzi and also served as Secretary of the Derby Philosophical Society, a scientific society
which had been founded in 1783 by Erasmus Darwin, the grandfather of Charles Darwin.
Spencer was educated in empirical science by his father, while the members of the Derby
Philosophical Society introduced him to pre-Darwinian concepts of biological evolution, particularly
those of Erasmus Darwin and Jean-Baptiste Lamarck. His uncle, the Reverend Thomas Spencer,
[7]
 vicar of Hinton Charterhouse near Bath, completed Spencer's limited formal education by teaching
him some mathematics and physics, and enough Latin to enable him to translate some easy texts.
Thomas Spencer also imprinted on his nephew his own firm free-trade and anti-statist political views.
Otherwise, Spencer was an autodidact who acquired most of his knowledge from narrowly focused
readings and conversations with his friends and acquaintances. [8]

Career[edit]

As a young man
Both as an adolescent and as a young man, Spencer found it difficult to settle to any intellectual or
professional discipline. He worked as a civil engineer during the railway boom of the late 1830s,
while also devoting much of his time to writing for provincial journals that were nonconformist in their
religion and radical in their politics.

Writing[edit]
Spencer published his first book, Social Statics (1851), whilst working as sub-editor on the free-trade
journal The Economist from 1848 to 1853. He predicted that humanity would eventually become
completely adapted to the requirements of living in society with the consequential withering away of
the state. Its publisher, John Chapman, introduced Spencer to his salon which was attended by
many of the leading radical and progressive thinkers of the capital, including John Stuart Mill, Harriet
Martineau, George Henry Lewes and Mary Ann Evans (George Eliot), with whom he was briefly
romantically linked. Spencer himself introduced the biologist Thomas Henry Huxley, who would later
win fame as 'Darwin's Bulldog' and who remained Spencer's lifelong friend. However, it was the
friendship of Evans and Lewes that acquainted him with John Stuart Mill's A System of Logic and
with Auguste Comte's positivism and which set him on the road to his life's work. He strongly
disagreed with Comte.[9]
Spencer's second book, Principles of Psychology, published in 1855, explored a physiological basis
for psychology, and was the fruit of his friendship with Evans and Lewes. The book was founded on
the fundamental assumption that the human mind was subject to natural laws and that these could
be discovered within the framework of general biology. This permitted the adoption of a
developmental perspective not merely in terms of the individual (as in traditional psychology), but
also of the species and the race. Through this paradigm, Spencer aimed to reconcile
the associationist psychology of Mill's Logic, the notion that human mind was constructed from
atomic sensations held together by the laws of the association of ideas, with the apparently more
'scientific' theory of phrenology, which located specific mental functions in specific parts of the brain.
[10]

Spencer argued that both these theories were partial accounts of the truth: repeated associations of
ideas were embodied in the formation of specific strands of brain tissue, and these could be passed
from one generation to the next by means of the Lamarckian mechanism of use-inheritance.
The Psychology, he believed, would do for the human mind what Isaac Newton had done for matter.
[11]
 However, the book was not initially successful and the last of the 251 copies of its first edition
were not sold until June 1861.
Spencer's interest in psychology derived from a more fundamental concern which was to establish
the universality of natural law.[12] In common with others of his generation, including the members of
Chapman's salon, he was possessed with the idea of demonstrating that it was possible to show that
everything in the universe – including human culture, language, and morality – could be explained by
laws of universal validity. This was in contrast to the views of many theologians of the time who
insisted that some parts of creation, in particular the human soul, were beyond the realm of scientific
investigation. Comte's Système de Philosophie Positive had been written with the ambition of
demonstrating the universality of natural law, and Spencer was to follow Comte in the scale of his
ambition. However, Spencer differed from Comte in believing it was possible to discover a single law
of universal application which he identified with progressive development and was to call the
principle of evolution.
In 1858 Spencer produced an outline of what was to become the System of Synthetic Philosophy.
This immense undertaking, which has few parallels in the English language, aimed to demonstrate
that the principle of evolution applied in biology, psychology, sociology (Spencer appropriated
Comte's term for the new discipline) and morality. Spencer envisaged that this work of ten volumes
would take twenty years to complete; in the end it took him twice as long and consumed almost all
the rest of his long life.
Despite Spencer's early struggles to establish himself as a writer, by the 1870s he had become the
most famous philosopher of the age.[13] His works were widely read during his lifetime, and by 1869
he was able to support himself solely on the profit of book sales and on income from his regular
contributions to Victorian periodicals which were collected as three volumes of Essays. His works
were translated into German, Italian, Spanish, French, Russian, Japanese and Chinese, and into
many other languages and he was offered honours and awards all over Europe and North America.
He also became a member of the Athenaeum, an exclusive Gentleman's Club in London open only
to those distinguished in the arts and sciences, and the X Club, a dining club of nine founded by T.H.
Huxley that met every month and included some of the most prominent thinkers of the Victorian age
(three of whom would become presidents of the Royal Society).
Members included physicist-philosopher John Tyndall and Darwin's cousin, the banker and
biologist Sir John Lubbock. There were also some quite significant satellites such as liberal
clergyman Arthur Stanley, the Dean of Westminster; and guests such as Charles Darwin
and Hermann von Helmholtz were entertained from time to time. Through such associations,
Spencer had a strong presence in the heart of the scientific community and was able to secure an
influential audience for his views. Despite his growing wealth and fame he never owned a house of
his own.

In teaching methods, Spencer advocated the automatic learning

based on students and emphasized the role of interest in the process
of teaching, In the aspect of moral education, Spencer put forward that
individual self preservation is the most important moral principle and
coined the moral evolution formula.
Johann Friedrich Herbart (German: [ˈhɛʁbaʁt]; 4 May 1776 – 14 August 1841) was a
German philosopher, psychologist and founder of pedagogy as an academic discipline.
Herbart is now remembered amongst the post-Kantian philosophers mostly as making the greatest
contrast to Hegel—in particular in relation to aesthetics. His educational philosophy is known
as Herbartianism.

Life[edit]
Herbart was born on 4 May 1776 in Oldenburg.[2] Growing up as a fragile child because of an
unfortunate accident, Herbart was taught by his mother at home until the age of 12. He continued his
schooling at the Gymnasium for six years, and showed interest in philosophy, logic and Kant's work
involving the nature of knowledge obtained from experience with reality. His education then
continued at Jena, whereupon he studied philosophy and came to disagree with his
teacher Fichte precisely because Fichte had taught him to think in a logical manner. He composed a
few essays, which he had given to Fichte during his years at Jena, criticising the works
of Schelling and advocating his contention for the German idealism promoted by others like Kant at
the time.
Leaving Jena after three years, he tutored the children of Herr von Steiger, who was the Governor
of Interlaken. During these three years, his tutoring job sparked his interest in educational reform.
While tutoring in Switzerland, Herbart met and came to know Pestalozzi, the Swiss educator
involved with issues of reform in the schools. Resigning from his tutoring position, Herbart went on to
study Greek and mathematics at Bremen for three years, and then eventually moved on to
attend Göttingen from 1801 to 1809. While there, he received a privat-docent for his endeavours in
educational studies after receiving his doctoral degree. He gave his first philosophical lectures
at Göttingen around 1805, whence he removed in 1809 to occupy the chair formerly held by Kant
at Königsberg. Here he also established and conducted a seminary of pedagogy till 1833, when he
returned once more to Göttingen, and remained there as professor of philosophy till his death.
  Herbart gave his last lecture in perfectly good health and then unexpectedly died two days later
[3]

from apoplexy. He is buried in Albanifriedhof Cemetery in Göttingen.[4]

Herbart was very much focused on his studies, and "he barely saw the world outside his study and
the classrooms" making "his world the world of books and only books". [5] Regardless of his relentless
studying, he met an eighteen-year-old English girl named Mary Drake one night when playing a
game of charades. He became acquainted with her and asked her for her hand in marriage. They
lived a happy life with Mary supporting all of her husband's pursuits and contributions to the fields of
pedagogy and psychology.

Philosophy[edit]
Philosophy, according to Herbart, begins with reflection upon our empirical conceptions, and
consists in the reformation and elaboration of these, its three primary divisions being determined by
as many distinct forms of elaboration. Logic, which stands first, has to render our conceptions and
the judgments and reasonings arising from them clear and distinct. But some conceptions are such
that the more distinct they are made the more contradictory their elements become; so to change
and supplement these as to make them at length thinkable is the problem of the second part of
philosophy, or metaphysics. There is still a class of conceptions requiring more than a logical
treatment, but differing from the last in not involving latent contradictions, and in being independent
of the reality of their objects, the conceptions that embody our judgments of approval and
disapproval; the philosophic treatment of these conceptions falls under aesthetics.[3]

Logic[edit]
In Herbart's writings logic receives comparatively meagre notice; he insisted strongly on its purely
formal character and expressed himself in the main at one with Kantians such as Fries and Krug.[3]

Herbart's concept of the Real

Building upon the teaching methods of Pestalozzi, Herbart contributed
to pedagogy a psychological basis to help facilitate better learning as
well as to ensure children's character development. He was the first
individual to point out how important a role psychology plays on
education.
What is the contribution of Herbert in education?
Herbert believed that education would contribute to people who had high moral
character and the capacity to make appropriate decisions. Problems in the world were
due to a lack of education and moral development. With his ideas in place, Herbert
needed a method of teaching these concepts. Jul 14, 2015