J f herbart biography of williams

German philosopher Johann Friedrich Herbart is the founder of the pedagogical theory that bears his name, which eventually laid the groundwork for teacher education as a university enterprise in the United States and elsewhere.

J f herbart biography of williams

Herbart was born in Oldenburg, Germany, the only child of a gifted and strong-willed mother and a father whose attention was devoted to his legal practice. Herbart was tutored at home until he entered the gymnasium at the age of twelve, from which he went on as valedictorian to the University of Jena at a time when such stellar German intellectuals as Johann Gottfried Herder, Johann Gottlieb Fichte, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, and Friedrich von Schiller were associated with that institution.

It was apparently Schiller's Briefe über die ästhetische Erziehung des Menschen (Letters concerning the aesthetic education of man), then in progress in 1795, that influenced Herbart to devote himself to philosophy and education.