Johann Friedrich Herbart - Life

Life

Herbart was born at Oldenburg. 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, criticizing 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 German 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 endeavors 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 from apoplexy. He is buried in Albanifriedhof Cemetery in Göttingen.

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”. 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.