Johann Friedrich Herbart

Johann Friedrich Herbart was a German philosopher, psychologist, and educator whose writings on pedagogy laid much of the groundwork for education as an academic discipline. Herbart argued that teaching should be grounded in a scientific understanding of how ideas connect in the learner's mind, and he proposed a structured sequence of instructional steps, later developed by his followers into the widely taught Herbartian steps of preparation, presentation, association, generalization, and application. He held the chair in philosophy and pedagogy at the University of Konigsberg once held by Immanuel Kant, and his emphasis on moral character as the central aim of education, alongside systematic lesson planning, strongly influenced teacher training programs in Germany and the United States through the nineteenth century.