According to Herbart, abilities were not innate(先天) but could be instilled（可以灌输的）. Only formalized（形式化）, rigorous education （严格的教育）, Herbart believed, could provide the framework for moral and intellectual development. In order to appeal to learners’ intere sts, Herbart advocated using classical literature and historical stories instead of the drier（枯燥的） readers and predictable（可预见的）, moralistic（道德的） tales that were popular at the time 。

He distinguished between the instructional process（教学过程） and the content of what was to be taught. In his work Universal Pedagogy (普通教育学), Herbart advocated（提倡） five formal steps in teaching, which were translated into a practical teaching methodology（被转化为实际的教学方法）:
1.Preparation（准备：唤起有关的旧观念，以引起对新知识的兴趣）—relating
new material to be learned to relevant existing ideas (memories) to stimulate the student's interest (prepare students to be ready for the new lesson)
2.Presentation（提示：讲授新教材）—presenting new material in the form
of actual experience of concrete objects (present the new lesson)
3.Association（联想：对新旧知识进行分析比较，使之建立联系）—comparison
of the new idea with existing ideas to find similarities and
differences and thus implant the new idea in the mind of the student (associate the new lesson with ideas studied earlier)
4.Generalization（总括：得出结论、定义或法则）—procedures designed
to take learning beyond perception and experience of the concrete into the realm of abstract concepts (use examples to illustrate the lesson's major points)
5.Application（应用：运用得出的概念或法则解答课题或练习）—using the
newly acquired knowledge so that it becomes an integral part of the life of the student (test students to ensure they learned the new lesson).
Herbart believed that such an educational paradigm（教育范式） would provide an intellectual base（知识基础） that would lead to a consciousness of social responsibility（社会责任意识）:
Using this structure a teacher prepared a topic of interest to the children, presented that topic, and questioned them inductively（感性地）, so that they reached new knowledge based on what they had already known, looked back, and deductively（演绎）summed up the lesson’s achievements, then related them to moral precepts（戒律） for daily living.
Herbart's work even in education received little acclaim before his death in 1841. However, his pedagogy enjoyed a surge of popularity in the mid-nineteenth century. While Germany was its intellectual center, it “found a ready echo in those countries such as the United Kingdom, France, and the United States in which the development of Individuality into Character appeared particularly well attuned to the prevailing economic,
political and social circumstances” (Blyth 1981: 77). This combination of individual potentiality and civic responsibility seemed to reflect democratic ideals.
By the twentieth century, however, the steps had become mechanical and Herbart's underlying ideas on ethics, psychology, and aesthetics had been forgotten. In their place, new pedagogical theories, such as those of John Dewey in the United States, which freed the child from what had become a controlled learning environment, grew in popularity.。