A great drawback to the Herbartian doctrines is found in their formalization and exaggeration. For these tendencies his enthusiastic and literal-minded followers, rather than Herbart himself, have probably been to blame. He was himself too keen an observer to allow his doctrines to go upon all fours. He is ordinarily credited by Herbartians with a psychology that takes no account of the innate characteristics of each mind, and holds that the mind is entirely built up by impressions from the outside, but, while this is his main position, he occasionally recognizes that there must be certain native predispositions in the body which influence the soul in one direction or another. This limitation of complete plasticity by the pupil’s individuality, and of the consequent influence of the teacher, causes him to perceive that “in order to gain an adequate knowledge of each pupil’s capacity for education, observation is necessary--observation both of his thought masses and of his physical nature.” Again, while Herbart holds that every subject should, if possible, be presented in an attractive, interesting, and ‘almost playlike’ way, he does not justify that ‘sugar-coated interest’ which has so often put Herbartianism in bad odor. “A view that regards the end as a necessary evil to be rendered endurable by means of sweetmeats,” says he, “implies an utter confusion of ideas; and if pupils are not given serious tasks to perform, they will not find out what they are able to do.” Often, he realizes, “even the best method cannot secure an adequate degree of apperceiving attention from every pupil, and recourse must accordingly be had to the voluntary attention, i. e., to the pupil’s resolution.” Moreover, ‘correlation’ between different subjects, as well as between principles within the same subject, was advocated by Herbart, but he felt that the attempt to make such ramifications should not be unlimited. Further, while Herbart made some effort in shaping the course of study to parallel the development of the individual with that of the race, it was Ziller that erected this procedure into a hard and fast theory of ‘culture epochs.’ But most common of all has been the tendency of his disciples to pervert his attempt to bring about due sequence and arrangement into an inflexible _schema_ in the recitation, and to make the formal steps an end rather than a means. Whereas, there is reason to believe that Herbart never intended that all these steps should be carried out in every recitation, but felt that they applied to the organization of any subject as a whole, and that years might even elapse between the various steps. [Sidenote: Ziller greatly developed and popularized.]