Thus far, “interest” has remained quite abstract: it is, in nuce, a questing openness towards certain objects, leading to action. Now the kind of action Herbart has in mind is not an instinctive reaction, but is integrated into a systematic plan. For the totality of “the interesting” is prescribed by culture,[75] and its divisions into the cultural and natural sciences (SW II: 44, f.).  Education must accordingly pursue in parallel the formation of the pupil’s imagination and understanding (PS I: 59; cf. 181). Because all knowledge is rooted in experience, organized through speculation, and grasped as a whole aesthetically, Bildung must develop these three dimensions equally (SW II: 53). Equally important, however, is the pupil’s constant, active participation in his surroundings, in order to develop an empathic understanding of her fellow human beings (PS I: 156; SW II: 51, ff.). In all these cases, a teacher is needed to modify experience and human interaction in order to maximize the yield of knowledge. For experience merely accumulates random representations; instruction helps the person to analyze, organize and combine these “formless fragments” (Weiss 1928:  200).[76]  By the same token, mere everyday contact with others does not produce empathy.