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How did Immanuel Kant balance liberty and restraint in education?

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Fragment of a Roman fresco showing Socrates seated and draped in a white robe, with Greek text above, on a red background with visible cracks. — Philosophy of education Socrates, Roman fresco, 1st century bce; in the Ephesus Museum, Selçuk, Turkey.

In his pedagogical lectures, collected in Über Pädagogik (1803), Immanuel Kant addressed the balance between liberty and restraint as a fundamental necessity for human development. While he generally agreed with the naturalist approach of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Kant argued from an ethical standpoint that education must actively shape the individual rather than merely allowing nature to take its course.1

Kant believed that a person can only become truly human through education, which must serve to discipline, cultivate, and moralize the individual. To achieve this, he insisted on the following:1

Restraint of Impulses: Unlike a purely permissive approach, Kant maintained that a child’s passionate impulses must be restrained.1
Instruction in Conduct: Children should be taught specific maxims of conduct to guide their behavior.1
Self-Governance: The ultimate goal of this balance is for the child to learn to rule themselves.1

By navigating the tension between liberty and constraint, the individual develops the capacity for true freedom. For Kant, education should not be limited to present conditions but should aim toward an ideal of humanity and the potential for an improved state of the human race.1