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An Idea Is A Method Of Evading, Circumventing Or Surmounting Through Reflection, Obstacles That Otherwise Would Have To Be Attacked By Brute Force.
-John Dewey
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An Idea Is A

John Dewey
...
An Idea Is A Method Of Evading, Circumventing Or Surmounting Through Reflection, Obstacles That Otherwise Would Have To Be Attacked By Brute Force.

Understanding the Quote: "an idea is a method of evading, circumventing or surmounting through reflection,..."

This quote by John Dewey reflects deeply on the theme of reflection. It connects to the universal human journey of purpose, motivation, and reflection. Often categorized under Reflection, Ideas, Imagination, the quote offers insight, emotional clarity, and intellectual inspiration to readers worldwide.

Whether you’re a student exploring new ideas, a leader trying to motivate your team, or someone seeking direction in life — this quote provides value. It resonates because it’s more than words — it’s a bridge between experience and wisdom. It shows how John Dewey interprets life's core challenges and triumphs.

Lessons From the Quote

This quote teaches resilience and focus. It reminds readers that no matter where they stand in life, reflection and self-awareness lead to growth. Each word has meaning, and when studied, it becomes clear how impactful thoughtful language can be.

About John Dewey

John Dewey is celebrated for insightful thoughts on reflection and ideas. Their legacy lives on through writings that guide, comfort, and inspire. Discover more on their profile page.

Actionable Takeaways

  • Reflect on how this quote applies to your current life path.
  • Share the message with someone who needs inspiration.
  • Write your thoughts on this quote in a journal or blog post.
  • Use it as a daily affirmation or reminder.

Closing Thoughts

Quotes like this endure because they capture universal truths. They comfort us in solitude and empower us in groups. Carry this quote forward — live by its wisdom, share its message, and keep its essence alive.

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Topic
Reflection
Ideas
Imagination
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Without Some Goals And Some Efforts To Reach It, No Man Can Live.
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The Struggle For Democracy Has To Be Maintained On As Many Fronts As Culture Has Aspects: Political, Economic, International, Educational, Scientific And Artistic, Religious.
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Since There Is No Single Set Of Abilities Running Throughout Human Nature, There Is No Single Curriculum Which All Should Undergo. Rather, The Schools Should Teach Everything That Anyone Is Interested In Learning.
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We Have Three Approaches At Our Disposal: The Observation Of Nature, Reflection, And Experimentation. Observation Serves To Assemble The Data, Reflection To Synthesise Them And Experimentation To Test The Results Of The Synthesis. The Observation Of Nature Must Be Assiduous, Just As Reflection Must Be Profound, And Experimentation Accurate. These Three Approaches Are Rarely Found Together, Which Explains Why Creative Geniuses Are So Rare.
Science
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The Routine Of Custom Tends To Deaden Even Scientific Inquiry; It Stands In The Way Of Discovery And Of The Active Scientific Worker. For Discovery And Inquiry Are Synonymous As An Occupation. Science Is A Pursuit, Not A Coming Into Possession Of The Immutable; New Theories As Points Of View Are More Prized Than Discoveries That Quantitatively Increase The Store On Hand.
Thinking
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Views
The Good Society Was, Like The Good Self, A Diverse Yet Harmonious, Growing Yet Unified Whole, A Fully Participatory Democracy In Which The Powers And Capacities Of The Individuals That Comprised It Were Harmonized By Their Cooperative Activities Into A Community That Permitted The Full And Free Expression Of Individuality.
Self
Expression
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Continuity Of Life Means Continual Readaptation Of The Environment To The Needs Of Living Organisms.
Mean
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The Mere Absorption Of Facts And Truths Is So Exclusively An Individual Affair That It Tends Very Naturally To Pass Into Selfishness. There Is No Obvious Social Motive For The Acquirement Of Mere Learning, There Is No Clear Social Gain In Success Thereat.
Selfishness
Gains
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The Problem Of Education In A Democratic Society Is To Do Away With ... Dualism And To Construct A Course Of Studies Which Makes Thought A Guide Of Free Practice For All And Which Makes Leisure A Reward Of Accepting Responsibility For Service, Rather Than A State Of Exemption From It.
Responsibility
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But Progress In Knowledge Has Made Us Aware Of The Superficiality Of Plato's Lumping Of Individuals And Their Original Powers Into A Few Sharply Marked-off Classes; It Has Taught Us That Original Capacities Are Indefinitely Numerous And Variable. It Is But The Other Side Of This Fact To Say That In The Degree In Which Society Has Become Democratic, Social Organization Means Utilization Of The Specific And Variable Qualities Of Individuals, Not Stratification By Classes.
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It Is Not A Nature Cure, A System Of Faith Healing, Or A Physical Culture, Or A Medical Treatment, Or A Semi-occult Philosophy. As To What It Is, Dewey's Brief But Striking Description Appeals Most And Has The Least Chance Of Being Proved Incorrect: 'it The Alexander Technique Bears The Same Relation To Education That Education Itself Bears To All Other Human Activities.'
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The School Must Be "a Genuine Form Of Active Community Life, Instead Of A Place Set Apart In Which To Learn Lessons".
School
Community
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All Communication Is Like Art. It May Fairly Be Said, Therefore, That Any Social Arrangement That Remains Vitally Social, Or Vitally Shared, Is Educative To Those Who Participate In It. Only When It Becomes Cast In A Mold And Runs In A Routine Way Does It Lose Its Educative Power.
Running
Art
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Those Engaged In Directing The Actions Of Others Are Always In Danger Of Overlooking The Importance Of The Sequential Development Of Those They Direct.
Development
Action
Danger
One Might As Well Say He Has Sold When No One Has Bought As To Say He Has Taught When No One Has Learned.
Teacher
Might
Taught
Good Manners Come, As We Say, From Good Breeding Or Rather Are Good Breeding; And Breeding Is Acquired By Habitual Action, In Response To Habitual Stimuli, Not By Conveying Information.
Good Man
Information
Action
Every Great Advance In Science Has Issued From A New Audacity Of Imagination.
Change
Creativity
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Consensus Demands Communication.
Communication
Demand
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Education Is A Regulation Of The Process Of Coming To Share In The Social Consciousness; And That The Adjustment Of Individual Activity On The Basis Of This Social Consciousness Is The Only Sure Method Of Social Reconstruction.
Regulation
Consciousness
Individual
Arriving At One Goal Is The Starting Point To Another.
Inspirational
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Within Even The Most Social Group There Are Many Relations That Are Not As Yet Social.
Groups
Social
Relation
Mind Is A Verb Not A Noun.
Mind
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It Requires Troublesome Work To Undertake The Alteration Of Old Beliefs.
Belief
Troublesome
Alterations
You Cannot Teach Today The Same Way You Did Yesterday To Prepare Students For Tomorrow.
Yesterday
Today
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I Do Not Think That Any Thorough-going Modification Of College Curriculum Would Be Possible Without A Modification Of The Methods Of Instruction.
Teaching
Thinking
College
There Is No Discipline In The World So Severe As The Discipline Of Experience Subjected To The Tests Of Intelligent Development And Direction.
Intelligent
Discipline
Development
In England, Philosophers Are Honoured, Respected; They Rise To Public Offices, They Are Buried With The Kings... In France Warrants Are Issued Against Them, They Are Persecuted, Pelted With Pastoral Letters: Do We See That England Is Any The Worse For It?
Kings
Office
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The Origin Of Thinking Is Some Perplexity, Confusion Or Doubt.
Education
Teacher
Thinking
Education, Therefore, Is A Process Of Living And Not A Preparation For Future Living.
Education
Future
Learning
Beings Who Are Born Not Only Unaware Of, But Quite Indifferent To, The Aims And Habits Of The Social Group Have To Be Rendered Cognizant Of Them And Actively Interested. Education, And Education Alone, Spans The Gap.
Groups
Gaps
Habit
Religions Have Been Universal In The Sense That All The People We Know Anything About Have Had A Religion. But The Differences Among Them Are So Great And So Shocking That Any Common Element That Can Be Extracted Is Meaningless.... The Older Apologists For Christianity Seem To Have Been Better Advised Than Some Modern Ones In Condemning Every Religion But One As An Impostor, As At Bottom Some Kind Of Demon Worship Or At Any Rate A Superstitious Figment.
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Atheism
There Is More Than A Verbal Tie Between The Words Common, Community, And Communication.... Try The Experiment Of Communicating, With Fullness And Accuracy, Some Experience To Another, Especially If It Be Somewhat Complicated, And You Will Find Your Own Attitude Toward Your Experience Changing.
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Communication
Ties
In General It May Be Said That The Things Which We Take For Granted Without Inquiry Or Reflection Are Just The Things Which Determine Our Conscious Thinking And Decide Our Conclusions. And These Habitudes Which Lie Below The Level Of Reflection Are Just Those Which Have Been Formed In The Constant Give And Take Of Relationship With Others.
Lying
Reflection
Thinking
Thought Is Impossible Without Words.
Impossible
Education Is Not Preparation For Life; Education Is Life Itself.
Life
Inspiring
Education
Only In Education, Never In The Life Of Farmer, Sailor, Merchant, Physician, Or Laboratory Experimenter, Does Knowledge Mean Primarily A Store Of Information Aloof From Doing.
Knowledge
Mean
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The Life Of The Ancient Greeks And Romans Has Profoundly Influenced Our Own, And Yet The Ways In Which They Affect Us Do Not Present Themselves On The Surface Of Our Ordinary Experiences.
Greek
Ordinary
Way
Mere Physical Growing Up, Mere Mastery Of The Bare Necessities Of Subsistence Will Not Suffice To Reproduce The Life Of The Group. Deliberate Effort And The Taking Of Thoughtful Pains Are Required.
Growing Up
Pain
Thoughtful
The Relationships Of Our Present Social Life Are So Numerous And So Interwoven That A Child Placed In The Most Favorable Position Could Not Readily Share In Many Of The Most Important Of Them. Not Sharing In Them, Their Meaning Would Not Be Communicated To Him, Would Not Become A Part Of His Own Mental Disposition. There Would Be No Seeing The Trees Because Of The Forest. Business, Politics, Art, Science, Religion, Would Make All At Once A Clamor For Attention; Confusion Would Be The Outcome.
Art
Children
Confusion
Democracy Is A Way Of Life Controlled By A Working Faith In The Possibilities Of Human Nature. . . . This Faith May Be Enacted In Statutes, But It Is Only On Paper Unless It Is Put In Force In The Attitudes Which Human Beings Display To One Another In All The Incidents And Relations Of Daily Life.
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Social Engaged Intellectuals Must Accept Reality As They Found It And Shape It Toward Positive Social Goals, Not Stand Aside In Self-righteous Isolation.
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I Believe That The Community's Duty To Education Is, Therefore, Its Paramount Moral Duty. By Law And Punishment, By Social Agitation And Discussion, Society Can Regulate And Form Itself In A More Or Less Haphazard And Chance Way. But Through Education Society Can Formulate Its Own Purposes, Can Organize Its Own Means And Resources, And Thus Shape Itself With Definiteness And Economy In The Direction In Which It Wishes To Move.
Educational
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Democracy Means The Belief That Humanistic Culture Should Prevail.
Mean
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Even In A Savage Tribe, The Achievements Of Adults Are Far Beyond What The Immature Members Would Be Capable Of If Left To Themselves. With The Growth Of Civilization, The Gap Between The Original Capacities Of The Immature And The Standards And Customs Of The Elders Increases.
Civilization
Achievement
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Experience Alone Cannot Deliver To Us Necessary Truths; Truths Completely Demonstrated By Reason. Its Conclusions Are Particular, Not Universal.
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Particular
The Conception Of Education As A Social Process And Function Has No Definite Meaning Until We Define The Kind Of Society We Have In Mind.
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It Has Been Petrified Into A Slavery Of Thought And Sentiment, As Intolerant Superiority On The Part Of The Few And An Intolerable Burden On The Part Of The Many.
Atheism
Slavery
Burden
It Is Obvious To Any Observer That In Every Western Country The Increase Of Importance Of Public Schools Has Been At Least Coincident With The Relaxation Of Older Family Ties.
Country
School
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Were All Instructors To Realize That The Quality Of Mental Process, Not The Production Of Correct Answers, Is The Measure Of Educative Growth Something Hardly Less Than A Revolution In Teaching Would Be Worked.
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Any Experience, However, Trivial In Its First Appearance, Is Capable Of Assuming An Indefinite Richness Of Significance By Extending Its Range Of Perceived Connections.
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Connections
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Such Words As "society" And "community" Are Likely To Be Misleading, For They Have A Tendency To Make Us Think There Is A Single Thing Corresponding To The Single Word.
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Community
Tendencies
An Idea Is A Method Of Evading, Circumventing Or Surmounting Through Reflection, Obstacles That Otherwise Would Have To Be Attacked By Brute Force.
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The Phrase "think For One's Self" Is A Pleonasm. Unless One Does It For One's Self, It Isn't Thinking.
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Self
Phrases
The Real Purveyors Of The News Are Artists, For Artists Are The Ones Who Infuse Fact With Perception, Emotion, And Appreciation...we Are Beginning To Realize That Emotions And Imagination Are More Potent In Shaping Public Sentiment And Opinion Than Information And Reason.
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Real
Artist
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Learning
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To Feel The Meaning Of What One Is Doing, And To Rejoice In That Meaning; To Unite In One Concurrent Fact The Unfolding Of The Inner Life And The Ordered Development Of Material Conditions--that Is Art.
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Development
Facts
The Most Important Factor In The Training Of Good Mental Habits Consists In Acquiring The Attitude Of Suspended Conclusion, And In Mastering The Various Methods Of Searching For New Materials To Corroborate Or To Refute The First Suggestions That Occur.
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Even Dogs And Horses Have Their Actions Modified By Association With Human Beings; They Form Different Habits Because Human Beings Are Concerned With What They Do.
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Since A Democratic Society Repudiates The Principle Of External Authority, It Must Find A Substitute In Voluntary Disposition And Interest; These Can Be Created Only By Education.
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I Should Venture To Assert That The Most Pervasive Fallacy Of Philosophic Thinking Goes Back To Neglect Of Context.
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We Have Lost Confidence In Reason Because We Have Learned That Man Is Chiefly A Creature Of Habit And Emotion.
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Philosophy Recovers Itself When It Ceases To Be A Device For Dealing With The Problems Of Philosophers And Becomes A Method, Cultivated By Philosophers, For Dealing With The Problems Of Men.
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Men
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What Accumulated Knowledge Exists In Low Grade Societies Is At Least Put Into Practice; It Is Transmuted Into Character; It Exists With The Depth Of Meaning That Attaches To Its Coming Within Urgent Daily Interests.
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Practice
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The Aim Of Education Is To Enable Individuals To Continue Their Education — Or That The Object And Reward Of Learning Is Continued Capacity For Growth.
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If A Person Cannot Foresee The Consequences Of His Act, And Is Not Capable Of Understanding What He Is Told About Its Outcome By Those With More Experience, It Is Impossible For Him To Guide His Act Intelligently. In Such A State, Every Act Is Alike To Him.
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What, After All, Is The Public Under Present Conditions? What Are The Reasons For Its Eclipse? What Hinders It From Finding And Identifying Itself? By What Means Shall Its Inchoate And Amorphous Estate Be Organized Into Effective Political Action Relevant To Present Social Needs And Opportunities? What Has Happened To The Public In The Century And A Half Since The Theory Of Political Democracy Was Urged With Such Assurance And Hope?
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A Book Or A Letter May Institute A More Intimate Association Between Human Beings Separated Thousands Of Miles From Each Other Than Exists Between Dwellers Under The Same Roof.
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In A World That Has So Largely Engaged In A Mad And Often Brutally Harsh Race For Material Gain By Means Of Ruthless Competition, It Behooves The School To Make Ceaseless And Intelligently Organized Effort To Develop Above All Else The Will For Co-operation And The Spirit Which Sees In Every Other Individual One Who Has An Equal Right To Share In The Cultural And Material Fruits Of Collective Human Invention, Industry, Skill And Knowledge
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That Education Is Not An Affair Of "telling" And Being Told, But An Active And Constructive Process, Is A Principle Almost As Generally Violated In Practice As Conceded In Theory. Is Not This Deplorable Situation Due To The Fact That The Doctrine Is Itself Merely Told? It Is Preached; It Is Lectured; It Is Written About.
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The Function Of Criticism Is The Reeducation Of Perception Of Works Of Art? The Conception That Its Business Is To Appraise, To Judge In The Legal And Moral Sense, Arrests The Perception Of Those Who Are Influenced By The Criticism That Assumes This Task.
Art
Judging
Perception
Education Must Be Understood As Growth, Or The Facilitation Of Growth.
Growth
Understood
The Theory Of The Method Of Knowing Which Is Advanced In These Pages May Be Termed Pragmatic. ... Only That Which Has Been Organized Into Our Disposition So As To Enable Us To Adapt The Environment To Our Needs And Adapt Our Aims And Desires To The Situation In Which We Live Is Really Knowledge.
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Science
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The Teacher Loses The Position Of External Boss Or Dictator But Takes On That Of Leader Of Group Activities
Teacher
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Language Fails Not Because Thought Fails, But Because No Verbal Symbols Can Do Justice To The Fullness And Richness Of Thought. Ifwe Are To Continue Talking About "data" In Any Other Sense Than As Reflective Distinctions, The Original Datum Is Always Such A Qualitative Whole.
Talking
Data
Justice
Education Is Life Itself.
Education
Self Education
The Future Of Religion Is Connected With The Possibility Of Developing A Faith In The Possibilities Of Human Experience And Human Relationships That Will Create A Vital Sense Of The Solidarity Of Human Interests And Inspire Action To Make That Sense A Reality.
Reality
Inspire
Religion
A Society Which Makes Provision For Participation In Its Good Of All Its Members On Equal Terms And Which Secures Flexible Readjustment Of Its Institutions Through Interaction Of The Different Forms Of Associated Life Is In So Far Democratic. Such A Society Must Have A Type Of Education Which Gives Individuals A Personal Interest In Social Relationships And Control, And The Habits Of Mind Which Secure Social Changes Without Introducing Disorder.
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Mind
Different
Politics Is The Shadow Cast On Society By Big Business.
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Bigs
Casts
Time With His Old Flail Beat Me Full Sore; Till: Hold, I Cried, I'll Stand No More. Then I Heard A Wail And Looking Spied How Love's Little Bow Had Laid Time Low.
Breakup
Littles
Bows
Balance Is Balancing.
Balance
Everything Which Bars Freedom And Fullness Of Communication Sets Up Barriers That Divide Human Beings Into Sets And Cliques, Into Antagonistic Sects And Factions, And Thereby Undermines The Democratic Way Of Life.
Communication
Democracy
Bars
Failure Is Instructive. The Person Who Really Thinks Learns Quite As Much From His Failures As From His Successes.
Inspirational
Motivational
Success
No Man's Credit Is As Good As His Money.
Money
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Men
The Imagination Is The Medium Of Appreciation In Every Field. The Engagement Of The Imagination Is The Only Thing That Makes Any Activity More Than Mechanical. Unfortunately, It Is Too Customary To Identify The Imaginative With The Imaginary, Rather Than With A Warm And Intimate Taking In Of The Full Scope Of A Situation.
Appreciation
Imagination
Engagement
In Order To Have A Large Number Of Values In Common, All The Members Of The Group Must Have An Equable Opportunity, To Receive And To Take From Others. There Must Be A Large Variety Of Shared Undertakings And Experiences. Otherwise, The Influences Which Educate Some Into Masters, Educates Others Into Slaves.
Opportunity
Order
Numbers
The Breakdown Of Plato's Philosophy Is Made Apparent In The Fact That He Could Not Trust To Gradual Improvements In Education To Bring About A Better Society Which Should Then Improve Education, And So On Indefinitely. Correct Education Could Not Come Into Existence Until An Ideal State Existed, And After That Education Would Be Devoted Simply To Its Conservation. For The Existence Of This State He Was Obliged To Trust To Some Happy Accident By Which Philosophic Wisdom Should Happen To Coincide With Possession Of Ruling Power In The State.
Plato
Philosophy
Would Be
What Nutrition And Reproduction Are To Physiological Life, Education Is To Social Life.
Nutrition
Social
Physiological
Creative Thinking Will Improve As We Relate The New Fact To The Old And All Facts To Each Other.
Thinking
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Facts
Faith In The Possibilities Of Continued And Rigorous Inquiry Does Not Limit Access To Truth To Any Channel Or Scheme Of Things. It Does Not First Say That Truth Is Universal And Then Add There Is But One Road To It.
Doe
Add
Inquiry
A Large Part Of The Art Of Instruction Lies In Making The Difficulty Of New Problems Large Enough To Challenge Thought, And Small Enough So That, In Addition To The Confusion Naturally Attending The Novel Elements, There Shall Be Luminous Familiar Spots From Which Helpful Suggestions May Spring.
Art
Lying
Spring
As Long As Politics Is The Shadow Cast On Society By Big Business, The Attenuation Of The Shadow Will Not Change The Substance.
Long
Shadow
Substance
No System Has Ever As Yet Existed Which Did Not In Some Form Involve The Exploitation Of Some Human Beings For The Advantage Of Others.
Nihilism
Advantage
Form
Perhaps The Greatest Of All Pedagogical Fallacies Is The Notion That A Person Learns Only The Particular Thing He Is Studying At The Time.
Study
Notion
Fallacy
Understanding One Another Means That Objects, Including Sounds, Have The Same Value For Both With Respect To Carrying On A Common Pursuit.
Mean
Understanding
Sound
Cease Conceiving Of Education As Mere Preparation For Later Life, And Make It The Full Meaning Of The Present Life.
Preparation
Mere
Present Life
Knowledge Is Humanistic In Quality Not Because It Is About Human Products In The Past, But Because Of What It Does In Liberating Human Intelligence And Human Sympathy. Any Subject Matter Which Accomplishes This Result Is Humane, And Any Subject Matter Which Does Not Accomplish It Is Not Even Educational.
Educational
Past
Quality
Like The Soil, Mind Is Fertilized While It Lies Fallow, Until A New Burst Of Bloom Ensues.
Lying
Mind
Soil
Nature As A Whole Is A Progressive Realization Of Purpose Strictly Comparable To The Realization Of Purpose In Any Single Plant Or Animal.
Nature
Animal
Purpose
Not Perfection As A Final Goal, But The Ever-enduring Process Of Perfecting, Maturing, Refining Is The Aim Of Living.
Goal
Perfection
Finals
Cooperation Called Fraternity In The Classic French Formula Is As Much A Part Of The Democratic Ideal As Is Personal Initiative. That Cultural Conditions Were Allowed To Develop (markedly So In The Economic Phase) Which Subordinated Cooperativeness To Liberty And Equality Serves To Explain The Decline In The Two Latter.
Democratic Ideals
Two
Liberty
Since In Reality There Is Nothing To Which Growth Is Relative Save More Growth, There Is Nothing To Which Education Is Subordinate Save More Education.‎
Education
Science
Reality
Democracy Is A Form Of Government Only Because It Is A Form Of Moral And Spiritual Association.
Spiritual
Government
Democracy
The First Step In Freeing Men From External Chains Was To Emancipate Them From The Internal Chains Of False Beliefs And Ideals.
Men
Mind
Care
A Society With Too Few Independent Thinkers Is Vulnerable To Control By Disturbed And Opportunistic Leaders. A Society Which Wants To Create And Maintain A Free And Democratic Social System Must Create Responsible Independence Of Thought Among Its Young.
Independent
Leader
Independence
The Only Way To Abolish War Is To Make Peace Seem Heroic.
War
Way
Heroic
The Method Of Democracy Is To Bring Conflicts Out Into The Open Where Their Special Claims Can Be Seen And Appraised, Where They Can Be Discussed And Judged.
Democracy
Special
Conflict
The Activity Of The Immature Human Being Is Simply Played Upon To Secure Habits Which Are Useful. He Is Trained Like An Animal Rather Than Educated Like A Human Being. His Instincts Remain Attached To Their Original Objects Of Pain Or Pleasure. But To Get Happiness Or To Avoid The Pain Of Failure He Has To Act In A Way Agreeable To Others.
Pain
Animal
Immature
Every Serious-minded Person Knows That A Large Part Of The Effort Required In Moral Discipline Consists In The Courage Needed To Acknowledge The Unpleasant Consequences Of One's Past And Present Acts.
Past
Discipline
Effort
To Savages It Would Seem Preposterous To Seek Out A Place Where Nothing But Learning Was Going On In Order That One Might Learn.
Order
Savages
Might
Things Gain Meaning By Being Used In A Shared Experience Or Joint Action.
Gains
Joints
Action
Forty Years Spent In Wandering In A Wilderness Like That Of The Present Is Not A Sad Fate - Unless One Attempts To Make Himself Believe That The Wilderness Is After All Itself The Promised Land.
Believe
Fate
Years
The Plea For The Predominance Of Learning To Read In Early School Life Because Of The Great Importance Attaching To Literature Seems To Be A Perversion.
School
Literature
Slave
Nature Is The Mother And The Habitat Of Man, Even If Sometimes A Stepmother And An Unfriendly Home.
Mother
Nature
Home
The Notion That "applied" Knowledge Is Somehow Less Worthy Than "pure" Knowledge, Was Natural To A Society In Which All Useful Work Was Performed By Slaves And Serfs, And In Which Industry Was Controlled By The Models Set By Custom Rather Than By Intelligence. Science, Or The Highest Knowing, Was Then Identified With Pure Theorizing, Apart From All Application In The Uses Of Life; And Knowledge Relating To Useful Arts Suffered The Stigma Attaching To The Classes Who Engaged In Them.
Art
Knowledge
Class
Schools Should Take An Active Part In Directing Social Change, And Share In The Construction Of A New Social Order
Education
School
Order
Unless Our Laboratory Results Are To Give Us Artificialities, Mere Scientific Curiosities, They Must Be Subjected To Interpretation By Gradual Re-approximation To Conditions Of Life.
Science
Giving
Curiosity
There's All The Difference In The World Between Having Something To Say, And Having To Say Something.
Differences
World
If The Eye Is Constantly Greeted By Harmonious Objects, Having Elegance Of Form And Color, A Standard Of Taste Naturally Grows Up.
Growing Up
Eye
Color
Selection Aims Not Only At Simplifying But At Weeding Out What Is Undesirable.
Weed
Aim
Undesirable
Old Ideas Give Way Slowly; For They Are More Than Abstract Logical Forms And Categories. They Are Habits, Predispositions, Deeply Ingrained Attitudes Of Aversion And Preference.
Attitude
Acceptance
Ideas
Intelligence Is In Constant Process Of Forming, And Its Retention Requires Constant Alertness In Observing Consequences, An Open-minded Will To Learn, And Courage In Readjustment.
Alertness
Open Minded
Process
We Only Think When We Are Confronted With Problems.
Mistake
Failure
Thinking
Communication Is A Process Of Sharing Experience Till It Becomes A Common Possession. It Modifies The Disposition Of Both The Parties Who Partake In It.
Party
Communication
Common
We Cannot Think Of Ourselves Save As To Some Extent Social Being. Hence, We Cannot Separate The Idea Of Ourselves And Our Own Good From Our Idea Of Others And Their Good.
Thinking
Discovery
Ideas
Every Society Gets Encumbered With What Is Trivial, With Dead Wood From The Past, And With What Is Positively Perverse.
Past
Woods
Positively
The Development Occurs Through Reciprocal Give-and-take, The Teacher Taking But Not Being Afraid Also To Give.
Teacher
Teaching
Giving
We Have Already Noticed The Difference In The Attitude Of A Spectator And Of An Agent Or Participant. The Former Is Indifferent To What Is Going On; One Result Is Just As Good As Another, Since Each Is Just Something To Look At. The Latter Is Bound Up With What Is Going On; Its Outcome Makes A Difference To Him.
Attitude
Differences
Making A Difference
When A School Introduces And Trains Each Child Of Society Into Membership Within Such A Little Community, Saturating Him With The Spirit Of Service, And Providing Him With The Instruments Of Effective Self-direction, We Shall Have The Deepest And Best Guaranty Of A Larger Society Which Is Worthy, Lovely, And Harmonious
Children
School
Self
Skepticism: The Mark And Even The Pose Of The Educated Mind.
Mind
Mark
Posing
Schools Are, Indeed, One Important Method Of The Transmission Which Forms The Dispositions Of The Immature; But It Is Only One Means, And, Compared With Other Agencies, A Relatively Superficial Means. Only As We Have Grasped The Necessity Of More Fundamental And Persistent Modes Of Tuition Can We Make Sure Of Placing The Scholastic Methods In Their True Context.
School
Mean
Agency
A Tribe, Let Us Say, Is Warlike. The Successes For Which It Strives, The Achievements Upon Which It Sets Store, Are Connected With Fighting And Victory.
Fighting
Achievement
Victory
The Educative Value Of Manual Activities And Of Laboratory Exercises, As Well As Of Play, Depends Upon The Extent In Which They Aid In Bringing About A Sensing Of The Meaning Of What Is Going On. In Effect, If Not In Name, They Are Dramatizations.
Exercise
Play
Names
One Lives With So Many Bad Deeds On One's Conscience And Some Good Intentions In One's Heart.
Heart
Deeds
Good Intentions
In General, Every Stimulus Directs Activity. It Does Not Simply Excite It Or Stir It Up, But Directs It Toward An Object.
Doe
Stimulus
Objects
The Development Of Science Has Produced An Industrial Revolution Which Has Brought Different Peoples In Such Close Contact With One Another Through Colonization And Commerce That No Matter How Some Nations May Still Look Down Upon Others, No Country Can Harbor The Illusion That Its Career Is Decided Wholly Within Itself.
Country
Careers
Different
Imposing An Alleged Uniform General Method Upon Everybody Breeds Mediocrity In All But The Very Exceptional. And Measuring Originality By Deviation From The Mass Breeds Eccentricity In Them.
Mediocrity
Uniforms
Originality
All Genuine Learning Comes Through Experience.
Genuine
The Result Of The Educative Process Is Capacity For Further Education.
Education
Social Justice
Process
As Formal Teaching And Training Grow In Extent, There Is The Danger Of Creating An Undesirable Split Between The Experience Gained In More Direct Associations And What Is Acquired In School. This Danger Was Never Greater Than At The Present Time, On Account Of The Rapid Growth In The Last Few Centuries Of Knowledge And Technical Modes Of Skill.
Teaching
School
Skills
I Believe That The Only True Education Comes Through The Stimulation Of The Child's Powers By The Demands Of The Social Situations In Which He Finds Himself.
Children
Believe
Demand
That Which Distinguishes The Soviet System Both From Other National Systems And From The Progressive Schools Of Other Countries Is The Conscious Control Of Every Educational Procedure By Reference To A Single And Comprehensive Social Purpose.
Country
Educational
School
Of All Affairs, Communication Is The Most Wonderful.
Communication
Wonderful
Affair
Just As A Flower Which Seems Beautiful And Has Color But No Perfume, So Are The Fruitless Words Of The Man Who Speaks Them But Does Them Not.
Beautiful
Flower
Men
You Can Teach Students To Develop The Ability To Think Reflectively, And You Can Help Them Understand What This Means, But If They Are Not Inclined To Do So They Never Will.
Mean
Thinking
Helping
Teachers Are The Agents Through Which Knowledge And Skills Are Communicated And Rules Of Conduct Enforced.
Teacher
Philosophy
Educational
The Parts Of A Machine Work With A Maximum Of Cooperativeness For A Common Result, But They Do Not Form A Community. If, However, They Were All Cognizant Of The Common End And All Interested In It So That They Regulated Their Specific Activity In View Of It, Then They Would Form A Community. But This Would Involve Communication. Each Would Have To Know What The Other Was About And Would Have To Have Some Way Of Keeping The Other Informed As To His Own Purpose And Progress.
Communication
Views
Community
Education Is Not An Affair Of 'telling' And Being Told, But An Active And Constructive Process.
Affair
Process
Constructive
One Code Prevails In The Family; Another, On The Street; A Third, In The Workshop Or Store; A Fourth, In The Religious Association. As A Person Passes From One Of The Environments To Another, He Is Subjected To Antagonistic Pulls, And Is In Danger Of Being Split Into A Being Having Different Standards Of Judgment And Emotion For Different Occasions. This Danger Imposes Upon The School A Steadying And Integrating Office.
Religious
School
Office
Every Living Being Needs Continually Renewed, And Education Is Simply The Chief Process By Which Renewal Occurs.
Needs
Renewal
Process
There Is No Common Understanding, And No Community Life. But In A Shared Activity, Each Person Refers What He Is Doing To What The Other Is Doing And Vice-versa.
Community
Understanding
Vices
Of These Three Words, Direction, Control, And Guidance, The Last Best Conveys The Idea Of Assisting Through Cooperation The Natural Capacities Of The Individuals Guided; Control Conveys Rather The Notion Of An Energy Brought To Bear From Without And Meeting Some Resistance From The One Controlled; Direction Is A More Neutral Term And Suggests The Fact That The Active Tendencies Of Those Directed Are Led In A Certain Continuous Course, Instead Of Dispersing Aimlessly.
Ideas
Three
Lasts
What Holds For Adults Holds Even More For Children, Sensitive And Conscious Of Differences. I Certainly Hope That The Board Of Education Will Think Very, Very Seriously Before It Introduces This Division And Antagonism In Our Public Schools.
Children
School
Thinking
If We Teach Today’s Students As We Taught Yesterday’s, We Rob Them Of Tomorrow.
Teacher
Powerful
Teaching
The Aim Of Education Is To Enable Individuals To Continue Their Education ... (and) The Object And Reward Of Learning Is Continued Capacity For Growth. Now This Idea Cannot Be Applied To All The Members Of A Society Except Where Intercourse Of Man With Man Is Mutual, And Except Where There Is Adequate Provision For The Reconstruction Of Social Habits And Institutions By Means Of Wide Stimulation Arising From Equitably Distributed Interests. And This Means A Democratic Society.
Change
Education
Mean
In Undeveloped Social Groups, We Find Very Little Formal Teaching And Training. Savage Groups Mainly Rely For Instilling Needed Dispositions Into The Young Upon The Same Sort Of Association Which Keeps Adults Loyal To Their Group. They Have No Special Devices, Material, Or Institutions For Teaching Save In Connection With Initiation Ceremonies By Which The Youth Are Inducted Into Full Social Membership. For The Most Part, They Depend Upon Children Learning The Customs Of The Adults, Acquiring Their Emotional Set And Stock Of Ideas, By Sharing In What The Elders Are Doing.
Children
Teaching
Emotional
Even Today, In Our Industrial Life, Apart From Certain Values Of Industriousness And Thrift, The Intellectual And Emotional Reaction Of The Forms Of Human Association Under Which The World's Work Is Carried On Receives Little Attention As Compared With Physical Output.
Emotional
Intellectual
Attention
There Is No God And There Is No Soul. Hence, There Is No Need For The Props Of Traditional Religion. With Dogma And Creed Excluded, Then Immutable Truth Is Dead And Buried. There Is No Room For Fixed And Natural Law Or Permanent Moral Absolutes.
Education
Law
Soul
The Best Preparation For The Future Is A Well-spent Today.
Preparation
Today
Wells
Criticism Of The Commitment Of Religion To The Supernatural Is Thus Positive In Import.
Commitment
Criticism
Atheism
Where There Is Giving There Must Be Taking.
Giving
Since Education Is Not A Means To Living, But Is Identical With The Operation Of Living A Life Which Is Fruitful And Inherently Significant, The Only Ultimate Value Which Can Be Set Up Is Just The Process Of Living Itself. And This Is Not An End To Which Studies And Activities Are Subordinate Means; It Is The Whole Of Which They Are Ingredients.
Mean
Ingredients
Study
Human Nature Exists And Operates In An Environment. And It Is Not 'in' That Environment As Coins Are In A Box, But As A Plant Is In The Sunlight And Soil.
Coins
Soil
Human Nature
With Respect To The Development Of Powers Devoted To Coping With Specific Scientific And Economic Problems We May Say That The Child Should Be Growing In Manhood. With Respect To Sympathetic Curiosity, Unbiased Responsiveness, And Openness Of Mind, We May Say That The Adult Should Be Growing In Childlikeness.
Children
Curiosity
Mind
Even The Alleged Benefits Of War, So Far As More Than Alleged, Spring From The Fact That Conflict Of Peoples At Least Enforces Intercourse Between Them And Thus Accidentally Enables Them To Learn From One Another, And Thereby To Expand Their Horizons. Travel, Economic And Commercial Tendencies, Have At Present Gone Far To Break Down External Barriers; To Bring Peoples And Classes Into Closer And More Perceptible Connection With One Another.
Spring
War
Class
As Some Species Die Out, Forms Better Adapted To Utilize The Obstacles Against Which They Struggled In Vain Come Into Being.
Obstacles
Vain
Form
There Is No Such Thing As Educational Value In The Abstract. The Notion That Some Subjects And Methods And That Acquaintance With Certain Facts And Truths Possess Educational Value In And Of Themselves Is The Reason Why Traditional Education Reduced The Material Of Education So Largely To A Diet Of Predigested Materials.
Educational
Facts
Reason Why
The Most Important Attitude That Can Be Formed Is That Of Desire To Go On Learning.
Attitude
Desire
Important
Men's Fundamental Attitudes Toward The World Are Fixed By The Scope And Qualities Of The Activities In Which They Partake.
Attitude
Men
Quality
A Problem Well Put Is Half Solved.
Half
Problem
Wells
Men Live In A Community In Virtue Of The Things Which They Have In Common; And Communication Is The Way In Which They Come To Possess Things In Common. What They Must Have In Common In Order To Form A Community Or Society Are Aims, Beliefs, Aspirations, Knowledge - A Common Understanding - Likemindedness As The Sociologists Say.
Communication
Men
Order
Just As The Senses Require Sensible Objects To Stimulate Them, So Our Powers Of Observation, Recollection, And Imagination Do Not Work Spontaneously, But Are Set In Motion By The Demands Set Up By Current Social Occupations.
Imagination
Demand
Occupation
The School Has The Function Of Coordinating Within The Disposition Of Each Individual The Diverse Influences Of The Various Social Environments Into Which He Enters.
School
Environment
Influence
Too Rarely Is The Individual Teacher So Free From The Dictation Of Authoritative Supervisor, Textbook On Methods, Prescribed Course Of Study, Etc., That He Can Let His Mind Come To Close Quarters With The Pupil's Mind And The Subject Matter.
Teacher
Teaching
Mind
Mankind Likes To Think In Terms Of Extreme Opposites.
Philosophy
Educational
Thinking
The Experience Has To Be Formulated In Order To Be Communicated.
Order
Fundamental Modes Of Speech, The Bulk Of The Vocabulary, Are Formed In The Ordinary Intercourse Of Life, Carried On Not As A Set Means Of Instruction But As A Social Necessity.
Mean
Vocabulary
Ordinary
Modern Philosophy Certainly Exacts A Surrender Of All Supernaturalism And Fixed Dogma And Rigid Institutionalism With Which Christianity Has Been Historically Associated
Philosophy
Dogma
Surrender
When Men Think And Believe In One Set Of Symbols And Act In Ways Which Are Contrary To Their Professed And Conscious Ideas, Confusion And Insincerity Are Bound To Result.
Believe
Men
Thinking
It May Be Seriously Questioned Whether The Philosophies... Which Isolate Mind And Set It Over Against The World Did Not Have Their Origin In The Fact That The Reflective Or Theoretical Class Of Men Elaborated A Large Stock Of Ideas Which Social Conditions Did Not Allow Them To Act Upon And Test. Consequently Men Were Thrown Back Into Their Own Thoughts As Ends In Themselves.
Philosophy
Men
Class
We Do Not Learn From Experience...we Learn From Reflecting On Experience.
Mistake
Learning From Mistakes
Learning Experience
In Fact, The Human Young Are So Immature That If They Were Left To Themselves Without The Guidance And Succor Of Others, They Could Not Acquire The Rudimentary Abilities Necessary For Physical Existence.
Immature
Facts
Guidance
The First Office Of The Social Organ We Call The School Is To Provide A Simplified Environment. It Selects The Features Which Are Fairly Fundamental And Capable Of Being Responded To By The Young. Then It Establishes A Progressive Order, Using The Factors First Acquired As Means Of Gaining Insight Into What Is More Complicated.
School
Mean
Order
We Are A People Of Many Races, Many Faiths, Creeds, And Religions. I Do Not Think That The Men Who Made The Constitution Forbade The Establishment Of A State Church Because They Were Opposed To Religion. They Knew That The Introduction Of Religious Differences Into American Life Would Undermine The Democratic Foundations Of This Country. What Holds For Adults Holds Even More For Children, Sensitive And Conscious Of Differences. I Certainly Hope That The Board Of Education Will Think Very, Very Seriously Before It Introduces This Division And Antagonism In Our Public Schools.
Country
Religious
Children
Give The Pupils Something To Do, Not Something To Learn; And The Doing Is Of Such A Nature As To Demand Thinking; Learning Naturally Results.
Education
Teaching
Thinking
The Ideal May Seem Remote Of Execution, But The Democratic Ideal Of Education Is A Farcical Yet Tragic Delusion Except As The Ideal More And More Dominates Our Public System Of Education.
Democratic Ideals
May
Execution
By Various Agencies, Unintentional And Designed, A Society Transforms Uninitiated And Seemingly Alien Beings Into Robust Trustees Of Its Own Resources And Ideals. Education Is Thus A Fostering, A Nurturing, A Cultivating, Process.
Agency
Aliens
Robust
We Talk Much More About Individualism And Liberty Than Our Ancestors. But As So Often Happens, When Anything Becomes Conscious, The Consciousness Is Compensatory For Absence In Practice.
Practice
Liberty
Consciousness
A Child May Have To Be Snatched With Roughness Away From A Fire So That He Shall Not Be Burnt.
Children
Fire
May
The Interaction Of Knowledge And Skills With Experience Is Key To Learning.
Keys
Skills
Interaction
A Person Who Is Trained To Consider His Actions, To Undertake Them Deliberately, Is In So Far Forth Disciplined. Add To This Ability A Power To Endure In An Intelligently Chosen Course In The Face Of Distraction, Confusion, And Difficulty, And You Have The Essence Of Discipline.
Essence
Discipline
Confusion
Since Changes Are Going On Anyway, The Great Thing Is To Learn Enough About Them So That We Will Be Able To Lay Hold Of Them And Turn Them In The Direction Of Our Desires. Conditions And Events Are Neither To Be Fled From Nor Passively Acquiesced In; They Are To Be Utilized And Directed.
Change
Education
Memories
We Never Educate Directly, But Indirectly By Means Of The Environment. Whether We Permit Chance Environments To Do The Work, Or Whether We Design Environments For The Purpose Makes A Great Difference.
Mean
Differences
Design
To Be A Recipient Of A Communication Is To Have An Enlarged And Changed Experience.
Communication
Changed
I Believe That In The Ideal School We Have The Reconciliation Of The Individualistic And The Institutional Ideals.
Believe
School
Individualistic
Instruction Is Important.
Important
Instruction
An Inanimate Being Is, Of Course, Continuous With Its Surroundings; But The Environing Circumstances Do Not, Save Metaphorically, Constitute An Environment. For The Inorganic Being Is Not Concerned In The Influences Which Affect It.
Influence
Environment
Surroundings
Our Historic Imagination Is At Best Slightly Developed. We Generalise And Idealise The Past Egregiously. We Set Up Little Toys To Stand As Symbols For Centuries And The Complicated Lives Of Countless Individuals.
Past
History
Imagination
Not Only Is Social Life Identical With Communication, But All Communication (and Hence All Genuine Social Life) Is Educative.
Communication
Life Is
Social
Expertness Of Taste Is At Once The Result And Reward Of Constant Exercise Of Thinking.
Exercise
Thinking
Rewards
A Man Really Living Alone (alone Mentally As Well As Physically) Would Have Little Or No Occasion To Reflect Upon His Past Experience To Extract Its Net Meaning.
Past
Men
Littles
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