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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.

-John Dewey

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As Formal Teaching And

John Dewey

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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.

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Modern Life Means Democracy, Democracy Means Freeing Intelligence For Independent Effectivenessthe Emancipation Of Mind As An Individual Organ To Do Its Own Work. We Naturally Associate Democracy, To Be Sure, With Freedom Of Action, But Freedom Of Action Without Freed Capacity Of Thought Behind It Is Only Chaos.

The First Step In Freeing Men From External Chains Was To Emancipate Them From The Internal Chains Of False Beliefs And Ideals.

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.

Schools Have Ignored The Value Of Experience And Chosen To Teach By Pouring In.

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.

The Importance Of Language In Gaining Knowledge Is Doubtless The Chief Cause Of The Common Notion That Knowledge May Be Passed Directly From One To Another. It Almost Seems As If All We Have To Do To Convey An Idea Into The Mind Of Another Is To Convey A Sound Into His Ear. Thus Imparting Knowledge Gets Assimilated To A Purely Physical Process.

A Being Connected With Other Beings Cannot Perform His Own Activities Without Taking The Activities Of Others Into Account. For They Are The Indispensable Conditions Of The Realization Of His Tendencies. When He Moves He Stirs Them And Reciprocally.

Modern Philosophy Certainly Exacts A Surrender Of All Supernaturalism And Fixed Dogma And Rigid Institutionalism With Which Christianity Has Been Historically Associated

All Genuine Learning Comes Through Experience.

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.

As Long As Art Is The Beauty Parlor Of Civilization, Neither Art Nor Civilization Is Secure.

In The Present State Of The World, It Is Evident That The Control We Have Gained Of Physical Energies, Heat, Light, Electricity, Etc., Without Having First Secured Control Of Our Use Of Ourselves Is A Perilous Affair. Without The Control Of Our Use Of Ourselves, Our Use Of Other Things Is Blind; It May Lead To Anything.

The Central Problem Of An Education Based Upon Experience Is To Select The Kind Of Present Experience That Live Fruitfully And Creatively In Subsequent Experiences.

Thinking Is The Accurate And Deliberate Instituting Of Connections Between What Is Done And Its Consequences.

The Bare Fact That Language Consists Of Sounds Which Are Mutually Intelligible Is Enough Of Itself To Show That Its Meaning Depends Upon Connection With A Shared Experience.

The Outstanding Problem Of The Public Is Discovery And Identification Of Itself

To Pull At A Rope At Which Others Happen To Be Pulling Is Not A Shared Or Conjoint Activity, Unless The Pulling Is Done With Knowledge That Others Are Pulling And For The Sake Of Either Helping Or Hindering What They Are Doing.

All Education Which Develops Power To Share Effectively In Social Life Is Moral.

While [plato] Affirmed With Emphasis That The Place Of The Individual In Society Should Not Be Determined By Birth Or Wealth Or Any Conventional Status, But By His Own Nature As Discovered In The Process Of Education, He Had No Perception Of The Uniqueness Of Individuals. For Him They Fall By Nature Into Classes, And Into A Very Small Number Of Classes At That.

Just Because Life Signifies Not Bare Passive Existence (supposing There Is Such A Thing), But A Way Of Acting, Environment Or Medium Signifies What Enters Into This Activity As A Sustaining Or Frustrating Condition.

Those Engaged In Directing The Actions Of Others Are Always In Danger Of Overlooking The Importance Of The Sequential Development Of Those They Direct.

In The Olden Times, The Diversity Of Groups Was Largely A Geographical Matter. There Were Many Societies, But Each, Within Its Own Territory, Was Comparatively Homogeneous. But With The Development Of Commerce, Transportation, Intercommunication, And Emigration, Countries Like The United States Are Composed Of A Combination Of Different Groups With Different Traditional Customs. It Is This Situation Which Has, Perhaps More Than Any Other One Cause, Forced The Demand For An Educational Institution Which Shall Provide Something Like A Homogeneous And Balanced Environment For The Young.

Criticism Of The Commitment Of Religion To The Supernatural Is Thus Positive In Import.

You Cannot Teach Today The Same Way You Did Yesterday To Prepare Students For Tomorrow.

No Thought, No Idea, Can Possibly Be Conveyed As An Idea From One Person To Another. When It Is Told It Is To The One To Whom It Is Told Another Fact, Not An Idea. The Communication May Stimulate The Other Person To Realize The Question For Himself And To Think Out A Like Idea, Or It May Smother His Intellectual Interest And Suppress His Dawning Effort At Thought. But What He Directly Gets Cannot Be An Idea. Only By Wrestling With The Conditions Of The Problem At First Hand, Seeking And Finding His Own Way Out, Does He Think.

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

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.

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.

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.

The Real Process Of Education Should Be The Process Of Learning To Think Through The Application Of Real Problems.

To Avoid A Split Between What Men Consciously Know Because They Are Aware Of Having Learned It By A Specific Job Of Learning, And What They Unconsciously Know Because They Have Absorbed It In The Formation Of Their Characters By Intercourse With Others, Becomes An Increasingly Delicate Task With Every Development Of Special Schooling.

Nature Is The Mother And The Habitat Of Man, Even If Sometimes A Stepmother And An Unfriendly Home.

By Reading The Characteristic Features Of Any Man's Castles In The Air You Can Make A Shrewd Guess As To His Underlying Desires Which Are Frustrated.

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

Social Engaged Intellectuals Must Accept Reality As They Found It And Shape It Toward Positive Social Goals, Not Stand Aside In Self-righteous Isolation.

Choice Is The Declaration By Self That A Certain Ideal Of Self Shall Be Realized.

There Is No Discipline In The World So Severe As The Discipline Of Experience Subjected To The Tests Of Intelligent Development And Direction.

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.

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.

The Scientific-religious Conflict Ultimately Is A Conflict Between Allegiance To This Method And Allegiance To Even An Irreducible Minimum Of Belief So Fixed In Advance That It Can Never Be Modified.

Intelligent Thinking Means An Increment Of Freedom In Action-an Emancipation From Chance And Fatality. 'thought' Represents The Suggestion Of A Way Of Response That Is Different From That Which Would Have Been Followed If Intelligent Observation Had Not Effected An Inference As To The Future.

Without Initiation Into The Scientific Spirit One Is Not In Possession Of The Best Tools Which Humanity Has So Far Devised For Effectively Directed Reflection. One In That Case Not Merely Conducts Inquiry And Learning Without The Use Of The Best Instruments, But Fails To Understand The Full Meaning Of Knowledge.

Thinking And Feeling That Have To Do With Action In Association With Others Is As Much A Social Mode Of Behavior As Is The Most Overt Cooperative Or Hostile Act.

The Future Of Our Civilisation Depends Upon The Widening Spread And Deepening Hold Of The Scientific Habit Of Mind.

Time And Memory Are True Artists; They Remould Reality Nearer To The Heart's Desire.

All Direction Is But Re-direction; It Shifts The Activities Already Going On Into Another Channel. Unless One Is Cognizant Of The Energies Which Are Already In Operation, One's Attempts At Direction Will Almost Surely Go Amiss.

Arriving At One Goal Is The Starting Point To Another.

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

When We Consider The Close Connection Between Science And Industrial Development On The One Hand, And Between Literary And Aesthetic Cultivation And An Aristocratic Social Organization On The Other, We Get Light On The Opposition Between Technical Scientific Studies And Refining Literary Studies. We Have Before Us The Need Of Overcoming This Separation In Education If Society Is To Be Truly Democratic.

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.

The Ultimate Aim Of Production Is Not Production Of Goods But The Production Of Free Human Beings Associated With One Another On Terms Of Equality.

The Bad Man Is The Man Who No Matter How Good He Has Been Is Beginning To Deteriorate, To Grow Less Good. The Good Man Is The Man Who No Matter How Morally Unworthy He Has Been Is Moving To Become Better. Such A Conception Makes One Severe In Judging Himself And Humane In Judging Others.

The Belief That All Genuine Education Comes About Through Experience Does Not Mean That All Experiences Are Genuinely Or Equally Educative.

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.

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.

Selection Aims Not Only At Simplifying But At Weeding Out What Is Undesirable.

Traveling Is A Constant Arriving, While Arrival That Precludes Further Traveling Is Most Easily Attained By Going To Sleep Or Dying.

There Is Not, In Fact, Any Such Thing As The Direct Influence Of One Human Being On Another Apart From Use Of The Physical Environment As An Intermediary. A Smile, A Frown, A Rebuke, A Word Of Warning Or Encouragement, All Involve Some Physical Change. Otherwise, The Attitude Of One Would Not Get Over To Alter The Attitude Of Another.

The Only Thing That Is Unqualifiedly Given Is The Total Pervasive Quality; And The Objection To Calling It "given" Is That The Word Suggests Something To Which It Is Given, Mind Or Thought Or Consciousness Or Whatever, As Well Possibly As Something That Gives.

Giving And Taking Of Orders Modifies Actions And Results, But Does Not Of Itself Effect A Sharing Of Purposes, A Communication Of Interests.

Teaching Can Be Compared To Selling Commodities. No One Can Sell Unless Someone Buys ... Yet There Are Teachers Who Think They Have Done A Good Day's Teaching Irrespective Of What The Pupils Have Learned.

The Self Is Not Something Ready-made, But Something In Continuous Formation Through Choice Of Action.

If All Meanings Could Be Adequately Expressed By Words, The Arts Of Painting And Music Would Not Exist.

One Of The Saddest Things About Us Education Is That The Wisdom Of Our Most Successful Teachers Is Lost To The Profession When They Retire.

Everything Depends On The Quality Of The Experience Which Is Had.

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.

Inference Is Always An Invasion Of The Unknown, A Leap From The Known.

What's In A Question, You Ask? Everything. It Is Evoking Stimulating Response Or Stultifying Inquiry. It Is, In Essence, The Very Core Of Teaching.

No Government By Experts In Which The Masses Do Not Have The Chance To Inform The Experts As To Their Needs Can Be Anything But An Oligarchy Managed In The Interest Of The Few. And The Enlightenment Must Proceed In Ways Which Force The Administrative Specialists To Take Account Of The Needs. The World Has Suffered More From Leaders And Authorities Than From The Masses. The Essential Need ... Is The Improvement Of The Methods And Conditions Of Debate, Discussion And Persuasion. That Is The Problem Of The Public.

Every Subject At Some Phase Of Its Development Should Possess, What Is For The Individual Concerned With It, An Aesthetic Quality.

We Cannot Set Up, Out Of Our Heads, Something We Regard As An Ideal Society.

One Lives With So Many Bad Deeds On One's Conscience And Some Good Intentions In One's Heart.

Good Intentions

By Object Is Meant Some Element In The Complex Whole That Is Defined In Abstraction From The Whole Of Which It Is A Distinction.

To Be A Recipient Of A Communication Is To Have An Enlarged And Changed Experience. One Shares In What Another Has Thought And Felt And In So Far, Meagerly Or Amply, Has His Own Attitude Modified.

As Believers In Democracy We Have Not Only The Right But The Duty To Question Existing Mechanisms Of, Say, Suffrage And To Inquire Whether Some Functional Organization Would Not Serve To Formulate And Manifest Public Opinion Better Than The Existing Methods. It Is Not Irrelevant To The Point That A Score Of Passages Could Be Cited In Which Jefferson Refers To The American Government As An Experiment.

Every One Has Experienced How Learning An Appropriate Name For What Was Dim And Vague Cleared Up And Crystallized The Whole Matter. Some Meaning Seems Distinct Almost Within Reach, But Is Elusive; It Refuses To Condense Into Definite Form; The Attaching Of A Word Somehow (just How, It Is Almost Impossible To Say) Puts Limits Around The Meaning, Draws It Out From The Void, Makes It Stand Out As An Entity On Its Own Account.

Various Epochs Of The Past Have Had Their Own Characteristic Struggles And Interests. Each Of These Great Epochs Has Left Behind Itself A Kind Of Cultural Deposit, Like A Geologic Stratum. These Deposits Have Found Their Way Into Educational Institutions In The Form Of Studies, Distinct Courses Of Study, Distinct Types Of Schools.

When Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Medicine, Contribute To The Detection Of Concrete Human Woes And To The Development Of Plans For Remedying Them And Relieving The Human Estate, They Become Moral; They Become Part Of The Apparatus Of Moral Inquiry Or Science? When The Consciousness Of Science Is Fully Impregnated With The Consciousness Of Human Value, The Greatest Dualism Which Now Weighs Humanity Down, The Split Between The Material, The Mechanical And The Scientific And The Moral And Ideal Will Be Destroyed.

Education Proceeds Ultimately From The Patterns Furnished By Institutions, Customs, And Laws- If The Patterns Of Institutions, Customs, And Laws Are Broken For This Philosophy Education Should Fix Itself. There Should Be Several Different Things Taught Instead Of One "supreme Factor".

Art Is Not The Possession Of The Few Who Are Recognized Writers, Painters, Musicians; It Is The Authentic Expression Of Any And All Individuality.

To "learn From Experience" Is To Make A Backward And Forward Connection Between What We Do To Things And What We Enjoy Or Suffer From Things In Consequence.

I Believe That Education Is The Fundamental Method Of Social Progress And Reform.

Each Generation Is Inclined To Educate Its Young So As To Get Along In The Present World Instead Of With A View To The Proper End Of Education: The Promotion Of The Best Possible Realization Of Humanity As Humanity. Parents Educate Their Children So That They May Get On; Princes Educate Their Subjects As Instruments Of Their Own Purpose.

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.

Without The English, Reason And Philosophy Would Still Be In The Most Despicable Infancy In France.

Purposeful Action Is Thus The Goal Of All That Is Truly Educative.

I Should Venture To Assert That The Most Pervasive Fallacy Of Philosophic Thinking Goes Back To Neglect Of Context.

Mankind Likes To Think In Terms Of Extreme Opposites. It Is Given To Formulating Its Beliefs In Terms Of Either/ors, Between Which It Recognizes No Intermediate Possibilities.

...the Moment Of Passage From Disturbance Into Harmony Is That Of Intensest Life.

Mankind Likes To Think In Terms Of Extreme Opposites.

Anyone Who Has Begun To Think, Places Some Portion Of The World In Jeopardy.

Men Have Never Fully Used [their] Powers To Advance The Good In Life, Because They Have Waited Upon Some Power External To Themselves And To Nature To Do The Work They Are Responsible For Doing.

Education, In Its Broadest Sense, Is The Means Of This Social Continuity Of Life.

Mind Is A Verb Not A Noun.

The Interaction Of Knowledge And Skills With Experience Is Key To Learning.

The Deepest Urge In Human Nature Is The Desire To Feel Important.

The Devotion Of Democracy To Education Is A Familiar Fact. . . . [a] Government Resting Upon Popular Suffrage Cannot Be Successful Unless Those Who Elect . . . Their Governors Are Educated.

It Is Commonplace That A Problem Stated Is Well On Its Way To Solution, For Statement Of The Nature Of A Problem Signifies That The Underlying Quality Is Being Transformed Into Determinate Distinctions Of Terms And Relations Or Has Become An Object Of Articulate Thought.

The Young Of Human Beings Compare So Poorly In Original Efficiency With The Young Of Many Of The Lower Animals, That Even The Powers Needed For Physical Sustentation Have To Be Acquired Under Tuition. How Much More, Then, Is This The Case With Respect To All The Technological, Artistic, Scientific, And Moral Achievements Of Humanity!

Liberty Is Not Just An Idea, An Abstract Principle. It Is Power, Effective Power To Do Specific Things. There Is No Such Thing As Liberty In General; Liberty, So To Speak, At Large.

If There Is One Conclusion To Which Human Experience Unmistakably Points It Is That Democratic Ends Demand Democratic Methods For Their Realization.

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.

That The Ulterior Significance Of Every Mode Of Human Association Lies In The Contribution Which It Makes To The Improvement Of The Quality Of Experience Is A Fact Most Easily Recognized In Dealing With The Immature.

Every Thinker Puts Some Portion Of An Apparently Stable World In Peril.

When Things Have A Meaning For Us, We Mean (intend, Propose) What We Do: When They Do Not, We Act Blindly, Unconsciously, Unintelligently.

It Is Merely A Linguistic Peculiarity, Not A Logical Fact, That We Say "that Is Red" Instead Of "that Reddens," Either In The Sense Of Growing, Becoming, Red, Or In The Sense Of Making Something Else Red.

The Experience Has To Be Formulated In Order To Be Communicated.

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.

Every Great Advance In Science Has Issued From A New Audacity Of Imagination.

If Humanity Has Made Some Headway In Realizing That The Ultimate Value Of Every Institution Is Its Distinctively Human Effect - Its Effect Upon Conscious Experience - We May Well Believe That This Lesson Has Been Learned Largely Through Dealings With The Young.

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.

The Acquisition However Perfectly Of Skills Is Not An End In Itself. They Are Things To Be Put To Use As A Contribution To A Common And Shared Life.

If We Teach Today’s Students As We Taught Yesterday’s, We Rob Them Of Tomorrow.

Where There Is Giving There Must Be Taking.

We Rarely Recognize The Extent In Which Our Conscious Estimates Of What Is Worth While And What Is Not, Are Due To Standards Of Which We Are Not Conscious At All.

Education, Therefore, Is A Process Of Living And Not A Preparation For Future Living.

A Being Whose Activities Are Associated With Others Has A Social Environment. What He Does And What He Can Do Depend Upon The Expectations, Demands, Approvals, And Condemnations Of Others.

There Is More Than A Verbal Tie Between The Words Common, Community, And Communication.

To Be A Recipient Of A Communication Is To Have An Enlarged And Changed Experience.

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.

I Know That There Are Many Persons To Whom It Seems Derogatory To Link A Body Of Philosophic Ideas To The Social Life And Cultureof Their Epoch. They Seem To Accept A Dogma Of Immaculate Conception Of Philosophical Systems.

Creative Thinking Will Improve As We Relate The New Fact To The Old And All Facts To Each Other.

Method Means That Arrangement Of Subject Matter Which Makes It Most Effective In Use. Never Is Method Something Outside Of The Material.

Democracy Means The Belief That Humanistic Culture Should Prevail.

In General, Every Stimulus Directs Activity. It Does Not Simply Excite It Or Stir It Up, But Directs It Toward An Object.

The Problem Of Restoring Integration And Co-operation Between Man's Beliefs About The World In Which He Lives And His Beliefs About Values And Purposes That Should Direct His Conduct Is The Deepest Problem Modern Life. It Is The Problem Of Any Philosophy That Is Not Isolated From Life.

Hunger Not To Have, But To Be

Insight Into Soul-action, Ability To Discriminate The Genuine From The Sham And Capacity To Further One And Discourage The Other.

If The Eyes Are Open And There Is Light, Seeing Occurs; The Stimulus Is But A Condition Of The Fulfillment Of The Proper Function Of The Organ, Not An Outside Interruption. To Some Extent, Then, All Direction Or Control Is A Guiding Of Activity To Its Own End; It Is An Assistance In Doing Fully What Some Organ Is Already Tending To Do.

Poetry Has Historically Been Allied With Religion And Morals; It Has Served The Purpose Of Penetrating The Mysterious Depths Of Things.

A Man Can Be Prevented From Breaking Into Other Persons' Houses By Shutting Him Up, But Shutting Him Up May Not Alter His Disposition To Commit Burglary.

Expertness Of Taste Is At Once The Result And Reward Of Constant Exercise Of Thinking.

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.‎

Any Experience, However, Trivial In Its First Appearance, Is Capable Of Assuming An Indefinite Richness Of Significance By Extending Its Range Of Perceived Connections.

Men Have Gone On To Build Up Vast Intellectual Schemes, Philosophies, And Theologies, To Prove That Ideals Are Not Real As Ideals But As Antecedently Existing Actualities. They Have Failed To See That In Converting Moral Realities Into Matters Of Intellectual Assent They Have Evinced Lack Of Moral Faith.

Scientific Principles And Laws Do Not Lie On The Surface Of Nature. They Are Hidden, And Must Be Wrested From Nature By An Active And Elaborate Technique Of Inquiry.

Popular Psychology Is A Mass Of Cant, Of Slush And Of Superstition Worthy Of The Most Flourishing Days Of The Medicine Man.

Confidence Is Directness And Courage In Meeting The Facts Of Life.

Personality Must Be Educated, And Personality Cannot Be Educated By Confining Its Operations To Technical And Specialized Things, Or To The Less Important Relationships Of Life. Full Education Comes Only When There Is A Responsible Share On The Part Of Each Person, In Proportion To Capacity, In Shaping The Aims And Policies Of The Social Groups To Which He Belongs.

Important Relationships

Intellectually Religious Emotions Are Not Creative But Conservative. They Attach Themselves Readily To The Current View Of The World And Consecrate It.

Talk Of Democracy Has Little Content When Big Business Rules The Life Of The Country Through Its Control Of The Means Of Production, Exchange, The Press And Other Means Of Publicity, Propaganda And Communication.

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.

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.

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.

To Find Out What One Is Fitted To Do, And To Secure An Opportunity To Do It, Is The Key To Happiness.

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.

The Demand For Liberty Is A Demand For Power, Either For Possession Of Powers Of Action Not Already Possessed Or For Retention And Expansion Of Powers Already Possessed.

Failure Is Instructive. The Person Who Really Thinks Learns Quite As Much From His Failures As From His Successes.

Vocational Training Is The Training Of Animals Or Slaves. It Fits Them To Become Cogs In The Industrial Machine. Free Men Need Liberal Education To Prepare Them To Make A Good Use Of Their Freedom.

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.

Art Is The Most Effective Mode Of Communications That Exists.

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.

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.

A Possibility Of Continuing Progress Is Opened Up By The Fact That In Learning One Act, Methods Are Developed Good For Use In Other Situations. Still More Important Is The Fact That The Human Being Acquires A Habit Of Learning. He Learns To Learn.

The Devotion Of Democracy To Education Is A Familiar Fact. The Superficial Explanation Is That A Government Resting Upon Popular Suffrage Cannot Be Successful Unless Those Who Elect And Who Obey Their Governors Are Educated. 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.

Teachers Are The Agents Through Which Knowledge And Skills Are Communicated And Rules Of Conduct Enforced.

A Democracy Is More Than A Form Of Government; It Is Primarily A Mode Of Associated Living, Of Conjoint Communicated Experience.

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.

The Aim Of Education Is Growth: The Aim Of Growth Is More Growth

Every Living Being Needs Continually Renewed, And Education Is Simply The Chief Process By Which Renewal Occurs.

...compartmentalization Of Occupations And Interests Bring About A Separation Of That Mode Of Activity Commonly Called 'practice' From Insight; Of Imagination From Executive 'doing.' Each Of These Activities Is Then Assigned Its Own Place In Which It Must Abide. Those Who Write The Anatomy Of Experience Then Suppose That These Divisions Inhere In The Very Constitution Of Human Nature.

A Moral Principle Is Not A Command To Act Or To Forbear Acting In A Given Way: It Is A Tool For Analyzing A Special Situation, The Right Or Wrong Being Determined By The Situation In Its Entirety, Not By The Rule As Such.

Nothing Takes Root In Mind When There Is No Balance Between Doing And Receiving.

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.

How Many Students ... Were Rendered Callous To Ideas, And How Many Lost The Impetus To Learn Because Of The Way In Which Learning Was Experienced By Them?

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.

Etymologically, The Word Education Means Just A Process Of Leading Or Bringing Up.

How Can The Child Learn To Be A Free And Responsible Citizen When The Teacher Is Bound?

But The Individual Butterfly Or Earthquake Remains Just The Unique Existence Which It Is. We Forget In Explaining Its Occurrence That It Is Only The Occurrence That Is Explained, Not The Thing Itself.

Every Teacher Should Realize He Is A Social Servant Set Apart For The Maintenance Of The Proper Social Order And The Securing Of The Right Social Growth. In This Way, The Teacher Always Is The Prophet Of The True God And The Usherer-in Of The True Kingdom Of God.

Instruction Is Important.

It Is Not Truly Realistic Or Scientific To Take Short Views, To Sacrifice The Future To Immediate Pressure, To Ignore Facts And Forces That Are Disagreeable And To Magnify The Enduring Quality Of Whatever Falls In With Immediate Desire. It Is False That The Evils Of The Situation Arise From Absence Of Ideals; They Spring From Wrong Ideals.

There Is, I Think, No Point In The Philosophy Of Progressive Education Which Is Sounder Than Its Emphasis Upon The Importance Of The Participation Of The Learner In The Formation Of The Purposes Which Direct His [sic] Activities In The Learning Process, Just As There Is No Defect In Traditional Education Greater Than Its Failure To Secure The Active Cooperation Of The Pupil In Construction Of The Purposes Involved In His Studying.

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?

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.

It Science Involves An Intelligent And Persistent Endeavor To Revise Current Beliefs So As To Weed Out What Is Erroneous, To Add To Their Accuracy, And, Above All, To Give Them Such Shape That The Dependencies Of The Various Facts Upon One Another May Be As Obvious As Possible.

If The Eye Is Constantly Greeted By Harmonious Objects, Having Elegance Of Form And Color, A Standard Of Taste Naturally Grows Up.

As A Society Becomes More Enlightened, It Realizes That It Is Responsible Not To Transmit And Conserve The Whole Of Its Existing Achievements, But Only Such As Make For A Better Future Society. The School Is Its Chief Agency For The Accomplishment Of This End.

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.

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.

Things Gain Meaning By Being Used In A Shared Experience Or Joint Action.

Without Some Goals And Some Efforts To Reach It, No Man Can Live.

Of What Use, Educationally Speaking, Is It To Be Able To See The End In The Beginning?

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.

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.

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.

To Savages It Would Seem Preposterous To Seek Out A Place Where Nothing But Learning Was Going On In Order That One Might Learn.

When Words Do Not Enter As Factors Into A Shared Situation, Either Overtly Or Imaginatively, They Operate As Pure Physical Stimuli, Not As Having A Meaning Or Intellectual Value. They Set Activity Running In A Given Groove, But There Is No Accompanying Conscious Purpose Or Meaning.

Consensus Demands Communication.

Plato Defined A Slave As One Who Accepts From Another The Purposes Which Control His Conduct. This Condition Obtains Even Where There Is No Slavery In The Legal Sense. It Is Found Wherever Men Are Engaged In Activity Which Is Socially Serviceable, But Whose Service They Do Not Understand And Have No Personal Interest In.

I Believe That The Teacher's Place And Work In The School Is To Be Interpreted From This Same Basis. The Teacher Is Not In The School To Impose Certain Ideas Or To Form Certain Habits In The Child, But Is There As A Member Of The Community To Select The Influences Which Shall Affect The Child And To Assist Him In Properly Responding To These Influences.

Understanding One Another Means That Objects, Including Sounds, Have The Same Value For Both With Respect To Carrying On A Common Pursuit.

Man Is Merely A Frequent Effect, A Monstrosity Is A Rare One, But Both Are Equally Natural, Equally Inevitable, Equally Part Of The Universal And General Order. And What Is Strange About That? All Creatures Are Involved In The Life Of All Others, Consequently Every Species... All Nature Is In A Perpetual State Of Flux. Every Animal Is More Or Less A Human Being, Every Mineral More Or Less A Plant, Every Plant More Or Less An Animal... There Is Nothing Clearly Defined In Nature.

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.

Making A Difference

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.

All Learning Begins When Our Comfortable Ideas Turn Out To Be Inadequate.

The Path Of Least Resistance And Least Trouble Is A Mental Rut Already Made. It Requires Troublesome Work To Undertake The Alternation Of Old Beliefs. Self-conceit Often Regards It As A Sign Of Weakness To Admit That A Belief To Which We Have Once Committed Ourselves Is Wrong. We Get So Identified With An Idea That It Is Literally A Pet Notion And We Rise To Its Defense And Stop Our Eyes And Ears To Anything Different.

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.

Legislation Is A Matter Of More Or Less Intelligent Improvisation Aiming At Palliating Conditions By Means Of Patchwork Policies.

Education Has No More Serious Responsibility Than The Making Of Adequate Provision For Enjoyment Of Recreative Leisure Not Only For The Sake Of Immediate Health, But For The Sake Of Its Lasting Effect Upon The Habits Of The Mind.

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Nathaniel Hawthorne

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