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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.

-John Dewey

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Talk Of Democracy Has

John Dewey

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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.

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

When Others Are Not Doing What We Would Like Them To Or Are Threatening Disobedience, We Are Most Conscious Of The Need Of Controlling Them And Of The Influences By Which They Are Controlled.

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.

The Difference Between Play And What Is Regarded As Serious Employment Should Be Not A Difference Between The Presence And Absence Of Imagination, But A Difference In The Materials With Which Imagination Is Occupied.

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.

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.

We Have Lost Confidence In Reason Because We Have Learned That Man Is Chiefly A Creature Of Habit And Emotion.

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 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.

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.

We Only Think When We Are Confronted With Problems.

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.

Consensus Demands Communication.

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.

Since Growth Is The Characteristic Of Life, Education Is All One With Growing; It Has No End Beyond Itself. The Criterion Of The Value Of School Education Is The Extent In Which It Creates A Desire For Continuous Growth And Supplies Means For Making The Desire Effective In Fact.

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.

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

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.

No Man's Credit Is As Good As His Money.

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.

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

Like The Soil, Mind Is Fertilized While It Lies Fallow, Until A New Burst Of Bloom Ensues.

The Only Way To Abolish War Is To Make Peace Seem Heroic.

Experiences In Order To Be Educative Must Lead Out Into An Expanding World Of Subject Matter, A Subject Matter Of Facts Or Information And Of Ideas. This Condition Is Satisfied Only As The Educator Views Teaching And Learning As A Continuous Process Of Reconstruction Of Experience.

The Problem Is To Extract The Desirable Traits Of Forms Of Community Life Which Actually Exist, And Employ Them To Criticize Undesirable Features And Suggest Improvement

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.

Society Exists Through A Process Of Transmission Quite As Much As Biological Life. This Transmission Occurs By Means Of Communication Of Habits Of Doing, Thinking, And Feeling From The Older To The Younger.

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

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.

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.

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

Change As Change Is Mere Flux And Lapse; It Insults Intelligence. Genuinely To Know Is To Grasp A Permanent End That Realizes Itself Through Changes.

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

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

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.

Instruction Is Important.

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.

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.

What Nutrition And Reproduction Are To Physiological Life, Education Is To Social Life.

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.

Adequate Control Means That The Successive Acts Are Brought Into A Continuous Order; Each Act Not Only Meets Its Immediate Stimulus But Helps The Acts Which Follow.

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!

From The Standpoint Of The Child, The Great Waste In The School Comes From His Inability To Utilize The Experiences He Gets Outside The School In Any Complete And Free Way Within The School Itself; While, On The Other Hand, He Is Unable To Apply In Daily Life What He Is Learning At School. That Is The Isolation Of The School — Its Isolation From Life.

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".

The Struggle For Democracy Has To Be Maintained On As Many Fronts As Culture Has Aspects: Political, Economic, International, Educational, Scientific And Artistic, Religious.

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.

Nature As A Whole Is A Progressive Realization Of Purpose Strictly Comparable To The Realization Of Purpose In Any Single Plant Or Animal.

Democracy Means The Belief That Humanistic Culture Should Prevail.

It Is The Office Of The School Environment To Balance The Various Elements In The Social Environment, And To See To It That Each Individual Gets An Opportunity To Escape From The Limitations Of The Social Group In Which He Was Born, And To Come Into Living Contact With A Broader Environment.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

It Is A Familiar And Significant Saying That A Problem Well Put Is Half-solved.

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.

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 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.

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

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.

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.

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

Within Even The Most Social Group There Are Many Relations That Are Not As Yet Social.

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.

Schools Should Take Part In The Great Work Of Construction And Organization That Will Have To Be Done.

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.

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.

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.

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

I Believe That The School Must Represent Present Life - Life As Real And Vital To The Child As That Which He Carries On In The Home, In The Neighborhood, Or On The Play-ground.

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.

The Reactionaries Are In Possession Of Force, In Not Only The Army And Police, But In The Press And The Schools

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.

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.

Complete Adaptation To Environment Means Death. The Essential Point In All Response Is The Desire To Control Environment.

Independent Self-reliant People Would Be A Counterproductive Anachronism In The Collective Society Of The Future Where People Will Be Defined By Their Associations.

Education Is Not Preparation For Life; Education Is Life Itself.

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

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.

I Believe That The School Is Primarily A Social Institution. Education Being A Social Process, The School Is Simply That Form Of Community Life In Which All Those Agencies Are Concentrated That Will Be Most Effective In Bringing The Child To Share In The Inherited Resources Of The Race, And To Use His Own Powers For Social Ends. I Believe That Education, Therefore, Is A Process Of Living And Not A Preparation For Future Living.

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

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.

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.

[t]he Schools, Through Reliance Upon The Spur Of Competition And The Bestowing Of Special Honors And Prizes, Only Build Up And Strengthen The Disposition That Makes An Individual When He Leaves School Employ His Special Talents And Superior Skill To Outwit His Fellow Without Respect For The Welfare Of Others

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.

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.

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

Mankind Likes To Think In Terms Of Extreme Opposites.

It Is Difficult To Connect General Principles With Such Thoroughly Concrete Things As Children.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

The Result Of The Educative Process Is Capacity For Further Education.

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

Good Intentions

Thought Is Impossible Without Words.

If The Members Who Compose A Society Lived On Continuously, They Might Educate The New-born Members, But It Would Be A Task Directed By Personal Interest Rather Than Social Need. Now It Is A Work Of Necessity.

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.

The Most Important Attitude That Can Be Formed Is That Of Desire To Go On Learning.

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

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.

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.

The Educational Process Has No End Beyond Itself; It Is Its Own End.

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.

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.

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.

The Good Man Is The Man Who, No Matter How Morally Unworthy He Has Been, Is Moving To Become Better.

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.

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.

Continuity Of Life Means Continual Readaptation Of The Environment To The Needs Of Living Organisms.

Continuity Of Life

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.

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.

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.

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.

To Have An Idea Of A Thing Is Not Just To Get Certain Sensations From It. It Is To Be Able To Respond To The Thing In View Of Its Place In An Inclusive Scheme Of Action; It Is To Foresee The Drift And Probable Consequence Of The Action Of The Thing Upon Us And Of Our Action Upon It.

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

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

Not Perfection As A Final Goal, But The Ever-enduring Process Of Perfecting, Maturing, Refining Is The Aim Of Living.

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

Man's Home Is Nature; His Purposes And Aims Are Dependent For Execution Upon Natural Conditions. Separated From Such Conditions They Become Empty Dreams And Idle Indulgences Of Fancy.

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.

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.

The Phrase "think For One's Self" Is A Pleonasm. Unless One Does It For One's Self, It Isn't Thinking.

The Premium So Often Put In Schools Upon External "discipline," And Upon Marks And Rewards, Upon Promotion And Keeping Back, Are The Obverse Of The Lack Of Attention Given To Life Situations In Which The Meaning Of Facts, Ideas, Principles, And Problems Is Vitally Brought Home.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

Every Society Gets Encumbered With What Is Trivial, With Dead Wood From The Past, And With What Is Positively Perverse.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.‎

A Child May Have To Be Snatched With Roughness Away From A Fire So That He Shall Not Be Burnt.

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.

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

Every Teacher Should Realize The Dignity Of His Calling.

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

The Need For Growth - What We Might Call Immaturity - Is Not A Negative State Of Being.

Arriving At One Goal Is The Starting Point To Another.

Education Is Life Itself.

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?

Art Is The Most Effective Mode Of Communications That Exists.

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.

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

In Laying Hands Upon The Sacred Ark Of Absolute Permanency, In Treating The Forms That Had Been Regarded As Types Of Fixity And Perfection As Originating And Passing Away, The Origin Of Species Introduced A Mode Of Thinking That In The End Was Bound To Transform The Logic Of Knowledge, And Hence The Treatment Of Morals, Politics, And Religion.

There Is Nothing Left Worth Preserving In The Notions Of Unseen Powers, Controlling Human Destiny, To Which Obedience And Worship Are Due.

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.

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

Education Must Be Understood As Growth, Or The Facilitation Of Growth.

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.

Communication Of Science As Subject-matter Has So Far Outrun In Education The Construction Of A Scientific Habit Of Mind That To Some Extent The Natural Common Sense Of Mankind Has Been Interfered With To Its Detriment.

Not Only Is Social Life Identical With Communication, But All Communication (and Hence All Genuine Social Life) Is Educative.

As A Child Lives Today, He Will Live Tomorrow.

Such Happiness As Life Is Capable Of Comes From The Full Participation Of All Our Powers In The Endeavor To Wrest From Each Changing Situations Of Experience Its Own Full And Unique Meaning.

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.

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

The Very Problem Of Mind And Body Suggests Division; I Do Not Know Of Anything So Disastrously Affected By The Habit Of Division As This Particular Theme. In Its Discussion Are Reflected The Splitting Off From Each Other Of Religion, Morals And Science; The Divorce Of Philosophy From Science And Of Both From The Arts Of Conduct. The Evils Which We Suffer In Education, In Religion, In The Materialism Of Business And The Aloofness Of "intellectuals" From Life, In The Whole Separation Of Knowledge And Practice -- All Testify To The Necessity Of Seeing Mind-body As An Integral Whole.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Democracy Is A Form Of Government Only Because It Is A Form Of Moral And Spiritual Association.

Experience Alone Cannot Deliver To Us Necessary Truths; Truths Completely Demonstrated By Reason. Its Conclusions Are Particular, Not Universal.

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.

Perhaps The Greatest Of All Pedagogical Fallacies Is The Notion That A Person Learns Only The Particular Thing He Is Studying At The Time.

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.

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

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.

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

I Believe That In This Way The Teacher Always Is The Prophet Of The True God And The Usherer In Of The True Kingdom Of God.

Where There Is Giving There Must Be Taking.

A Narrow And Moralistic View Of Morals Is Responsible For The Failure To Recognize That All The Aims And Values Which Are Desirable In Education Are Themselves Moral. Discipline, Natural Development, Culture, Social Efficiency, Are Moral Traits - Marks Of A Person Who Is A Worthy Member Of That Society Which It Is The Business Of Education To Further.

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.

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

The Intellectual Content Of Religions Has Always Finally Adapted Itself To Scientific And Social Conditions After They Have Become Clear.... For This Reason I Do Not Think That Those Who Are Concerned About The Future Of A Religious Attitude Should Trouble Themselves About The Conflict Of Science With Traditional Doctrines.

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

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

Failure Is Instructive. The Person Who Really Thinks Learns Quite As Much From His Failures As From His Successes. Genuine Ignorance Is Profitable Because It Is Likely To Be Accompanied By Humility, Curiosity, And Open-mindedness; Whereas Ability To Repeat Catch-phrases, Can't Terms, Familiar Propositions, Gives The Conceit Of Learning And Coats The Mind With Varnish Waterproof To New Ideas.

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.

The Spontaneous Power Of The Child, His Demand For Self-expression, Can Not By Any Possibility Be Suppressed.

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.

Democracy Has To Be Born Anew Every Generation, And Education Is Its Midwife.

Democracies Have

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.

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

There Can Be No Doubt ... Of Our Dependence Upon Forces Beyond Our Control. Primitive Man Was So Impotent In The Face Of These Forces That G , Especially In An Unfavorable Natural Environment, Fear Became A Dominant Attitude, And, As The Old Saying Goes, Fear Created Gods.

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