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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.

-John Dewey

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The Very Problem Of

John Dewey

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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.

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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.

For In Spite Of Itself Any Movement That Thinks And Acts In Terms Of An ‘ism Becomes So Involved In Reaction Against Other ‘isms That It Is Unwittingly Controlled By Them. For It Then Forms Its Principles By Reaction Against Them Instead Of By A Comprehensive, Constructive Survey Of Actual Needs, Problems, And Possibilities.

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.

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.

If We Learn Not Humility, We Learn Nothing.

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.

Democracies Have

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.

I Believe That In The Ideal School We Have The Reconciliation Of The Individualistic And The Institutional Ideals.

Individualistic

Collateral Learning In The Way Of Formation Of Enduring Attitudes, Of Likes And Dislikes, May Be And Often Is Much More Important Than The Spelling Lesson Or Lesson In Geography Or History That Is Learned.

Likes And Dislikes

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.

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.

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.

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

Good Intentions

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.

All Genuine Learning Comes Through Experience.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

All Genuine Education Comes About Through Experience.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

As Societies Become More Complex In Structure And Resources, The Need Of Formal Or Intentional Teaching And Learning Increases.

The Need For Growth, For Development, For Change, Is Fundamental To Life.

Even When A Person Is Frightened By Threats Into Doing Something, The Threats Work Only Because The Person Has An Instinct Of Fear. If He Has Not, Or If, Though Having It, It Is Under His Own Control, The Threat Has No More Influence Upon Him Than Light Has In Causing A Person To See Who Has No Eyes.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Knowledge Falters When Imagination Clips Its Wings Or Fears To Use Them.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

It Is Part Of The Educator's Responsibility To See Equally To Two Things: First, That The Problem Grows Out Of The Conditions Of The Experience Being Had In The Present, And That It Is Within The Range Of The Capacity Of Students; And, Secondly, That It Is Such That It Arouses In The Learner An Active Quest For Information And For Production Of New Ideas. The New Facts And New Ideas Thus Obtained Become The Ground For Further Experiences In Which New Problems Are Presented.

Some Experiences Are Mis-educative. Any Experience Is Mis-educative That Has The Effect Of Arresting Or Distorting The Growth Of Further Experience.

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

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

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

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

Inside The Modern City, In Spite Of Its Nominal Political Unity, There Are Probably More Communities, More Differing Customs, Traditions, Aspirations, And Forms Of Government Or Control, Than Existed In An Entire Continent At An Earlier Epoch.

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

The Conduct Of Schools, Based Upon A New Order Of Conception, Is So Much More Difficult Than Is The Management Of Schools Which Walk The Beaten Path.

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.

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.

As Some Species Die Out, Forms Better Adapted To Utilize The Obstacles Against Which They Struggled In Vain Come Into Being.

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

Schools Should Take An Active Part In Directing Social Change, And Share In The Construction Of A New Social Order

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 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.

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

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

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.

That The Great Majority Of Those Who Leave School Should Have Some Idea Of The Kind Of Evidence Required To Substantiate Given Types Of Belief Does Not Seem Unreasonable. Nor Is It Absurd To Expect That They Should Go Forth With A Lively Interest In The Ways In Which Knowledge Is Improved And A Marked Distaste For All Conclusions Reached In Disharmony With The Methods Of Scientific Inquiry.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

Democracies Have

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

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

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

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.

Man Lives In A World Of Surmise, Of Mystery, Of Uncertainties.

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

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

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.

Society Not Only Continues To Exist By Transmission, By Communication, But It May Fairly Be Said To Exist In Transmission, In Communication.

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

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.'

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

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.

There Is No Greater Egoism Than That Of Learning When It Is Treated Simply As A Mark Of Personal Distinction To Be Held And Cherished For Its Own Sake. ... [k]knowledge Is A Possession Held In Trust For The Furthering Of The Well-being Of All

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.

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.

The Only Freedom That Is Of Enduring Importance Is The Freedom Of Intelligence, That Is To Say, Freedom Of Observation And Of Judgment, Exercised In Behalf Of Purposes That Are Intrinsically Worth While. The Commonest Mistake Made About Freedom Is, I Think, To Identify It With Freedom Of Movement, Or, With The External Or Physical Side Of Activity.

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.

The Intimation Never Wholly Deserts Us That There Is, In The Unformed Activities Of Childhood And Youth, The Possibilities Of A Better Life For The Community As Well As For Individuals Here And There. This Dim Sense Is The Ground Of Our Abiding Idealization Of Childhood.

A Child Might Be Made To Bow Every Time He Met A Certain Person By Pressure On His Neck Muscles, And Bowing Would Finally Become Automatic. It Would Not, However, Be An Act Of Recognition Or Deference On His Part, Till He Did It With A Certain End In View - As Having A Certain Meaning.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

Conflict Is The Gadfly Of Thought. It Stirs Us To Observation And Memory. It Instigates Invention. It Shocks Us Out Of Sheep-like Passivity, And Sets Us At Noting And Contriving…conflict Is A Sine Qua Non Of Reflection And Ingenuity.

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.

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

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

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

Education Is Life Itself.

...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.

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 Response Is Not Just A Re-action, A Protest, As It Were, Against Being Disturbed; It Is, As The Word Indicates, An Answer. It Meets The Stimulus, And Corresponds With It.

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

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.

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.

To Be Born, To Live And To Die Is Merely To Change Forms... And What Does One Form Matter Any More Than Another?... Each Form Has Its Own Sort Of Happiness And Unhappiness. From The Elephant Down To The Flea... From The Flea Down To The Sensitive And Living Molecule Which Is The Origin Of All, There Is Not A Speck In The Whole Of Nature That Does Not Feel Pain Or Pleasure.

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.

Any Education Given By A Group Tends To Socialize Its Members, But The Quality And The Value Of The Socialization Depends Upon The Habits And Aims Of The Group. Hence, Once More, The Need Of A Measure For The Worth Of Any Given Mode Of Social Life.

Every Great Advance In Science Has Issued From A New Audacity Of Imagination. What Are Now Working Conceptions, Employed As A Matter Of Course Because They Have Withstood The Tests Of Experiment And Have Emerged Triumphant, Were Once Speculative Hypotheses.

The Development Occurs Through Reciprocal Give-and-take, The Teacher Taking But Not Being Afraid Also To Give.

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.

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.

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

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

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 Outstanding Problem Of The Public Is Discovery And Identification Of Itself

We Can Have Facts Without Thinking But We Cannot Have Thinking Without Facts.

The End Justifies The Means Only When The Means Used Are Such As Actually Bring About The Desired And Desirable End.

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.

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.

Doctrine That Eliminates Or Even Obscures The Function Of Choice Of Values And Enlistment Of Desires And Emotions In Behalf Of Those Chosen Weakens Personal Responsibility For Judgment And For Action. It Thus Helps Create The Attitudes That Welcome And Support The Totalitarian State.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

An Empirical Philosophy Is In Any Case A Kind Of Intellectual Disrobing. We Cannot Permanently Divest Ourselves Of The Intellectual Habits We Take On And Wear When We Assimilate The Culture Of Our Own Time And Place. But Intelligent Furthering Of Culture Demands That We Take Some Of Them Off, That We Inspect Them Critically To See What They Are Made Of And What Wearing Them Does To Us. We Cannot Achieve Recovery Of Primitive Naïveté. But There Is Attainable A Cultivated Naïveté Of Eye, Ear And Thought.

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.

Not Only Does Social Life Demand Teaching And Learning For Its Own Permanence, But The Very Process Of Living Together Educates. It Enlarges And Enlightens Experience; It Stimulates And Enriches Imagination; It Creates Responsibility For Accuracy And Vividness Of Statement And Thought.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

Despite The Never Ending Play Of Conscious Correction And Instruction, The Surrounding Atmosphere And Spirit Is In The End The Chief Agent In Forming Manners.

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.‎

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.

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.

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

Of All Affairs, Communication Is The Most Wonderful.

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.

To Oscillate Between Drill Exercises That Strive To Attain Efficiency In Outward Doing Without The Use Of Intelligence, And An Accumulation Of Knowledge That Is Supposed To Be An Ultimate End In Itself, Means That Education Accepts The Present Social Conditions As Final, And Thereby Takes Upon Itself The Responsibility For Perpetuating Them. A Reorganization Of Education So That Learning Takes Place In Connection With The Intelligent Carrying Forward Of Purposeful Activities Is A Slow Work. It Can Be Accomplished Only Piecemeal, A Step At A Time.

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

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.

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

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 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.

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.

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.

Hunger Not To Have, But To Be

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

Always Make The Other Person Feel Important.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

One Might As Well Say He Has Sold When No One Has Bought As To Say He Has Taught When No One Has Learned.

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

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.

Democracy Means The Belief That Humanistic Culture Should Prevail.

A Problem Well Put Is Half Solved.

The Empiric Easily Degenerates Into The Quack. He Does Not Know Where His Knowledge Begins Or Leaves Off, And So When He Gets Beyond Routine Conditions He Begins To Pretend-to Make Claims For Which There Is No Justification, And To Trust To Luck And To Ability To Impose Upon Others-to "bluff."

An Undesirable Society, In Other Words, Is One Which Internally And Externally Sets Up Barriers To Free Intercourse And Communication Of Experience.

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!

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.

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.

As A Matter Of Fact, A Modern Society Is Many Societies More Or Less Loosely Connected. Each Household With Its Immediate Extension Of Friends Makes A Society; The Village Or Street Group Of Playmates Is A Community; Each Business Group, Each Club, Is Another.

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

Men's Fundamental Attitudes Toward The World Are Fixed By The Scope And Qualities Of The Activities In Which They Partake.

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.

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

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.

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