The School and Society — John Dewey
You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org . If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook. Title : The School and Society Author : John Dewey Release date : January 7, 2017 [eBook #53910] Most recently updated: October 23, 2024 Language : English Other information and formats : www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/53910 Credits : Produced by Richard Tonsing and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive) *** START OF THE SCHOOL AND SOCIETY THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS CHICAGO, ILLINOIS Agents THE CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS LONDON AND EDINBURGH THE MARUZEN-KABUSHIKI-KAISHA TOKYO, OSAKA, KYOTO KARL W. HIERSEMANN LEIPZIG THE BAKER & TAYLOR COMPANY NEW YORK The SCHOOL and SOCIETY BEING THREE LECTURES by JOHN DEWEY SUPPLEMENTED BY A STATEMENT OF THE UNIVERSITY ELEMENTARY SCHOOL THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS CHICAGO, ILLINOIS Copyright 1900 By John Dewey All Rights Reserved First Edition -–1,000 copies. Printed November, 1899. Second Impression -–1,500 copies. Printed February, 1900. Third Impression -–5,000 copies. Printed July, 1900. Fourth Impression -–1,000 copies. Printed June, 1904. Fifth Impression -–2,500 copies. Printed February, 1905. Sixth Impression -–2,500 copies. Printed August, 1907. Seventh Impression -–1,000 copies. Printed September, 1909. Eighth Impression -–1,000 copies. Printed August, 1910. Ninth Impression -–1,000 copies. Printed August, 1911. Tenth Impression -–1,000 copies. Printed March, 1912. Eleventh Impression -–2,000 copies. Printed August, 1913. Composed and Printed By The University of Chicago Press Chicago, Illinois, U.S.A. TO MRS. EMMONS BLAINE TO WHOSE INTEREST IN EDUCATIONAL REFORM THE APPEARANCE OF THIS BOOK IS DUE The School and Social Progress 19 II. The School and the Life of the Child 47 III. Waste in Education 77 IV. Three Years of the University Elementary School 113 The Project Gutenberg eBook of The School and Society, by John Dewey LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS FACING PAGE Drawing of a Cave and Trees 56 Drawing of a Forest 58 Drawing of Hands Spinning 60 Drawing of a Girl Spinning 62 Mr. Dewey revised them in part from a stenographic report, and unimportant changes and the slight adaptations necessary for the press have been made in his absence. The lectures retain therefore the unstudied character as well as the power of the spoken word. As they imply more or less familiarity with the work of the Elementary School, Mr. Dewey’s supplementary statement of this has been added. Its indebtedness to Mrs. Emmons Blaine is partly indicated in the dedication. From my friends, Mr. and Mrs. George Herbert Mead, came that interest, unflagging attention to detail, and artistic taste which, in my absence, remade colloquial remarks until they were fit to print, and then saw the results through the press with the present attractive result—a mode of authorship made easy, which I recommend to others fortunate enough to possess such friends. It would be an extended paragraph which should list all the friends whose timely and persisting generosity has made possible the school which inspired and defined the ideas of these pages. These friends, I am sure, would be the first to recognize the peculiar appropriateness of especial mention of the names of Mrs. Charles R. Crane and Mrs. William R. Linn. And the school itself in its educational work is a joint undertaking. Many have engaged in shaping it. The clear and experienced intelligence of my wife is wrought everywhere into its texture. The wisdom, tact and devotion of its instructors have brought about a transformation of its original amorphous plans into articulate form and substance with life and movement of their own. Whatever the issue of the ideas presented in this book, the satisfaction coming from the coöperation of the diverse thoughts and deeds of many persons in undertaking to enlarge the life of the child will abide. January 5, 1900 That which interests us most is naturally the progress made by the individual child of our acquaintance, his normal physical development, his advance in ability to read, write, and figure, his growth in the knowledge of geography and history, improvement in manners, habits of promptness, order, and industry—it is from such standards as these that we judge the work of the school. And rightly so. Yet the range of the outlook needs to be enlarged. What the best and wisest parent wants for his own child, that must the community want for all of its children. Any other ideal for our schools is narrow and unlovely; acted upon, it destroys our democracy. All that society has accomplished for itself is put, through the agency of the school, at the disposal of its future members. All its better thoughts of itself it hopes to realize through the new possibilities thus opened to its future self. Here individualism and socialism are at one. Only by being true to the full growth of all the individuals who make it up, can society by any chance be true to itself. And in the self-direction thus given, nothing counts as much as the school, for, as Horace Mann said, “Where anything is growing, one former is worth a thousand re-formers,” Whenever we have in mind the discussion of a new movement in education, it is especially necessary to take the broader, or social view. Otherwise, changes in the school institution and tradition will be looked at as the arbitrary inventions of particular teachers; at the worst transitory fads, and at the best merely improvements in certain details—and this is the plane upon which it is too customary to consider school changes. It is as rational to conceive of the locomotive or the telegraph as personal devices. The modification going on in the method and curriculum of education is