All education which develops power to share effectively in social life is moral.
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.
A society which is mobile, which is full of channels for the distribution of a change occurring anywhere, must see to it that its members are educated to personal initiative and adaptability.
A large part of the art of instruction lies in making the difficulty of new problems large enough to challenge thought, and small enough so that, in addition to the confusion naturally attending the novel elements, there shall be luminous familiar spots from which helpful suggestions may spring.
To be a recipient of a communication is to have an enlarged and changed experience.
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.
There is more than a verbal tie between the words common, community, and communication.
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.
Science is a systematic means of gaining reliable knowledge.
The real process of education should be the process of learning to think through the application of real problems.
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.
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.
Inference is always an invasion of the unknown, a leap from the known.
A good aim surveys the present state of experience of pupils, and forming a tentative plan of treatment, keeps the plan constantly in view and yet modifies it as conditions develop. The aim, in short, is experimental, and hence constantly growing as it is tested in action.
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 interaction of knowledge and skills with experience is key to learning.
Mind is a verb not a noun.
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.
Within even the most social group there are many relations that are not as yet social.
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.