by John Dewey
I would like to dedicate this etext to my mother who was a elementary
school teacher for more years than I can remember. Thanks.
Contents:
Chapter One: Education as a Necessity of Life
Chapter Two: Education as a Social Function
Chapter Three: Education as Direction
Chapter Four: Education as Growth
Chapter Five: Preparation, Unfolding, and Formal Discipline
Chapter Six: Education as Conservative and Progressive
Chapter Seven: The Democratic Conception in Education
Chapter Eight: Aims in Education
Chapter Nine: Natural Development and Social Efficiency as Aims
Chapter Ten: Interest and Discipline
Chapter Eleven: Experience and Thinking
Chapter Twelve: Thinking in Education
Chapter Thirteen: The Nature of Method
Chapter Fourteen: The Nature of Subject Matter
Chapter Fifteen: Play and Work in the Curriculum
Chapter Sixteen: The Significance of Geography and History
Chapter Seventeen: Science in the Course of Study
Chapter Eighteen: Educational Values
Chapter Nineteen: Labor and Leisure
Chapter Twenty: Intellectual and Practical Studies
Chapter Twenty-one: Physical and Social Studies: Naturalism and
Humanism
Chapter Twenty-two: The Individual and the World
Chapter Twenty-Three: Vocational Aspects of Education
Chapter Twenty-four: Philosophy of Education
Chapter Twenty-five: Theories of Knowledge
Chapter Twenty-six: Theories of Morals
1. Renewal of Life by Transmission. The most notable distinction between
living and inanimate things is that the former maintain themselves by
renewal. A stone when struck resists. If its resistance is greater than
the force of the blow struck, it remains outwardly unchanged. Otherwise,
it is shattered into smaller bits. Never does the stone attempt to react
in such a way that it may maintain itself against the blow, much less so
as to render the blow a contributing factor to its own continued action.
While the living thing may easily be crushed by superior force, it none
the less tries to turn the energies which act upon it into means of its
own further existence. If it cannot do so, it does not just split into
smaller pieces (at least in the higher forms of life), but loses its
identity as a living thing.
As long as it endures, it struggles to use surrounding energies in its
own behalf. It uses light, air, moisture, and the material of soil. To
say that it uses them is to say that it turns them into means of its own
conservation. As long as it is growing, the energy it expends in thus
turning the environment to account is more than compensated for by
the return it gets: it grows. Understanding the word "control" in this
sense, it may be said that a living being is one that subjugates
and controls for its own continued activity the energies that would
otherwise use it up. Life is a self-renewing process through action upon
the environment.