Mankind likes to think in terms of extreme oppo-sites. It is given to formulating its beliefs in termsof Either-Ors, between which it recognizes no in-

termediate possibilities. When forced to recognize that theextremes cannot be acted upon, it is still inclined to holdthat they are all right in theory but that when it comes topractical matters circumstances compel us to compromise.

Educational philosophy is no exception. The history ofeducational theory is marked by opposition between theidea that education is development from within and that itis formation from without; that it is based upon natural en-dowments and that education is a process of overcomingnatural inclination and substituting in its place habits ac-quired under external pressure.

At present, the opposition, so far as practical affairs ofthe school are concerned, tends to take the form of contrastbetween traditional and progressive education. If the un-derlying ideas of the former are formulated broadly, with-out the qualifications required for accurate statement, theyare found to be about as follows: The subject-matter of ed-ucation consists of bodies of information and of skills thathave been worked out in the past; therefore, the chief busi-ness of the school is to transmit them to the new genera-tion. In the past, there have also been developed standardsand rules of conduct; moral training consists of forminghabits of action in conformity with these rules and stan-dards. Finally, the general pattern of school organization(by which I mean the relations of pupils to one another andto the teachers) constitutes the school as a kind of institu-tion sharply marked off from other social institutions. Call

up in imagination the ordinary schoolroom, its time sched-ules, schemes of classification, of examination and promo-tion, of rules of order, and I think you will grasp what ismeant by “pattern of organization.” If then you contrastthis scene with what goes on in the family, for example, youwill appreciate what is meant by the school being a kind ofinstitution sharply marked off from any other form of so-cial organization.

The three characteristics just mentioned fix the aimsand methods of instruction and discipline. The main pur-pose or objective is to prepare the young for future respon-sibilities and for success in life, by means of acquisition ofthe organized bodies of information and prepared forms ofskill which comprehend the material of instruction. Sincethe subject-matter as well as standards of proper conductare handed down from the past, the attitude of pupils must,upon the whole, be one of docility, receptivity, and obedi-ence. Books, especially textbooks, are the chief representa-tives of the lore and wisdom of the past, while teachers arethe organs through which pupils are brought into effectiveconnection with the material. Teachers are the agentsthrough which knowledge and skills are communicatedand rules of conduct enforced.

I have not made this brief summary for the purpose ofcriticizing the underlying philosophy. The rise of what iscalled new education and progressive schools is of itself aproduct of discontent with traditional education. In effectit is a criticism of the latter.

When the implied criticism is made explicit it readssomewhat as follows: The traditional scheme is, in essence,one of imposition from above and from outside. It imposesadult standards, subject-matter, and methods upon thosewho are only growing slowly toward maturity. The gap is so

From Experience and Education

(Macmillan, 1938)

John Dewey

Reading 6.2

Text excerpts from Experience and Education by John Dewey. Copyright ©1938, 1998 by Kappa Delta Pi, an International Honor Society in Education.Reprinted with permission.

great that the required subject-matter, the methods oflearning and of behaving are foreign to the existing capaci-ties of the young. They are beyond the reach of the experi-ence the young learners already possess. Consequently, theymust be imposed; even though good teachers will use de-vices of art to cover up the imposition so as to relieve it ofobviously brutal features.

But the gulf between the mature or adult products andthe experience and abilities of the young is so wide that thevery situation forbids much active participation by pupilsin the development of what is taught. Theirs is to do—andlearn, as it was the part of the six hundred to do and die.Learning here means acquisition of what already is incor-porated in books and in the heads of the elders. Moreover,that which is taught is thought of as essentially static. It istaught as a finished product, with little regard either to theways in which it was originally built up or to changes thatwill surely occur in the future. It is to a large extent the cul-tural product of societies that assumed the future would bemuch like the past, and yet it is used as educational food ina society where change is the rule, not the exception.

If one attempts to formulate the philosophy of educa-tion implicit in the practices of the new education, we may,I think, discover certain common principles amid the vari-ety of progressive schools now existing. To imposition fromabove is opposed expression and cultivation of individual-ity; to external discipline is opposed free activity; to learn-ing from texts and teachers, learning through experience; toacquisition of isolated skills and techniques by drill, is op-posed acquisition of them as means of attaining endswhich make direct vital appeal; to preparation for a moreor less remote future is opposed making the most of theopportunities of present life; to static aims and materials isopposed acquaintance with a changing world.

Now, all principles by themselves are abstract. They be-come concrete only in the consequences which result fromtheir application. Just because the principles set forth are sofundamental and far-reaching, everything depends uponthe interpretation given them as they are put into practicein the school and the home. It is at this point that the refer-ence made earlier to Either-Or philosophies becomes pecu-liarly pertinent. The general philosophy of the neweducation may be sound, and yet the difference in abstractprinciples will not decide the way in which the moral andintellectual preference involved shall be worked out inpractice. There is always the danger in a new movementthat in rejecting the aims and methods of that which itwould supplant, it may develop its principles negativelyrather than positively and constructively. Then it takes itsclew in practice from that which is rejected instead of fromthe constructive development its own philosophy.

I take it that the fundamental unity of the newer phi-losophy is found in the idea that there is an intimate and

necessary relation between the processes of actual experi-ence and education. If this be true, then a positive and con-structive development of its own basic idea depends uponhaving a correct idea of experience. Take, for example, thequestion of organized subject-matter. . . .

The problem for progressive education is: What is theplace and meaning of subject-matter and of organizationwithin experience? How does subject-matter function? Isthere anything inherent in experience which tends towardsprogressive organization of its contents? What results fol-low when the materials of experience are not progressivelyorganized? A philosophy which proceeds on the basis of re-jection, of sheer opposition, will neglect these questions. Itwill tend to suppose that because the old education wasbased on ready-made organization, therefore it suffices toreject the principle of organization in toto, instead of striv-ing to discover what it means and how it is to be attainedon the basis of experience. We might go through all thepoints of difference between the new and the old educationand reach similar conclusions. When external control is re-jected, the problem becomes that of finding the factors ofcontrol that are inherent within experience.When externalauthority is rejected, it does not follow that all authorityshould be rejected, but rather that there is need to searchfor a more effective source of authority. Because the oldereducation imposed the knowledge, methods, and the rulesof conduct of the mature person upon the young, it doesnot follow, except upon the basis of the extreme Either-Orphilosophy, that the knowledge and skill of the mature per-son has no directive value for the experience of the imma-ture. On the contrary, basing education upon personalexperience may mean more multiplied and more intimatecontacts between the mature and the immature than everexisted in the traditional school, and consequently more,rather than less, guidance by others. The problem, then, is:how these contacts can be established without violating theprinciple of learning through personal experience. The so-lution of this problem requires a well thought-out philoso-phy of the social factors that operate in the constitution ofindividual experience.

What is indicated in the foregoing remarks is that thegeneral principles of the new education do not of them-selves solve any of the problems of the actual or practicalconduct and management of progressive schools. Rather,they set new problems which have to be worked out on thebasis of a new philosophy of experience. The problems arenot even recognized, to say nothing of being solved, whenit is assumed that it suffices to reject the ideas and prac-tices of the old education and then go to the opposite ex-treme. Yet I am sure that you will appreciate what is meantwhen I say that many of the newer schools tend to makelittle or nothing of organized subject-matter of study; toproceed as if any form of direction and guidance by adults

2 THE TEACHERS, SCHOOLS, AND SOCIETY READER

were an invasion of individual freedom, and as if the ideathat education should be concerned with the present andfuture meant that acquaintance with the past has little orno role to play in education. Without pressing these de-fects to the point of exaggeration, they at least illustratewhat is meant by a theory and practice of education whichproceeds negatively or by reaction against what has beencurrent in education rather than by a positive and con-structive development of purposes, methods, and subject-matter on the foundation of a theory of experience and itseducational potentialities.

It is not too much to say that an educational philoso-phy which professes to be based on the idea of freedommay become as dogmatic as ever was the traditional educa-tion which is reacted against. For any theory and set ofpractices is dogmatic which is not based upon critical ex-amination of its own underlying principles. Let us say thatthe new education emphasizes the freedom of the learner.Very well. A problem is now set. What does freedom meanand what are the conditions under which it is capable of re-alization? Let us say that the kind of external impositionwhich was so common in the traditional school limitedrather than promoted the intellectual and moral develop-ment of the young. Again, very well. Recognition of this se-rious defect sets a problem. Just what is the role of theteacher and of books in promoting the educational devel-opment of the immature? Admit that traditional educationemployed as the subject-matter for study facts and ideas sobound up with the past as to give little help in dealing withthe issues of the present and future. Very well. Now we havethe problem of discovering the connection which actuallyexists within experience between the achievements of thepast and the issues of the present.

We have the problem of ascertaining how acquaintancewith the past may be translated into a potent instrumental-ity for dealing effectively with the future. We may rejectknowledge of the past as the end of education and therebyonly emphasize its importance as a means. When we dothat we have a problem that is new in the story of educa-tion: How shall the young become acquainted with the pastin such a way that the acquaintance is a potent agent in ap-preciation of the living present? . . .

In short, the point I am making is that rejection of thephilosophy and practice of traditional education sets a newtype of difficult educational problem for those who believein the new type of education. We shall operate blindly andin confusion until we recognize this fact; until we thor-oughly appreciate that departure from the old solves noproblems. What is said in the following pages is, accord-ingly, intended to indicate some of the main problems withwhich the newer education is confronted and to suggest themain lines along which their solution is to be sought. I as-sume that amid all uncertainties there is one permanent

frame of reference: namely, the organic connection be-tween education and personal experience; or, that the newphilosophy of education is committed to some kind of em-pirical and experimental philosophy. But experience andexperiment are not self-explanatory ideas. Rather, theirmeaning is part of the problem to be explored. To know themeaning of empiricism we need to understand what expe-rience is. The belief that all genuine education comes aboutthrough experience does not mean that all experiences aregenuinely or equally educative. Experience and educationcannot be directly equated to each other. For some experi-ences are miseducative. Any experience is miseducative thathas the effect of arresting or distorting the growth of fur-ther experience. An experience may be such as to engendercallousness; it may produce lack of sensitivity and of re-sponsiveness. Then the possibilities of having richer experi-ence in the future are restricted. Again, a given experiencemay increase a person’s automatic skill in a particular di-rection and yet tend to land him in a groove or rut; the ef-fect again is to narrow the field of further experience. Anexperience may be immediately enjoyable and yet promotethe formation of a slack and careless attitude; this attitudethen operates to modify the quality of subsequent experi-ences so as to prevent a person from getting out of themwhat they have to give. Again, experiences may be so dis-connected from one another that, while each is agreeable oreven exciting in itself, they are not linked cumulatively toone another.

Energy is then dissipated and a person becomes scat-ter-brained. Each experience may be lively, vivid, and “in-teresting,” and yet their disconnectedness may artificiallygenerate dispersive, disintegrated, centrifugal habits. Theconsequence of formation of such habits is inability to con-trol future experiences. They are then taken, either by wayof enjoyment or of discontent and revolt, just as they come.Under such circumstances, it is idle to talk of self-control.

Traditional education offers a plethora of examples ofexperiences of the kinds just mentioned. It is a great mis-take to suppose, even tacitly, that the traditional school-room was not a place in which pupils had experiences. Yetthis is tacitly assumed when progressive education as a planof learning by experience is placed in sharp opposition tothe old. The proper line of attack is that the experienceswhich were had, by pupils and teachers alike, were largelyof a wrong kind. How many students, for example, wererendered callous to ideas, and how many lost the impetusto learn because of the way in which learning was experi-enced by them? How many acquired special skills by meansof automatic drill so that their power of judgment and ca-pacity to act intelligently in new situations was limited?How many came to associate the learning process withennui and boredom? How many found what they did learnso foreign to the situations of life outside the school as to

READING 6.2: FROM EXPERIENCE AND EDUCATION 3

give them no power of control over the latter? How manycame to associate books with dull drudgery, so that theywere “conditioned” to all but flashy reading matter?

If I ask these questions, it is not for the sake of wholesalecondemnation of the old education. It is for quite anotherpurpose. It is to emphasize the fact, first, that young peoplein traditional schools do have experiences; and, secondly,that the trouble is not the absence of experiences, but theirdefective and wrong character—wrong and defective fromthe standpoint of connection with further experience. Thepositive side of this point is even more important in connec-tion with progressive education. It is not enough to insistupon the necessity of experience, nor even of activity in ex-perience. Everything depends upon the quality of the experi-ence which is had. The quality of an experience has twoaspects. There is an immediate aspect of agreeableness ordisagreeableness, and there is its influence upon later experi-ences. The first is obvious and easy to judge. The effect of anexperience is not borne on its face. It sets a problem to theeducator. It is his business to arrange for the kind of experi-ences which, while they do not repel the student, but ratherengage his activities are, nevertheless, more than immedi-ately enjoyable since they promote having desirable futureexperiences. Just as no man lives or dies to himself, so no ex-perience lives or dies to itself. Wholly independent of desireor intent, every experience lives on in further experiences.Hence the central problem of an education based upon ex-perience is to select the kind of present experiences that livefruitfully and creatively in subsequent experiences.

. . . Here I wish simply to emphasize the importance ofthis principle [of the continuity of experience] for the phi-losophy of educative experience. A philosophy of educa-tion, like my theory, has to be stated in words, in symbols.But so far as it is more than verbal it is a plan for conduct-ing education. Like any plan, it must be framed with refer-ence to what is to be done and how it is to be done. Themore definitely and sincerely it is held that education is adevelopment within, by, and for experience, the more im-portant it is that there shall be clear conceptions of whatexperience is. Unless experience is so conceived that the re-sult is a plan for deciding upon subject-matter, upon meth-ods of instruction and discipline, and upon materialequipment and social organization of the school, it iswholly in the air. It is reduced to a form of words whichmay be emotionally stirring but for which any other set ofwords might equally well be substituted unless they indi-cate operations to be initiated and executed. Just becausetraditional education was a matter of routine in which theplans and programs were handed down from the past, itdoes not follow that progressive education is a matter ofplanless improvisation.

The traditional school could get along without anyconsistently developed philosophy of education. About all

it required in that line was a set of abstract words like cul-ture, discipline, our great cultural heritage, etc., actualguidance being derived not from them but from customand established routines.

Just because progressive schools cannot rely upon es-tablished traditions and institutional habits, they must ei-ther proceed more or less haphazardly or be directed byideas which, when they are made articulate and coherent,form a philosophy of education. Revolt against the kind oforganization characteristic of the traditional school consti-tutes a demand for a kind of organization based upon ideas.I think that only slight acquaintance with the history of ed-ucation is needed to prove that educational reformers andinnovators alone have felt the need for a philosophy of edu-cation. Those who adhered to the established system neededmerely a few fine-sounding words to justify existing prac-tices. The real work was done by habits which were so fixedas to be institutional. The lesson for progressive education isthat it requires in an urgent degree, a degree more pressingthan was incumbent upon former innovators, a philosophyof education based upon a philosophy of experience. I re-marked incidentally that the philosophy in question is, toparaphrase the saying of Lincoln about democracy, one ofeducation of, by, and for experience.

No one of these words, of, by, or for, names anythingwhich is self-evident. Each of them is a challenge to dis-cover and put into operation a principle of order and or-ganization which follows from understanding whateducation experience signifies. It is, accordingly, a muchmore difficult task to work out the kinds of materials, ofmethods, and of social relationships that are appropriateto the new education than is the case with traditional edu-cation. I think many of the difficulties experienced in theconduct of progressive schools and many of the criticismsleveled against them arise from this source. The difficultiesare aggravated and the criticisms are increased when it issupposed that the new education is somehow easier thanthe old. This belief is, I imagine, more or less current.Perhaps it illustrates again the Either-Or philosophy,springing from the idea that about all which is required isnot to do what is done in traditional schools. I admitgladly that the new education is simpler in principle thanthe old. It is in harmony with principles of growth, whilethere is very much which is artificial in the old selectionand arrangement of subjects and methods, and artificialityalways leads to unnecessary complexity. But the easy andthe simple are not identical. To discover what is really sim-ple and to act upon the discovery is an exceedingly difficulttask. After the artificial and complex is once institutionallyestablished and ingrained in custom and routine, it is eas-ier to walk in the paths that have been beaten than it is,after taking a new point of view, to work out what is prac-tically involved in the new point of view. The old

4 THE TEACHERS, SCHOOLS, AND SOCIETY READER

Ptolemaic astronomical system was more complicatedwith its cycles and epicycles than the Copernican system.But until organization of actual astronomical phenomenaon the ground of the latter principle had been effected theeasiest course was to follow the line of least resistance pro-vided by the old intellectual habit. So we come back to theidea that a coherent theory of experience, affording posi-tive direction to selection and organization of appropriateeducational methods and materials, is required by the at-tempt to give new direction to the work of the schools. Theprocess is a slow and arduous one. It is a matter of growth,and there are many obstacles which tend to obstructgrowth and to deflect it into wrong lines.

. . . [W]e must escape from the tendency to think of or-ganization in terms of the kind of organization, whether ofcontent (or subject-matter), or of methods and social rela-tions, that mark traditional education. I think that a gooddeal of the current opposition to the idea of organization is

due to the fact that it is so hard to get away from the pictureof the studies of the old school. The moment “organiza-tion” is mentioned imagination goes almost automaticallyto the kind of organization that is familiar, and in revoltingagainst that we are led to shrink from the very idea of anyorganization. On the other hand, educational reactionaries,who are now gathering force, use the absence of adequateintellectual and moral organization in the newer type ofschool as proof not only of the need of organization, but toidentify any and every kind of organization with that insti-tuted before the rise of experimental science. Failure to de-velop a conception of organization upon the empirical andexperimental basis gives reactionaries a too easy victory.But the fact that the empirical sciences now offer the besttype of intellectual organization which can be found in anyfield shows that there is no reason why we, who call our-selves empiricists, should be “pushovers” in the matter oforder and organization.

READING 6.2: FROM EXPERIENCE AND EDUCATION 5