Democracy and Education: An Introduction to the Philosophy of EducationDewey, John
Philosophy
Democracy and Education: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Education
Dewey, John
Education -- Philosophy; Education -- Social aspects
The illustration is intended to apply, of course, to other school
occupations,--wood-working, cooking, and on through the list. It is
pertinent to note that in the history of the race the sciences grew
gradually out from useful social occupations. Physics developed slowly
out of the use of tools and machines; the important branch of physics
known as mechanics testifies in its name to its original associations.
The lever, wheel, inclined plane, etc., were among the first great
intellectual discoveries of mankind, and they are none the less
intellectual because they occurred in the course of seeking for means of
accomplishing practical ends. The great advance of electrical science in
the last generation was closely associated, as effect and as cause,
with application of electric agencies to means of communication,
transportation, lighting of cities and houses, and more economical
production of goods. These are social ends, moreover, and if they are
too closely associated with notions of private profit, it is not because
of anything in them, but because they have been deflected to private
uses:--a fact which puts upon the school the responsibility of restoring
their connection, in the mind of the coming generation, with public
scientific and social interests. In like ways, chemistry grew out of
processes of dying, bleaching, metal working, etc., and in recent times
has found innumerable new uses in industry.
Mathematics is now a highly abstract science; geometry, however, means
literally earth-measuring: the practical use of number in counting to
keep track of things and in measuring is even more important to-day
than in the times when it was invented for these purposes. Such
considerations (which could be duplicated in the history of any science)
are not arguments for a recapitulation of the history of the race or for
dwelling long in the early rule of thumb stage. But they indicate
the possibilities--greater to-day than ever before--of using active
occupations as opportunities for scientific study. The opportunities
are just as great on the social side, whether we look at the life of
collective humanity in its past or in its future. The most direct
road for elementary students into civics and economics is found in
consideration of the place and office of industrial occupations in
social life. Even for older students, the social sciences would be less
abstract and formal if they were dealt with less as sciences (less as
formulated bodies of knowledge) and more in their direct subject-matter
as that is found in the daily life of the social groups in which the
student shares.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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