Rediscovering John Dewey: How His Psychology Transforms Our Education

Rediscovering
John Dewey
How His Psychology
Transforms Our Education
Rex Li
Rediscovering John Dewey
Rex Li
Rediscovering John
Dewey
How His Psychology Transforms Our Education
Rex Li
G.T. College
Tseung Kwan O, Hong Kong
ISBN 978-981-15-7940-0 ISBN 978-981-15-7941-7 (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-7941-7
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To my colleagues
at
Dewey Center, Fudan University, Shanghai
and
G.T. College, Hong Kong
Preface
John Dewey: The Best Known

and The Least Understood
In the widely-acclaimed series of Very Short Introductions by Oxford
University Press, a new title on education was released a few years ago
(Thomas 2013). In it, the name of John Dewey appeared in the first
paragraph of the preface, alongside Einstein, Newton, Darwin and Marx.
While Dewey was hailed as “arguably the greatest thinker about educa-
tion in modern times,” the author conceded that few laypeople are able to
“offer anything at all about Dewey” (preface p.1). Why is there a paradox
that the best known becomes the least understood?
Dewey (1859–1952) started with a Christian faith and was trained
under Hegelian philosophy. However, he ended up as an atheist (by co-
signing the Humanist Manifesto in 1933) and founded a new philos-
ophy—pragmatism. His writings are as diverse as philosophy, psychology,
education, logic and science as well as democracy and local and inter-
national politics. His collected works exceeded 8 million words. He is
considered “the philosopher of American culture”, who defines “the spirit
of America” (Shook and Kurtz 2011: 9). His view on education is such
paradigm-setting that most modern education theories start from him.
However, his obscure writing style, partly due to his Hegelian-dialectic
tradition, deters readers from understanding what he means and says.
vii
viii PREFACE
Dewey viewed philosophy as “a criticism of criticisms” (LW1: 298).

In the way he criticized Cartesian and Hegelian philosophy, Dewey
had been criticized and dismissed in contemporary analytic philosophy,
while his ideas are being simultaneously reconstructed (Tiles 1988; Fair-
field 2009; Fesmire 2015) and rediscovered (Tanner 1997; Boisvert 1998;
Tan and Whalen-Bridge 2008). Whoever studies education and philos-
ophy has something to learn from Dewey, but to evaluate him in light of
the new millennium with a global perspective is a most daunting task.
During his life time, Dewey had served as President of American
Psychological Association (1899), President of American Philosophical
Association (1905), Honorary President of American Progressive Associ-
ation (1928) and Honorary President of National Education Association,
USA (1932). A society to the study of his ideas, John Dewey Society, was
founded in 1935, and he was honored with numerous honorary degrees.
After his death, his face appeared in the Prominent Americans Series on
the American postage stamp in 1968. Today, there are centers devoted
to studying him, in the USA (Center for Dewey Studies, Southern Illi-
nois University at Carbondale), in China (Dewey Center, Fudan Univer-
sity) and in Germany (Dewey Center, University of Cologne). No doubt
Dewey is an intellectual giant that deserves serious study, especially for
philosophers, educators and psychologists.
In the course of my study of John Dewey, I discover that while much
has been written about his philosophy and education, his psychology
has been largely neglected. Although he had made significant contri-
bution to psychology, Dewey was only briefly mentioned in psychology
texts. When I dig deeper in his early life, his ideas in psychology
and nineteenth-century milieu, I discover that his theory of psychology
grows to become his core concepts in education, which transforms our
present-day education practice.
This book aims to unveil a true Dewey, what his psychological and
educational ideas are as well as his impact. It starts from his early years, his
involvement in psychology and philosophy and then his move to educa-
tion. In summarizing his early works to later works in social and intel-
lectual context, I hope to rediscover a true evolving John Dewey, what
PREFACE ix
he says and what he means. Readers will then be able to examine the
implications of his ideas in the new millennium and global culture.
Rex Li
G.T. College
Hong Kong
References
Boisvert, R. D. (1998). John Dewey: Rethinking Our Time. New York: State
University of New York Press.
Dewey, J. (1882–1953). The Collected Works of John Dewey. The Early Works,
Volume 1–5; The Middle Works, Volume 1–15; The Later Works, Volume 1–17.
Illinois: Southern University Press.
Fairfield, P. (2009). Education After Dewey. London: Continuum.
Fesmire, S. (2015). Dewey. London: Routledge.
Shook, J. R., & Kurtz, P. (Eds.). (2011). Dewey’s Enduring Impact: Essays on
America’s Philosopher. New York: Prometheus Books.
Tan, S. H., & Whalen-Bridge, J. (2008). Democracy as Culture: Deweyan Prag-
matism in a Globalizing World. New York: State University of New York
Press.
Tanner, L. N. (1997). Dewey’s Laboratory School: Lessons for Today. New York:
Teachers College Press.
Tiles, J. E. (1988). Dewey. New York: Routledge.
Contents
Part I Early Years
1 Boyhood and College Years 3
2 The Lost Years 19
3 Johns Hopkins Years 31
Part II Psychology
4 Young Dewey and Zeitgeist in Psychology 49
5 A Psychological Manifesto and Philosophic Method 75
6 Psychology, Reflex Arc Concept and the Birth

of Functionalism 99
7 Psychological Fallacy, How We Think, and Human

Nature and Conduct 135
xi
xii CONTENTS
Part III Education
8 Chicago Years, My Pedagogic Creed and Resignation 173
9 Educational Writings in Chicago Years 199
10 Educational Writings in Columbia Years 237
Part IV Involvement in Education and Impact
11 Dewey in China 275
12 John Dewey and Progressive Education 309
13 Late Writings on Education 347
References 383
Index 401
List of Figures
Fig. 4.1 Three strands of psychological research before Wundt 56

Fig. 6.1 Dewey’s three aspects of consciousness 113
Fig. 6.2 The child-candle problem (Source James [1890, vol. 1,
p. 25]) 122
Fig. 7.1 A pictorial representation of Dewey’s notion of human
nature 155
Fig. 7.2 The centrality of action in Dewey’s notion of human nature 162
Fig. 8.1 How Dewey’s ideas grew into My Pedagogic Creed (1897) 184
Fig. 9.1 Dewey’s self-expression and interest 204
Fig. 9.2 A graphic presentation of Dewey’s ethics 211
xiii
List of Tables
Table 2.1 Dewey’s adolescent crisis and liberation 24

Table 4.1 Summary of key concepts and ideas of early philosophers
on psychology 57
Table 5.1 Comparison of Dewey’s and Hodgson’s ideas
on consciousness 91
Table 6.1 Chronology of Dewey’s major works on psychology 101
Table 6.2 Dewey’s taxonomy of psychology 112
Table 6.3 A Chronology of reflex researches (1600–1900) 126
Table 6.4 Psychological tasks in the child-candle problem 128
Table 8.1 Chronology of Dewey’s resignation from University
of Chicago 190
Table 9.1 Hypotheses in psychology of elementary education 226
Table 9.2 Psychological development and education needs 226
Table 10.1 Dewey vs. Rousseau on education 249
Table 10.2 Dewey vs. Pestalozzi on education 250
Table 10.3 Innovative practices in Schools of Tomorrow 257
Table 10.4 Dewey’s former ideas in education and new ideas
in Democracy and Education 264
Table 11.1 Dewey’s China trip, May–December 1919 285
Table 11.2 Dewey’s China Trip, January–December 1920 287
Table 11.3 Dewey’s China Trip, January–July 1921 289
Table 11.4 Dewey’s lectures and translators (1919) 296
Table 13.1 John Dewey’s network of enterprise (1921–1940) 348
xv
PART I
Early Years
CHAPTER 1
Boyhood and College Years
In Search of Significant Episodes and Ideas

This is a book on Dewey’s ideas on psychology and education, not a
biography. When I write about his boyhood and college years, I will
just give a short account and focus on some issues and background that
have had significant impact on the making of John Dewey and his ideas.
His Christian faith and his adolescent crisis are, in my mind, significant
episodes. Of equal importance are the parent–child relationship and the
early influences on his ideas, which include Kant, Hegel, evolution theory
and Christianity. Readers interested in a comprehensive biography may
refer to the further readings section of this chapter.
Family History and Background

As Industrious as a Dewey
In the few hundred years of American history, nearly everyone was an
immigrant descendant, save the few surviving natives. So was John Dewey.
His ancestors were early settlers from Flanders (present-day northern
part of Belgium), who escaped from political and religious persecu-
tion and came to the new world in the seventeenth century. They
settled in Connecticut and Massachusetts and became farmers, traders
and artisans, keeping alive the pioneering spirit. Their Christian faith
was that of Protestantism, who built their own congregational churches.
John Dewey’s great grandfather Parson was said to have fought the
© The Author(s) 2020 3

R. Li, Rediscovering John Dewey,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-7941-7_1
4 R. LI
Revolutionary War for American Independence (1776). In the eigh-

teenth and nineteenth centuries, the Deweys spread across Connecticut,
Massachusetts, Maryland and Vermont. They were known for the proverb
“as industrious as a Dewey” (Martin 2002, p: 16).
Father
John Dewey’s father, Archibald Sprague (1811–1891), was a farmer in
Vermont who moved from the countryside to Burlington and started
a grocery business there. At the time when John Dewey was born,
Burlington was transforming from a village of a few thousand people into
a small town of 14,000. The second largest lumber depot of the country
and a fishing port, it was growing into the commercial and cultural center
of the State of Vermont. The people there, Vermonters, mostly early New
Englanders or the old Americans, possessed attributes of a regional char-
acter: industrious, shrewd, self-reliant, thrifty, without pretense or show,
independent in their thinking, puritanical in their conduct, and deeply
pious (Dykhuizen 1973: 1).
Though Archibald received little education and stammered in speech,
he read Shakespeare and Milton, and enjoyed the play of words,
such as the following advertisements he composed; “Hams and cigars,
smoked and unsmoked”; cigars as “A good excuse for a bad habit”
(Dewey 1939: 5). His pioneering business motto was telling: “Satisfac-
tion (guaranteed or goods) returned” (Martin 2002: 17). A pragmatic
and successful businessman who ran the only licensed medical liquor store
in town, he later became a director of the American Telephone Company
for Northern New England. However, his generosity warranted his care
for others more than his own finances. As Deweyan scholars would appre-
ciate, Archibald’s contrast of opposites and pragmatic paradox (licensed
liquor in temperance) is not uncommon in John Dewey’s writings.
Mother
In 1855, Archibald Dewey, already aged 44 and well established in busi-
ness, married Lucina Rich, aged only 24, who came from a middle-class
family in Vermont. Lucina’s family was part of the social and intel-
lectual elites living in Burlington. Her grandfather, Charles Rich, was
a congressman in Washington; her father, Davis Rich, was a legislator
with the Vermont General Assembly. With the University of Vermont
1 BOYHOOD AND COLLEGE YEARS 5
founded in 1791 in Burlington, this small town attracted the rich and
the educated. The ethos of the Burlington “cultivated society” were:
social equality, intelligence, virtue, minimal snobbishness and some good
manners (Dykhuizen 1973: 3).
Lucina was a pious Christian, who stressed religious morality through
personal introspection and social improvement. She was against all
frivolity and “vices”—drinking, playing pool, gambling, playing cards or
dancing (Martin 2002: 21). She taught Sunday school and was deeply
involved in the Church’s mission work and for helping the poor and
the unfortunate. Her life goal was to “make Burlington a temperate and
moral city, a safe, clean place for young men, a city of virtuous and happy
home.”1 As we shall see, Lucina’ evangelical pietism had lasting impact
on her children.
Siblings and Education at Home

The Deweys had four children: John Archibald, Davis Rich, John and
Charles Miner. The first child died of a tragic accident in infancy in
January 1859.2 John was born in October 1859 as the third child. Jay
Martin, Dewey’s twenty-first-century biographer, dug deep in Dewey’s
family history to discover that Dewey was seen as a replacement child,
to replace the deceased first child. Our philosopher is named John as the
first child, but without a middle name “Archibald” taken from the father.
A replaced child as the eldest son in the family, Dewey might have felt
unspoken family demand, emotional or intellectual, on him, even as a
child.
When the father was easy-going and humorous and the mother was
tense and demanding, both parents cared for their children’s education
and their boyhood was surrounded with books: encyclopedia, novels
as well as books from the public library and the nearby University of
Vermont library. That the Deweys afforded more reading opportunity for
their children than other families of their background was a parenting
choice: at that time books were expensive and difficult to access. John
1 Based on her obituary in the Adams Mission Monthly. Quoted from Martin (2002: 22).
2 The tragic accident was that the little boy fell in a pail of hot water. When treated with
sweet oil and cotton, it accidentally caught fire, causing death of the child and injuries of
the rescuers. See Martin (2002: 5–6).
6 R. LI
and his elder brother Davis became bookworms; they were interested in
reading almost everything except their school books! (Dewey 1939: 9).
CHILDHOOD
Replacement Child
That John Dewey was treated as a replacement child was revealed in many
occasions. While he was the third child in the family, he went to the same
school and in the same grade with the second child, Davis, who was a year
older. Thus John was to speed up and accelerate academically. The two
brothers were close to each other throughout their lives, and John even
advised on Davis’ further studies plan after his college education. When
the younger brother, Charles Miner, had difficulty in schoolwork, he
communicated with John, who always gave encouragement and support.
Lucina had an intimate and intense relationship with John than the
other two children, as evidenced in her frequent lengthy correspondences
with John when he was away from home. John was treated as the replaced
eldest child: when his father became old and ill, he came to live with
John in Ann Arbor before his death in 1891. So did his mother (Martin
2002: 62 and 120). It looks like John Dewey shouldered the family
responsibility of the replaced eldest child.
Dewey Goes to School and the Farm

Both John and Davis grew up as happy, healthy and bookish boys. The
three children went to public school in the neighborhood. School was
boredom; they were younger than other boys and took little interest in
games. They had good grades and a demanding mother. According to
Jane Dewey, Dewey’s daughter who wrote and edited Dewey’s biography
in 1939, John was “as a young boy, particularly bashful in the presence
of girls. As he grew older...... this shyness wore off” (Dewey 1939: 9).
In Vermont in the 1870s, life was simple and rural. The children did
housework and helped in the farms. They delivered newspapers and tallied
lumber. In summer, they went camping, had fishing trips in Lake Cham-
plain or visited their grandfather’s farm. They had direct contact with
nature; they learned the skills “to do something, to produce something,
in the world” (MW1:7), and they enjoyed the creative, productive, inde-
pendent life of farming. Not surprisingly, these became the ultimate ideal
Deweyan life: creative, productive and independent.
Archibald was quite modest and pragmatic: he wished one of the
boys to become a mechanic, but Lucina, whose brother graduated from
college, insisted her sons be the first in the Dewey’s family to go to
college. Dewey’s own interpretation of the poor state of his elementary
education might have affected his theory of education. In Jane Dewey’s
words,
The realization that the most important parts of his own education until
he entered college were obtained outside the school-room played a large
role in his educational work, in which such importance is attached, both
in theory and in practice, to occupational activities as the most effective
approaches to genuine learning and to personal intellectual discipline. His
comments on the stupidity of the ordinary school recitation are undoubt-
edly due in no small measure to the memory of the occasional pleasant class
hours spent with the teachers who wandered a little from the prescribed
curriculum. (Dewey 1939: 9)
Parent–Child Relationship
On the surface, it appears that Dewey’s father was a busy breadwinner,
leaving the child’s education entirely to his wife. The father was distant
and detached while the mother was close and attached. Lucia, then, must
have had more influence on Dewey than Archibald. However, Dewey in
his later life insisted to his second wife, Roberta, that “his father was a
greater influence than his mother.3 ” How are we going to reconcile this?
There is no doubt that John was very close to his mother, who exerted
great influence on him. On the other hand, he longed for the affection
from his father, who, for one reason or another, kept John at a distance.4
It may be related to the tragic accident of the family’s first child that
Archibald found it hard to face. In fact the Deweys moved to a new house
after the tragic accident before John was born. There must be some sense
of guilt (tried to save the baby but the cotton caught fire) unspoken about
3 It was reported Roberta told philosopher George Axtelle about this. See Martin
(2002: 19).
4 This has been confirmed from the correspondences between Dewey and his father.
8 R. LI
the incident. How did the sense of guilt of either or both parents affect
the parent–child relationship we do not know, but it was clear that the
mother was intense and the father looked detached. However, Dewey had
had pleasant memories of his father: “His bringing back to Burlington
sore lotus pods and we used to rattle the seeds in them” (Dykhuizen
1973: 6). The parent–child relationship was reconstructed by Dewey’s
biographer a century later:
……the influence of his mother was very strong, so strong that he had
to learn how to resist it. Although he was influenced by his mother, he
yearned to be affected by his father. He was loved intensely by his mother,
but he hungered for his father’s affections. His father’s attempt to influence
him was as minimal as his mother’s wish to influence him was great. But
while he resisted hers, he would absorb any influence he could get from
his father. Because he remembered what he wished for…… choosing to
identify with his distant father left him, space to become himself. (Martin
2002: 19)
Adolescent Crisis
Dewey’s Christian Faith
Dewey’s parents had different temperaments. The father (Archibald) was
tolerant, easy-going, brash, action-oriented and pragmatic; he took Chris-
tian faith as a Sunday affair; his church going showed little spirit or
drive, but as a successful businessman, he helped his church balance its
budget (Martin 2002: 20). The mother (Lucina) was thoughtful but
strict, intense with missionary zeal; she took charge of the children
and insisted equipping the boys with moral purpose and the pursuit of
responsibility. She was a devoted “partialist” of the First Congregational
Church of Burlington; since the partialist belief was that only part of the
people, not everyone, could be saved, she was deeply concerned about
the souls of her loved ones. Personal piety, moral commitment and social
services were constant themes in the Dewey household. Christianity was
daily life: Sunday for congregational school, Monday for prayer meetings,
and then constant prayers and introspection. “Are you right with Jesus,
John?” were frequent questions Lucina asked that made John feel uneasy
(Fesmire 2015: 12).
At age 11, John was to admit to the communion. Lucina wrote the
declaration and John read,
I think I love Christ and want to obey Him. I have thought for some
time I should like to unite with the church. Now, I want to more, for it
seems one way to confess Him, and I should like to remember Him at the
Communion. (Dykhuizen 1973: 6 and 329)
Religious Crisis
Dewey summarized the character of his religious training: “I was brought
up in a conventionally evangelical atmosphere of the more ‘liberal’ sort”
(Martin 2002: 25). Evangelicalism is noted with the following character-
istics: conversionism, biblicism, crucicentrism and activism (Bebbington
2012). The evangelical doctrine stresses the more liberal interpretation
of the bible as God’s revelation of humanity and believes in salvation by
faith in Jesus Christ’s atonement. Conversion is a “born again” experi-
ence of personal revelation and introspection while active sharing of the
bible and social action is common. It is understandable that young John
pushed himself so much in religious introspection and personal revelation
that led to an adolescent crisis. In his late twenties, Dewey wrote with
resentment, in The Place of Religious Emotion:
Religious feeling is unhealthy when it is watched and analyzed to see if it

exists, if it is right, if it is growing. It is as fatal to be forever observing
our own religious moods and experiences, as it is to pull up a seed from
the ground to see if it is growing. (EW1: 91)
Young John was sensitive, introvert, introspective, self-conscious, moral-

istic and religious. He took morality and religious faith so seriously that
he believed truth, virtue and goodness were genuine feelings unveiled
through introspection. This had led to an adolescent crisis, with “an
intense emotional craving” for unification. Recalled Dewey 50 years later,
……a demand for unification that was doubtless an intense emotional

craving, and yet was a hunger that only an intellectualized subject -matter
could satisfy. It is more than difficult, it is impossible, to recover that early
mood. But the sense of divisions and separations that were, I suppose,
borne in upon me as a consequence of a heritage of New England culture,
divisions by way of isolation of self from the world, of soul from body, of
nature from God, brought a painful oppression—or, rather, they were an
inward laceration. (LW5: 153)
10 R. LI
When the crisis was later resolved, the boyhood imprint was such that his
whole intellectual life was devoted to the deepest concern of moral values,
religious issues and social improvement.5
The Emerging Personality

The sociocultural forces manifest in Dewey’s family life all converged
into the making of John Dewey. The characteristics of a “good” student
emerged: his teachers found him courteous, well-mannered, conscien-
tious and likeable; his peers found him quiet, reserved but liked fun
and participative.6 Obviously he was intellectually gifted and thought
deeply about life and religious issues. Embedded in him was the Old
England culture and the values of Burlington cultivated society, inher-
ited through his father and mother. It thus came as no surprise when
his student, Sidney Hook, wrote about his personality in adulthood as
“…… an ingrained democratic bias, …… in his simplicity of manner, his
basic courtesy, freedom from every variety of snobbism and matter-of-
course respect for the rights of everyone in America as a human being
and a citizen” (Hook 1939: 5–6). All through the years, Dewey speaks
for democracy, liberty and citizenship. He is courteous, well-mannered,
but outspoken and pioneering in his intellectual thought.
College Years
The University of Vermont
Dewey accelerated himself and finished the 4-year high school curriculum
in 3 years. He was then 15 and entered a “neighborhood” college—the
University of Vermont, neighborhood in the sense that the Deweys lived
very near it—Prospect Street (Dewey 1939: 5) In fact that was part of his
mother’s plan: Lucina was a Vermont bourgeois, ambitiously committed
to the education of her sons (Fesmire 2015: 11).
Dewey’s distant cousins were sons of the president of the University of
Vermont. When the University of Vermont was founded in 1791, it slowly
transformed Burlington into a college town, with homes for the educated
5 For a critical review of Dewey’s religious craving, see Rockefeller (1998).

6 George Dykhuizen, Dewey’s biographer, had done extensive research and interviews
to gain the above impression (Dykhuizen 1973: 328).
elite and the wealthy. Most of the professors belonged to the same First
Congregational Church. Thus the Dewey boys were part of the university
community before admission; they all entered the University of Vermont
and Dewey graduated in 1879.
College Curricula
The University of Vermont was a very small college by today’s standard: 8
professors, 100 students, 160,000 books, all-male, no science laboratory.
Dewey always earned good grades and ranked second in his graduating
class of 18 students in 1879.
The curricula of the 4 years were:
Year 1–2: Greek, Latin, ancient history, analytic geometry, calculus;

Year 3: geography, biology, physiology;
Year 4: philosophy, psychology, political economy, international law,
history of civilization and classics: (Plato’s Republic, Bain’s Rhetoric,
Butler’s Analogy).
Dewey’s Reading Interest

Jay Martin gave a tenable account of Dewey’s reading interest by tracing
the books he borrowed from the University of Vermont library year by
year. Dewey was “an omnivorous reader” (Martin 2002: 37) thirst for
new knowledge. During his freshman year, Dewey read many books on
politics, including Tocqueville’s Democracy in America (translated 1844).
In his sophomore year, he read novels as well as academic journals,
showing keen interest in new ideas on the intellectual front. Apparently
he showed less interest in classics and the least in theology. By his junior
and senior year he read Herbert Spencer’s Principles of Psychology (1872
edition), A System of Synthetic Philosophy, as well as books on physiology
and science. As his interest in philosophy grew,
… His library borrowings in his senior year included books by Richard

Hooker, George Berkeley, Edmund Burke, John Stuart Mill on William
Hamilton, David Hume, Plato, Schwegler’s Handbook of the History
of Philosophy, and additional volumes of the Journal of Speculative
Philosophy (Martin 2002: 41).
12 R. LI
Inspiration from Huxley and Comte

Dewey’s interest in philosophy started in his junior year, during which he
took a course in physiology, with the text of T. H. Huxley’s Elements of
Physiology but without laboratory work. Young Dewey was excited to see
the organic unity of life in evolution. In his words,
…, I was led to desire a world and a life that would have the same proper-
ties as had the human organism in the picture of it derived from study of
Huxley’s treatment. At all events, I got great stimulation from the study,
more than from anything I had had contact with before; and as no desire
was awakened in me to continue that particular branch of learning, I date
from this time the awakening of a distinctive philosophic interest. (From
Absolutism to Experimentalism, LW5: 148)
Readers will be puzzled to ask: How can evolution theory or physi-

ology awaken Dewey into philosophy instead of science? If Dewey was
interested in evolution theory, why didn’t he study STEM (science, tech-
nology, engineering and maths) instead? My study reveals that Dewey’s
philosophical interest was that of morality, truth and Christianity, all
related to his upbringing and intellectual issues of new Englanders of
his time. In these days, physiology was the precursor and foundation
of psychology, which was considered a branch of philosophy. Had there
been laboratory work in the University of Vermont, Dewey might have
done hands-on scientific research and discovered new neuro-mechanisms
in physiology. But his adolescent pre-occupation with morality and reli-
gious issues propelled him into philosophy, the higher order of knowledge
and humanity. His “great stimulation” was that he found the unity of a
world and a life by the support of a new foundation from science. This
science supports philosophy and philosophy slowly emerged to become
his goal. At a higher level, philosophy is the science of science, a term
suggested by Dewey’s later teacher George Morris.
At the same time, Dewey read the work of Auguste Comte (1794–
1859), the father of modern sociology. Comte’s positive philosophy
posited the disorganization of existing social life and emphasized the
social function of science, which enticed Dewey’s concern of scientific
understanding of social ills and its eradication.
Philosophical Influences
The Shadow of James Marsh
The University of Vermont was not just a neighborhood college. It was
a reputable university especially for philosophy, rivaling with the early Ivy
Leagues—Harvard, Yale, Brown and Dartmouth. James Marsh (1794–
1842), an eminent American philosopher, was president of the University
of Vermont from 1826 to 1833. He was the first to introduce German
Philosophy—Kant, Schelling and Herder—to America. As president of
the University, Marsh instituted a program of unified study where all
seniors had to take a course in philosophy that sought to create a central-
ized mode of knowledge (Shook 2012). Marsh’s work was edited by
Joseph Torrey, whose nephew H. A. P. Torrey became professor of philos-
ophy at the University of Vermont and taught Dewey in 1875–1879. In
his early days, Dewey read and was inspired by Marsh’s “Memoir and
Remains of James Marsh” and “Aids to Reflection.”
When some of Dewey’s ideas could be traced back to Marsh, the philo-
sophical tradition at the University of Vermont also gave him direction
for his search of identity: Christianity and morality. Dewey paid tribute to
Marsh; when he was 70, in a talk entitled “James Marsh and American
Philosophy” (LW5: 178), he considered Marsh an emancipating spirit to
him and his generation:
They conceived the spirit as a form of life, the essence of life, and they freed
belief in the spiritual energies from the doctrines both of the churches and
of the Enlightenment: spirit and reflection were the traits of free living;
both became intimately associated with actual life and natural being. (LW5:
178)
Building on Marsh
In the American Church history, James Marsh was a philosophical
theologian and evangelical liberal (McGiffert 1969: 437). He studied
in Andover Theological Seminary and was ordained as a congregational
minister in 1824. Marsh was an important figure in American thought
and philosophy in the second quarter of nineteenth century. During
that period, British empiricism under the Lockean tradition and the
Scotch School of realism dominated American philosophy. The empir-
ical notion of truth by experience and the Christian truth of God was
14 R. LI
hard to reconcile. Marsh read Samuel T. Coleridge’s work and studied

German philosophy, especially Kant and Herder. By introducing Kant’s
philosophy onto the American soil, Marsh found ways of anchoring
Christianity by German idealism. He “attempted to develop a philo-
sophical basis for American Christianity”, leading to the “emancipation
of American philosophy from its complete subordination to theology.”
For Marsh, Christianity revealed eternal truths about God, the universe
and humanity; God and truth can be directly reached by revelation and
intuition, not by church establishments or authority. Through introspec-
tion, we could arrive at “rational knowledge of the central and absolute
good of all being.” Integrating faith with reason, Marsh’s liberal inter-
pretation was that “Christian faith is the perfection of human reason.”
Marsh’s works had inspired the development of American transcenden-
talism, a religious and cultural movement in 1830s by American essayist
Ralph Waldo Emerson, among others (Good 2002: v–xvii).
Marsh’s impact on Dewey must not be underestimated. First, Marsh
translated Coleridge’s Aids to Reflection, and Dewey took it as his “first
bible”, “because it showed that one can be both ‘liberal and pious’ at the
same time” (Good 2002: v–xvii). Second, Marsh and Coleridge’s religious
ideas remained in Dewey for the rest of his life. When asked late in his
life about his religious faith, Dewey replied,
My ideas on religion have not changed since then; I still believe that a
religious life is one that takes the continuity of ideal and real, of spirit
and life, seriously, not necessarily piously. Such “common faith” became a
commonplace fact for me. But I soon discovered that nobody had much
interest either in Coleridge or in my idea of religion, and so I kept quiet
about it. (Martin 2002: 43)
Studying Kant Under Torrey

In recapitulating his undergraduate study at the University of Vermont,
Dewey observed,
…, the last year was reserved for an introduction into serious intellectual
topics of wide and deep significance – an introduction into the world of
ideas. … I have always been grateful for that year of my schooling. (From
Absolutism to Experimentalism, LW5: 148)
In his senior year, Dewey took Torrey’s philosophy class and studied Kant.
According to Dewey, Torrey was an excellent teacher with a genuinely
sensitive and cultivated mind. As we shall see later, Torrey’s support
to Dewey went beyond the University of Vermont. Dewey wrote the
following letter in 1883 to thank Torrey:
… Thanks to my introduction under your auspices to Kant at the begin-

ning of my studies, …I think I have had a much better introduction into
philosophy than could be had any other way. … It certainly introduced a
revolution into all my thoughts, and at the same time gave me a basis for
my other reading and thinking.7
From Christianity to Philosophy

To sum up, Dewey’s intellectual youth was preoccupied with religious
issues—the existence of God, truth and morality—rooted in his mother
and evangelical family background. His thirst for new knowledge, not old
ones, propelled him into a precocious erudite reader; his philosophical
interest was inspired by Huxley and guided by Torrey. The ideas of Kant,
Comte and Spencer all had impact on him. Bounded by the problem
set of Christianity of his time, Dewey found the theological answer from
Marsh, though the two were more than a generation apart. Marsh and
Coleridge’s position on Christianity, or the Marshian belief system and
worldview became the starting point of Dewey. By the time he graduated
from the University of Vermont, he was generally well-versed with the
history of western philosophy and became one of the best outputs of the
University of Vermont’s philosophical tradition.
Further Readings
1. Dalton, T. C. (2002). Becoming John Dewey: Dilemmas of a Philoso-
pher and Naturalist. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Thomas Dalton is a historian of neuropsychology primarily inter-
ested in the development of the field in twentieth-century America.
7 Dykhuizen had traced the correspondence of Dewey to Torrey, November 17, 1883,
from Henry C. Torrey, H. A. P. Torrey’s grandson. See Dykhuizen (1973: 15–16 and
332).
16 R. LI
His research started from Myrtle McGraw (1899–1988), an accom-

plished psychologist who was among Dewey’s circle of friends in
the 1920s. From there Dalton reconstructed Dewey’s relationship
with Myrtle, in which she called him “intellectual godfather”, and
Dewey’s activities and relationships with the Neurological Institute
of New York. This line of research on Dewey’s personal context
threw much new light on his ideas on inquiry, science, mind and
naturalism in his late years.
2. Dewey, J. M. (1939). Biography of John Dewey. In P. A. Schilpp
(Ed), The Philosophy of John Dewey. New York: Tudor Publishing
Company.
To understand a person’s ideas, we must get into his life world
in social and historical context. Below are some of the most notable
titles on John Dewey’s life and works. Each has a unique vista and
focus and they can converge to form the multifaceted colorful life
of John Dewey.
Written by Dewey’s daughter Jane and based on material supplied
by John Dewey himself, this biography can be read as Dewey’s auto-
biography. It was Dewey looking back on himself and outlining what
he deemed important in his youthful years.
3. Dewey, J. (1930). From Absolutism to Experimentalism, (LW5: 147–
160).
This is the most widely cited paper, considered as Dewey’s
intellectual autobiography.
4. Dykhuizen, G. (1973). The Life and Mind of John Dewey. Carbon-
dale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press.
George Dykhuizen (1899–1987) taught philosophy in the
University of Vermont and became acquainted with John Dewey
and his family in the 1940s. He wrote about Dewey’s life and work
as early as 1959 (Journal of the History of Ideas ), which was later
expanded into this indispensible biography for studying Dewey.
5. Fesmire, S. (2015). Dewey. New York: Routledge.
A recent scholarly work on Dewey, Steven Fesmire (1967–)
presented Dewey’s life and works chronologically in one easy-to-
read chapter.
6. Hook, S. (1939). John Dewey: An Intellectual Portrait (Reprinted
1971). New Jersey: Praeger.
Sidney Hook (1902–1989) was Dewey’s doctoral student who
became his close friend since the 1920s. Hook’s intellectual portrait
on Dewey appeared in 1939, the year when Dewey turned 80, and
it is a convenient time to summarize his lifelong ideas and achieve-
ments. In Chapter 1, Hook gave a chronological account of Dewey’s
life up to his defense for Leon Trotsky in 1937. Naturally Hook had
much first-hand information and impression to offer.
7. Martin, J. (2002). The Education of John Dewey—A Biography. New
York: Columbia University Press.
Jay Martin is an erudite scholar who has written many biogra-
phies. He entered Columbia University in 1952, the year Dewey
died but whose ideas and influences were still much alive. He started
reading and collecting Dewey’s data for nearly 20 years before
working on this biography in summer 2001. It is an admirable pene-
trating book on Dewey’s life experience, engagement and growth.
His library resources and acknowledgments are lengthy.
8. Rockefeller, S. C. (1991). John Dewey: Religious Faith and Demo-
cratic Humanism. New York: Columbia University Press.
Rockefeller studied Dewey’s Christian faith and traced its changes
over time. Naturally the New Englander’s evangelicalism has had
significant impact on Dewey’s democratic humanism.
9. Westbrook, R. B. (1991). John Dewey and American Democracy.
New York, NY: Cornell University Press.
A lengthy, well-documented and well-researched biography,
Robert Westbrook put Dewey in the position of a social and political
philosopher, relating his life and ideas to the changing epochs from
organic democracy (Chapter 2) to the politics of war (Chapter 7)
to socialist democracy (Chapter 12). In summary, Dewey kept his
common faith (Chapter 14) in the wilderness and the promised
land (Epiloque). It is a history of American democracy epitomized
in John Dewey’s biography.
References
Bebbington, D. (2012). Victorian Religious Revivals: Culture and Piety in Local
and Global Contexts. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Dewey, J. (1939). Biography of John Dewey. In P. A. Schilp (Ed.), The Philosophy
of John Dewey (p. 10). New York: Tudor Publishing Company.
Dykhuizen, G. (1973). The Life and Mind of John Dewey. Carbondale, IL:
Southern Illinois University Press.
18 R. LI

Good, J. (Ed.). (2002). “Introduction”: The Early American Reception of German
Idealism (Vol. 2). Bristol: Thoemmes Continuum.
Hook, S. (1971) [1939]. John Dewey: An Intellectual Portrait. Hackensack, NJ:
Praeger.
Martin, J. (2002). The Education of John Dewey: A Biography. New York:
Columbia University Press.
McGiffert, A. C. (1969). James Marsh (1794–1842): Philosophical Theologian,
Evangelical Liberal 1. Church History, 38(4), 437–458.
Rockefeller, S. C. (1998). Dewey’s Philosophy of Religious Experience. In
Larry A. Hickman (Ed.), Reading Dewey: Interpretations for a Postmodern
Generation (pp. 124–148). Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Shook, J. R. (2012). Dictionary of Early American Philosophers. London:
Bloomsbury Academic.
CHAPTER 2
The Lost Years
From Lost Years to Greatness

In modern academic biography, it is not uncommon to see thinkers went
into some kind of a self-discovery journey, or “self-exile,” before they
impart into greatness. The most widely cited is Charles Darwin (1809–
1882), whose “Voyage of the Beagle” (1831–1836) provided data and
inspiration later for his theory of evolution (The Origin of Species, 1859).
So is Edward O. Wilson (1929–), who went on a journey in Papua New
Guinea before settling down into the study of ants and contemplation
of human nature in Harvard (Wilson 1978, 2004). Another example
is Herbert Spencer (1820–1903), a Victorian philosopher-psychologist,
who experienced a bashful of ten years in his youth (Durant 1926). As
for Dewey, his self-exile is one of self-study that had led him, irrevocably,
into philosophy.
The draft of this chapter was presented at the International Conference on

Dewey and Pragmatism, August 2015, Fudan University, Shanghai.

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-7941-7_2
20 R. LI
No Job, No Route
When John Dewey graduated from the University of Vermont in 1879,
he was only 19 and had no job, no plan, no path. He excelled academ-
ically and was interested in philosophy. But there was no immediate
job available for the teaching of philosophy: at that time almost all
jobs of philosophy teaching were held by clergymen and theologians.
Apparently the only existing route to teaching philosophy was to enroll
in a seminary and study theology, with some specialization in philos-
ophy. This route had been taken up by his future teachers at Johns
Hopkins University, George S. Morris and G. Stanley Hall. Both were
Vermonters interested in philosophy; both studied in Union Theological
Seminary, New York; both went to Germany for advanced studies, and
both returned to America for a teaching career, one in philosophy and the
other in psychology. In fact, one of Dewey’s close cousins and high school
companions, John Buckham, did take this route and became a theologian,
later teaching at The Theological Seminary in Berkeley (Dewey 1939: 4).
Even Dewey’s elder brother Davis, later to become a renowned professor
of economics with Massachusetts Institute of Technology, had contem-
plated of studying for the clergy (Martin 2002: 61). So the perplexing
question is: Why didn’t Dewey take the viable route from theology to
philosophy?
We may find hints from Dewey’s adolescence. As a teenager, he went
to the First Congregational Church and was seriously committed to his
Christian faith. But apparently, he had never experienced revelation that
might have called upon his service to God. He had learned intuitional
philosophy but was not satisfied with it (From Absolutism to Experimen-
talism, LW5: 149). He was thirst for new knowledge but not interested
in old knowledge, the bible or the creed. Skeptical about intuitionalism
whose validity was supposed to lend support for religion, Dewey found it
difficult to take the route of philosophy via theology. In fact he was not
interested in theology: it could not be his cup of tea. He had learned to
be honest and stressed academic honesty all his life (From Absolutism to
Experimentalism, LW5: 151). As such he could not deceive himself and
turned to be a theologian for the expediency of becoming a philosopher.
2 THE LOST YEARS 21
Teaching in Oil City

In summer, 1879, Dewey became a Bachelor of Arts. His family had
expected him to be independent and self-reliant after graduation. Grad-
uate school was out of the question because of their financial background.
Readers may be interested to compare Dewey with his contemporaries,
such as William James and James Cattell. Both came from rich families
and could afford graduate school: they crossed the Atlantic to Europe for
the new knowledge of the time, a common route for the rich elites.
To take up high school teaching was a common career path for many
of Dewey’s classmates in the University of Vermont. Through his family
network, Dewey tried hard to secure a high school teaching job, but his
strength worked to become his weakness. A precocious youth finishing
college at age 19, he was considered too young to be a high school
teacher for he was no older or more mature than many high school
kids. Then this bookish intellectual was considered too gentle to handle
classroom discipline. The new school year had already begun and only in
late September did Dewey finally receive an offer from his cousin, Affia
Wilson, principal of Oil City High School, Pennsylvania. Dewey hastily
accepted it and started off his teaching journey.
Oil City was located at the mouth of Oil Creek in Allegheny River, a
convenient transportation location for the booming oil industry in Penn-
sylvania which started in the 1850s. Banks and warehouses sprang up,
barges, flatboats and barrels scattered through the river, steamers trans-
ported crude oil to refineries in Pittsburgh, creating the “shanty town” of
Oil City. A service economy began to flourish; restaurants, bars, saloons,
dance halls and theaters came into being. The Oil Exchange Building was
opened in 1878, in the same year when a high school was built, which
Dewey began to teach in fall 1879.
Oil City High School was a new school with only 45 students. Dewey
joined as a teacher and later became the assistant principal. He taught
algebra, science and Latin there for two years. For the first time the 19-
year-old boy was away from home. But life there in Oil City was isolated
and difficult. He did not enjoy his teaching; he could not maintain disci-
pline in class; he had no friends; he tried to “work up a little affair” but
failed. It looked like a dead end for this intellectually gifted youth.
22 R. LI
Adolescent Crisis Resolved

A “Mystic Experience”
But it was exactly in this hopeless state that Dewey discovered himself.
To begin with, life was in fact exciting and pioneering in the burgeoning
Oil City, with new equipment, new workers, new investment and new
lifestyle. There were two brokers living with Dewey in the same boarding
house. They urged Dewey to take advantage of the booming oil industry
and borrowed money to invest in Standard Oil, already a giant oil
company. But Dewey did not bother and withdrew himself into his inner
self. A joke was told: instead Dewey “borrowed books and used the oil in
the lamp” (Dykhuizen 1973: 20).
Recall Dewey’s adolescent crisis of “an intense emotional craving” for
unity, which he saw “as a consequence of a heritage of New England
culture, divisions by way of isolation of self from the world, of soul
from body, or nature from God” (From Absolutism to Experimentalism,
LW5: 153). The crisis had haunted him since childhood with his moth-
er’s constant question: “Are you right with Jesus, John?” (see Chapter 1:
Boyhood and College Years). For years, Dewey was uncertain about his
“spiritual sincerity” when he prayed. This crisis, or question, was finally
resolved in Oil City. One night in 1880, Dewey suddenly experienced a
feeling of harmony with his existence, that his worries of spiritual sincerity
were over. He later told his student Max Eastman about this episode of
somewhat “mystic experience”:
Eastman reported, as “an answer to that question which still worried him:
whether he really meant business when he prayed.” The essence of the
experience was a feeling of oneness with the universe, a conviction that
worries about existence and one’s place in it are foolish and futile. “It was
not a very dramatic mystic experience,” Eastman continued. “There was
no vision, not even a definable emotion - just a supremely blissful feeling
that his worries were over.” Eastman quoted Dewey, “I’ve never had any
doubts since then, nor any beliefs. To me faith means not worrying… I
claim I’ve got religion and that I got it that night in Oil City.”1
1 Both of Dewey’s biographers, George Dykhuizen and Jay Martin, reported this
(Dykhuizen 1973: 20; Martin 2002: 49). The original source appeared much earlier,
in Eastman, M. (1941). John Dewey. Atlantic Monthly, 168(673).
2 THE LOST YEARS 23
Liberated Thrice
Why is there a sudden realization and a “supremely blissful feeling that
his worries were over”? Apparently it was the culmination of Dewey’s
adolescent crisis and a final liberation. We may summarize the progression
below (Table 2.1):
Dewey’s adolescent crisis was religious and philosophical in nature. It
was not a simple crisis to be resolved by a one-time solution. The crisis
had haunted him as he grew. Both Brastow and Torrey had offered impor-
tant ideas for liberation in two different stages. The inner self of young
Dewey was so much immersed in Christian thought that emancipation
could only come from the liberal interpretation of the bible, the ideas of
Kant, Marsh and Coleridge as much as from an inner feeling. All these
complex ideas found its way in the final stage where Dewey liberated
himself. In fact, Dewey needs a little space and distance from his mother.
He found it in Oil City and resolved his worries and doubts. As biogra-
pher Jay Martin put it, “He was right with Jesus because he was right with
himself” (p. 49). He tried to find God’s revelation for years and finally he
found it in himself! This was an important turning point in Dewey’s life:
he must get over from his worries and doubts before he could embark on
fruitful academic work.
Getting into Philosophy

Self-study and First Article
After the tranquilizing experience and resolution of his adolescent crisis,
Dewey was on his own thinking for his future. He knew he was genuinely
interested in philosophy but he was not sure whether he was suited for
a professional career in philosophy. So he tried his skills and abilities by
writing an article and submitting it to a professional journal of philosophy.
Still teaching at Oil City, he kept reading philosophy and wrote his first
philosophy paper entitled “The Metaphysical Assumptions of Materialism”
and submitted it to The Journal of Speculative Philosophy in mid-1881. It
was published in the April 1882 issue. That proved to be crucial to his
future career. Dewey recalled, 50 years later,
24 R. LI
Table 2.1 Dewey’s adolescent crisis and liberation
Age Key Issue Key Liberating Outcome

(Location) Person
12–15 Religious Faith Pastor Lewis O. Brastow’s “liberal

(Home) Dewey had had Brastow, First evangelicalism”
communion but was Congregational emphasized human
uncertain of his faith Church of intelligence and “a
and church doctrine Burlington broadly rational
estimate of
Christianity,” with
its liberal
interpretation of the
bible and revelation
in religious
experience. Brastow
preached for Christ
and redemption in
spiritual manhood
and perfection
(morality) in
associate (social)
life. He thus helped
to relieve Dewey
from the
conventional church
doctrine
(Dykhuizen 1973:
7–8)
16–19 Craving for Prof. H.A.P. Torrey introduced
(The University of unification Torrey Dewey to the works
Vermont) How can one unify of James Marsh,
soul with body, God which was
with life, ideal with “emancipating
real? spirits to him……
The spirit was
conceived…… as a
form of life, the
essence of life……
spirit and reflection
were the traits of
free living; both
became intimately
associated with
actual life and
natural being……”
(Martin 2002: 43)
(continued)
2 THE LOST YEARS 25
Table 2.1 (continued)
Age Key Issue Key Liberating Outcome

(Location) Person
20 Spiritual Sincerity Himself He had answered

(Oil City) His worries about his question of
existence, religion and spiritual sincerity.
career. He found sincerity
in his present
existence. He felt
his worries were
over and he had no
more doubts.
“Everything that’s
here is here”
(Eastman 1941)
…In sending an article I asked Dr. Harris for advice as to the possibility of
my successfully prosecuting philosophic studies. His reply was so encour-
aging that it was a distinct factor in deciding me to try philosophy as a
professional career. (From Absolutism to Experimentalism, LW5: 150)
At that time, Dewey had studied Kant but knew little about Hegel. In
his first academic writing, he faced a dilemma. On the one hand, he
was writing with formal, schematic and logical ideas. On the other hand,
he lacked the personal experience and the real world “actual material”
to support his arguments. There are two implications. First, Dewey was
painfully aware of this: he emphasized upon “the concrete, empirical and
‘practical’ in my later writings” (From Absolutism to Experimentalism,
LW5: 151). Second, for Dewey, when it was logical, schematic and
expository, “writing was comparatively easy,” but to take into account
of concrete experiences, that is, to be able to explain and relate the
phenomenon to ones observation and experiences, “thinking and writing
have been hard work” and it requires “a sense intellectual honesty”
(From Absolutism to Experimentalism, LW5: 151). Such is the origin of
pragmatism and intellectual honesty in Dewey’s thoughts.
Major Arguments in First Debut

In his first debut in philosophy, Dewey must have been thinking hard
and writing with sophistication, so that he earned the endorsement of
26 R. LI
W.T. Harris, editor of the Journal of Speculative Philosophy. It takes me a

few readings to decipher what Dewey means.
Dewey starts with what materialism is and how to substantiate it by
considering a few philosophical options: pure subjective idealism, Humian
skepticism, Berkeleian idealism, Spencer’s agnosticism, Kant’s mind and
consciousness (EW1: 4–5). It appears he makes two points to discredit
materialism. First, materialism is an assertion without proof:
……[the] “matter”-molecular-property accounted for and caused the

“mind”-molecular-property, but proof, or suggestion of proof, or sugges-
tion as to method of finding proof, all are equally absent. (EW1:
4)
Second, materialism assumes the possibility of ontological knowledge

(knowledge of being). However, this is self-destructive. In Dewey’s
words,
……that phenomenal knowledge is phenomenal, and that to transcend

phenomena there must be something besides a phenomenon. We find
materialism, then, in this position. To prove that mind is a phenomenon
of matter, it is obliged to assume the possibility of ontological knowledge-
i.e., real knowledge of real being; but in tat real knowledge is necessarily
involved a subject which knows. To prove that mind is a phenomenon, it is
obliged to implicitly assume that it is a substance. Could there be anything
more self-destructive? (EW1: 6)
Some explanation and interpretation may be necessary here. For the first
point, materialism is a working paradigm of “man a machine,” traceable to
Descartes and succinctly advocated by Julien de La Mattrie (1709–1751).
For several hundred years research has continued to find the physiolog-
ical basis of mental phenomena. I would say that more and more proofs
and evidence have accumulated to the favor of materialism. Today few
researchers subscribe to the existence of an immaterial mind. For the
second point, Dewey merely defends the notion of a subjective mind and
the subjective knowing process. His criticism lies in the assumption that
“phenomena cannot go beyond phenomena” (EW1: 5). He believes that
a phenomenon cannot become a substance. But present-day science may
see a phenomenon, light or heat, for example, as a substance and a process
of energy circulation.
2 THE LOST YEARS 27
It is clear that Dewey’s thinking in philosophy at that time was under

the shadow of Torrey and the influence of Kant. It doesn’t matter whether
the article was substantial or not, so long as it got published. What is
important is this debut earned Dewey the confidence he so desperately
needed to propel himself onto his future academic path.
Private Study Under Torrey

In fact, before Dr. Harris gave Dewey his encouragement, the young
teacher had quit his teaching job in Oil City and returned home in
summer 1881. There he ventured into private study of philosophy under
the mentorship of his former teacher, Prof. Torrey. But it could lead him
to nowhere: no job, no qualification, only ideas. The route to philos-
ophy was audacious and difficult. They had long walks in the woods and
subtle talks on German philosophy. Torrey asked Dewey to read Baruch
Spinoza’s Ethics . He did and turned out another paper in three months,
The Pantheism of Spinoza. Like before, it was accepted by The Journal of
Speculative Philosophy.
Torrey was Dewey’s first mentor. Dewey showed deep gratitude to
Torrey, especially for the private tutorship after he quit the Oil City job.
In Dewey’s words,
I owe to him a double debt, that of turning my thoughts definitely to the

study of philosophy as a life-pursuit, and of a generous gift of time to me
during a year devoted privately under his direction to a reading of classics
in the history of philosophy and learning to read philosophic German.
(From Absolutism to Experimentalism, LW5: 148–149)
During that period, Dewey was so eager to work on philosophy that he

wrote to Harris, offering to help in proofreading, editing or translation
work for the Journal of Speculative Philosophy (Dykhuizen 1973: 24).
Applying for Graduate School

In January 1882, Dewey took up another high school teaching job in
Lake View Seminary in Charlotte, Vermont. The seminary was set up
by the Methodist Church in 1840 and a new building was erected in
1881 after a fire. Dewey was invited to take charge of that high school
with about 30 students during the winter term. The townspeople found
28 R. LI
Dewey too inexperienced and lenient to enforce discipline on the rural

boys and girls. Recalled a pupil, “how terribly the boys behaved, and how
long and fervent was the prayer with which he opened each school day.2 ”
Readers can guess why the prayer was long and fervent: Dewey kept his
strong sense of morality and Christianity.
It was clear that in that period Dewey’s mind was entirely in philos-
ophy. He was writing his third paper Knowledge and the Relativity of
Feeling and doing translation on German philosophy. It was a self-
propelled pursuit but it had no vocational prospect so far. To be a
gentleman-scholar was out of the question: his family had no financial
means and he was trained to be self-reliant. He could only be a daytime
high school teacher and a night-time philosopher.
Then came the news in early 1882 that Johns Hopkins University
was offering twenty graduate fellowships of $500 each. Established in
Baltimore in 1876 as a graduate school that modeled after the German
universities, Johns Hopkins aimed to, in today’s jargon, attract top-caliber
professors and students to become a top-ranking research university at
the frontier of knowledge. Dewey applied for the fellowship with a refer-
ence letter from Torrey. When his application fell through, Dewey applied
again for a $300 Presidential scholarship. When this was again rejected,
he borrowed $500 from his aunt, Sarah Rich, and applied the third time.
He got his last-minute admission offer and started off to Baltimore on
September 4, when the new school term had barely begun.
The Significance of the Lost Years

In the three lost years, Dewey searched for his inner self. This soul-
searching process culminated to a “revelation” feeling of finding himself.
He had finally found his faith and religion in himself by discarding Chris-
tian revelation. It was then followed by a period of intensive study of
German philosophy of Kant, Hegel and that of Spinoza. A confident
young philosopher was born.
These three years was a self-directed searching process. There was no
established path to proceed nor was there any predecessor. The “intense
emotional craving,” his perseverance, diligence, and pioneering spirit,
2 Dykhuizen had followed Dewey’s life and in 1938 interviewed two Dewey’s former
pupils of Lake View, Miss Anna L. Byington and Mr. Charles Root, to gain the above
impressions (Dykhuizen 1973: 25 and 334).
2 THE LOST YEARS 29
pushed him forward. He was not deterred with failure because he had
discovered himself and his goal. With perseverance and taking risks, finan-
cially and academically, he entered Johns Hopkins. Taking a longer view,
Johns Hopkins is not a necessary condition for his future success; it was
only a supporting condition and stepping-stone, without which Dewey
would still move ahead and make his contribution in philosophy.
Further Readings
There is no special book devoted to Dewey’s Lost Years (1879–1882).
For fragmented information, readers may consult:
1. Dykhuizen, G. (1973). The Life and Mind of John Dewey

(Chapter 2). Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press.
Dykhuizen had spent considerable time tracking down the infor-
mation of Oil City High School and Lake View Seminary. One most
valuable source was his interview with Lake View graduates in 1938.
See pp. 25 and 334. Dykhuizen had also searched information on
Brastow (p. 330) and Torrey (pp. 25–26, pp. 334–335).
For his research, Dykhuizen had created his own archive papers
on Dewey known as George Dykhuizen Papers and Correspondence,
Special Collections, Guy W. Bailey Library, University of Vermont,
Burlington, VT (Dykhuizen, p. 334).
2. Eastman, M. (1941). John Dewey. Atlantic Monthly, 168(673).
This is the original source on Dewey’s not-so-mystical experience
in Oil City in 1881.
3. Dewey, J. (1930). From Absolutism to Experimentalism. (LW5: 147–
160)
Seen as Dewey’s intellectual autobiography, readers may find that
Dewey did see the Oil City years as his turning point to philosophy.
4. Dewey, J. M. (1939). Biography of John Dewey.
The two pages devoted to Dewey’s years of high school teaching
give a brief account of the period.
References
Dewey, J. (1939). Biography of John Dewey. In P. A. Schilpp (Ed.), The Philosophy
30 R. LI
Durant, W. (1926). The Story of Philosophy. New York: Simon & Schuster.
Dykhuizen, G. (1973). The Life and Mind of John Dewey. Carbondale: Southern
Illinois University Press.
Eastman, H. (1941). John Dewey. Atlantic Monthly, 168(673).
Wilson, E. O. (1978, 2004). On Human Nature. Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press.
CHAPTER 3
Johns Hopkins Years
The Exceedingly---Stimulating Atmosphere

John Dewey’s years in Johns Hopkins University were short and instru-
mental: one year and nine months for the purpose of earning a doctorate.
Discounting the summer break of 1883 when he returned home to write
his doctoral thesis, The Psychology of Kant , it was only 15 months. During
this period Dewey kept his “bookish habits” (Dewey 1939: 16) but
made many important friends and acquaintances there: James McKeen
Cattell (1860–1944), later to become a renowned psychologist; Arthur
Kimball, a future physicist, Harry Osborn, a future biologist. He even met
Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924), who later became the 28th president of
the USA. His elder brother Davis also joined Johns Hopkins University
in John’s second year.
Despite Dewey’s short stay, he held high regard of Johns Hopkins
University, calling its opening in 1876 as marking “a new epoch in higher
education in the US” (From Absolutism to Experimentalism, LW5: 151).
Recalled Dewey in his biography,
……President Gilman1 had gathered there a fine band of scholars and

teachers with the intention of enabling graduate students, who had been
going to Germany to prepare for a life of scholarship, to find what they
1 Daniel Coit Gilman (1831–1908) is an American educator and the first president of
Johns Hopkins University.

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-7941-7_3
32 R. LI
wanted nearer home. Every emphasis was placed upon the graduate school.
President Gilman constantly urged upon the feasibility and importance of
original research. The very possibility of students’ doing anything new,
anything original, was a novel and exciting idea to most of these young
men …… The atmosphere of the new university was thus exceedingly
stimulating …… Many of the students felt that it was bliss to be alive
and in such surroundings. The seminar was then practically unheard of in
American colleges but was the centre of intellectual life at Hopkins……
(Dewey 1939: 15)
Three Fine Scholars of Philosophy

The three fine scholars in the Hopkins faculty of philosophy were: George
Sylverter Morris, a renowned Helgelian philosopher, Granville Stanley
Hall, a pioneering philosopher-turned-psychologist and Charles Sanders
Peirce, a logician-mathematician. They all had had impact on Dewey’s
intellectual growth. Let us recount them one by one.
George Sylvester Morris (1840–1889)

Academic Background
George Sylvester Morris (1840–1889) studied for the ministry at Union
Theological Seminary, New York, but had a crisis in religious faith. He left
the seminary and went on a study tour in Europe for three years. There
he learned mediational logic from Friedrich A. Trendelenberg and studied
at the University of Halle with Hermann Ulrici. In 1873, Morris estab-
lished his scholarship in American philosophy by translating Uberweg’s
History of Philosophy. In 1870, he began teaching in Michigan University
and when Johns Hopkins University was established, Morris was invited
to teach one semester there so that he kept his position in Michigan.
It appeared Morris read and discovered Hegel in 1880 and saw it
as the culmination of modern philosophy that explained everything—all
ideas, institutions, science, the world, truth, existence—as God, the abso-
lute self-consciousness. According to Dewey, Morris was a “pronounced
idealist” who brought Hegelianism to the American soil. His “substantial
idealism” differed from the traditional “subjective idealism” in that he
emphasized the organic relations between subjects and objects while the
latter took a mechanistic view of the object imprinting “impressions” on
the subject. For ontology, subjective idealism lapsed into skepticism and
3 JOHNS HOPKINS YEARS 33
agnosticism, but substantial idealism saved it by postulating the existence

of the “universal self”, the Hegelian notion of absolute self-consciousness,
the IDEE (Dykhuizen 1973: 33). As we shall see, this notion of universal
self-consciousness brought Dewey into heated academic debate a few
years later. See my elaboration in Chapter 5.
Dewey and Morris

Dewey studied philosophy with Morris, mostly under the lens of
Hegelianism. The coursework was extensive and intensive. There were
four courses: Morris lectured “History of Philosophy in Great Britain” for
four hours a week, conducted a “Philosophical Seminary” that required
students to study and present on Greek philosophy, offered another
lecture on “German Philosophy” and a seminar on “Spinoza’s Ethics and
Pantheism” (Dykhuizen: 32). Obviously Dewey got what he wanted to
satisfy his hunger for philosophy. In fact he got much more; Morris’s
impact as a person on Dewey was lasting. Recall that Dewey resolved his
adolescent crisis in Oil City where he found his religious sincerity in his
present existence. But how was that existence related to his philosophical
ideas? Morris supplied the answer from German idealism and Hegel: God,
the Absolute, Existence, Ideas are one. They are an integrated whole. This
satisfied Dewey’s intense emotional craving for unity. In Dewey’s words,
reflecting half a century later:
……There was a half-year of lecturing and seminar work given by Professor

George Sylvester Morris, of the University of Michigan; belief in the
“demonstrated” (a favourite word of his) truth of the substance of German
idealism, and of belief in its competency to give direction to a life of
aspiring thought, emotion, and action. I have never known a more single-
hearted and whole-souled man — a man of a single piece all the way
through; while I long since deviated from his philosophic faith, I should
be happy to believe that the influence of the spirit of his teaching has been
an enduring influence.
While it was impossible that a young and impressionable student,
unacquainted with any system of thought that satisfied his head and
heart, should not have been deeply affected, to the point of at least a
temporary conversion, by the enthusiastic and scholarly devotion of Mr.
Morris……(From Absolutism to Experimentalism, LW5: 152).
Morris was more than a mentor to young Dewey. Morris considered

Dewey his star pupil, who was aspiring and well-read in the history of
34 R. LI
philosophy. Morris had helped Dewey three times in his early career. First,
when Morris was away in the spring semester, he asked young John to
substitute and teach the semester on the history of philosophy; suddenly
John became a philosophy professor! Then, Morris helped John to secure
a fellowship in his second year of study, thus reducing John’s financial
burden. Finally, he recommended John, upon earning his doctorate, to
be a faculty at Michigan. The two worked together until Morris’s prema-
tured death caused by pneumonia in 1889 at age 49. Dewey named his
second son Morris in memory of his mentor-teacher.
Granville Stanley Hall (1844–1924)—Psychologist the First

Granville Stanley Hall (1844–1924) is an unusually daring and pioneering
scholar. He is energetic, ambitious and action-oriented. His academic life
is full of firsts, so I label him “psychologist the First.” To quote a historian
of psychology, Hall
was the first to receive a Ph.D. in the philosophy department at Harvard.

He was the first American student, during the first year of its existence,
at the first officially accepted psychological laboratory in the world—at
Leipzig under Wundt. He founded the first psychological laboratory in
America at Johns Hopkins in 1883…… Hall, furthermore launched the
first psychological journal in English, the American Journal of Psychology
in 1887…… He was the first president of Clark University (1888), where
he established a psychological laboratory for advanced research…… he was
the first president of the American Psychological Association, virtually its
organizer, in 1892 (Roback 1964: 171) (bold type by author)
Academic Route
Hall grew up as a farm boy in Massachusetts and was interested in history.
After finishing secondary education and teaching for a year in a private
school, he was admitted in 1863 to Williams College, a renowned liberal
arts college with high academic standing. Hall was interested in evolu-
tion and philosophy and excelled in college, very much like Dewey. His
reading favorites were J. S. Mill (1806–1873) and the British Associa-
tionists (Hall 1923: 157). After graduation, he went to pursue his study
of philosophy in Union Theological Seminary, New York in 1867. There
in his second year of study in the seminary, he met George S. Morris
who had just returned from Germany with a Ph.D. This had inspired
Hall for his “ardent desire” to “pursue advanced studies abroad” and “to
becoming a professor” (Hall 1923: 183–184).
It was natural that Hall was doubtful of the Christian faith and, again
like Dewey, he did not prefer the career option of becoming a cler-
gyman. Both Hall and Morris found their answer of Christianity after
studying in Europe but their routes were wide apart: Morris turned to
Hegelianism while Hall turned to psychology and experimental science.
Morris’s inspiration came from Hegel while Hall’s came from Wilhelm
Wundt (1832–1920), the father of modern psychology who founded the
first psychology laboratory in Leipzig in 1879.
Hall Meets Wundt

In fact Hall went to Germany twice in his young adulthood. In 1869, he
studied in the University of Bonn and later Berlin University, mainly in
theology, philosophy and some physiology. Then he returned to Union
Theological Seminary in 1871 to get his degree. Afterward, he taught
philosophy in Antioch College, Ohio, for a few years before moving to
Harvard to teach English in 1876. There he enrolled in the new Graduate
School of Harvard, did graduate work in psychology under William James
(1844–1910) and earned his Ph.D. with a dissertation on The Percep-
tion of Space in 1878. His dissertation was theoretical in nature but he
supported his findings through experimental research in the physiological
laboratory there.
Hall had a strong academic urge that could only be satisfied by
returning to Europe. In 1873–1874, Wundt published his Principles of
Physiological Psychology, in the German language. Hall, after reading it
in America, decided to learn more in Germany. In 1878, Hall landed in
Berlin, studied physiology with Hugo Kronecker (1839–1914) and then
went to Leipzig. That was how he became the first American subject in
the German psychology laboratory. Hall had the unusual opportunities
to meet many pioneers of psychology: Wundt, Fechner, Helmholtz and
Weber. He was also inspired by the study of education and children then
in Germany.
Hall Teaches Dewey

Hall was recruited to teach philosophy at Johns Hopkins University in
1883. Psychology was a new discipline and there was no psychology
department. Hall started the first American psychology laboratory there,
36 R. LI
much to the vision of the university as a pioneering and research insti-

tution of higher learning. Dewey and Cattell, among other aspiring
students, studied under Hall and did research there. More notably, Dewey
took Hall’s course on psycho-physiology and conducted research in the
psychology laboratory. Dewey studied with Hall four times a week and
designed two early psychological experiments, one on attention and the
other on involuntary muscular movements.
With the above factual background and biography, how far did Hall
influence Dewey in psychology? How was their relationship? Dewey once
remarked that Hall was “a fine man and certainly a thorough master of
psychology”, but his class was “purely physiological” (Martin 2002: 65).
Dewey did not seem to enjoy Hall’s psychology and began to formulate
his own framework of psychology, which he called “philosophic method.”
Readers will find out what he means in Chapter 5. On the other hand,
Hall’s work and research in education, especially his survey in the Boston
schools might have ignited Dewey’s interest in education. This I will
explain in Chapter 8.
Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1914)

Charles Peirce was the third fine scholar Dewey met in Johns Hopkins
University. Their acquaintance was short because Peirce began teaching
logic in Johns Hopkins University in 1879 but was dismissed in Jan
1884, a few months before Dewey graduated. Pierce’s father was a math-
ematics professor at Harvard. Young Peirce was attracted to logic at age
12 and studied mathematics and chemistry. An accomplished scientist and
mathematician, Pierce became a fellow of American Academy of Arts and
Sciences in 1867 and a member of National Academy of Sciences in 1877
before he came to Johns Hopkins University. He visited Europe many
times and became friends of many like-minded British mathematicians
and logicians.
Young Dewey was interested in logic and so took Peirce’s mathemat-
ical logic course. However, he found the course too mathematical. “Mr.
Peirce lectures, on logic, but the lectures appeal more strongly to the
mathematical students than to the philosophical” (Martin 2002: 73).
Influence on Dewey at Johns Hopkins University

Dewey was affected by three teachers—Morris, Hall and Peirce. He iden-
tified and followed Morris, learning Hegel and sharpening his idealism
with subject-object unity. He attended Hall’s class (four times a week)
and did psychology experiments. He attended Peirce’s logic but found it
mathematical and irrelevant.
Apparently, Dewey developed that way: it was Morris that mentored
Dewey most; philosophy on truth and morality. This became Dewey’s
cutting edge, strength and route of ascendance. Learning from Hall
to do science experiments was new to Dewey. It might need a lot
of new skills and it would only yield “grist for the mill”, as Dewey
told his mentor Torrey (Martin 2002: 72). As for Peirce’s influence,
logic wasn’t Dewey’s strength; apparently different logicians developed
different logical systems: mathematical logic and meditation logic were
two different systems that Dewey took time to absorb.
Jay Martin gave a dynamic sociological account of the power relations
between the three scholars within Johns Hopkins University under Pres-
ident Gilman (Martin 2002: 68–74). He came to the conclusion that
“Dewey chose Morris, followed Hall, and ignored Peirce” (ibid: 74).
While I don’t intend to dispute Martin’s interpretation, my observation,
now 130 years later, is that the three scholars were real fine. Each had
made unique contribution in their own field or related domains. Morris
was no doubt already the greatest Hegelian in America of his time; Hall,
teaching at Johns Hopkins University at age 39, was destined to make
lasting contribution to American psychology. Aspired to be the “Darwin
of the mind,” he was the first genetic psychologist and educational
psychologist in America. In fact he had very much the same interest in
education theory as Dewey and offered a pioneering scientific account of
the human adolescence based on evolutionary principles.2 As for Peirce,
he was seen as an aloof, ill-tempered and scandalous man of his times.
Only after his death that he is slowly recognized as the father of prag-
matism and semiotics as well as making important contributions to the
2 Hall, G. S. (1904). Adolescence: Its Psychology, and Its Relations to Physiology, Anthro-
pology, Sociology, Sex, Crime, Religion, and Education. New York: D. Appleton and
Company.
38 R. LI
philosophy of language and philosophy of science. Hailed as “the philoso-

pher’s philosopher” by Sidney Hook, Peirce’s ideas and contributions are
still being evaluated and understood.3
It was in that rich soil of intellectuality that Dewey was nurtured for
15 months. When Dewey recalled that the “Hegelian Deposit” (Morris)
was with him for most of his academic life, so was education (Hall) and
logic (Peirce) which he tried to make as much contribution as his teachers
in his academic life.
Doctoral Dissertation: The Psychology of Kant

During the Johns Hopkins years, Dewey wrote a number of papers to
expound his ideas on philosophy and psychology. His dissertation was on
The Psychology of Kant . Of particular interest was the paper entitled The
New Psychology that he delivered to the Metaphysical Club, an interest
group in philosophy, before his graduation in May 1884. I will discuss his
dissertation here and leave The New Psychology to Chapter 5.
The “Missing” Background

It comes to my delight to review Dewey’s doctoral dissertation, first to see
the intellectual vigor in his early years, and second, to appreciate the stan-
dard of academic excellence 150 years ago. Let me begin by constructing
his journey of academic production during his 15-month period at Johns
Hopkins University.
In December 1882, Dewey presented a paper entitled Knowledge and
The Relativity of Feeling to the Metaphysical Club at Johns Hopkins,
which was later published in the Journal of Speculative Philosophy (January
1883) (EW1: 19–33). Then in April 1883, he again presented another
paper to the Metaphysical Club, Hegel and The Theory of Categories . The
next month he wrote another paper, Kant and Philosophic Method (EW1:
34–47), which was submitted to the University in support of his appli-
cation for a fellowship. The fellowship was granted. Then in summer, he
took his Kant paper home with a view to revising and expanding it to be
3 Peirce’s writings were scattered and voluminous. In the 1930s, The Collected Papers of
Charles Sanders Peirce began to appear. In 1976, the Peirce Edition Project was created
to produce the Writings of Charles S. Peirce: A Chronological Edition. Up to 2015, the
project had turned out 8 volumes.
his doctoral dissertation. By November 1883, he read another paper in

front of the Metaphysical Club entitled The Psychology of Consciousness. In
the Spring term of 1884, Dewey did research in Hall’s psychology labora-
tory but he didn’t seem to have written anything about it. Then in April,
he submitted his doctoral dissertation, entitled The Psychology of Kant ,
which was approved in May 1884; thus, Dr. Dewey!
There are problems of missing papers during the period: Hegel and
The Theory of Categories and The Psychology of Consciousness could not be
found. We can only rely on Dewey’s correspondences with his mentors to
infer what he wrote. But the worst was that even the doctoral dissertation
was missing. Below is the only account we can have based on Dewey’s
correspondence with Harris, in which he told Harris his dissertation plan
on Kant:
……that is his [Kant’s] philosophy of spirit (so far as he has any), or

the subjective side of his theory of knowledge, in which besides giving
a general account of his theory of Sense, Imagination &c., I hope to be
able to point out that he had the conception of Reason or Spirit as the
centre and organic unity of the entire sphere of man’s experience, and that
in so far as he is true to this conception that he is the true founder of
modern philosophic method, but that in so far as he was false to it he fell
into his own defects, contradictions &c. It is this question of method in
philosophy which interests me most just at present.4
Based on the above, Dykhuizen argued that the doctoral dissertation

covered much the same ground as the earlier essay, Kant and Philosoph-
ical Method, reaching very much the same conclusions (Dykhuizen 1973:
37). Dykhuizen supported it further with another correspondence a few
years later in which Dewey was quoted saying that the two papers “was
in somewhat the same line” (Dykhuizen 1973: 37).
Of course that is the best guess after all the meticulous chase. I don’t
want to dispute that the two papers “was in somewhat the same line,” but
only that Hall, Dewey’s supervisor might not have approved it without
substantial corrections. A reading of Kant and Philosophic Method shows it
relates nothing to psychology as the word would mean today or in 1880s.
It is an evaluation and interpretation of Kant’s thoughts in Hegelian
4 Dykhuizen did a wonderful job tracking this down in the correspondence of Dewey
to Harris, January 17, 1884, Hoose Library (Dykhuizen 1973: 37, 335).
40 R. LI
terms. No doubt it will form an important part of the dissertation, but it

is plausible that there are other parts. My speculation is that the disser-
tation may have more; maybe it has integrated three main themes, all
from Dewey: Kant and Philosophical Method, The Psychology of Conscious-
ness and something related to physio-psychology or psycho-physics. Only
with that would Hall have been satisfied and approved the dissertation.
I am sure Deweyan scholars will agree with me that Dewey always did
wonderful integrating work.
Main Ideas
Below is a summary of Kant and Philosophic Method, which could hope-
fully help readers to have a glimpse of one major theme of Dewey’s
dissertation. The paper is an attempt to interpret Kant’s categories of
thought in Hegel’s system of philosophy. Let me explain a few terms first.
Problems and Approach

For philosophic method, Dewey means the method or criterion of
attaining truth or knowledge. In relating this issue to Kant, Dewey is
discussing Kant’s key concepts of knowledge. In other words, how does
Kant approach the problem of truth? How is knowing possible and how
can knowledge be substantiated? Put it simply, the criterion of truth for
empiricists is verifiable sensations. For rationalists, it rests on synthetic and
analytic reasoning. For agnosticists, nothing is certain and truth is never
known. For some Christians, it is intuition and revelation from God.
Dewey summarizes the empiricist position as the “analysis of percep-
tions with agreement as criterion” of truth (EW1: 35). It is what is known
today as the “correspondence theory of truth.” Dewey challenges this
because perceptions and sensations are unreliable. In his words,
……Sensations are purely contingent, accidental, and external in their rela-

tions to each other, with no bonds of union. Any agreement is the result
of chance or blind custom. Knowledge as the necessary connection of
perceptions does not exist. (EW1: 35)
Kant’s position is that there are inborn “categories of thought” so that

we can know, think and reason. There are two parts, analytic thought
(law of identity and law of contradiction) and synthetic thought (thought
with content). According to Kant, pure thought is purely analytic (empty
without content) and experience gives only particulars without meaning.

Knowledge must involve synthesis of the two. Dewey acknowledges
Kant’s contribution of synthetic thought:
……And such, is the contribution Kant makes. The material, the manifold,
the particulars, are furnished by Sense in perception; the conceptions, the
synthetic functions from Reason itself, and the union of these two elements
are required, as well for the formation of the object known, as for its
knowing. (EW1: 37)
The categories of thought are important because they “have objective

validity, ……without them, no experience would be possible” (EW1: 37).
It is Kant’s route and criterion of truth. Summarizes Dewey,
……this Kant calls the synthetic unity of Apperception or, in brief, self-
consciousness. This is the highest condition of experience, and in the
developed notion of self-consciousness we find the criterion of truth. The
theory of self-consciousness is Method. (EW1: 38)
Dewey Criticizes Kant

Despite Kant’s contribution, Dewey accuses him of treating percep-
tion and experience as “foreign material” without integrating them into
thought. The lack of subject-object integration leads to Kant’s difficulty:
……Thought in the previous theories was purely analytic; in Kant’s it is

purely synthetic, in that it is synthesis of foreign material. Were thought
at once synthetic and analytic, differentiating and integrating in its own
nature, both affirmative and negative, relating to self at the same time that
it related to other — indeed, through this relation to other — the difficulty
would not have arisen. (EW1: 40)
Dewey sees the relation of subject and object as “immanent” (EW1:

41), meaning that they are intrinsic to each other. There is no object
without subject and vice versa. Their unity is truth and “the manifes-
tation of Reason itself” (EW1: 41). With that Dewey outlines Hegel’s
logic, the negative and dialectic, which leads to the Hegelian ultimate
truth: Idea, Reason, Truth, Method, Criterion gets a “happy union” and
“happy ending”:
42 R. LI
……Reason goes on manifesting its own nature through successive differ-

ences and unities, each lower category is not destroyed, but retained - but
retained at its proper value. Each, since it is Reason, has its relative truth;
but each, since Reason is not yet adequately manifested, has only a relative
truth. The Idea is the completed category, and this has for its meaning
or content Reason made explicit or manifested; that is, all the stages or
types of Reason employed in reaching it. “The categories are not errors,
which one goes through on the way to the truth, but phases of truth.
Their completed system in its organic wholeness is the Truth”. And such
a system is at once philosophic Method and Criterion; method, because it
shows us not only the way to reach truth, but truth itself in construction;
criterion, because it gives us the form of experience to which all the facts
of experience as organic members must conform. (EW1: 46)
From this perspective, Dewey saw Kant as a transitory figure and turning
point in philosophy.
……The criterion of Kant is just this tuning-point; it is the transition of

the old abstract thought, the old meaningless conception of experience,
into the new concrete thought, the ever growing, ever rich experience.
(EW1: 47)
Review and Evaluation

An Advancement
In this early paper, Dewey daringly ventures into one of the most complex
problems in modern philosophy. He is at the heart of the empiricist—
rationalist controversy and he tries to examine Kant’s postulates of aprori
knowledge and its implications. His strategy is to present Kant’s position
within Hegel’s framework. Dewey had studied Kant’s ideas from Torrey
since his senior year in the University of Vermont in 1878. Since gradua-
tion in 1879, Dewey had had self-study of Spinoza, Spencer and German
philosophy under Torrey for three years. Then he was suddenly thrown
into Hegel’s system through taking Morris’s class in Johns Hopkins
starting September 1882. The paper did show that Dewey digested Kant’s
ideas well and the Hegelian influence was most evident.
This paper is definitely an advance over his previous papers, The Meta-
physical Assumptions of Materialism (1881) and The Pantheism of Spinoza
(1882) which are logical, formal, hasty but without much detail. By May
1883 when Dewey wrote Kant and Philosophic Method, he was elabo-
rating his ideas in a much confident tone, writing at ease and trying to
show readers what he thought Kant had meant. He had also absorbed
much Hegel from Morris that he was eager to put Kant in a frame-
work he had just learned. If this paper was seen as a self-study exercise
of elaborating Kant through Hegel, it was an outstanding output by a
graduate student in Johns Hopkins 150 years ago. The outcome was
that Dewey got a prize—his fellowship. However, if it is assessed as a
philosophical paper postulating truth in Reason and Idea, it is more an
assertion than any substantial argument. The only argument, object being
incorporated in subject to become knowledge, may not necessarily lead to
Hegelian Reason, Absolute or Truth. It may only lead to some integra-
tion of the subject and the object, nothing more than that.5 If it was read
by Dewey himself two decades later, he would have confessed he had
long abandoned the Hegelian “Reason” and “Idea,” in favor of “truth”
reformulated in the experience-pragmatist framework.
Kant’s Psychology Missing

To continue the search of truth, philosophers have turned to logical
positivism in 1930s plus other versions such as “language-game”6 or
“mirror of nature.”7 Very few philosophers would follow the footsteps of
Hegel today. Quite the contrary, Kant’s conceptions of innate capacities
and aprori knowledge had enormous impact on psychology in the past
two centuries; psychologists today are still working within this Kantian
framework, more or less.8
This brings me to the last point: Dewey’s dissertation on The Psychology
of Kant . The remaining paper, Kant and Philosophic Method, does not
say anything on Kant’s psychology and Dewey’s early ideas on the subject
will forever be lost with the dissertation. Readers can be rest assured that
Dewey had presented a paper entitled The New Psychology in March 1884,
to the Metaphysical Club, just before he was about to earn his Ph.D.
5 Dewey elaborated this integration much more thoroughly in his Psychology See
Chapter 6.
6 A term proposed by Wittgenstein (1953).
7 A term proposed by Rorty (1979).
8 For example, twentieth-century psychologist Jean Piaget (1896–1980) and linguist
Noam Chomsky (1928-), who postulated cognitive structure and language acquisition
device, respectively, are within the Kantian framework.
44 R. LI
In it we see some traces of Hegelianism, but not much of the Kantian

approach. This I will examine in Chapter 5.
Further Readings
A. Johns Hopkins University
To know more about the founding and influences of Johns Hopkins
University, readers may consult:
Hawkins, H. (2002). Pioneer: A History of the Johns Hopkins Univer-
sity, 1874–1889. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.
B. George S. Morris
Readers may be interested to read:
Wenley, R. M. (1917). The Life and Work of George Sylvester Morris.
New York: Macmillan.
C. J. Stanley Hall
A few books on Hall are illuminating:
1. Hall, G. S. (1923). Life and Confessions of a Psychologist. New York:

D. Appleton and Company.
This 623-page autobiography was completed a year before Hall’s
death. It contains a chapter on Hall’s work in Johns Hopkins
University. Hall had taught Dewey but did not have high regard
of him (pp. 499–500).
2. Roback, A. A. (1964). A History of American Psychology (Rev. Ed.).
New York: Collier Books.
Roback wrote about the history of American Psychology and saw
Hall as the “firsts.”
3. Boring, E. G. (1950). A History of Experimental Psychology. New
Jersey: Prentice Hall Inc.
Boring gave a clear factual account of Hall (pp. 517–523). Of
more interest are the notes pages (pp. 545–546) which gave relevant
references on Hall from 1880 until after his death.
D. Charles S. Peirce
Readers may consult:
1. Burch, R., “Charles Sanders Peirce”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of

Philosophy (Fall 2017 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (Ed.), https://
plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2017/entries/peirce/.
2. Brent, J. (1993). Charles Sanders Peirce: A Life. Bloomington, IN:
Indiana University Press.
This biography outlined Peirce’s personality and his life experi-
ences as well as his works in philosophy, science and maths.
3. Houser, N., & Kloesel, C. (Ed.). (1992). The Essential Peirce—
Selected Philosophical Writings, Vol. 1 (1867 –1893). New York, NY:
Indiana University Press.
The Peirce Education Project. (Ed.). (1998). The Essential
Peirce—Selected Philosophical Writings, Vol. 2 (1893–1913). New
York, NY: Indiana University Press.
The Essential Peirce in two volumes contain important philosoph-
ical writings of Peirce. The introduction written by Houser gives a
comprehensive overview of Peirce’s life and works.
References
Dewey, J. (1939). Biography of John Dewey. In P. A. Schilpp (Ed.), The Philosophy
Hall, G. S. (1923). Life and Confessions of a Psychologist. New York: D. Appleton
and Company.
Roback, A. A. (1964). A History of American Psychology (Rev ed.). New York:
Collier Books.
Rorty, R. (1979). Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature. Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press.
Wittgenstein, L. (1953, reprinted 2009). Philosophical Investigations. Hoboken,
NJ: Wiley-Blackwell.
PART II
Psychology
CHAPTER 4
Young Dewey and Zeitgeist in Psychology
Introduction: Dewey and Psychology

While John Dewey was best remembered as a philosopher and educa-
tion theorist, he was intensely interested in psychology in his early years.
Trained as a psychologist and who had made important contribution
to the field, Dewey’s ideas were not much discussed within psychology.
However, he was hailed as the founder of American functionalism in
psychology. As we shall see, there are complex circumstances interwoven
with Dewey’s ideas that led to this event. My first task, then, is to present
the zeitgeist of nineteenth-century psychology and how Dewey traversed
in it.
Dewey began his acquaintance with psychology during his college years
(1875–1879) in the University of Vermont. In his junior year, he read
Thomas Huxley’s Elements of Physiology and Herbert Spencer’s Princi-
ples of Psychology (1872 edition) and found them stimulating (Dewey
1939: 10). When he did his graduate work at Johns Hopkins Univer-
sity from 1882 to 1884, he studied psychology under Granville Stanley
Hall. At the time when Dewey earned his PhD, he published his epoch-
making The New Psychology.1 He was then 25. The same year he secured a
teaching position in the University of Michigan. Three years later, in 1887
he published his Psychology, a textbook on psychology, which quickly
1 This work was mostly influenced by his teacher Granville Stanley Hall but Dewey kept
his Hegelianism.

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-7941-7_4
50 R. LI
brought him fame and recognition in both sides of the Atlantic (Martin
2002: 104–105).
Such is the success story of a young budding scholar. How could
Dewey attain so much success in such a short time? Was psychology at
that time a new discipline easy to conquer by some new ideas or research
method? What did psychology look like then?
A whole book is warranted to describe the zeitgeist of nineteenth-
century psychology. See, for example, Smith (2013), Simonton (2002),
Chadwick (1975), Burrow (2000), Boakes (1984), and Goodwin (2015).
For my present purpose, I will tell this story in one chapter, with focus on
ideas that had influenced Dewey, directly or indirectly. Interested readers
can follow up with the further readings list.
Background: Scientism and Experimentation

To start with, science and reason are the underlying conceptions perme-
ating most intellectual pursuits in eighteenth-century enlightenment
Europe, and psychology is no exception. Formerly known as “mental
philosophy” or “philosophy of the mind,” this emerging discipline evolves
to give a scientific and reasonable account of the human mind, where “sci-
entific” generally equates to observable and verifiable while reasonable
equates to logical and explicable by reason.
From eighteenth to nineteenth century, we saw the discipline moving
from mental philosophy to experimental psychology. It would be a
mistake to think of mental philosophy as purely armchair speculation. In
fact, early mental philosophers such as David Hume (1711–1776), David
Hartley (1705–1757) and James Mill (1773–1836) were highly empirical
and analytical, proposing numerous laws of association to explain human
sensation, perception and attention. Their ambition was to offer a general
theory of human mind like the Newtonian theory of motion for plane-
tary movements.2 Of course the human mind and mental phenomenon
are complex and hard to pin down. Consciousness as a single unity may
have too many underlying dimensions to uncover and discover. When
numerous theories and laws were proposed, it was hard to experiment
and verify. This was the states of British psychology when Spencer tried
2 This is most evident in the British tradition from James Mill to Alexander Bain
and Herbert Spencer. A historian of psychology called them “Newtonions of the mind”
(Hergenhahn and Henley 2014: 143).
4 YOUNG DEWEY AND ZEITGEIST IN PSYCHOLOGY 51
to unify it by the evolutionary principles. In Germany, Fechner, Weber

and Wundt focused on measurement and had to narrow down to single
simple measurement only. Here is an example: in 1862, Wundt devised
a thought meter and measured the time taken to shift attention from
auditory to visual stimulus, which was about 1/8 second (Schultz and
Schultz 2008: 90; Fancher and Rutherford 2012: 190). It was hailed as an
important discovery which paved the way for a full-fledged development
of experimental psychology. On the other hand, this result was anticipated
by Spencer’s postulates of seriality of mental processing (see next section).
Below I will focus on a few prominent thinkers whose ideas had had
clear impact on Dewey as well as the field: Herbert Spencer (1820–1903),
Alexander Bain (1818–1903) and Wilhelm Wundt (1832–1920). They
were about a generation older than Dewey and their works dominated
the field, Spencer and Bain in England, Wundt in Germany, during the
said period. Dewey read and frequently quoted their work in his Psychology
(1887). I will also briefly cover the philosophical development and physi-
ological research of the said period to give a comprehensive picture of the
nineteenth-century zeitgeist.
Herbert Spencer and Evolutionary Theory

Life and Works
Herbert Spencer was the single most famous European intellectual in the
closing decade of the nineteenth century (Taylor 1996: ix–x). He was
born to a middle-class family in Derby, an industrial town in England.
His father, a teacher interested in science and philosophy, took young
Spencer to lectures of Derby Philosophical Society where he was exposed
to philosophical and political debates. In his teens, Spencer was taught by
his uncle but he never went to college.3
At age 17, Spencer entered the job market as a railroad engi-
neer. As railway lines mushroomed into big business, Spencer helped
entrepreneurs sell railroad ventures on the drawing board! He also tried
to become an inventor, designed and patented many products but failed
3 In nineteenth-century England, university education belonged to the church and the

aristocracy. Spencer came from a nonconformist Methodist family and was socially denied
the chance of college education.
52 R. LI
to market them. By 1848, he became a journalist with The Economist and

started his editing and writing career.
It was in mid-nineteenth-century London working with The Economist
that Spencer became acquainted with a group of pioneering intellectuals
and was exposed to the frontier of ideas. His first book, Demostatics
(Social Statics ), published in 1851, was meant to be a scientific trea-
tise of how society and democracy might work to attain happiness.
From political theory, Spencer soon turned to psychology. He learned
his philosophy and psychology from George Lewes (1817–1878) and his
biology from Thomas Huxley (1825–1895): both were his close friends.
A self-made scholar aspired to be a Newton in psychology,4 Spencer’s
intense self-study for three years on philosophy and psychology led to The
Principles of Psychology (1855) which made him known to the field. By
1859, he reached his insight: evolution as a unifying principle explaining
everything, the physical world, the biological world, the human world,
psychology and society. Thereafter, he launched his Synthetic Philosophy
(The System of Philosophy), a 10-volume work including biology, sociology
and political theory, which took him 36 years, 1860–1896, to complete.
Evolutionary Principles
The concept of evolution was in the zeitgeist of Europe long before
Charles Darwin and Herbert Spencer expounded on it. Its origin may
be traceable to Erasmus Darwin (1732–1802), Charles Darwin’s grand-
father, who believed that species developed according to natural laws by
adaptation to their environment. This idea was further elaborated by Jean-
Baptiste Lamarck (1744–1829), a French biologist who postulated the
theory of “inheritance of acquired characteristics,” i.e., the characteris-
tics favoring adaptation and survival will be passed onto the offspring of
the species through reproduction. Already in the first half of nineteenth
century, the idea of evolution was in the air and had become popular,
and Spencer coined the term “survival of the fittest” as early as 1852,5
six years before Charles Darwin (1809–1882) and Alfred Wallace (1823–
1913) read their papers on evolution to the Linnean Society, with the
4 In writing his psychology, Spencer declared, “My private opinion is that it will stand
beside Newton’s Principia” (Wiltshire 1978: 56).
5 See Wiltshire (1978: 68). A more detailed description can be found in Francis (2007,
Chapter 12).
former publishing the epoch-making On the Origin of Species by Means of

Natural Selection in 1859. While Lamarckism stressed acquired charac-
teristics and Darwinism focused on natural selection of the environment,
it was Spencer who gave evolution its philosophical and theoretical frame-
work, making it a ubiquitous all-encompassing principle behind every
existence.
Evolutionary Theory Goes to America

One should not underestimate Spencer’s impact on American psychology,
John Dewey in particular. As I mentioned in Chapter 1, Dewey read
Huxley’s Elements of Physiology (1868) and Spencer’s Principles of
Psychology (1872 edition) in his college years. In his Principles, Spencer
started with reasoning and perception and ended in life, mind and
intelligence. He saw human intelligence as a process of evolution with
continuation and progression. His postulates were: seriality of mental
processing, one-command center hypothesis and a framework of mental
package with memory, reason, feeling, will (MRFI), six laws of intel-
ligence, among others.6 The book had been widely used in American
colleges in 1870s and 1880s: William James used it in his first psychology
course taught at Harvard (Hergenhahn and Henley 2014: 283).
Spencer propounded democracy and liberty, which included economic
freedom and laissez-faire. Capitalism was seen as an evolution to perfec-
tion through “the survival of the fittest,” thus termed Social Darwinism.
His visit to the USA in 1882 was greeted enthusiastically by US busi-
nessmen, notably John D. Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie (Schultz and
Schultz 2008: 176; Hergenhahn and Henley 2014: 282). Readers should
be aware, however, that Spencer was critical of the pecuniary culture
and the rise of imperialism. While Dewey did not openly acknowledge
Spencer’s influence on him, Spencer’s scientific approach to psychology,
his analytical arguments and, most importantly, his evolutionary ideas find
their ways deep in Dewey, the ideas of which probably go beyond his
psychology.7
6 Readers may scan through Spencer’s Principles of Psychology. You may also refer to my
forthcoming book, The Psychology of Herbert Spencer, in press.
7 For Dewey’s view on Spencer’s ideas, readers may refer to The Philosophical Work of
Herbert Spencer (MW3: 193–209). See my discussion in Chapter 6 and 7 of this book.
54 R. LI
Alexander Bain and British

Association Psychology
Bain and the British Tradition
Alexander Bain and Herbert Spencer were contemporaries and they knew
each other. Bain studied in the University of Aberdeen, Scotland and
later became a professor there. Like Spencer, Bain was a gifted child
from a middle-class family: his father was a manufacturer. Bain showed
early intellectual precocity and was admitted to college to study mental
philosophy, mathematics and physics. Again like Spencer, he went to
London and worked as a freelance writer in more or less the same period,
where he got acquainted with an intellectual circle, including J. S. Mill
(1806–1873). They became lifetime friends in a mentor-mentee relation-
ship. Bain helped to edit Mill’s System of Logic for publication in 1843,
which was an instant success and became a must-read for many decades.
In it Mill argued for the possibility of a science of psychology: scien-
tific investigation of human nature, thought, feelings and action can be
accomplished. Borrowing the concept of elements and compounds from
chemistry, Mill proposed the idea of mental chemistry for the discovery
of primary and secondary laws of the human mind.
Bain carried Mill’s vision further by his own publication. His two clas-
sics, The Senses and the Intellect (1855) and The Emotions and the Will
(1859), became standard texts in psychology for many decades in England
and America. While Spencer’s Principles of Psychology explores the subject
from evolutionary principles, Bain’s followed the British empiricist tradi-
tion which started from John Locke (1632–1704). British psychology,
known earlier as mental philosophy, saw the human mind as an empty
slate (Tabula Rasa) with imprint of impressions and senses. This rich
tradition has grown from Locke, Berkeley, Hume to James Mill, J. S.
Mill’s father; all along the primary focus is on the association of ideas,
which can be explained by the laws of association, such as law of conti-
guity, law of frequency and law of similarity. Bain expanded it to include
the law of compound association, where an array of ideas comes into asso-
ciation, and the law of constructive association, which accounts for novel
ideas and creativity.
Being aware of the development of neurology of his time, Bain
studied them in detail and tried to map physiology with psychology,
i.e., to show how the physiological and biological processes correlate
with our mental states or behavior. Thus Bain represents the culmina-
tion of the British associationist tradition moving from sensation toward
physiological explanation.
Bain and Dewey

Association being the key conception of Bain’s psychology, his latest
version of association found its way a generation later in Dewey’s
Psychology, where “habit…… is the result of associative activities” (EW2:
100; Chapter 4, Process of Knowledge). Readers may be interested to
note that habit later became a cornerstone concept in Dewey’s theory
of human nature.
Dewey divided his Psychology into three parts: Part 1, Knowledge; Part
2, Feeling; Part 3, the Will. Quite coincidentally this is similar to Bain’s
taxonomy in his two classics. For Bain, the human mind has three compo-
nents: feeling, volition and intellect. However, this taxonomical similarity
should not deny Dewey’s integrating effort and originality. In addition to
the fact that Bain was frequently referred to in Dewey’s Psychology, Bain
founded Mind in 1876, the first journal of psychology in England, which
Dewey contributed to as a budding scholar in the 1880s.
The German Search of the Human Mind

Three Strands of Nine Scholars
As the standard psychology textbook tells it, modern psychology was
born in 1879 in the University of Leipzig, Germany, when Wilhelm
Wundt started his psychology laboratory. In the same year, Granville
Stanley Hall studied with Wundt, returned to America and established the
first psychology laboratory in Johns Hopkins in 1883 where Dewey was
trained.8 What Wundt represented was, in fact, the German philosoph-
ical tradition and a whole generation of German research on physiology
and psychology, leading to the founding of psychology, experimental
psychology to be exact, by Wundt.
8 After the first psychology laboratory founded in Leipzig in 1879, Muller founded the
second one in Göttingen in 1881, followed by Hall’s third one in 1983 in Johns Hopkins.
Before the turn of the century, dozens of psychology laboratories spread throughout the
world in 16 countries. No doubt Hall and Dewey are pioneers. See Brysbaert and Rastle
(2009: 95).
56 R. LI
Rationalist Experimental
Physiology
philosophy psychology
Leibniz Muller Weber
Kant Helmholtz Fechner
Herbart Fritsch & Hitzig
Wundt
Fig. 4.1 Three strands of psychological research before Wundt
But the story of German psychology is much more complex. There we

see the complex zeitgeist, the daunting intellectual tasks and many impor-
tant thinkers and researchers pushing the discipline ahead. For conceptual
clarity, I try to simplify and present them in three strands with nine impor-
tant figures, culminating into Wundt’s founding of the Leipzig laboratory
in 1879. Let me introduce them to you one by one (Fig. 4.1).
The Rational Mind of Leibniz, Kant, Herbart

It is generally accepted that German rationalism in philosophy started
from Leibniz, who postulated the innateness of the human mind, which
was reconceptualized by Kant into synthetic apriori and categories of
thought. The idea was further developed by Herbart into the appercep-
tion mass and mathematical psychology. Below is a short summary of
these eminent and watershed philosophers on pre-psychology (Table 4.1).
The Impossibility of Scientific Psychology

Interesting enough, Leibniz started with a computational metaphor of
the human mind, invented modern calculus and a calculating machine for
Table 4.1 Summary of key concepts and ideas of early philosophers on

psychology
Period/Affiliations Key concepts Major ideas
Gottfried Wilhelm • Apperception Leibniz postulated the innateness of the

Leibniz (1646–1716) • Monads human mind, where human disposition,
Court of Hanover, tendencies and natural potentials are innate
• Concept of
The Academy at (inborn). The human mind is active, and
Threshold
Berlin experience helps to realize its potentials.
• Hierarchy of Leibniz studied perception and proposed
consciousness the idea of unconscious perception (petites
• Innateness perception), which can be accumulated to
• Potential ideas reach a threshold (limen) to become
actualized consciousness, thus the notion of
apperception.
The invention of microscope leads to the
discovery of living micro-organisms beyond
the naked eye, which inspired Leibniz to
believe in a living universe: everything is
alive. Leibniz thus proposed the idea of
monads, infinite number of life units in the
universe. Its realization is in the
consciousness of human beings and finally
God. Modern readers may appreciate that
the embryonic shape of psychology was
conceived in theology mixed with
eighteenth-century science. In Chapter 5,
you will see how this idea was transformed
into universal consciousness initially
espoused by Dewey.
Immanuel Kant • Noumenal world Kant built on Leibniz and postulated two
(1724–1804) • Phenomenal world worlds, the noumenal world
University of (things-in-themselves) and the phenomenal
• Transcendental
Königsberg world (things-in-appearance). We can never
idealism
know the former, but we can know the
• Synthetic a priori latter through our human mind, with its
• Categories of categories of thought to structure our
thought experience. These categories are: unity,
• Impossibility of totality, time, space, cause and effect,
empirical psychology reality, quantity, quality, negation,
possibility, existence.
Kant believed these concepts are synthetic a
priori, meaning that they have content
(synthetic) and meaning and that they exist
before (prior) experience. Thus Kant’s
signature: “thoughts without content are
empty; intuition (sense impression) without
concepts are blinda ”
(continued)
58 R. LI
Period/Affiliations Key concepts Major ideas
Johann Friedrich • Apperception mass Herbart succeeded Kant as professor of

Herbart (1776–1841) • Equilibrium philosophy in the University of Konigsberg
University of in 1809 and wrote Textbook in Psychology
• Threshold of
Göttingen, (1816) and Psychology as a Science based on
consciousness
University of Experience, Metaphysics and Mathematics
Königsberg • Battleground of (1824–1825). His program is to
ideas mathematize psychology, where his focus is
• Mathematical to discover the mathematical formulas
psychology governing the emergence, appearance and
• Unconsciousness submergence of an idea or a group of
ideas, called apperceptive mass.
For Herbart, the human mind is a
storehouse and battleground of competing
ideas. Picking up the concept of monads
from Leibniz, Herbart believed that ideas
contain force or energy, like atoms and
planetary bodies that obey Newtonian laws
of motion. He also picked up the idea of
self-preservation in biology and believed
ideas tend to preserve themselves.
It is easy for readers to dismiss Herbart’s
theory as speculation. However, if we
substitute Herbart’s concepts with today’s
terminologies, such as replacing storehouse
with memory storage, competing ideas
with mental stickiness, apperceptive mass
with mental set, his theory is not at all
naive. The following contemporary
interpretation of “apperceptive mass of
consciousness” will suffice:
……the constellation of connected
elementary mental representations that
constitute the current object of
apperception or focused attention
(Greenwood, 2009, p. 297).
a Quoted from Greenwood (2009, p. 183). Readers can also find similar ideas in Scruton (2001): “a
mind without concepts would have no capacity to think; equally, a mind armed with concepts, but
with no sensory data to which they could be applied, would have nothing to think about” (p. 35).
multiplication and division. On the one hand, he inspired the develop-

ment of artificial intelligence three hundred years later, as Walter Pitts
(1923–1969) was interested in studying Leibniz and brought logical
calculus into artificial neural network in 1943. On the other hand, he
mystified the human mind with monads. When Kant built on Leibniz,
he rejected the possibility of studying the human mind (consciousness)
as an experimental science. In other words, psychology cannot be a

science. Kant’s view is straightforward: the mind is not a physical object
amiable to physical observation like science. Also, the mind (conscious-
ness) keeps moving and changing; once one starts looking into one’s
mind by introspection, the content will shift and change.
Herbart followed Kant and took the position that despite the impos-
sibility of scientific (experimental) psychology, we can mathematize it.
For example, the movements of concepts, their emergence, sinking and
suppressions, can be mathematically represented as follows:
While the arrested portion of the concept sinks, the sinking part is at every
moment proportional to the part unsuppressed.
By this it is possible to calculate the whole course of the sinking even
to the statical point.
Mathematically, the above law may be expressed: σ = S 1 − e−t in
which
S = the aggregate amount suppressed, t = the time elapsed during the
encounter,
σ = the suppressed portion of all the concepts in the time indicated
by t.
—(1816/1891, p. 395)9
Whether the above equation can be verified, psychology had already taken
the shape of a scientific discipline in the early nineteenth century in
Germany.
Physiological Research: The Science of Mind from Muller to Helmholtz

and Fritsch & Hitzig
When the British empiricists (Locke, Hume) studied sensation and took
it as impressions from the external world, to be “impressed” on the
mind, the German rationalists postulated an active mind with categories
of thought to structure human sensation and experience. The develop-
ment of physiology had led to the scientific reformulation of the sensation
problem: How is an external stimulus received by the sense organ and
central nervous system of an organism? How is that stimulus structured
and represented before it leads to response?
9 Quoted from Greenwood (2009: 297).

60 R. LI
Muller Identifying Kant’s Categories

Johannes Muller (1801–1858), a pioneer German physiologist with the
University of Berlin, proposed the notion of specific nerve energies and
adequate stimulation. Under the physical science paradigm where move-
ment of objects was seen as forces and energy, Muller postulated that a
specific sense organ (e.g., the ear) with its nerve conduction would receive
a specific stimulation (sound wave) of adequate intensity (pitch, tone,
etc.). Since different sense organs took up different types of stimulation
and formed different pictures, the sense organ, the central nervous system
and the cerebral hemispheres all played important parts in sensing. In
1833–1840, Muller published his Handbook of Physiology which summa-
rized the then existing knowledge of physiology. Muller worked on
the idea that the central nervous system was the intermediary between
physical object and consciousness. He believed that the neurophysiolog-
ical structure determined sensation and he had found the physiological
equivalent of Kant’s “categories of thought.”
Helmholtz Measuring Nerve Conduction

When Muller believed that nerve conduction was instantaneous, his
student Hermann von Helmholtz (1821–1894) did not think so. He
challenged the instantaneous view and tried to measure nerve conduc-
tion: he found it to be 50–100 meters per second in humans. Trained
as a medical doctor and physiologist, Helmholtz was an epoch-making
scientist of the nineteenth century. Apart from measuring nerve conduc-
tion speed (1849), he had also formulated the principles of conservation
of energy (1847), the theory of color vision (1856–1868), the theory
of auditory perception, invented the ophthalmoscope, among others
(Fancher and Rutherford 2012: Chapter 4).
Helmholtz tried to explain how sensation (empirist concern) was
turned into perception (rationalist focus) by postulating an active mind,
its aprori, with the role of past experience and memory. He explained how
outside reality was interpreted and distorted inside through physiolog-
ical mechanisms by integrating rationalism with empiricism, Helmholtz’s
theory of mind is surprisingly modern and can serve as a guide to even
today’s understanding of perception through the conscious and uncon-
scious information processing paradigm. In this sense, he represents the
best German tradition on the science of mind started from Descartes
to Leibniz and Kant. On the one hand, Kant’s categories of thought
had guided Helmholtz in his physiological search and research. On the
other hand, Helmholtz had enriched and substantiated Kant with science
and experimentation. His idea of mental distortion and a functional view
of mind is still with us today (Hergenhahn and Henley 2014: 227).
Thus, Helmholtz was honored for anticipating many theories of cognitive
psychology in late twentieth century (Greenwood 2009: 227).
Fritsch and Hitzig Discovering Brain Localization

Of course, neurophysiological research continued to flourish after
Helmholtz. One important discovery was the localization of cognitive
functions of the cerebral cortex. On the stimulation side, it had long
been shown that nerve conduction was electrical by nature. Gustav
Fritsch (1839–1927) and Eduard Hitzig (1838–1907), contemporaries
of Wundt, conducted electrical currents to different parts of the cere-
bral cortex of a dog and found muscular contractions of specific parts
of the animal body. It was published in 1870, entitled On the Electrical
Excitability of the Cerebrum. Their results excited not only the dog’s brain
but also the science community! An even younger British neurologist,
David Ferrier (1843–1928), who had a unique background, joined the
game. As a medical student, Ferrier worked as a scientific assistant to the
already established British psychologist Alexander Bain, who, being aware
of the pioneering research in Germany, sent Ferrier to learn the latest
techniques in Heidelberg. Upon return and getting his medical degree,
Ferrier worked in King’s College Hospital in London. He successfully
replicated Fritsch and Hitzig’s results on rabbits, guinea pigs, dogs and
even monkeys. The localization of motor functions on the animal cere-
bral cortex was clear: specific areas of the motor cortex mapped with the
specific movement (involuntary muscular contraction) of the body. Ferri-
er’s watershed work was published in The Functions of the Brain in 1876
(Fancher and Rutherford 2012: 113–114).
Measuring Sensation: Weber and Fechner

Remember that Kant started with a subjective mind and the British
empiricists took the subjectivity of sensation as impression from the
real objective world. Now how can scientists objectively study subjective
sensation, which is an internal process and inner, personal experience?
When we cut open a frog (even a human being), all we see are nerve
fibers, sense organs and neural structures. We can identify the process
such as nerve conduction speed and the location (cerebral hemisphere),
62 R. LI
but we can hardly find sensation, nor how this subjective sensation is
experienced. Philosophers insist correctly that the color red in an object
such as a red apple is not the same as the sensation of redness in a human
being. The first ominous question for the hard-nose scientist: How can
we measure sensation? Is there any way to measure it at all?
Weber’s Notion of Just Noticeable Differences

Ernest Heinrich Weber (1795–1878) studied and taught in the University
of Leipzig. As a physiologist he studied the sensation of touch of the
bodily skin in relation to touch, pressure, temperature and pain. Here is
how he capitalized on Leibniz’s concept of threshold. He used very fine
needles (a compass-like device) to touch two points on the bodily skin
and asked the human subject to report when he sensed the difference. In
this way, he was able to measure the distance between two points to have
sensation. His findings are: the smallest two-point distance (threshold)
is on the tongue, about 1 mm, while the largest two-point distance is
on the back, about 60 mm. Readers may be interested to read his One
Touch: Anatomical and Physiological Notes (1834). Applying this concept
to weight lifting, Weber asked a subject to lift a weight, say, 100 gm, and
add in a gram to see if the subject would notice or sense any difference.
The result: the subject could hardly tell the difference between 100 gm
and 101 gm, but could sense the difference between 100 gm and 103 gm!
Thus born the concept of just noticeable difference (jnd). In effect, Weber
was ingeniously measuring subjective sensation, not objective weights. He
had discovered the law of sensation through just noticeable difference,
soon known as Weber’s Law.
Fechner’s Psychophysics
What Weber demonstrated was that subjective mental sensation could
be amiable to scientific measurement and treatment. He had opened
up a path of experimental psychology. His colleagues at Leipzig, Gustav
Theodor Fechner (1801–1887), went further. Fechner studied medicine,
also in Leipzig, and later became a professor of physics there in 1840.
He proposed psychophysics which can be seen as building on Weber and
Herbart.
Remember Herbart’s idea of apperceptive mass, where ideas were
seen as entities possessing energy with force and movement. His system
was called “psychic mechanics” and he seriously tried to mathematize
psychology, i.e., to present the complex mental phenomenon of ideas in

a mathematical model.
When Herbart’s ambition of quantifying ideas looked like mission
impossible in 1824, Weber soon showed success in quantifying and
measuring sensation by jnd in 1834. Fechner, laboring through the
mind-body problem, tried to find a relationship between body (physical
stimulus) and mind (sensation). In his Elements of Psychophysics (1860),
he showed that the change of sensation (S) is a log function of the phys-
ical stimulus (R): in order for a change of sensation to be noticeable, the
change of stimulation has to be enormous. Mathematically speaking, for
sensation to increase arithmetically, the stimulation has to be increased
geometrically:
S = k log R
Fechner worked on with his mathematics to construct an absolute

threshold and differential threshold to measure sensation. To improve
his measurement, he proposed several methods such as the method of
limits, the method of constant stimulus and the method of adjustment.
Measuring sensation is no more equivocal. Readers may think Fechn-
er’s insights of psychophysics belong to history of nineteenth-century
German psychology. Not so. Much research interest in psychophysics has
continued in the twentieth century and today it has developed into many
state-of-the-art measuring techniques for the study of any sensory system:
vision, hearing, touch or taste (Kingdom and Prins 2010: 1). All these
techniques are now programmable in software packages.
Wilhelm Wundt Laboring

German Experimental Psychology
Wundt Apprenticing Under Muller and Helmholtz
Wilhelm Wundt (1832–1920) studied medicine in the University of
Heidelberg and graduated summa cum laude in 1855, after which he
studied with Muller in Berlin and became interested in experimental phys-
iology. In 1857–1864, he returned to Heidelberg and worked as a dozent
(research assistant) under Helmholtz. His duties were to give labora-
tory work of physiological practicum (such as the conduction of nerve
impulse) to graduating medical students. Wundt stayed in Heidelberg
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until 1874, moved to the University of Zurich for a year and then settled
in the University of Leipzig in 1875 for his remaining academic career.
As outlined above, Wundt drew on the rich German soil of philosophy,
physiology and experimental psychology. Muller’s work and the stimu-
lating intellectual atmosphere in Berlin inspired him (Boring 1950: 318).
Then he worked in the same laboratory with Helmholtz for 13 years. As
early as 1858, he was attracted by Herbart’s work on psychology, who
tried to mathematize psychology, consciousness and ideas but rejected
the possibility of experimental psychology. Simultaneously, Wundt picked
up the methodology and ideas from Fechner’s Elements of Psychophysics,
published in 1860, and the notion of scientific psychology. Such was the
zeitgeist when Wundt published Contributions to the Theory of Perception
(1862), Lectures on Human and Animal Psychology (1865) and later his
two-volume seminal work, Principles of Physiological Psychology (1874).
To quote a historian of psychology:
……Wundt has told us more of his own thinking. It was about 1858
that Herbart’s Psychologie als Wissenschaft especially engaged him in the
days when he was first beginning to lecture on the general principles of
natural science. It was then that he came to the conclusion that psychology
must be Wissenschaft, but that, als Wissenschaft, it must be dependent upon
experiments as Herbart had said it is not. For many years Wundt had to
fight the Herbartian tradition, but nevertheless it was Herbart that gave
to him, as well as to Fechner, the notion of a scientific psychology…… in
1862, he had had the benefit of much thought and lecturing and of Fech-
ner’s Elemente and could speak easily of an “experimental psychology”.
(Boring 1950: 321)
An Active Mind with Will and Volition

Kurt Danziger, a researcher on Wundt, pointed out that Wundt was
indebted to Leibniz, of whom he made numerous references (1980:
75–76). But as we showed earlier, it is the whole German philosophy
tradition—Leibniz, Kant, Herbart—that he should pay tribute to. More
specifically, this rationalist tradition postulates an active human mind,
which was substantiated with physiology and experiment from Muller,
Helmholtz to Wundt. Wundt’s psychology is now termed voluntarism,
i.e., human beings have will and volition, leading to selective attention,
focus, purpose and even motivation.
To start with, Muller worked with the nervous system and wanted to
show how the categories of thought have transformed sensory informa-
tion for our understanding. Helmholtz went further and postulated that
the past experience of a person may convert a sensation into a perception
through abundant information received from the various sense organs.
An unconscious inference is going on with our memory. This concep-
tion is very much in line with our present-day theory of cognition: much
incoming information is discarded while some is processed, matched with
our memory, unconsciously and consciously, before it comes into our
consciousness.
Apparently Wundt built on this sensation-convert-perception thesis
and made a distinction between sensation and feeling, perception and
apperception, which are mediated and controlled by the will. According
to Wundt, sensation has modality, intensity and qualities; feeling has three
dimensions on a continuum: pleasantness-unpleasantness, excitement-
calmness, strain-relaxation. The intake of sensation from external
stimulation, mediated by neural structures and mechanisms (Muller’s
idea), becomes perception after mapping with our past experiences
(Helmholtz’s idea). The selection of the perceptual field becomes apper-
ception (terms from Herbart and Leibniz). When the will selects attention
and acts on it, it is the active mind (Kant’s view) and voluntarism.
Experimental Psychology with Introspection

For Wundt, the subject matter of psychology is consciousness. His
method is to establish experimental conditions where variables can be
manipulated and observed in a laboratory. His research program is to
start with perception, followed by apperception, i.e., the accumulation
of perception into ideas, and then the human will. Despite its scientific
outlook, Wundt had to rely on introspection, or internal inspection, i.e.,
the subjective verbal reports of his subject to use his mind to “observe his
own mind.” Note that Wundt delineated his experimental introspection
from the British pure introspection. The latter is just free association; an
example would be Berkeley’s perception of distance (Hergenhahn and
Henley, 2014: 133). Wundt’s version is one with experimental condi-
tions and procedures for measurement; an example would be Muller’s
weight-lifting experiment. Wundt made a distinction between Innere
Wahrnebmung (internal perception) and Experimentelle Selbstbeobach-
tung (experimental self-observation) (Brysbaert and Rastle 2009: 88).
66 R. LI
However, introspection was seen as a paradox and numerous assaults

on its reliability had been staged for the past century. Surprisingly, some
latest cognitive scientists of the twenty-first century are now taking intro-
spection more seriously,10 while at the same time more sophisticated
measurement tools have been invented to measure sensation without
relying on the subjects’ reports.11
Like Wundt and most psychologists of his time, Dewey espoused
consciousness as the subject matter of psychology and stressed many
times that consciousness is a fact.12 He also approached psychology
like Wundt from knowledge (ideas) to the will. However, while Dewey
accepted science and experimentation, he was critical of introspection,
arguing that “we cannot experiment directly with facts of conscious-
ness” and “there is no such thing as pure observation in the sense of
a fact being known without assimilation and interpretation through ideas
already in the mind” (EW2: 13). In effect, Dewey was criticizing the
British pure introspection. It is clear that the legacies of Kant’s “cate-
gories of thought,” Leibniz’s “apperception” and “innate idea” (EW1:
31),13 Herbart’s “apperception mass” were most evident in Dewey’s early
thoughts on psychology.
Phrenology, Pseudo-Science and Mysticism

The Flourishing “Phrenology Industry”
But it is not easy to decide what is science and what is not. An example
is phrenology. It was started by an Italian physician and anatomist Franz
Josef Gall (1758–1828) who dissected deceased brains. Gall studied the
size and shape of the human skull and proposed that the shape of a
person’s skull reveals mental characteristics such as conscientiousness,
10 See, for example, Dehaene, S. (2014). Consciousness and the Brain—Deciphering How
the Brain Codes Our Thoughts. New York, NY: Penguin Books.
11 See, for example, Eagleman, D. (2011). Incognito—The Secret Lives of The Brain.
New York, NY: Vintage Books.
12 Dewey has repeated this many times, such as in Chapter 1 of Psychology (EW 2: 7, 11,
13) and The New Psychology (EW 1: 59). More emphatically, in Psychology as Philosophic
Method he wrote “self-consciousness is indeed a fact (I do not fear the word)” (EW 1:
151).
13 Dewey’s PhD Thesis in 1884 was on Kant’s psychology. His book on Leibniz
appeared in 1888.
benevolence and self-esteem. Interesting enough, Gall gained this by his

not-so-scientific observation: as a school boy he observed that his class-
mates with large prominent eyes excelled in memory (Greenwood 2009:
205). Gall’s theory, somewhat revolutionary and evolutionary, is that the
budge of an area on the human skull indicates strength and the indenta-
tion indicates weak abilities. By 1834, phrenologists proposed 35 affective
and intellectual faculties mapped on the surface of the human head!
Phrenology became a big business, phrenological societies were formed,
phrenology journals and newsletters were published, which became a part
of public knowledge of psychology and zeitgeist of nineteenth century.
The flourishing “phrenology industry” in Europe and America was clear
evidence that the public were most curious and keen to know their own
mental capabilities and character traits, in short, their own psychology.14
Mental Phenomena Unexplained

In the same vein, it is not easy to distinguish what is psychology proper
and what is not. There are numerous psychic phenomena, welded with
mysticism, which are hard to explain, by formal psychology. Today we
call them parapsychology, which is considered outside the province of
respectable academic psychology. Not so a century ago. Leading intellec-
tuals in Europe such as Alexander Bain and Augustine Comte endorsed
phrenology. Even William James (1842–1910), a leading philosopher-
psychologist at Harvard and close associate of Dewey, enthusiastically
embraced parapsychology, founded the American Society for Psychical
Research in 1885 and served as its president in 1894 (Pickren and Ruther-
ford 2010: 80; Hergenhahn and Henley 2014: 332). In addition, The
American National Spiritual Association was formed in 1893.
Parapsychology includes all kinds of unexplained mental phenomena:
mesmerism, hypnotism, telepathy, clairvoyance, mind reading (thought
transference), trance states, mediumship. It originated in the Victorian
enthusiasm for spiritualism, a world of spirits and life after death (Smith
2013: 164). They were later termed psychic phenomena (psi), grouped
mostly under extrasensory perception (ESP) and psychokinesis (PK).
Naturally, with breakthroughs in most domains in natural science in the
14 It is of interest to note that Francis Galton, a British gentleman-scholar, set up an

“anthropometric laboratory” in London in 1884 to measure a wide variety of human
physical and mental traits. He got nearly 10,000 volunteer subjects.
68 R. LI
second half of nineteenth century, the public were expecting the same
in psychology. The invention of x-rays and wireless telegraph is a case
in point. Since x-rays and other energy rays with different wavelengths
exist but cannot be detected by the naked eye, it is natural for the
public to expect psychology to discover some unknown human psychic
energy. Telepathy and clairvoyance appears a sensible possibility. This may
mean the unleashing of man’s enormous mental and psychical power, the
discovery of man’s ultimate mental secret, and the uses of psychological
laws for the betterment of humankind. But they rely on psychologists to
tell them what is science and what is not, what is possible and what is
sheer nonsense. That is why Hugo Munsterberg, a German psychologist
who came to teach psychology in Harvard in 1892, was constantly asked
to comment on spiritual, mystic or paranormal phenomena (Pickren and
Rutherford 2010: 81).
Dewey and Zeitgeist in Psychology

After reading this chapter, I hope readers should have had a rough idea
of what psychology was like in 1880s when Dewey ventured into the
field. I have tried to show you that it was a highly complex field, with
keen competition between British and German researchers, plus rampant
innovation in ideas and method, not to say the traditional heritage from
philosophy, such as Descartes’ mind-body phenomenon, Kant’s categories
of thought and Hegel’s Absolute and Reason. There are also blind fad
alleys, such phrenology and parapsychology that dominate the public
expectation on psychology. And there are dark tunnels that took a century
to get rid of the spell, such as introspection and faculty psychology. The
field has evolved to very high complexity and it is not easy to conquer
by a few new ideas. That Dewey navigated through them and became a
known figure is no sheer luck. Nor is he just the right person at the right
time. Quite the opposite, he is an exceptionally talented young American
scholar whose relentless ardent effort finally pays off.
A century has passed and Dewey’s ideas have stood the test of time.
Most noticeably, he was ranked as one of the 53 most highly rated impor-
tant psychologists from 1600 to 1967. The list included most names
covered in this chapter: Spencer, Wundt, James, Mill, Helmholtz, Hall,
to name just a few. In other words, Dewey is part of psychology’s history.
The ratings were made by a panel of nine distinguished scholars on a list

of 1040 candidates15 (Annin et al. 1968).
Of the eleven major thinkers surveyed in this chapter, some have had
more impact on Dewey’s thoughts than others. This is to be expected
because a person will pick up ideas that he or she deems important and
relevant within a zeitgeist. As we shall see in the next few chapters, Dewey
is more attuned to the ideas of German philosophy than to German physi-
ology or experimental psychology. Philosophy is a path that he had already
picked, consciously or unconsciously, in his college and graduate school
years.
Further Readings
This chapter dwells on many nineteenth-century thinkers. Readers may
find the following reading list useful:
Herbert Spencer
Francis, M. (2007). Herbert Spencer and the Invention of Modern Life.
Stocksfield: Acumen Publishing.
Mingardi, A. (2011). Herbert Spencer. London: Continuum Interna-
tional Publishing Group.
Wiltshire, D. (1978). The Social and Political Thought of Herbert
Spencer. London: Oxford University Press.
The above books are helpful to decipher Spencer’s life and his ideas.
Francis’ work is especially illuminating by offering a plausible psycholog-
ical interpretation on Spencer’s autobiography.
Alexander Bain
Bain, A. (1855) (Reprinted 1998). The Senses and The Intellect. New
York: Thoemmes Press.
Bain, A. (1859) (Reprinted 1998). The Emotions and The Will. New
York: Thoemmes Press.
15 Curious enough, Alexander Bain was not included. It is clear that Bain is highly
important, though not “highly rated.” As a testimony, his two books, The Senses and The
Intellect (1855) and The Emotions and The Will (1859) were listed and reprinted in R.
H. Wozniak (Ed.) (1998). Classics in Psychology (1855–1914), A Collection of Key Works.
London: Thoemmes Press.
70 R. LI
Bain’s two classics summarized the British tradition of associationist

psychology of nineteenth century.
Gottfried W. Leibniz
Dewey, J. (1888). Leibniz’s News Essays Concerning The Human
Understanding (LW2: 251–435).
Interesting enough, Dewey studied Leibniz in his college years and
wrote about him. He published the above in 1888 in a series enti-
tled German Philosophical Classics for English Readers and Students. By
reading Dewey’s reconstruction of Leibniz’s ideas, readers can understand
more about Leibniz as well as how his ideas influenced Dewey.
Immanuel Kant
Scruton, R. (2001). Kant: A Very Short Introduction. New York:
Oxford University Press.
Scruton gave a short and clear account of Kant’s life and works.
Johann Herbart
Kim, Alan, “Johann Friedrich Herbart”, The Stanford Encyclopedia
of Philosophy (Winter 2015 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (Ed.), https://
plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2015/entries/johann-herbart/.
Boring, E. G. (1950). A History of Experimental Psychology. Upper
Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall Inc.
Kim’s paper offers a comprehensive outline of Herbart’s psychology,
ethics and pedagogy. Boring’s Chapter 13 devoted a section on Herbart
and is easy to read.
Wilhelm Wundt
All textbooks today on the history of psychology will naturally cover
Wundt. The older generation, such as G. Stanley Hall and E. G. Boring,
wrote about Wundt. Readers may refer to the following:
(1) Bringmann, W. G., & Tweney, R. D. (Eds.). (2002). Wundt

Studies. Göttingen: Hogrefe.
(2) Danziger, K. (1990). Constructing the Subject, Historical Origins of
Psychological Research. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
(3) Hall, G. S. (1912). Founders of Modern Psychology. New York:

Appleton.
Psychology & Zeitgeists
(1) Simonton, D. K. (2002). Great Psychologists and Their Times:

Scientific Insights into Psychology’s History. Washington: American
Psychological Association.
Simonton is a psychologist whose academic career is devoted
to the study of genius, creativity and eminence by histometric
methods. This book, an outgrowth of his empirical study in the
100th anniversary of the founding of American Psychological Asso-
ciation in 1992, gave a scientific (empirical) account of the history
of psychology by studying the personal characteristics, family, life
span, output of eminent psychologists, the zeitgeist and ortgeist.
(2) Smith, R. (2013). Between Mind and Nature: A History of
Psychology. London: Reaktion Books.
In this critical history, Smith tries to tell the story “from
the outside.” He starts from Descartes, traces the development
of psychology in different European countries and America the
“professionalization” of the discipline and the changing social
context.
(3) Hergenhahn, B. R., & Henley, T. (2014). An Introduction to the
History of Psychology (7th ed). Wadsworth: Cengage Learning.
It is a comprehensive textbook on the history of psychology. The
authors focus less on personality than psychological ideas that grow
and change over time. It starts from ancient Greece to present-day
postmodernism and readers can easily pick people, periods or ideas
that interest them.
(4) Fancher R. E. & Rutherford, A. (2012). Pioneers of Psychology, A
History (4th ed). New York: W. W. Norton.
This textbook starts from Descartes and ends with Ulric Neis-
ser’s cognitive psychology. It contains numerous names of key
pioneers and terminologies to guide novices to the discipline. The
suggested readings will lead to more in-depth research.
72 R. LI
Phrenology & Parapsychology

Of helpful introduction is Roger Smith’s Between Mind and Nature
(2015), which offers a short summary on parapsychology with further
readings (pp. 163–169). It is amusing to see Smith putting behaviorism,
phrenology and parapsychology side by side like buffet dishes in his
Chapter 5: Varieties of Science.
The following books may give a comprehensive account of the subject:
(1) Hartley, L. (2001). Physiognomy and The Meaning of Expression

in Nineteenth-Century Culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
(2) Xiong, J. H. (2008). The Outline of Parapsychology. Lanham:
University Press of America.
(3) Wolman, B. B. (1977). Handbook of Parapsychology. New York: Van
Nostrand Reinhold.
Most textbooks on the history of psychology will cover
phrenology. Of particular interest is C. James Goodwin’s book,
which gives a close-up on the marketing of phrenology (Goodwin
2015: 65–68).
(4) Goodwin, C. J. (2015). A History of Modern Psychology (5th ed).
Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.
References
Annin, E. L., Boring, E. G., & Watson, R. I. (1968). Important Psychologists,
1600–1967. Journal of the History of the Behavioural Sciences, 4, 303–315.
Boakes, R. (1984). From Darwin to Behaviourism: Psychology and the Mind of
Animals. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Boring, E. G. (1950). A History of Experimental Psychology. Upper Saddle River,
NJ: Prentice Hall Inc.
Brysbaert, M., & Rastle, K. (2009). Historical and Conceptual Issues in
Psychology. New York: Pearson.
Burrow, J. W. (2000). The Crisis of Reason: European Thought, 1848–1914. Yale:
Yale University Press.
Chadwick, O. (1975). The Secularization of the European Mind in the Nineteenth
Century. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Danziger, K. (1980). Wundt and the Two Traditions of Psychology. In R.

W. Rieber (Ed.), Wilhelm Wundt and the Making of a Scientific Psychology
(pp. 73–87). New York: Plenum.
Dewey, J. (1939). Biography of John Dewey. In P. A. Schilpp (Ed.). The
Philosophy of John Dewey, p. 10. New York: Tudor Publishing Company.
Fancher, R. E., & Rutherford, A. (2012). Pioneers of Psychology (4th ed.). New
York: W. W. Norton.
Goodwin, C. J. (2015). A History of Modern Psychology. Hoboken, NJ: John
Wiley & Sons Inc.
Greenwood, J. D. (2009). A Conceptual History of Psychology. New York:
McGraw-Hill Higher Education.
Hergenhahn, B. R., & Henley, T. (2014). An Introduction to the History of
Psychology (7th ed.). Wadsworth: Cengage Learning.
Kingdom, F. A. A., & Prins, N. (2010). Psychophysics: A Practical Introduction.
London: Academic Press.
Pickren, W. E., & Rutherford, A. (2010). A History of Modern Psychology in
Context. Upper Saddle River, NJ: John Wiley.
Schultz, D. P., & Schultz, S. E. (2008). A History of Modern Psychology (9th
ed.). Boston: Cengage Learning.
Scruton, R. (2001). Kant: A Very Short Introduction. New York: Oxford
University Press.
Simonton, D. K. (2002). Great Psychologists and Their Times: Scientific Insights
into Psychology’s History. Washington: American Psychological Association.
Smith, R. (2013). Between Mind and Nature: A History of Psychology. London:
Reaktion Books.
Taylor, M. (1996). The Philosophy of Herbert Spencer. New York, NY: Blooms-
bury.
Wiltshire, D. (1978). The Social and Political Thought of Herbert Spencer.
London: Oxford University Press.
CHAPTER 5
A Psychological Manifesto and Philosophic

Method
Introduction: Dewey the Budding Psychologist

All thinkers and their ideas are products of their time and milieu. In
Chapter 3, I outline how Dewey was influenced in graduate school by his
teachers, Morris, Hall and Peirce. In Chapter 4, I present the Zeitgeist
of psychology in Dewey’s formative years. In this chapter, I will examine
how Dewey navigated through psychology in 1884–1886 in his three
papers, The New Psychology, The Psychology Standpoint and Psychology as
Philosophic Method. As we shall see, the first paper, shining with brilliance,
had not been taken seriously. The second and third, which appeared on a
top academic journal, was greeted with serious criticism. It did not deter
Dewey, as he had already been moving on to become a textbook writer
of psychology!
The New Psychology

A Psychological Manifesto
This debut of Dewey’s in March 1884 can be seen as a psychological
manifesto but is often neglected and misunderstood.1 At age 25, Dewey
was bold enough to take stock of the whole field and spell out his view. In
1 It was published in Andover Review, II (September 1884), pp. 278–289.

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-7941-7_5
76 R. LI
a short masterful passage of less than 250 words, Dewey made numerous
points depicting the picture of the human mind:
We know better now. …… We see that man is somewhat more than a

neatly dovetailed psychical machine who may be taken as an isolated indi-
vidual, laid on the dissecting table of analysis and duly anatomized. We
know that his life is bound up with the life of society, of the nation in the
ethos and nomos; we know that he is closely connected with all the past by
the lines of education, tradition, and heredity; we know that man is indeed
the microcosm who has gathered into himself the riches of the world, both
of space and of time, the world physical and the world psychical. We know
also of the complexities of the individual life. We know that our mental
life is not a syllogistic sorites, but an enthymeme most of whose members
are suppressed; that large tracts never come into consciousness; that those
which do get into consciousness, are vague and transitory, with a meaning
hard to catch and read; are infinitely complex, involving traces of the entire
life history of the individual, or are vicarious, having significance only in
that for which they stand; that psychical life is a continuance, having no
breaks into “distinct ideas which are separate existences”; that analysis is
but a process of abstraction, leaving us with a parcel of parts from which
the “geistige Band” is absent; that our distinctions, however necessary, are
unreal and largely arbitrary; that mind is no compartment box nor bureau
of departmental powers; (EW1: 48–49)
This obscure style of nineteenth-century academic English should not

conceal the brilliance and richness of Dewey’s ideas, which is summarized
below in eight theses for twenty-first-century readers:
• That man is not a psychical machine for easy anatomy;

• That life exists within society and nation with ethos and norms;
• That an individual’s life is connected to his past, education, tradition
and heredity;
• That man is a microcosm within time and space, with complexity of
individual life, psychic and physical;
• That consciousness is vague, transitory, complex, involving an indi-
vidual’s life history of meaning and significance; that psychic life is
in continuance, not distinct;
• That there are large tracts of unconsciousness;
• That mental life is not only logical reasoning; mind is not a
compartment box or an executive office with departmental powers;
5 A PSYCHOLOGICAL MANIFESTO AND PHILOSOPHIC METHOD 77
• That breaking up mental life for psychological analysis is but a

process of arbitrary abstraction.
That Dewey’s conception of human mind is pioneering is without doubt.

He rejected the idea of treating man as a machine, which started from
Descartes. He stressed the societal dimension of consciousness; in fact he
arrived at this idea independent of George Herbert Mead (1863–1931),
an eminent social psychologist who argued that the human mind arises
out of society and social interaction. Mead later became Dewey’s close
colleague in Michigan and Chicago. When Dewey suggested that human
consciousness is “vague and transitory,” he is ahead of William James
(1842–1912), who spelt out of the notion of “stream of consciousness,”
which appeared six years later (The Principles of Psychology, 1890). As for
the idea of unconsciousness, Dewey spot it before Sigmund Freud (1856–
1939) expanded it into psychoanalysis. At that time in 1884, Freud was
still in Vienna studying brain anatomy and believed in the physical expla-
nation of mental disorder. Of course, Dewey did not invent all these
terms and metaphors (psychical machine, unconsciousness, stream, exec-
utive office): they were all in the zeitgeist and Dewey integrated them to
create a picture of modern psychology.
The Zeitgeist and Physiological Psychology

Dewey started by criticizing old psychology and summarizing existing
researches, relating them to eighteenth-century zeitgeist, where “the
age of the eighteenth century…… found nothing difficult, which hated
mystery and complexity, which believed with all its heart in principles,
the simpler and more abstract the better” (EW1: 50). It was the age of
enlightenment filled with the sense of progress and optimism, scientism
and completion, for example, the French Encyclopedists. By the nine-
teenth century, the zeitgeist is reason, the “organized, systematic, tireless
study into the secrets of nature” (EW1: 51), and we are less naïve to
believe we know everything. For the old psychology, he saluted: “[they]
did the work well and departed.” (EW1: 49) and “the best we can do is
to thank them, and then go about our own work” (EW1: 50). For the
new work in psychology, he saw it in physiological psychology.
According to Dewey, with the increase of knowledge in the of the
nervous system, physiological psychology has “already thrown great
light upon psychical matters” (EW1: 52). He endorsed physiological
78 R. LI
psychology “a new instrument, introduced a new method—that of

experiment” which “produced a revolution in psychology” (EW1: 53).
Through experimentation in physiological psychology, researchers are
able to vary conditions and take quantitative measurements. The result:
accumulation of psychological “facts” such as the following:
This starts from the well-grounded facts that the psychical events known
as sensation arise through bodily stimuli, and that the psychical events
known as volitions result in bodily movements; and it finds in these facts
the possibility of the application of the method of experimentation. The
bodily stimuli and movements may be directly controlled and measured,
and thereby, indirectly, the psychical states which they excite or express.
(EW1: 53)
The new paradigm of physiological psychology has resulted in new

conceptions. Formerly, sensation is taken as an ultimate fact or impres-
sion by the British empiricists for Locke, Berkeley to Hume. Now it is
seen as a process built by color and muscular sensations, and affected by
psychical laws of interest, attention, interpretation, judgment, emotion,
volitions and so on. Consequently, “our perceptions are not imme-
diate facts, but are mediated psychical process” (EW1: 55). Physiological
psychology is to discover these psychological laws and processes. Physio-
logical psychology can do so because the human physiological structure
and function can serve as an indirect deduction of the psychical process.
It is clear that Dewey has a well grasp of the German tradition of phys-
iological psychology. Dewey quoted attention, perception and memory
with breakthroughs by German psychologists (EW1: 55)2 . The deductive
method works like this:
That is to say, if a certain nervous arrangement can be made out to

exist, there is always a strong presumption that there is a psychical process
corresponding to it; or if the connection between two physiological nerve
processes can be shown to be of a certain nature, one may surmise that
the relation between corresponding psychical activities is somewhat anal-
ogous. In this way, by purely physiological discoveries, the mind may be
led to suspect the existence of some mental activity hitherto overlooked,
2 While Dewey did not name them, he was probably referring to the tradition of Weber,
Feshner and Wundt.
and attention directed to its workings, or light may be thrown on points

hitherto obscure. (EW1: 55)
Psychology as the Science of Human Experience

On the other hand, Dewey sees the limitation of physiological psychology
right from the start. He argues that physiology is not psychology: it is only
an indirect means of investigation into the psychical process and activities.
In short, the commonest view of physiological psychology seems to be that

it is a science which shows that some or all of the events of our mental
life are physically conditioned upon certain nerve-structures, and thereby
explains these events. Nothing could be further than the truth…… That
explanations of psychical events, in order to explain, must themselves be
psychical and not physiological. (EW1: 52)
Physiology explains only the physical mechanism, psychology has to

explain the whole human experience. Thus Dewey espouses concrete
experience and psychic life. He wants “to abandon logical and mathe-
matical analogy and rules” of “preconceived abstract ideas” (EW1: 60).
He wants to ground psychology in experience: “logic of fact, of process,
of life” (EW1: 59–60). So here is, more or less, the origin of Dewey’s
notion of experience. As we understand it, experience is the cornerstone
of Dewey’s psychology which he keeps developing and elaborating in his
later works. At that moment, however, Dewey’s notion of experience, its
method, nature and detail have not been spelt out.
New Psychology at the Center of Human Sciences

As for the scope of psychology, Dewey sees it all-encompassing and
permeating through all human sciences. “All these sciences possess their
psychological sides, present psychological material, and demand treatment
and explanation at the hands of psychology” (EW1: 57). Even “history
in its broadest aspect is itself a psychological problem” (EW1: 58). I
would say that, in this Deweyan view, psychology is the center of human
and social sciences. From a macro-perspective and explanation, it touches
upon myths, customs, ethics, languages, nations, art, morality, etc. From
a micro and individual perspective and explanation, it draws upon “facts”
80 R. LI
from the cradle, asylum, prison, children’s mind, feeling, insanity (EW1:
57–58). For Dewey, psychology includes:
……the commonest thoughts of every-day life in all its forms, whether

normal or abnormal. The cradle and the asylum are becoming the labora-
tory of the psychologist of the latter half of the nineteenth century. The
study of children’s minds, the discovery of their actual thoughts and feel-
ings from babyhood up, the order and nature of the development of their
mental life and the laws governing it, promises to be a mine of greatest
value. When it was recognized that insanities are neither supernatural inter-
ruptions nor utterly inexplicable “visitations,” it gradually became evident
that they were but exaggerations of certain of the normal workings of
the mind, or lack of proper harmony and co-ordination among these
workings…… (EW1: 58)
In 1884, Dewey called his vision The New Psychology with “undefined
topics of inquiry which may be vaguely designated as the social and histor-
ical sciences—the sciences of the origin and development of the various
spheres of man’s activity” (EW1: 56–57). This early version later became
his social psychology in his presidential address of American Psychological
Association (1899).
Review and Discussion

Paradoxes
Despite Dewey’s breadth and originality, there are a few paradoxes. First
is the paradox of Dewey’s new psychology—with abstract rules, logical
boxes, laws and principles. Abstractions are inevitable in doing science.
It appears Dewey does not specify what abstractions are acceptable and
what are not. Second, Dewey has attacked Hume for his abstractions
and “nominalistic thought,” calling it “formalistic intuitionalism” (EW1:
59). This is unjustified because Hume’s contribution to pre-psychology
and British associationism is enormous and far-reaching; his insights on
human nature, reason and emotion, habits of mind have become part of
our intellectual heritage. What a paradox that Dewey’s notions of habit
and Experience have been treated extensively by Hume. Third, Dewey
may have committed naïve empiricism by asking the reader to “take a
look into the actual processes of his own mind, the actual course of
the mental life there revealed, and he will realize how utterly impossible
were the description, much more the explanation, of what goes there”
(EW1: 50). In other words, he supports his postulates by appealing to

the senses—naïve empiricism—which he is very critical of. Now, how can
mind studying mind, where is the limit? This is the most important para-
doxical question that he did not follow up. Finally, another paradox on
reason and belief is elaborated below.
Against Faculty Psychology and Introspection

Throughout this article, Dewey attacks faculty psychology and introspec-
tion. This is to be expected because Dewey, by his Hegelian philosophical
position, is against dualism. He sees the human mind as a unity, not
as a compartment of boxes. When phrenology with 35 affective and
intellectual faculties of the human mind was discredited, so was faculty
psychology. However, unknown to Dewey, faculty psychology has its
revival in the second half of twentieth century with Jerry Fodor proposing
the modularity of mind3 and Howard Gardner arguing for multiple
intelligences.4 As for introspection, Dewey is only criticizing the British
armchair speculation of internal inspection. Under the training and influ-
ence of G. Stanley Hall, who learnt the trade from Wundt, Dewey in fact
supports experimental self-observation.
Neglected and Misunderstood

The New Psychology shows Dewey’s vision, breath and deep understanding
in psychology. It foreshadows his future elaboration on child psychology,
social psychology, thinking and its pitfalls, life experience and meaning,
existence and consciousness. It is definitely a contribution, though not
much recognized and discussed in the field, then and now. Hickman
and Alexander’s celebrated The Essential Dewey (1998) did not select
it. Fesmire’s Dewey (2015) did not mention it.5 When his sympathetic
biographer Jay Martin discussed it, he called it Dewey’s “first important
article” (Martin 2002: 79), where he was poised for a “creative leap,”
but then he “regressed to dutiful operations of his earliest faiths” (Martin
2002: 80). I think this interpretation is misleading and unjustified. All
3 See Fodor, J. (1983). Dewey espouses scientific psychology with experimental

conditions.
4 See Gardner, H. (1983). Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences. New
York, NY: Basics Books.
5 Scanning through Fesmire’s Dewey, there is no mentioning of this epoch-making paper
in chronology, life and works nor other chapters.
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through his exposition and analysis, Dewey does not call on God or Chris-
tianity to explain the human mind (soul). When he is dutiful of his earlier
faith, it is not religion as such, but a sense of religiousness he gained in his
the Oil City years (see Chapter 2 of this book). It is a faith in humanity,
in human goodness and in himself. For Dewey, psychology is just a scien-
tific discipline, the purpose of which is for the betterment of humankind.
Thus, Dewey ends his psychological manifesto by asserting his rational
faith, in which there is “no reason which is not based on faith” (EW1:
60). Again, Dewey may be accused of committing another paradox here:
combining reason (justified belief) with faith (personal belief).
As a final remark, Dewey has proposed a grand vision and I see no
regression. While there are paradoxes and shortcomings, his arguments
are cogent and all-encompassing. But the irony is that only a small part
of his vision—functionalism—was taken and popularized ten years later.
Integrating Psychology With Philosophy

Creating a Unicorn
After the epoch-making psychological manifesto in 1884, Dewey wrote
two more psychology papers in 1885, also of grandiose nature, published
in a top academic journal in 1886. In it, he tried to integrate philosophy
with psychology, proposing the notion of universal consciousness. From
today’s vintage, Dewey is creating a unicorn, something which does not
seem to exist. What does universal consciousness mean? How did he come
up with such an idea? What are the implications of this idea and what
relevance does it bear for today? I try to reconstruct the storyline below.
Storyline Reconstructed
Still in Johns Hopkins, Dewey presented The New Psychology in March
1884, just before he earned his Ph.D. with a dissertation, The Psychology of
Kant . A few months later, with the help of his philosophy teacher, George
S. Morris, he landed on a teaching job with the University of Michigan.
It was to begin in September 1884 in the Department of Philosophy,
teaching philosophy and psychology. Some of the psychology courses he
offered were: Empirical Psychology; Special Topics in Psychology: Physi-
ological, Comparative and Morbid, Experimental Psychology; Speculative
Psychology; History of Psychology (Dykhuizen 1973: 46). You may well
remember that Dewey had two teachers in Johns Hopkins: J. Stanley Hall
taught him psychology and George Morris taught him philosophy. Dewey
had a stronger inclination to work on philosophy than on psychology; that
is why he took up the Michigan job of philosophy with Morris instead of
taking up a postdoctoral fellowship in Germany on psychology (Martin
2002: 85). Once in Michigan, he realized that he was much more on
demand for his psychology than his philosophy. The academic atmosphere
was that philosophy was seen as the old, theological, established domain
and psychology was looked upon as the new, scientific discipline with a
prominent future.
Dewey was working on two domains, philosophy and psychology,
simultaneously, the former on subject-object unity, nature of experience,
idealism and materialism while the latter on physiological psychology,
experimentation, psychology laboratory research, perception, volition,
will, mind and consciousness. Trying hard to integrate the two domains
and bringing new insights into the old discipline of philosophy, he
submitted, sometime in 1885, two articles, The Psychological Stand-
point , and Psychology as Philosophic Method, to Mind, the then top
journal in philosophy of the English-speaking world. It was accepted and
published in January 1886 (Mind, xi) and April 1886 (Mind xi 153–173),
respectively.
The Psychological Standpoint

The Issue of Subject and Object
In The Psychological Standpoint , Dewey reviewed the development of
English philosophy of the past 200 years—the psychology movement
from Locke, Hume, Berkeley, to contemporary scholars, such as Green
and Bain. Borrowing the term “The Psychological Standpoint” from
Green, Dewey saw that:
In short, the psychological basis of English philosophy has been its

strength: its weakness has been that it has left this basis—that it has not
been psychological enough. (EW1: 123)
He saw Locke’s and Hume’s sensation and impression as paving way for
the idea of conscious experience. But then it hits the issue of subject and
object distinction:
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From the psychological standpoint the relation of subject and object is

one which exists within consciousness. And its nature or meaning must
be determined by an examination of consciousness itself. The duty of the
psychologist is to show how it arises for consciousness…… In this case,
it reveals that consciousness is precisely the unity of subject and object.
(EW1: 131)
The issue was taken up by Bain, and Dewey quoted him at length, calling
it subjective idealism:
The totality of our mental life is made up of two kinds of consciousness—

the object consciousness and the subject consciousness. The first is the
external world, or Non-Ego; the second is our Ego, or mind proper” (Bain:
378). Consciousness “includes our object states as well as our subject
states. The object and subject are both parts of our being, as I conceive,
and hence we have a subject consciousness, which is in a special sense
Mind (the scope of mental science), and an object consciousness in which
all other sentient beings participate, and which gives us the extended and
material universe (Bain: 669). (EW1: 134)
From Subjective Idealism to Universal Consciousness

Dewey dismissed subjective idealism as self-contradictory (EW1: 135),
because “it assumes that the standpoint of psychology is necessarily indi-
vidual or subjective. Why should we be told that the scope of psychology
is subjective consciousness and subjective consciousness be defined as the
totality of conscious experiences minus the object world…?” (EW1: 137).
Dewey wants a “true psychological standpoint” to show “how subject and
object arise within conscious experience, and thereby develops the nature
of consciousness” (EW1: 137).
Dewey thought he solved the subject-object polarity by introducing
the concept of universal self and universal consciousness:
The case stands thus: We are to determine the nature of everything, subject
and object, individual and universal, as it is found within conscious expe-
rience. Conscious experience testifies, in the primary aspect, my individual
self is a “transition,” is a process of becoming…… the individual self can
take the universal self as its standpoint, and thence know its own origin.
In so doing, it knows that it has its origin in processes which exist for the
universal self…… consciousness has shown that it involves within itself a
process of becoming, and that this process becomes conscious of itself. This
process is the individual consciousness; but, since it is conscious of itself, it
is consciousness of the universal consciousness. All consciousness, in short,

is self-consciousness, and the self is the universal consciousness, for which
all process is and which, therefore, always is. The individual consciousness is
but the process of realization of the universal consciousness through itself.
Looked at as process, as realizing, it is individual consciousness; looked at
as produced or realized, as conscious of the process, that is, of itself, it is
universal consciousness. (EW1: 142)
Psychology as Philosophic Method

Psychology as Ultimate Science of Reality
Whether substantive or speculative, Dewey’s notion of universal
consciousness finds its way in Mind (January 1886). Three months later,
Dewey published another paper, Psychology as Philosophic Method, some-
what like part two of his thesis, this time reviewing German transcendental
philosophy. Decreed Dewey on psychology:
it declared consciousness to be the sole content, account and criterion of

all reality; and psychology, as the science of this consciousness, to be the
explicit and accurate determination of the nature of reality in its whole-
ness, as well as the determination of the value and validity of the various
elements or factors of this whole. It is the ultimate science of reality,
because it declares what experience in its totality is; it fixes the worth and
meaning of its various elements by showing their development and place
within this whole. It is, in short, philosophic method. (EW1: 144)
Here, psychology as the science of consciousness is elevated to the

“ultimate science of reality.” Dewey tries to equate psychology with
philosophy; he does not subscribe to the view that psychology should gain
its independence as a scientific discipline by branching out from philos-
ophy. Instead, Dewey sees psychology, in studying consciousness, as the
method to philosophy. His position is against the then received view of
his times and the wisdom of today.
Title Analysis
Present-day readers may be bewildered with Dewey’s title, Psychology as
Philosophic Method. Does Dewey mean the scientific and experimental
method of psychology? Does he propose that philosophy should adopt
an experimental method? Let me offer a title analysis.
86 R. LI
Methods are means to attain some goals. The goal of philosophy is

to attain truth and knowledge. So philosophic method is to find a way
to attain truth and knowledge. Normally the way is by logic and reason.
Dewey is critical of this formal logical method of attaining truth. Since all
knowledge and objective truth has to go through the subjective human
mind, a subjective-objective problem arises here. It follows that the nature
of the human mind and its subjectivity may affect truth.
In this paper, Dewey tried to argue that psychology, the scientific study
of human consciousness, is the way to attaining truth and knowledge.
This is the issue at hand with Dewey, whether his arguments are sound
and valid is another issue.
Integrating Psychology with Philosophy

Dewey took this view to integrate psychology with philosophy because he
believed this integration is an organic unity, uniting man with universe.
From Kant and then moving to Hegel, post-Kantians and Hegelians
assume the existence of universal self-consciousness, seeing self and indi-
vidual as finite, but his bond and living union with all other objects
infinite, thus universal consciousness. To quote Dewey:
The other aspect of man is that in which he, as self-conscious, has mani-
fested in him the unity of all being and knowing, and is not finite, i.e., an
object or event, but is, in virtue of his self-conscious nature, infinite, the
bond, the living union of all objects and events. With this infinite, universal
self-consciousness, philosophy deals; with man as the object of experience,
psychology deals. (EW1: 146)
To generalize further, Dewey sees psychology as the realization of the

universe in the individual consciousness! “[P]sychology is defined as the
science of the realization of the universe in and through the individual…”
(EW1: 148). Presumably Philosophy is to study totality and Psychology
is to study man and his thinking. Without man and thinking, Philos-
ophy will be impossible. Only through man can the totality be known.
Therefore, Psychology, not logic, is Philosophic Method.
Dewey sees that Philosophy is the Science, “the highest of all sciences,”
answering “the nature of all reality” and “only in this whole is cate-
gorical truth to be found” (EW1: 158). When philosophy aims at all,
truth, ultimate, he believes psychology (to study man and mind) is
the method attaining it. He further expects psychology to account for
the total consciousness, “the wholeness,” the nature of experience. For

Dewey, “mathematics, physics, biology exist because conscious experience
reveals itself to be of such a nature, that one may make virtual abstraction
from the whole……” (EW1: 159). In other words, the human intel-
lect manifests itself in mathematics, physics, biology, and the totality is
Psychology.
Self-Consciousness, IDEE, Universe and God

To examine the relation between psychology and logic, Dewey dwelt on
form and matter, content and method. By employing Hegelian dialectic
to lump truth, organicity, system and sense together, Dewey explained the
content of self-consciousness, or spirit, in IDEE: thought-conditions. He
sees it as the “external nature of the universe,” and brings thinking into
“thinking what God thought and was before the creation of the world.”
He expressed it as “the universe in its unreality, in its abstraction.” In his
words,
The whole course of philosophic thought, so far as the writer can compre-
hend it, has consisted in showing that any distinction between the form
and the matter of philosophic truth, between the content and the method,
is fatal to the reaching of truth. Self-consciousness is the final truth, and
in self-consciousness the form as organic system and the content as orga-
nized system are exactly equal to each other. It is a process which, as
form, has produced itself as matter. Psychology as the account of this
self-consciousness must necessarily fulfil all the conditions of true method.
Logic, since it necessarily abstracts from the ultimate fact, cannot reach in
matter what it points to in form. While its content, if it be true philos-
ophy, must be the whole content of self-consciousness or spirit, its form is
only one process within this content, that of thought-conditions, the Idee.
While the content is the eternal nature of the universe, its form is adequate
only to “thinking what God thought and was before the creation of the
world,” that is, the universe in its unreality, in its abstraction. (EW1: 163)
Here IDEE, nature, thought-condition, existent relations, philosophy

of spirit and “living human spirit with its individual thoughts, feelings
and actions” are all blended into “the incomprehensible and inexplicable
point in Philosophy” (EW1: 164). My repeated reading shows Dewey
painstakingly points to logic as an abstract system, creating a contradic-
tion between form and content. He said logic cannot reach the actual
individual, the actual reality by asserted necessity. So logic as “absolute
88 R. LI
method reveals its self-contradiction by destroying itself” (EW1: 166).

Consequently, psychology is the only philosophic method!
Integrating Kant with Hegel

John Dewey studied Kant (1880–1883) and Hegel (1883–1885) deeply
under Torrey and Morris. Psychology as Philosophic Method is an ambi-
tious attempt to integrate Kant and Hegel. Note that the philosophical
tradition itself at that time was filled with theology (god). Idealism,
Intuitionism and the British Scotch School competed in England while
rationalism and materialism competed in Continental Europe. Dewey’s
conception of psychology as philosophic method is hard to understand
out of the above context. But if we dig deep enough, we can see that he
was navigating in psychology and philosophy; he took German physiolog-
ical psychology as a scientific basis for the study of consciousness and went
beyond the prevalent British Bain-Spencer theory of associationism. For
Dewey, the individual self is a process of becoming, testifying the existence
of universal self. The process is individual consciousness and the product
is universal consciousness. My metaphor is that he tried to see philosophy
and psychology as two sides of the same coin, the coin of conscious-
ness: psychology as individual consciousness and philosophy as universal
consciousness; the former on man and the latter on totality. Only through
the former can we understand the latter, therefore psychology is philo-
sophic method. Or, alternatively, psychology is at the heart of philosophy.
It is only through psychology, the study of human mind (consciousness),
can we attain truth, the goal of philosophy.
So far as I can understand it, Dewey is interpreting Kant’s monu-
mental world (things-in-themselves) and phenomenal world (things-
in-appearance) where perception and conception (knowable) and self-
consciousness (unknowable) contradict each other. Dewey argues that
this self-consciousness, this “unknown thing-in-itself” is “the ultimate
ground and condition of experience” leading to “the impossibility of
solving the problem of philosophy” (EW1: 152). I am not sure if Kant
takes self-consciousness as an “unknown thing,” but he sees the diffi-
culty of studying self-consciousness: once you try to observe your mind
or self-consciousness, it will change its configuration. This is a very sober
observation but it can be treated experimentally in twentieth-century
psychology.
Instead of following this path of scientific investigation, Dewey took

the Hegelian turn and accused Kant of saying that self-consciousness is
the necessary condition of experience which is unknowable and which we
can only give negative statement (EW1: 153). From then on, it follows
that Hegel solved the problem by postulating “universal consciousness,”
an organic notion of “systematic totality” (EW1: 154).
A Double Life and an Indeterminate Innovation

In Jay Martin’s reconstruction of Dewey’s life in his early Michigan years,
he portraits Dewey as “very enjoyable” (Martin 2002: 91), leading a
double life (pp. 87–91). Dewey, in his professional capacity, taught scien-
tific psychology; in his private life, he went to church, kept his Christian
faith and gave Sunday lectures to Michigan Student Christian Associa-
tion. One lecture was “The Obligation to Knowledge of God” (EW1:
61–63). Scanning through his Early Works, Volume 1: 1882–1888, we saw
such papers written at that time as The Place of Religious Emotion (EW1:
90–92); Soul and Body (EW1: 93–125). According to Martin, Dewey’s
underlying motive and belief was that:
…… [it] would have been enough for him to demonstrate that science did
not conflict with religion, but he wanted to go further and to show that
science confirmed religious faith. (Martin 2002: 88)
If Dewey was seen as leading a double life in academic pursuit, he was also
venturing in some indeterminate innovation. Who knows there is no such
“thing” as universal consciousness? May be it is a very complex “process.”
At that period, all researchers in Europe and America were racing for
discoveries and innovation, psychology included. A new discovery might
be at the corner. Who knows what the future is? Imagine we were back in
the 1880s. There is an indeterminacy of future knowledge path. How can
we be sure there is no such thing as “ether” or “atom,” there is no unpre-
dictability in quantum physics, there is no “air travel” or “cosmic travel.”
With this innovative spirit, Dewey is bold enough to make the claim of
universal consciousness. The next issue is, of course, to substantiate it,
with experiment. If it does, we may be in another plateau of scientific
pursuit. If it doesn’t, let us keep our innovative spirit and try another
idea. Seen in this way, Dewey’s notion is not as stupid as it sounds.
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Illusory Psychology
Dewey’s Critic
I hope I have shown, in the above, the personal and intellectual circum-
stances of Dewey leading to his indeterminate innovation. It has led to an
anti-climax which, as we shall see, benefits Dewey in the long run.
Five months after Dewey published his two papers, another paper
appeared on Mind XI (October 1886), this time by a critic of Dewey. His
name was Shadworth H. Hodgson (1832–1912), a British philosopher of
the post-Kantian tradition who was later credited as a forerunner of prag-
matism. Hodgson called Dewey’s illusory psychology, the term of which
attracted my attention today as much as readers of Mind in the 1880s.
Simply put, he disputed Dewey’s notion of universal self and universal
consciousness. He satirized it and named it “psychological human and
divine,” and soberly observed,
No psychologist, I venture to say, in this country considers himself to be

busied with the psychology of the Universal Self, or to be trespassing on
ground covered by the theological doctrine of the SS. Trinity (EW1: i)
I confess I am utterly at a loss to see either how Mr. Dewey justifies

on experiential grounds the existence of an universal consciousness, or in
what he imagines the relation between the individual consciousness and the
universal one to consist. He tells us at p. 140 “that consciousness is the
unity of the individual and the universal,” and also that “since conscious-
ness does show the origin of individual and universal consciousness within
itself, consciousness is therefore both universal and individual”. But he
prudently postpones the question of how this is to a future opportunity.
The obvious reason here is, that he does not know. (EW1: xiii)
Unjustified Generalization
Hodgson starts from percepts (attributes of a natural object) to concept,
based on experience and thought: “The perceptual order of a nature and
of experience is modified and moulded by thought into a conceptual
order and arrangement” (EW1: xiv). Hodgson is logically and faithfully
following Kant’s view of rationalism, where thinking leads to “stream
of consciousness.” However, he cautioned Dewey of the impossibility
of generalizing individual consciousness into universal consciousness and
succinctly pointed out:
We cannot transcend our own consciousness, however much we may

generalize it. Generalizing it alone, therefore, can never land us in the
belief, still less in the knowledge, of an universal consciousness different
in any respect from our own. Its generalization is merely another way, the
logical or conceptual way, of representing its individuality, of what in actual
experience is perceptual. (EW1: xvi)
Hodgson and Dewey Compared

Hodgson agrees with Dewey that there is individual consciousness, but
no matter how you generalize, you cannot get universal consciousness.
It is still generalized individual consciousness. Hodgson also agrees that
there is universal and universe, but it is not for psychology to study.
Common content of all individual consciousness can be studied by meta-
physics, the science of universe. In conclusion, English philosophy retains
its validity as scientific psychology but drifts away from philosophy, while
German philosophy identifies consciousness with a universal being and
becomes transcendental. Dewey and Hodgson’s position is summarized
below (Table 5.1):
Hodgson argues that when Dewey combines the two and studies
universal consciousness, it is illusory psychology!
Table 5.1 Comparison of Dewey’s and Hodgson’s ideas on consciousness
Dewey Hodgson
Individual Consciousness Yes Yes

Universal Consciousness Yes No
Individual vs. Universal The two “things” are one. • Individual consciousness
Consciousness They can combine can be abstracted or
generalized to become
common individual
consciousness
• There is no universal
consciousness
Method Psychology = philosophic psychology =
method the study of individual
consciousness
metaphysics/philosophy=
the study of the common
content of all individual
consciousness
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Present-Day Criticism
Lapsing into Mysticism
Of course, today’s readers will immediately see the irrelevance of relating
the origin of human thought conditions to the beginning of universe or to
its abstraction. While it is true that everything comes after the big-bang,
it is unfruitful to relate everything to it. Of course, without the big-bang,
there will be no universe, no stars, no solar system and no humans. But to
relate the human existence or our eye blink to the big-bang is unhelpful
to our understanding. The route should rather be the evolution of life on
earth, from lower species to homo sapiens and to the evolution of indi-
vidual consciousness. Logic, abstraction and reason, seen from the light of
survival value, make more sense than postulating universal consciousness
and IDEE.
The notion of universal self-consciousness (universal consciousness)
does not survive the test of time or science. This is a blind alley because
it leads to nowhere but mythical transcendentalism. It is an exten-
sion of Hegel’s system of thought from reason (IDEE) to universal
consciousness. Few academic scholars today take it seriously; only some
mythical-cosmic preachers continue to popularize it for health reasons
and for social harmony.6 Like the concept of God, it belongs to Christian
theology and the past.
Bizarre Combination
Dewey is always good at integration, but sometimes it can become
a bizarre combination. He tried hard to combine Kant (conscious-
ness, experience, universe), Hegel (absolute, realization) and Christianity
(God), but the outcome is the strange concept of universal consciousness
and the weird conclusion of psychology as realization of individualized
universe. I am sure logical positivists will dismiss it to meaningless:
6 Readers may find a present-day version of universal consciousness from

mind-your-reality.com, quoted below:
In a nutshell, there is a single consciousness, the universal mind, which pervades

the entire universe. It is all-knowing, all powerful, all creative and always present
everywhere at the same time. Your consciousness is part of it—it is It.
In no way can the individual philosophize about a universe which has not
been realized in his conscious experience. The universe, except as realized
in an individual, has no existence. In man it is partially realized, and man
has a partial science; in the absolute it is completely realized, and God
has a complete science. Self-consciousness means simply an individualized
universe; and if this universe has not been realized in man, if man be
not self-conscious, then no philosophy whatever is possible. If it has been
realized, it is in and through psychological experience that this realization
has occurred. Psychology is the scientific account of this realization, of this
individualized universe, of this self-consciousness. (EW1: 149)
In reconstructing Dewey’s psychology for today’s readers, I can appreciate

John Dewey’s ardent effort of integrating philosophy with psychology:
Morris’ Hegelianism and Hall’s physiology-psychology. That’s why
the notion of universal self-consciousness comes into being; universe,
universal and unity from Hegel and consciousness from psychology.
However, this combination is not a fruitful path. Take the idea of creating
a weapon like sword-gun or of combining Jazz music with Chinese callig-
raphy. Does it make sense or does it work? A sword is for combat within a
meter while a gun is for shooting at least a few meters. Music is listening
and calligraphy is for visualizing. Admittedly there is individual conscious-
ness, but it is dangerous to generalize it into universal consciousness. The
idea of universal consciousness based on Hegel’s realization of reason is
a logical extension of Hegelian philosophy, which does not seem to have
relevance to the field of individual psychology.
Universal vs. Collective Consciousness

On the other hand, individual consciousness can be generalized and
extended into some kind of social consciousness, such as collective
consciousness, class consciousness, national consciousness, social group
worldview and so forth. For example, an eminent French sociologist
Émile Durkheim (1858–1917) proposed the term collective conscious-
ness in 1893 to denote shared beliefs and values that serve as a
unifying force within a society.7 Georg Lukács (1885–1971), a leading
Marxist, developed Karl Marx’s ideas of alienation into class conscious-
ness, asserting the deterministic worldview and beliefs based on ones
7 See Durkheim, E. (1893). Division of Labor in Society. New York: Free Press.
(republished 2013)
94 R. LI
social class.8 They all make sense in sociology for the description of collec-
tive social behavior and phenomenon. When a group of people think
in a certain way, it creates a zeitgeist and there is nothing “universal”
or mystical about it. As for the realization of reason, human behav-
iors are found to be as much rational as irrational, thus the concept of
bounded rationality and procedural rationality.9 The Hegelian notion of
seeing everything as realization of reason is as good and as bad as seeing
everything as the realization of instinct or human nature.
Dewey Outgrowing His Own Ideas

It is clear that Dewey intends to combine the two worlds, as the titles of
his dissertation and articles reveal. Standing on the frontier and crossroads
of the two disciplines, Dewey has the vision that the future of philos-
ophy depends on psychology, and vice versa, instead of seeing psychology
as a new scientific discipline gaining independence from philosophy.
Lewis Hahn, a Deweyan scholar, aptly summarized Dewey’s academic
conviction and approach for this period:
To this early period also date his conviction of the intimate relationship
between philosophy and psychology and his sense of the importance of
a behavioral approach drawing upon the results of biology and the social
sciences. The Hegelian and biological concepts of the organism and its
environment helped shape his later views of the live creature and its
environment. (EW1: Introduction, xxxvi)
It appears that Hodgson’s criticism hit him hard, pushing him to discard
Hegelian idealism. In 1886, Dewey was already busy writing and revising
his Psychology, a textbook where he dropped the term universal conscious-
ness in favor of the “universal factor” (EW2: 10): he keeps the knower
as individual, but the “known” knowledge of the external world as “uni-
versal,” thus “psychology is the science…… in the form of individual,
unsharable consciousness” (EW2: 11).
8 See Lukács, G. (1923). History and Class Consciousness. Cambridge: The MIT Press.
(republished 1971)
9 The term was coined by Herbert Simon (1916–2001) to denote the human decision-
making process which is only partly rational.
In replying to Hodgson’s challenge, Dewey submitted a rejoinder

to Mind, published in Mind XII (Jan 1887) (EW1: 168–175). Here
Dewey acknowledged “psychology as philosophic method” is but one
instance where Hodgson’s can be taken as “Metaphysic as philosophic
method” (EW1: 169). He did not insist on the existence or condi-
tions of universal consciousness, but proposed “universal factors” and
“universality of consciousness”:
…… The universality of consciousness stands just where its individuality

does. An individuality is “given” in the sense that every consciousness
has a unique interest; so universality is “given” in the sense that every
consciousness has a meaning . But the experience of the world as a fact, like
the experience of the individual stream as a fact, is a constructed product.
And the philosophical interpretation of the fact that there is a world of
experience is still more remote from being immediate or given. (EW1:
173–174)
In fact, this minor change of the term, from universal consciousness to

universality of consciousness, shows a subtle difference in meaning: where
universal consciousness is more about the ultimate science of reality in the
“realization of reason,” universality of consciousness is more an abstrac-
tion and philosophical interpretation of the individual. It is paving way for
Dewey to move on to real-life experience, the experience of the world and
the individual as a “constructed product.” It is where his future exposi-
tion of pragmatism is grounded. In less than ten years, Dewey abandoned
Hegelianism and even stopped going to church. It was not that he became
an atheist, but that he had become a pragmatist.
Further Readings
In this chapter, I outlined Dewey’s early works (1884–1886) and the
severe criticism he received from Hodgson. Readers may wish to learn
more about Hodgson and the study of consciousness, i.e., psychology of
the nineteenth century.
A. Shadworth H. Hodgson (1832–1912)
Hodgson is a British gentleman-scholar of the nineteenth century
and a friend of Herbert Spencer. He is interested in philosophy and
psychology and was an instrumental founder of “the Aristotelian Society
for the Systematic Study of Philosophy” and remained presidency for
96 R. LI
14 years. As a post-Kantian with a Victorian scientific inclination, he was

seen as a forerunner of pragmatism and has published:
1. The Theory of Practice: An Ethical Enquiry (1870), Longmans,

Green, Reader and Dyer.
2. The Philosophy of Reflection (1878), Kessinger Publishing.
3. The Metaphysic of Experience (1898), Longmans and Green.
Source http://www.iep.utm.edu/hodgson/
https://archive.org/search.php?query=creator%3A%22Hodgson%
2C+Shadworth+Hollway%2C+1832-1912%22
B. Study of Consciousness of the nineteenth Century

In the nineteenth century, psychology was defined as the study of
consciousness. A few major thinkers, Bain, Spencer, Wundt and James
stood out. The following books may introduce readers into the subject.
1. Rieber, R. W., & Robinson, D. K. (Eds.) (2001). Wilhelm Wundt

in History: The Making of a Scientific Psychology. New York: Plenum.
A book by several Wundtian scholars, covering Wundt’s early
years and the Americanization of his ideas. It also tells the story
of how Wundt’s Leipzig laboratory was superseded by Gottingen,
and the Wundt Collections in Japan. Wundt’s experimenting and
operating characteristics of consciousness can be found in Chapter 4.
2. Young, R. M. (1990). Mind, Brain and Adaptation in the Nine-
teenth Century. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Young’s scholarly work focuses on the story of cerebral localiza-
tion from Gall to Ferrier, showing how physiological research of the
human brain makes progress in the nineteenth century.
3. Klein, D. B. (1970). A History of Scientific Psychology. New York,
NY: Basic Books.
In this encyclopedic history of over 900 pages, half is on ancient
history (Greece, medieval times and Renaissance) and another half
is on early modern history, covering backgrounds in Kant, Hume,
Mill, Herbart, Lotze and ending in Bain and Wundt. It is an old,
useful reference for the more antiquated background of nineteenth-
century psychology.
4. Murray, D. J. (1988). A History of Western Psychology, 2nd ed. New
York, NY: Prentice Hall.
This easy-to-read textbook has clear timeline and period delin-

eation. For readers interested in the period related to young Dewey,
please read Chapter 7 (1879 to about 1910: Wundt and his Influ-
ence) and Chapter 8 (1879 to about 1910: other Currents of
Thought).
References
Fodor, J. (1983). The Modularity of Mind. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
CHAPTER 6
Psychology, Reflex Arc Concept and the Birth

of Functionalism
The Developmental Path of Dewey’s Psychology

A Sketch from 1884 to 1933
Dewey’s academic journey with psychology began by showing interest
and reading psychology in his college years (1876–1879). Then he
received formal training in psychology with Granville Stanley Hall (1883–
1884). His first paper, The New Psychology, was published in 1884. The
same year he earned his PhD with a thesis, The Psychology of Kant . He
started teaching psychology in the University of Michigan and published
a few papers on psychology, notably The Psychological Standpoint and
Psychology as Philosophic Method, both in 1886. The next year, his 366-
page textbook, Psychology, appeared. Dewey continued to publish on
psychology, such as The Psychology of Infant Language (1893), The Theory
of Emotion (1893) in his Michigan years. In 1894, he moved to the
University of Chicago to become the head of the Department of Philos-
ophy, Psychology and Education. His most renowned work in psychology,
The Reflex Arc Concept in Psychology, appeared in The Psychological Review
in the July issue of 1896. The paper was considered one of the most
important papers in psychology for the next 70 years as it declared the
birth of functionalism in American psychology (Boring 1953: 146).
During his Chicago years, Dewey continued to work in developmental
psychology, notably Principles of Mental Development as Illustrated in
Early Infancy (1899) and Mental Development (1900), which outlines
human development from infancy to early adulthood. When he started

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-7941-7_6
100 R. LI
the laboratory school there in 1896, he wrote extensively on educational

psychology, such as Interest in Relation to Training of the Will (1896),
The School and Society (1900) and The Child and the Curriculum (1902).
In 1899, he was elected president of American Psychological Association
and made a presidential address, Psychology and Social Practice, which
signified his interest and shift to social psychology.
In 1905, Dewey moved again to Columbia University. Psychology was
then slowly moving to behaviorism and Dewey gave talks on behavior
and psychology. By 1909, he published How We Think, which was
seen as a pioneering work in thinking research as well as educational
psychology where Dewey stressed the need for training thought and
outlined methods and school conditions (see Chapter 8 for details).
Human Nature and Conduct , An Introduction to Social Psychology was
a lecture series developed in 1918 and published in 1922. Here Dewey
tries to answer the ultimate question of human nature and how society
evolves and interacts with human nature. In his later works, Experience
and Nature (1925), Dewey examined the nature of human existence
and human experience. There he came back to his starting question
in psychology, consciousness, and devoted a chapter to it: Existence,
Ideas and Consciousness (LW1: 226–265). He substantiates it with A
Naturalistic Theory of Sense Perception (1926–1927), Affective Thought
(1926–1927) and Qualitative Thought (1930).
In his late years, Dewey continued to publish in psychology. He wrote
about intelligence, The Naturalization of Intelligence (LW4: 156–177)
and tried to relate psychology with human practice, such as Psychology
and Justice (LW3: 186–195) and Psychology and Work (LW5: 236–242).
In 1933, he revised his How We Think substantially, subtitled as A Restate-
ment of the Relation of Reflective Thinking to the Education Process. His
works in psychology had spread across half a century (Table 6.1).
Where Lies His Focus

It is clear Dewey’s focus is on the whole discipline, and not on the
minute details of frontline research. He is concerned about the relation-
ship between psychology and philosophy, seeing the former as method
to the latter. Since publishing his The New Psychology in 1884, Dewey
has ventured into this methodological issue, thus Psychology as Philosophic
Method and The Reflex Arc Concept in Psychology, bringing the birth of
functionalism and pragmatism. Due to his interest in education, Dewey
6 PSYCHOLOGY, REFLEX ARC CONCEPT … 101
Table 6.1 Chronology of Dewey’s major works on psychology

Year (age) Month Events/Psychological works published Progress/Observations
1877 / Undergraduate study in University Dewey begins studying psychology,

(18) of Vermont, Year 3 evolution and physiology
• Takes a course in physiology
• Studies Huxley’s Elements of
Physiology
• Studies Spencer’s Principles of
Psychology (1872)
1879 / Undergraduate study in University Dewey begins to study Kant
(19) of Vermont, Year 4
• Studies Kant under Torrey
• Studies Mill, Hume, Hamilton,
Marsh
1881 / • Quits teaching Dewey studies Spinoza and Leibniz
(22) • Private study of Spinoza under
Torrey
1882 September • Enters Johns Hopkins University Dewey begins to study Hegel
(23) • Studies Hegel under Morris
1883 January • Studies physiological psychology Dewey begins to study
(24) under G. S. Hall physiological psychology
April • Hegel and Theory of Categories He tries to integrate Hegel with
• Kant and Philosophic Methods Kant
(EW1: 34–47)
1884 April • The Psychology of Kant Dewey tries to integrate Kant with
(25) psychology in his Ph.D. thesis. See
Chapter 3 for details
May • The New Psychology (EW1: It is an epoch-making
48–60) “Psychological Manifesto.” See
September • Teaches in Michigan University Chapter 5 for details
1885 December • A draft of Psychology submitted Dewey is already well-versed with
(26) to publisher (accepted in May the psychology discipline
1886)
1886 January • The Psychological Standpoint Dewey tries to integrate
(27) April (EW1: 122–143) psychology with philosophy, with
October • Psychology as Philosophic Method the former as tool and the latter
(EW1: 144–167) as content. This unity of dynamic
idealism was ridiculed as “illusory
• Criticized by Hodgson as
psychology.” See Chapter 5 for
“Illusory Psychology”
details
1887 / • Psychology 1st edition This textbook brings him fame
(28) and recognition. See Chapter 6 for
details
1888 / • Leibniz’s New Essays concerning Dewey writes on Leibniz’s
(29) the Human Understanding —A psychological ideas: innate ideas,
Critical Exposition (EW1: sensation, experience, impulses and
251–435) the will. It was published as the
first volume of the Series of
German Philosophical Classics for
English Readers and Students
(continued)
102 R. LI

1889 / • Psychology 2nd edition Dewey revises the section on

(30) sensation
• Co-authors with James A. Dewey writes an introduction to
McLellan on Applied Psychology apply psychology to education
theory and practice
1891 / • How Do Concepts Arise from Dewey argues that concepts are
(32) Percepts? (EW3: 142–147) ideational with abstract principles.
They arise from individual
sensuous percepts (perceptions)
through realizing the full implied
meaning (EW3: 144)
/ • Psychology 3rd edition He revises over 30 pages
1894 / • The Psychology of Infant A short and useful empirical
(35) Language (EW4: 66–69) account of infant language. See
review in Chapter 7
/ • The Theory of Emotion (EW4: This is Dewey’s ambitious attempt
152–188) to offer a theory of emotion. First
he reveals Darwin’s principles (The
Expression of the Emotions in Man
and Animals, 1872) and the
James-Lange Theory of Emotion,
annotating the survival value of
emotion. Then he theorizes that
all emotions involve excitement,
inhibition and coordination, where
“emotional excitement is the felt
process of realization of ideas”
(EW4: 172), while expressions of
emotions are explicable by four
principles (EW4: 169). He further
proposes a distinction between
Affect (emotional disturbance or
Gefuhlston) and Interest
1895 / • Moves to Chicago University This watershed paper signifies the
(36) • The Reflex Arc Concept in declaration of functionalism in
Psychology (EW5: 96–110) American psychology. See
Chapter 6 for details
/ • Interest in Relation to Training Dewey applies concepts of
of the Will (EW5: 111–150) psychology, interest and will to
education. His concept of interest,
defined as a form of
self-expression, foreshadows his
later focus on child development
and growth. See Chapter 9 for
details
1896 / • Founds University College Widely known as “Dewey School,”
(37) Elementary School in the Dewey’s interest and expertise in
University of Chicago education was established
(continued)

1897 Apr • The Psychological Aspect of the Dewey’s “psychological inquiry” of

(38) School Curriculum (EW5: “interest” leads to the notion of
164–176) growth and experience, which, he
argues, should be the guiding
principles of the school curriculum.
See Chapter 9 for details
/ • Co-authors with James A. A book written for math teachers,
McLellan on The Psychology of Dewey theorizes about numbers,
Number and Its Applications to the art of measurement, and
Methods of Teaching Arithmetic language, the act of preservation.
(published by D. Appleton) With number, valuation becomes
possible, a precondition for the
growth of civilization
1899 May • Addresses the Philosophic Union Dewey revisits the issue of
(40) of the University of California psychology and philosophical
with the title, Psychology and method after 14 years. By keeping
Philosophic Method, first his position that the two
published in 1899, later released disciplines should integrate, Dewey
in 1910 as Consciousness and criticizes both disciplines and spells
Experience with minor changes out his version of functionalism in
(MW1: 113–130) psychology. See details in
Chapter 7
/ • Principles of Mental Development See below
as Illustrated in Early Infancy
(MW1: 175–191)
1900 / • Elected president of American As his presidential address of APA,
(41) Psychological Association (APA) this paper indicates his move to
• Psychology and Social Practice social and educational psychology.
Dewey’s “social practice” is
basically the process of education
/ • Mental Development (MW1: Dewey began teaching educational
192–221) psychology in 1896 in Chicago.
The two articles, Principles of
Mental Development as Illustrated
in Early Infancy and Mental
Development , should be read
together, in which Dewey roughly
divides child cognitive development
into four stages: early infancy
(0–3), later infancy (3–6),
childhood (7–13) and adolescence
(14–24). It clearly shows Dewey is
a pioneer and authority of the
subject
1902 / • Interpretation of Savage Mind Dewey challenges Spencer’s notion
(43) (MW2: 39–52) of primitive minds. He joins the
debate in genetic psychology and
briefly discusses hunting, religion,
totemism and death, arguing that
the evolution of the savage mind
is “the adjustment of habits to
ends,” through interaction with
the environment, leading to
intelligence and emotion
(continued)
104 R. LI

1903 / • Psychological Method in Ethics Dewey argues that while

(44) (MW3: 59–61) psychology as a science “does not
tell what the concrete ethical ideal
is,” it can show specific
“conditions of origin” and
“qualitative experience” as “a
definite intellectual base line” to
measure and evaluate ethics (MW3:
61). In other words, psychology is
the measuring method of ethics
1905 / • Moves to Columbia University
(46) • Gives talks on behavior and
psychology
1906 / • The Terms “Conscious” and Dewey examines the origins and
(47) “Consciousness” (MW3: 79–82) usage of these two terms and
identifies six meanings. He points
out the need to state explicitly the
prima facie of these terms
1910 / • How We Think This pioneering paper on thinking
(51) research was published in 1910
and was substantially revised in
1933. See Chapter 7 for details
1912 / • Perception and Organic Action Dewey reviews the ideas of Henri
(53) (MW7: 3–31) Bergson (1859–1941), a French
philosopher known for his book
entitled Creative Evolution (1907).
Briefly the canons are that
perception is a temporal process, it
is relative to action and life and
consciousness is a choice of
perception. It is a part of process
philosophy and metaphysical
psychology which attracts Dewey’s
interest
1917 / • The Need for Social Psychology In this address to the American
(58) (MW10: 53–64) Psychological Association on its
twenty-fifth anniversary, Dewey
reviews the development of social
psychology of the last quarter of a
century, quoting works from
Tarde, Baldwin, Thorndike and
McDougall. It is an essay
preceding Human Nature and
Conduct , but many of Dewey’s
ideas are already in place (MW10:
56). Dewey also mentions the
behaviorist movement, social
consciousness, the Durkheim
School of Collective Mind
(MW10: 60) as well as the need
of social control (MW10: 62)
1922 / • Human Nature and Conduct Dewey’s theory of human nature.
(63) (MW14: 3–230) See Chapter 7 for details
(continued)

1925 / • Existence, Ideas and Consciousness In his monumental work,

(66) (LW1: 226–265) Experience and Nature, Dewey
re-examines consciousness in light
of his latest existential theory
/ • The Naturalistic Theory of In this short paper, Dewey tries to
Sense-Perception (LW2: 44–55) distinguish “perceived spatial
relations of perceived things” from
“physical” space. The naturalistic
view of sense-perception is one of
“practical act of reaching” instead
of perception as “mental in
nature” (LW2: 54). Perception
and action are dominated by habit,
which is constantly “re-made” and
“adapted” for practical life (LW2:
53)
1926 / • Affective Thought (LW2: See Chapter 7 for details
(67) 104–111)
1927 / • Body and Mind (LW3: 25–40) Dewey criticizes dualism for its
(68) distinction between mind and
body and reiterates his position of
mind-body unity “in a unified
wholeness of operation” (LW3:
27). While he acknowledges that
action can be treated with certain
distinction between physical
functions and mental ones (LW3:
28), he insists on viewing action
in its integrated wholeness (LW3:
30) and attacks behaviorism for its
exclusion of longitudinal and
historical factors (LW3: 34)
1929 April to • The Naturalization of In 1929, Dewey delivered the
(70) May Intelligence (LW4: 156–177) Gifford lectures which were
published as The Quest for
Certainty. In it Dewey attacked
traditional epistemology and
science by alluding to Heisenberg’s
uncertainty principle (LW4: 160).
A chapter entitled The
Naturalization of Intelligence
argues that intelligence is
instrumental to “reflective
knowledge” which is “the only
means of regulation” (LW4: 175).
For Dewey, intelligence is reflective
thinking to solve problems,
whether in daily life or in doing
science. However, he offers no
systematic theory of intelligence
nor its naturalization process
(continued)
106 R. LI

1930 / • Psychology and Work (LW5: In this paper, Dewey briefly

(71) 236–242) ventures into industrial psychology,
alluding to Hawthorne studies in
the USA and workers and
shop-committees in Russia (He
visited USSR in 1928). He urges
for a “real working personnel
department” (LW5:241) to collect
and listen to the workers’ ideas. At
age 70, Dewey no doubt kept
himself abreast as we witnessed
America moving into the alienated
modern mass production and
consumption era.
/ • Qualitative Thought (LW5: See Chapter 7 for details
243–262)
1933 / • Rewrites How We Think: A See Chapter 7 for details
(74) Restatement of the Relation of
Reflective Thinking to the
Educative Process
I have scanned through the Collected Works of John Dewey (1882–1953) and listed below 35 papers,
articles and books by Dewey which, I think, are his major works in psychology. 17 of these were
selected in: Li, R. (Ed). (2017). The Selected Works of John Dewey: Education and Psychology. Shanghai:
East China Normal University Press (in Chinese). For a shorter selection, readers may refer to 9
articles picked by: Hickman, L. A., & Alexander, T. H. (1998). The Essential Dewey, vol. 2: Ethics,
Logic, Psychology. Bloomington: Indiana University Press
ventures into developmental psychology and educational psychology as

well.
In his early years, Dewey writes about the psychology of the individual,
on subjects such as emotion (1894), interest and will (1895), mental
development (1899, 1900) and thinking (1910). But his shift to social
psychology has begun as early as 1900 when he was elected president of
American Psychological Association. With his papers, Psychology and Social
Practice (1900), Psychological Method in Ethics (1903) and The Need for
Social Psychology (1917), Dewey is moving onto social psychology, culmi-
nating in his Human Nature and Conduct : An Introduction to Social
Psychology (1922). It is clear that Dewey’s focus has been on the big
issues in psychology: the nature of consciousness, the role of experience
and thinking, human beings and society, the method of study, and finally,
human nature. It is based on these concerns of Dewey’s that I organize
my Chapters 5–7 of this book.
Psychology
Staggering Effort
In September 1884, Dewey joined the Department of Philosophy in the
University of Michigan, then known as the “Athens of the West” of
America (Jay Martin 2002: 85). Psychology was a sub-discipline within
philosophy and Dewey taught mainly psychology, with course titles like
“Experimental Psychology” and “Empirical Psychology.” His classes were
always full: students were eager to learn facts and ideas in this new
pioneering discipline. By December 1885, Dewey finished a draft of
Psychology, probably based on his tedious lecture notes and volumi-
nous readings, and submitted it to Harper & Brothers. It was accepted
and published in 1887 and became an instant best-selling textbook in
psychology for many years, revised and reprinted 26 times until 1930.
It was later superceded by William James’ The Principles of Psychology
(1890).
Psychology brought Dewey instant fame in psychology but it came with
amazing and staggering effort on his side. Jo Ann Boydston, editor of The
Collected Works of John Dewey, meticulously combed through Psychology
(EW2) and listed out a total of 331 references.1 It included a substantial
proportion published from 1876 to 1886. To quote an example, a very
updated psychological experiment by Hermann Ebbinghaus on memory
decay (1885) was cited (EW2: xxxiii), which showed Dewey in the fron-
tier of the field. Ebbinghaus’ experiment is now classic. My estimate is that
the references would mean a staggering 200,000 pages of academic work.
Even if Dewey had read thoroughly only 10% of these titles, it would
have been 20,000 pages or 1000 pages per month. Dewey must have
read omnivorously from September 1884 to April 1886, synthesizing an
unimaginable quantity of ideas into his textbook.
1 Jo Ann Boydston admitted that most references “are now difficult or impossible to
locate” (EW1: xxix). She had to ascertain it by sources of library catalog data such as the
following:
British Museum Catalogue of Printed Books. Ann Arbor: J.W. Edwards, 1946.
Bücher-Lexicon. Leipzig: Ludwig Schumann, 1834–1852; T.D. Weigel, 1853–1886.
Catalogue général des livres imprimés de la Bibliothèque nationale. Paris: Imprimerie
nationale, 1897–1964.
108 R. LI
British Framework, German Research

While Wundt declared the independence of psychology from philosophy
in 1879, Dewey took psychology as philosophic method (1886) and
believed his textbook will make “psychology a good introduction to the
remaining studies of the philosophic curriculum” (LW2: 3). For Dewey,
“philosophical implications (are) embedded in the very heart of psychol-
ogy” (LW2: 3). He did not support the separation of psychology from
philosophy. He believed that psychology, in studying the human mind
and consciousness, is the method of philosophy, i.e., to attaining truth
and ultimate reality. More specifically, readers familiar with nineteenth-
century European philosophy will see that Dewey’s vision of psychology
was an outgrowth of German idealism and British empiricism of the
human mind. Dewey had tried hard, and generally successful, in synthe-
sizing British psychology with German psychology. The version of British
psychology started from John Locke (1632–1704) and had developed
for 150 years into Alexander Bain’s version of association psychology and
Herbert Spencer’s evolutionary psychology. Dewey took both. In fact,
Dewey more or less borrowed Bain’s framework (intellect, emotion, will)
and added in Spencer’s evolutionary principles. What was more, he added
in German experimental psychology to substantiate and expand Bain’s
framework. Scanning through Psychology, I can see the following repeated
headings: illustration, experimental evidence, hypothesis, laws, theories,
conditions, functions. They came with lots of updated research findings,
counterpoints and formulation of laws. Wundt was cited in the refer-
ences of most chapters, so were many other German psychologists such
as Weber, Feshner and Helmholtz, these important figures in German
psychology that we discussed in Chapter 4. Almost half of the cited refer-
ences were in the German language. In addition, the book was not short
of physiology: the organ (muscle, eye, ear, tongue, etc.), the stimulus
(light, color, sound, smell, touch) and the process (sight, hearing, move-
ment). Moreover, it had moved on to describe higher cognitive process
such as memory, imagination and thinking.
How Dewey Approaches the Subject of Psychology

Most textbook writers will acknowledge the complication of writing an
introductory chapter: where should one start with a subject of high
complexity. Dewey began his psychology text by clarifying eight terms
in one short paragraph: ego, self, mind, soul, psychical, subject, object,
spirit. Even today’s readers will find Dewey offering a succinct exposition
of these confusing terms:
Ego is a term used to express the fact that self has the power of recog-
nizing itself as I, or a separate existence or personality. Mind is also a term
used, and suggests especially the fact that self is intelligent. Soul is a term
which calls to mind the distinction of the self from the body, and yet its
connection with it. Psychical is an adjective used to designate the facts of
self, and suggests the contrast with physical phenomena, namely, facts of
nature. Subject is often used, and expresses the fact that the self lies under
and holds together all feelings, purposes, and ideas; and serves to differen-
tiate the self from the object—that which lies over against self. Spirit is a
term used, especially in connection with the higher activities of self,…….
(EW2: 7)
According to Dewey, “Psychology is the science of the Facts or

Phenomena of Self” (EW2: 7). But since “self not only exists, but may
know that it exists: psychical phenomena are not only facts, but they
are facts of consciousness” (EW2: 7); so psychology studies “the various
forms of consciousness, showing the conditions under which they arise”
(EW2: 8). The consensus of early-day psychology is that the discipline is
to study consciousness, but what is consciousness? Dewey is well aware of
the circularity in defining consciousness.
Consciousness can neither be defined nor described. We can define or

describe anything only by the employment of consciousness. It is presup-
posed, accordingly, in all definition; and all attempts to define it must move
in a circle. (EW2: 8)
Dewey states the three peculiar characteristics of self: being conscious,

existing for itself, individual. (EW1: 8). Thus a psychological experience
is private; Dewey calls it “a fact of psychology”:
a fact of psychology does not thus lie open to the observation of all. It is
directly and immediately known only to the self which experiences it. It is
a fact of my or your consciousness, and only of mine or yours. (EW2: 8)
110 R. LI
Dewey argues that the knower is individual and the known (knowledge) is
universal. It is only through the individual (knower) that universal knowl-
edge can be known. Consequently Dewey defines knowledge as universal
elements being given an individual form of existence in consciousness
(EW2: 10).
A fact of physics, or of chemistry, for the very reason that it does not exist
for itself, exists for anybody or everybody who wishes to observe it. It is a
fact which can be known as directly and immediately by one as by another.
It is universal, in short. (EW2: 8)
Interesting enough, Dewey avoids the term “universal consciousness”

here but proposes the notion of “universal factor in psychology” (EW2:
10). Whether “universal factor” or “universal element,” it no more
implies the existence of a “universal consciousness” which he postulated
in Psychology as Philosophic Method (1886) and which was challenged by
Hodgson a year ago (See Chapter 5).
Thus the starting point of Dewey’s psychology is Kantian: knowledge
has to be understood and interpreted through the human mind and
psychology is to discover these laws:
knowledge implies reference to the self or mind. Knowing is an intellectual

process, involving psychical laws. It is an activity which the self experiences.
A certain individual activity has been accordingly presupposed in all the
universal facts of physical science. These facts are all facts known by some
mind, and hence fall, in some way, within the sphere of psychology. (EW2:
9)
Main Themes in Psychology

Dewey’s Three Aspects of Consciousness
To start with, Dewey points out that the science of self is the subject
matter of psychology (EW2: 7). He then uses “mind” to represent the
“intelligent self” with consciousness. There are three aspects of conscious-
ness: cognitive—knowledge, information, understanding; emotional—
feeling, subjective state of affection, pleasure-pain; volition—will, purpose
to attain an end (EW2: 18–20). Readers may be interested to note that
human psychology today keeps this classification, more or less. In child
psychology, we study and classify it in cognitive, emotional/affective,
social and physical development. In adult psychology, we study motivation
(will), unconsciousness (feeling), emotion, personality formation, and of

course, cognition. Note also the fad of EQ (emotional quotient) of the
1990s.2
Over the past 140 years, psychology has undergone paradigmatic shift
with changes in ideas, terms and vocabulary. Today’s readers will find it
hard to understand what Dewey meant then, notably the term “volition”
and “emotion.” Historically, volition was used by British psychologists
to denote the process of a person making up his mind, like what we
call decision-making today. Emotion, affection or feelings were used in
a much more general sense of the organism being affected, including
but not necessarily involving deep emotion such as anger, grief and fear.
Dewey generally follows this British usage within the biological stimulus-
response framework. His conception runs as follows: the self is affected by
external stimulus and is interested in it. This is called affection/feeling. It
directs the mind to attend to the external stimulus. This is called will. The
external stimulus is interpreted as something; this is called information or
knowledge to be understood. Note that will has two levels: selecting and
attending is at surface level and realizing an end, executing it by means
of knowledge is at deep level. Feelings have two levels as well: to show
interest and to note is the surface level and a vague desire to attend to it
and attain something is the deep level. You will find more elaboration in
the Table 6.2 of taxonomy.
Here Dewey reverts his definition of psychology to include universal
content and individual consciousness. It has three aspects, not three kinds
nor parts (Fig. 6.1).
……psychology is the science of the reproduction of some universal

content in the form of individual consciousness. Every consciousness, in
other words, is the relation of a universal and an individual element, and
cannot be understood without either. It will now be evident that the
universal element is knowledge, the individual is feeling, while the rela-
tion which connects them into one concrete content is will. It will also be
seen that knowledge and feeling are partial aspects of the self, and hence
more or less abstract, while will is complete, comprehending both aspects.
(EW2: 22–23)
2 Daniel Goleman’s Emotional Intelligence (1995) was a best seller.

112 R. LI
Table 6.2 Dewey’s taxonomy of psychology
Cognition Emotion Volition
Domain Knowledge Feeling/Affection Will

• Awareness • Personal reference • Activity
• Information and • Interest • Based on importance
understanding • Attention of the
mind
• Pleasant/unpleasant
feeling
Nature Objective Subjective Subjective–objective
integration
Knowledge is a Feeling is an individual Will is to connect the
universal element element two elements
(EW2: 22)
Universal content: Development of self Activity
Representation of (universal element gets
universe and into individual
reality consciousness)
Examples Sensation of Pleasure of eating Concrete consciousness
hunger (emotional to search for food
consciousness)
Sensation of pain Cut the finger (EW2: Subjective–objective
21–22) (feeling) integration
Classification • Sensation • Sensual feeling • Sensual Impulses:
• Perception -Intensity -General sense impulse
• Apperception -Quality -Special sense impulse
• Formal feeling -Impulse of perception
• Association
-Present adjustment -Impulse to imitation
• Attention -Past experiences -Identical impulse
• Retention -Future adjustment -Instinctive impulse
• Memory • Qualitative feeling • Volition
• Imagination -Aesthetic -Physical
Intellectual -Prudential
• Thinking
Personal -Moral
• Intuition Moral • Desire
• Motive
Dewey’s Notion of Impulses

Dewey’s notion of impulses is much more sophisticated than how we
use the term today. Now we employ the term to denote a person with
quick temper, acting without much thought, or acting according to
some “internal drive.” The extreme case of “compulsive behavior” is an
unrestrained, repetitive behavior to be treated as a mental disorder. In
Fig. 6.1 Dewey’s three knowledge

aspects of consciousness
will
feeling
other words, impulses nowadays are defined in terms of behavior without

restraint and thinking. A hundred years ago, Dewey defined impulses in
terms of an internal psychological state. It has its physiological side and
Dewey called in “sensuous impulse”:
Sensuous impulse may be defined as the felt pressure of a state of

consciousness arising from some bodily condition to express itself in
producing some physical change……For example, the nervous mechanism
of the eye is affected by ætheric vibration; the molecular motion conducted
to the brain results there in the state of consciousness which we call the
sensation of light. But there is also an affection of the self; there is a
tendency either to direct the eye towards the light or away from it. (EW2:
300)
To explain impulses, Dewey uses the following physiological terms:

nervous mechanism, molecular motion of the brain, sensation of light,
energy, pressure, physical stimulus. He is not so much interested in how
the brain works (neurology/physiology) as to how the organism and man
works (impulse, stimulus).
Recall that Dewey’s human consciousness has three aspects: knowl-
edge, feeling, will (impulse). He illustrates how it works with the union
of the three aspects in the psychological state of hunger:
The sensation of hunger, so far as it gives us information of the state of

our body, is the basis of knowledge; so far as it is a pleasurable or painful
affection of self, it is feeling; so far as it is the tendency to react upon
this feeling, and satisfy it, by bringing about some objective change, it is
impulse. (EW2: 300)
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Special Sensuous Impulses, Bodily Autonomous Reaction and Reflex

Action
Sensuous impulses are tendency to react or act. When there is sound
behind a child, he tends to turn his head to hear it. When there is an
object reflected by light into the child’s retina, he tends to fix his eyes on
it and to explore it. When there is an object out there, a child will try to
explore it and touch it with his hands, to “feel” it. “If it is particularly
pleasant, the mind acts by an impulse to continue; if disagreeable, ……to
take the body out……”(EW2: 302). So sensations are no “mere sensa-
tions” but “impulses to action.” By criticizing the traditional British view
of pure sensation, Dewey enriches it with the concept of impulses. In his
words,
If it is particularly pleasant, the mind acts by an impulse to continue it; if

disagreeable, to destroy its cause, or to take the body out of its hearing.
Were not sensations something more than mere sensations, were they not
impulses to action, knowledge would not originate; for there would be
nothing to induce the mind to dwell upon the sensation with the accen-
tuating action of attention; nothing to direct the mind to its qualities and
relations. (EW2: 302)
By today’s terminology, Dewey’s special sense impulses are bodily

autonomous reaction: a stimulus will elicit autonomous reaction from
the body. Simple as that. While the above looks like common sense to
child psychologists today, they are subtle processes being observed repeat-
edly and experimentally in the first half of twentieth century. Before that,
in late nineteenth century, Dewey tried to clarify these conceptions by
proposing the idea of sensuous impulse (autonomous reaction) which
is a mediating process between stimulus and response. A stimulus will
solicit an autonomous reaction from the body. Dewey called it special
sense impulse: the body will interpret it and lead to action of further
exploration or withdrawal, depending on the pleasant-pain principle.
Dewey is careful here to distinguish reflex action from “sensuous
impulse.” The former is unconscious while the latter is conscious with
feeling and discharge to relieve pressure.
“That is to say, reflex action is the direct and immediate deflection of

a stimulus having a sense origin into a motor channel…… Coughing,
chewing, swallowing, etc., are other examples of reflex acts. Reflex actions,
as such, is a physiological process…… in itself, involves no consciousness
while the sensuous impulse does…… any feeling may discharge itself in
producing physical change, and thus relieve the pressure.” (EW2: 301)
Here is the germinating idea of the famous child-candle problem (see

below), challenging the mechanistic stimulus-response framework and
leading to the beginning of American functionalism.
Will Involves Attention, Planning and Coordination

“Will” denotes something much more sophisticated than “willpower” in
Dewey’s usage. First, “action arising from an idea and ending in making
this idea real… will always unites me with some reality” (EW2: 299).
Then Dewey distinguishes content of knowledge and universal content
with form of feeling and will as connecting the two through an indi-
vidual. In this sense, Dewey is giving a scientific account where will
equals attention; feeling equals activity. No more elusive ideas untamed by
science. Psychological concepts (will, feeling) are now amiable to scientific
treatment:
It thus connects the content of knowledge with the form of feeling. Or,
again, there is no knowledge without attention; but attention is simply the
activity of will as it connects a universal content with an individual subject.
There is also no feeling except as an accompaniment of some activity. Both
knowledge and feeling, therefore, find their basis in will. (EW2: 299)
Dewey gives an example of movement, i.e., our will to stand up and walk
to a place. Will is the coordination and mutual regulation of sensuous
impulses:
so will gets its existence in the co-ordination and mutual regulation of the
sensuous impulses; in bringing them into harmonious relations with each
other through their subordination to a common end…… The sensuous
impulses, in other words, constitute the raw material, the basis of will;
they must be elaborated into the actual forms of volition through a process.
(EW2: 299–300)
Volition and Desire

When will is to denote a whole aspect of human consciousness through
attention, intention and action to realize impulses and relieve pressure,
volition is to denote the higher-order process of “act of will” with interest,
116 R. LI
desire, motive, plan and action. It is impulse consciously directed to an

end, integrating knowledge, feeling and impulse.
Volition is impulse consciously directed towards the attainment of a recog-

nized end which is felt as desirable…… A volition or act of will involves,
therefore, over and above the impulse, knowledge and feeling. There must
be knowledge of the end of action; there must be knowledge of the rela-
tions of this end to the means by which it is to be attained; and this end
must awaken a pleasurable or painful feeling in the mind; it must possess
an interesting quality, or be felt to be in immediate subjective relation to
the self…… (EW2: 309)
Note that the process follows a sequence:

External stimulus → Impulse (autonomous reaction) → Interest →
Desire → Motive → Plan → Action
In this process, the impulse (autonomous reaction) to reach out for an
object (perception and grasp) may lead to the experience of pleasure or
pain. The object now has a positive interest or negative interest for the
child. It has meaning and it constitutes desire. Dewey’s subtle view of
“perhaps it burns” originates here. It is a subtle analysis of the dynamic
change taking place in a child through experience:
The child, for example, impelled by a perceptive impulse, grasps for an

object. He reaches it, we will say, and it proves soft and pleasure-giving to
touch and possibly to the palate. Now, by the laws of apperception, this
pleasure and this object are associated together as parts of one experience.
Or, it is felt as rough; perhaps it burns; at all events, it occasions pain.
This pain and its object are associated. Now this object stands in a certain
definite relation to experience, and a relation which is brought, according
to the theory of pleasure previously explained (page 248), into intimate
and personal connection with the self. The object now has an interest,
and becomes a spring to action. This objective interest constitutes desire.
(EW2: 310)
Desire is one being conscious of a future state. Apparently Dewey is using

the word “desire” to mean more than a conscious or unconscious wish
but a clear conscious state of attaining an end, basically for pleasure and
satisfying self.
Pleasure, as we have so often seen, is the accompaniment of the activity, or

development of the self,…… a certain activity or realization of self, which
is anticipated as pleasurable, since it is a realization…… Desire implies a
consciousness which can distinguish between its actual state and a possible
future state, and is aware of the means by which this future state can be
brought into existence…… it sets before itself the satisfaction of impulse
as the form which action may take…… The impulse for food develops into
the desire for it. (EW2: 312)
Selfhood and Its Realization

Self and selfhood is hard to pin down. It is the human totality. When
psychology is to study the consciousness of intelligent self, selfhood is the
integration of the three aspects of consciousness: knowledge, feeling and
will. Feeling is unique and unsharable (EW2: 215). It cannot be defined
but can be felt (EW2: 216). It is “the interesting side of all conscious-
ness” (EW2: 216). Will is the process of attention (attending to interest),
intention and action:
Feeling, or the fact of interest, is therefore as wide as the whole realm of

self, and self is as wide as the whole realm of experience. To determine the
forms and conditions of feeling we must know something about self. Self
is, as we have so often seen, activity. It is not something which acts; it is
activity. All feeling must be an accompaniment, therefore, of activity……
The soul exists for itself; it takes an interest in itself, and itself is consti-
tuted by activities…… We have seen before that self is not a mere formal
existence,…… but it is a real activity…… The various spheres of experience
are only so many differentiations or developments of the real nature of the
self. The self, through its retentive activity, is constantly organizing itself
in certain definite, explicit forms, and only as it does thus organize itself is
it anything more than mere capacity. (EW2: 216)
To start with, the selfhood of a child is empty, but it seeks to fill in content
through interaction with environment, a process of action incorporating
objects of the external world. In the process, the true self is developing
and growing. The self is an end in itself, other objects are means. In
Dewey’s words,
This real self, which the will by its very nature, as self-objectifying, holds
before itself, is originally a bare form, an empty ideal without content. We
only know that it is, and that it is the real. What it is, what are the various
forms which reality assumes, this we do not know. But this empty form is
118 R. LI
constantly assuming to itself a filling; as realized it gets a content. Through

this content we know what the true self is, as well as that it is. It is so in
knowledge; it is so in artistic production; it is so in practical action. A man
feels there is truth and the feeling impels him to its discovery. (EW2: 319)
Ultimately, there is but one end, the self; all other ends are means…… We
begin, then, with physical volition, control of the body; go on to prudential
volition, control of purposes for an end recognized to be advantageous;
and finally treat moral volition, or the control of the will for itself as the
absolutely obligatory end. It alone is absolute end. Every other group is
also means. (EW2: 320)
Dewey’s Germinating Ideas in Psychology

It is no exaggeration to say that all Dewey’s ideas in psychology can
be traced back to this germinating ground in Psychology; important
ideas abound that blossom in his later writings in pragmatism and
functionalism, in areas of child and social psychology.
• Sense organs in active lookout for sensation (EW2: 47);

• Mind as selecting significance for attention—apperception (EW2:
78);
• Psychic life has meaning, is continuous and integrative (EW2: 79);
• Habit as automatic mechanism of the mind (EW2: 101);
• Self is constantly organizing itself (EW2: 211);
• Self is activity, acts and feeling (EW2: 211);
• Sensation comes before knowledge; sensation of physical body
affects mind intrinsically (EW2: 218);
• Will as co-ordinating and regulating impulse (EW2: 299);
• Volition as integrating knowledge, feeling and impulse (EW2: 309);
• Volition as impulse consciously directing to an end (EW2: 309);
• Desire as realization of self (EW2: 313);
• Will is the body, the concrete unity of feeling and intellect (EW2:
328–329).
Dewey’s Personal Triumph

Psychology was not only well-received by Dewey’s own students but
was quickly adopted by many American colleges. The second and third
editions were released in 1889 and 1891, respectively, and it served as a
standard textbook through the turn of the century (Martin 2002: 105).
Psychology is a personal triumph of Dewey: he was able to substan-
tiate his philosophic thinking, based on Kant and Hegel, with ideas of
modern psychology and experimentation. While Psychology did mention
the subjective mind (idealism) and objective existence (metaphysics), its
focus was on psychology and scientific experimentation. When Psychology
mentioned “soul” here and there, it merely meant “mind” (EW2: 7). It
seldom mentioned “God.” When it did, it was a discussion of religious
feeling (EW2: 290) and interaction of nature, self and god (EW2: 207–
211). That Psychology is a scientific treatise of human consciousness is
without doubt. Thus it surprises me when Steven Fesmire, a Deweyan
scholar, recently commented on Dewey’s Psychology. Fesmire explicitly
quoted Hall and James’ criticism,3 which accused Dewey of putting
psychology as a religious bible to reveal how god created men to glorify
God (Fesmire 2015: 16–17). Regrettably that is an uninformed criticism.
A thorough reading of Psychology reveals that there is no religious glori-
fication: it is all filled with the latest scientific research in psychology!
Apparently, Fesmire misses Dewey’s shining insight and originality on the
discipline, plus his effort to integrate psychology with philosophy.
The Reflex Arc Concept in Psychology

A Founding Father in Parody
History is full of ironies and parodies; intellectual history is no exception.
In Chapter 5, I describe Dewey’s The New Psychology (1884) as an ambi-
tious psychological manifesto. That Dewey produced this work was more
a matter of dedicated effort and deep understanding of the discipline than
the sheer luck of the right person at the right time. Nonetheless, the
contribution of this manifesto was never recognized, then and now. Next,
Dewey expanded his views into a textbook, Psychology, which brought
3 Hall was Dewey’s teacher in Johns Hopkins and the two had never been in good
terms. James, who was at that time laboring on his masterful The Principles of Psychology,
did not recognize Dewey’s insights until a decade later. See Chapter 7 for details.
120 R. LI
him fame. But he was only one of the many forerunners in American
psychology. His psychology teacher, J. Stanley Hall, did not have very
high regard of his work. His classmate, James McKeen Cattell (1860–
1944) was moving ahead by measuring reaction time, studying individual
differences and constructing mental tests (1890). A more senior William
James (1842–1910) was in Harvard publishing his The Principles of
Psychology (1890), another well-acclaimed psychology textbook. A lot of
exciting innovations and progress were going on in Germany. So it did
come as a surprise that twelve years later, in 1896, when Dewey published
The Reflex Arc Concept in Psychology, he was soon, ironically, hailed as the
founding father of functionalism in American psychology! A historian in
psychology even called it the “Declaration of Independence for American
Functional Psychology”!4 This time it was exactly the right person at the
right time in the right place.
The episode began in 1894. By then, Dewey had already published
three books and numerous papers and was seen as a rising star. He
was headhunted to become head of the Department of Philosophy,
Psychology and Education in the newly established University of Chicago.
There he stayed for ten years with a group of aspiring young minds and
philosophers, many of whom were his former colleagues or students at
Michigan. They constituted what was later called the “Chicago School of
Pragmatism.” In education, Dewey established the “laboratory school,”
soon known as the “Dewey School.” In psychology, he established a labo-
ratory and published many papers, the most renowned being The Reflex
Arc Concept in Psychology (1896).
Main Ideas of The Reflex Arc Concept in Psychology

Psychical Unity vs. Mechanical Conjunction
In The Reflex Arc Concept , Dewey kept his Hegelian dialectic and
unintelligible style. He reshuffled and repeated his ideas of evolution,
organic unity, adaptation, action and function. Like before, he criti-
cized the old mechanistic view of psychology, this time in the form of
a stimulus-response framework. Dewey identified the reflex arc concept
(sensori-motor apparatus/stimulus-response framework) as a “unifying
4 Boring, E. G. (1953). John Dewey: 1859–1952. American Journal of Psychology, 66,

145–147.
principle” in psychology, the ideas of which started from Locke in philos-

ophy, growing into physiology and then psychology. He cautions that the
stimulus/response (S-R) distinction is misleading, and that S-R are one
in action and coordination. “The sensation or conscious stimulus is not
a thing or existence by itself; it is that phase of a co-ordination requiring
attention……” (EW5: 106–107). In line with the philosophical underpin-
ning of Hegelian unity, Dewey championed for “psychical unity” instead
of “mechanical conjunction”:
The sensory stimulus is one thing, the central activity, standing for the idea,
is another thing, and the motor discharge, standing for the act proper,
is a third. As a result, the reflex arc is not a comprehensive, or organic
unity, but a patchwork of disjointed parts, a mechanical conjunction of
unallied processes. What is needed is that the principle underlying the idea
of the reflex arc as the fundamental psychical unity shall react into and
determine the values of its constitutive factors. More specifically, what is
wanted is that sensory stimulus, central connections and motor responses
shall be viewed, not as separate and complete entities in themselves, but
as divisions of labor, functioning factors, within the single concrete whole,
now designated the reflex arc. (EW5: 97)
The Child-Candle Problem

What is illuminating, as well as easy to understand, is that he quotes the
example from William James’ textbook, The Principles of Psychology (Vol.
1, p. 25): a child sees a candle (light), reaches out to grasp it, gets burnt
and never does it again. Let’s call it the child-candle problem (Fig. 6.2).
While James makes use of this example to show “the education of the
hemispheres” with four processes and laws of association at work, Dewey
reformulates it to challenge the stimulus-response orthodoxy. The stan-
dard interpretation is that “the sensation of light is a stimulus to the
grasping as a response, the burn resulting is a stimulus to withdrawing
the hand as response and so on” (EW5: 97) But Dewey challenges this
mechanistic interpretation. Simply put, the same stimulus (light) may not
produce the same response again. The initial response is reaching out and
grasping. The later response is avoiding, no more grasping. This is a very
serious challenge to stimulus-response theorists looking for regularity and
certainty of the same stimulus! Of course, every observer understands
why the responses are different: the child learns to avoid getting burnt.
This puts learning from experience in the forefront. According to Dewey,
there is a bigger co-ordination with “seeing-for-reaching purposes” and
122 R. LI
Fig. 6.2 The

child-candle problem
(Source James [1890,
vol. 1, p. 25])
“heat-pain quale” so that “acts fall within a larger co-ordination,” such as

co-ordination in “seeing and grasping,” “eye-arm-hand co-ordination.”
As a result, “the child learns from the experience and gets the ability to
avoid the experience in the future” (EW5: 98).
Dewey gave another example of a same stimulus eliciting different
responses:
If one is reading a book, if one is hunting, if one is watching in a dark place

on a lonely night, if one is performing a chemical experiment, in each case,
the noise has a very different psychical value; it is a different experience.
In any case, what precedes the “stimulus” is a whole act, a sensori-motor
co-ordination. What is more to the point, the “stimulus” emerges out of
this co-ordination; (EW5: 100)
Dewey tries to explain it by “sensation continuation theory” and argues

that “to the biological side,…… the ear activity has been evolved on
account of the advantage gained by the whole organism,…… connection
with the eye, or hand, or leg,……” (EW5: 101). Here, Dewey shows that
he is well-versed with psychological theories of his time, influenced by the
Darwinian conception of evolution, and was aware of Wundt’s research
paradigm of the “apperceptionist” and structuralism (EW5: 100).
The Uncertainty of Stimulus-Response with Attention

and Anticipation
Seeing the child-candle problem in light of a broad framework of coor-
dination, Dewey noted that both stimulus and response are uncertain.
It requires attention and anticipation, which transforms an objective
stimulus into a subjective sensation.
……But now take a child who, upon reaching for bright light (that is, exer-
cising the seeing-reaching co-ordination) has sometimes had a delightful
exercise, sometimes found something good to eat and sometimes burned
himself. Now the response is not only uncertain, but the stimulus is equally
uncertain; one is uncertain only in so far as the other is…… The sensation
or conscious stimulus is not a thing or existence by itself; it is that phase
of a co-ordination requiring attention because, by reason of the conflict
within the co-ordination…… We must have an anticipatory sensation, an
image, of the movements that may occur, together with their respective
values, before attention will go to the seeing to break it up as a sensation
of light, and of light of this particular kind…… Just here the act as objec-
tive stimulus becomes transformed into sensation as possible, as conscious,
stimulus. Just here also, motion as conscious response emerges. (EW5:
106–107)
Functionalism as Functional Division of Labor

Dewey starts the paper by proposing the idea of functional division of
labor in psychology and challenges the reflex arc concept of stimulus and
response (EW5: 97). The human experience has created a circuit, not an
arc or broken circle:
It is that experience mediated. What we have is a circuit, not an arc or

broken segment of a circle. This circuit is more truly termed organic than
reflex, because the motor response determines the stimulus, just as truly as
sensory stimulus determines movement. (EW5: 102)
Dewey interprets stimulus in functional terms. “……sensation as stimulus

does not mean any particular psychical existence. It means simply a func-
tion……” (EW5: 107). By bringing in human motivation, and a special
end or function, Dewey proposes a functional circle:
124 R. LI
To sum up: the distinction of sensation and movement as stimulus and

response respectively is not a distinction which can be regarded as descrip-
tive of anything which holds of psychical events or existences as such. The
only events to which the terms stimulus and response can be descrip-
tively applied are minor acts serving by their respective positions to the
maintenance of some organized co-ordination. The conscious stimulus or
sensation, and the conscious response or motion, have a special genesis
or motivation, and a special end or function. The reflex arc theory, by
neglecting, by abstracting from, this genesis and this function gives us one
disjointed part of a process as if it were the whole. It gives us literally an
arc, instead of the circuit; and not giving us the circuit of which it is an arc,
does not enable us to place, to centre, the arc. This arc, again, falls apart
into two separate existences having to be either mechanically or externally
adjusted to each other. (EW5: 108–109)

A Chronology of Reflex Researches
In order to review this century-old reflex arc issue, I have to start
by taking readers back to high school biology class of the twenty-first
century. Today the reflex arc is seen as a process of involuntary action. It
involves a sequence with a number of entities:
Stimulus → Receptor → Sensory neuron → Synapses → Spinal cord
→ Motor neuron → Response
The process is fast, without thinking nor consciousness because it
bypasses the brain, though the brain will also receive information; speed:
1/30 sec. It explains knee-jerk, burning pain, eye blink, etc.
We gained today’s received wisdom through several hundred years of
research. It started in the mid-seventeenth century from Rene Descartes
who described eye blink as “against our will.” Then Robert Whytt (1714–
1766) showed that a decapitated frog can still produce reflex muscle
movements in its leg. By 1833, Marshall Hall decapitated a turtle and
proved that “the presence of the medulla oblongata and spinalis is neces-
sary to the contractile function of the eyelids, the sub-maxillary textures,
the larynx, the sphincters, the limbs, the tail, on the application of stimuli
to the cutaneous surfaces or mucous membranes. It proves the reflex char-
acter of this property” (Hall 1833: 645). In other words, Hall proved that
reflex action such as eye blink or knee-jerk involves the spinal cord but not
the brain (cerebral hemispheres). When the nerve impulse was found to
be electrical by nature, Hermann von Helmholtz (1821–1894) measured
it in 1849 and estimated the speed in the range of 25–38 meters per
second. In the second half of nineteenth century, Camillo Golgi had a
breakthrough in staining technique (1873), leading to Santiago Ramón
y Cajal’s discovery of independent neural cells (1889). Conceptions such
as dendrites and axons were formed, together with Charles Sherrington’s
theory of synapses (1897). See below for a chronology of reflex researches
(1600–1900) (Table 6.3):
Dewey’s Ideas in Intellectual Context

It would be helpful to review Dewey’s Reflex Arc Concept paper in the
above intellectual context of scientific discovery. As early as 1833 and
1850, Marshall Hall performed an experiment on decapitated turtle and
frog, respectively, to demonstrate the pathway of the reflex arc. Then
Eduard Friedrich Wilhelm Pflüger proposed the four laws of reflex action
and coined the words “sensory nerves” and “motor nerves.” Thus the
explanation of reflex action which bypasses the brain is already in place
long before Dewey brought up the child-candle problem in 1896. In
other words, when the child withdraws his hand from the candle flame, it
does not involve the brain, consciousness or thinking.
Regrettably reflex arc is exactly the opposite of what Dewey would
expect. Reflex arc is an arc, as witnessed in knee jerking, eye blinking,
heat evading and so on, where stimulus (sensory neurons) and responses
(motor neurons) do not pass through the human brain. These are elemen-
tary or basic muscle and motor movements unrelated to the mediation of
thinking or experience. On the other hand, I would say that Dewey is
half correct with the reflex arc in the child-candle problem. He argued
that “The motion is not a certain kind of existence; it is a sort of
sensory experience interpreted” (EW5: 103). For the lower-order reflex
response to heat, it is autonomic and there is not sensory experience inter-
preted. For the higher-order action of withdrawing the whole finger and
hand, looking, examining and crying, it is sensory experience examined
interpreted.
When Dewey tries to replace the reflex arc with the reflex circuit/circle,
his object of analysis is higher-order sensation. His insistence on the medi-
ation of experience is only half correct. As seen from Dewey’s analysis,
even the child-candle instance is too complex and may involve at least four
gross tasks, each involving different parts of neural organs and the body. I
am sure today’s researchers can break each down into more sophisticated
sub-tasks (Table 6.4):
126 R. LI
Table 6.3 A Chronology of reflex researches (1600–1900)a
Year of Researchers Important discoveries

discovery/publication
1649 Rene Descartes In Passion of the Soul,

(1594–1660) Descartes described the
eyelid reflex, which “is
against our will.” In De
Homine, he showed the
heat-withdrawal reflex by
the drawing of a child
moving his left foot from
fire. Descartes proposed the
idea of “animal spirit,”
today termed “nerve
impulse”
1664 Thomas Willis Willis described various
(1628–1678) parts of the brain and used
the term “reflex” to denote
involuntary movements
1751 Robert Whytt Whytt showed in his paper,
(1714–1766) On the Vital and Other
Involuntary Motions of
Animals, that: (i) the spinal
cord is the centre
integrating sensory
information and triggering
motion; (ii) a decapitated
frog can still produce reflex
muscle movements with its
leg.
1786 Luigi Galvani (1737–1798) Galvani showed that nerve
impulse is electrical by
nature: an electric current
can produce muscle
contraction of a frog
1811 Charles Bell (1774–1842) Bell found that sensory
nerves and motor nerves are
distinct: the former enters
the posterior (dorsal) of the
spinal cord while the latter
emerges from the anterior
(ventral)
(continued)

1833 Marshall Hall In Reflex Function of the

(1790–1857) Medulla Oblongata and
Medulla Spinalis, Hall
discovered that the motor
system of nerves is
independent of sensation
and volition. He proposed
the notion of reflex arc with
two types of nerves: the
afferent (sensory) and the
efferent (motor) nerves
1849 Hermann. von Helmholtz Nerve conduction speed was
(1821–1894) measured in the range of
25–38 meters/sec
1853 Eduard Friedrich Wilhelm Pflüger proposed four laws
Pflüger of reflex action to explain
(1829–1910) the locus of stimulus of the
sensory nerve and the
related position of muscle
contraction segments
1855 Herbert Spencer In The Principles of
(1820–1903) Psychology, Spencer theorized
the evolution of
consciousness from simple
to complex, where “reflex
action (is) the lowest form
of psychical life” and higher
complex actions “are
governed by simple reflex
laws”
1863 Ivan Sechenov In Reflexes of the Brain,
(1829–1905) Sechenov argued that higher
mental functions are
basically reflexes
1873 Camillo Golgi Golgi invented
(1844–1926) silver-chromate technique to
stain and identify neural
cells (Nobel Prize 1906)
1889 Santiago Ramón y Cajal Cajal proposed the neuron
(1852–1934) theory that the nervous
system is made up of
independent neural cells
(Nobel Prize 1906)
(continued)
128 R. LI

1897 Charles Sherrington Sherrington proposed the

(1857–1952) concept of synapse. He later
invented nerve degeneration
technique and studied
knee-jerk reflex in cats
(Nobel Prize 1921)
1903 Ivan Petrovich Pavlov Pavlov worked on
(1849–1936) conditioned reflexes, the
famed bell-food salivation
experiment (Nobel Prize
1904)
a This chronology is based on the information gathered from a variety of sources. Please refer to
further readings
Table 6.4 Psychological tasks in the child-candle problem
Psychological Tasks Nature of Responses Body Organs

(neural organs) Involved
Reflex Brain Function
(spinal (cerebral
cord) hemisphere)
Seeing-attending-focusing eye
Perceptual information eye, arm,

analysis-attracted-decision-psychomotor hand, finger
movement
Autonomic movement of withdrawal finger
Reinterpreting, changing attitude and brain

experience
From today’s vintage, motor movements are delineated in two cate-

gories with different mechanisms: involuntary reflex action involving the
spinal cord and voluntary action involving the thinking brain (cerebral
hemisphere). This delineation is not so clear in Dewey’s times. Take the
position of Herbert Spencer. His evolutionary principles postulate that
the complex evolves out of the simple, and higher-order functions evolve
out of the lower-order ones. Reflex is seen as “the lowest form of psychical
life,” which will give rise to higher forms, such as emotion, will and
volition. Following this paradigm, Ivan Sechenov believed that “higher
order brain functions are basically reflexes.” In retrospect, we can say that
reflex arc had served as a model of brain functioning in the second half
of nineteenth century for the bulk of researchers (Brysbert and Rustle
2009: 170). Thus it comes as no surprise that Dewey took reflex arc
and stimulus-response as a unifying principle and tried to modify it with
experience.
Dewey’s Impulse-Action Circuit

Dewey has always been eager to offer unity in theory and explanation.
Consequently it is natural that he criticizes the reflex arc concept and tries
to replace it with a circuit. But this is invalid because the reflex action,
according to physiology, does not involve the brain. Reflex is the study
of how a stimulus elicits response of simple involuntary action. It is really
an arc, not a circuit. When Dewey proposes a circuit, it is not a reflex any
more. It involves the brain for voluntary action. So instead of calling it
reflex circuit, which sounds contradictory, I will call it an impulse-action
circuit.
Recall in Dewey’s Psychology, he uses the terms will, volition and desire.
Will is the coordination and mutual regulation of sensuous impulses. In
this child-candle problem, the seeing is the sensuous impulse leading to
action, then getting burned and changing the child’s conception to a light
candle. To follow Dewey’s line of thought in Psychology, the whole process
would be better termed “Impulse-action circuit”: there is a crucial start
from the impulse which leads to a chain of actions as outlined in the above
psychological stages, which finally leads to the subsequent reinterpretation
of experience. It is a circuit. This circuit is a process which involves a
feedback loop, a learning process and the reconstruction of experience.
Dewey’s problem with psychology is that of the unit of study. At
the heyday of psychology, researchers wanted to break things down into
small manageable units for study and measurement, thus Wundtian struc-
turalism and elements of consciousness. But Dewey is not satisfied with
breaking things up; he and James aim at big things and a total picture,
such as consciousness and learning. He insists on the holistic wholeness
of man and experience. As such, Dewey had to quit micro-psychology
and turn to education, where the unit of analysis is a whole person and a
whole society.
130 R. LI
A hundred years have passed, sensation is easier to manage now, but

consciousness still remains too complex to study though we have made
groundbreaking progress in conception and method.5
Founding Functionalism in America

The Right Time and the Right Place
The time is 1890s and the place is America. Psychology had grown
considerably in England since Bain and in Germany since Wundt.
Hundreds of young Americans flocked to Europe to learn the trade and
returned to start theirs. They occupied major positions in major univer-
sities. For example, Dewey’s contemporary and senior, William James
studied in Europe in 1867 with Helmholtz and returned to teach phys-
iology in Harvard in 1874. Dewey’s teacher, G. S. Hall studied under
Wundt in 1879 and returned to teach Dewey in 1883. Moreover, a
few top universities rivaled among themselves and they all wanted to
push the discipline forward: William James and Hugo Munsterberg in
Harvard; G. S. Hall in Johns Hopkins, later moved to Clark to become
University president; Dewey and his student James Rowland Angell
in Chicago; James Cattell and Edward Thorndike in Columbia; finally
Edward Titchener in Cornell.
The time is ripe for these top scholars to have a stake and a say in the
discipline. After importing European psychology for a generation, they
wanted an American version. Readers may note that America in the late
nineteenth century, then called the new world, was open and receptive to
new ideas. The ethos favored evolutionary principles, social Darwinism,
free enterprises and liberty. Things and ideas were looked upon for how
they worked (function) and what their uses were. Numerous new inven-
tions and patents developed that might have new functions to benefit the
living of the people.
Functionalism in psychology was soon seen as a new vision in rivalry
with Wundt’s experimental psychology, which focused on the elements
of consciousness, termed structuralism. For the first time, Americans had
its own indigenous psychology! With James in Harvard and Dewey in
Chicago, functionalism proliferated for a few decades, and Dewey was
5 Readers interested in the study of consciousness in the twentieth century may refer to
the list of further readings of Chapter 7.
credited for giving birth to functionalism because of his Reflex Arc

Concept article. He was the right person at the right time in the right
place. The parody goes on as functionalism was later replaced by behav-
iorism, whose founding father, John B. Watson (1878–1958), was again
ironically Dewey’s student in Chicago.6
Further Readings
In this chapter, we reviewed Dewey’s textbook on psychology (1887) and
his paper on reflex arc (1896). Readers can get a deeper understanding
from the following:
A. Reflex Researches
A lot have been done on reflex researches. You may get more details
in:
1. Lopez-Munoz, F., Boya, J., & Alamo, C. (2006). Neuron Theory,

the Cornerstone of Neuroscience, on the Centenary of the Nobel
Prize Award to Santiago Ramon y Cajal. Brain Research Bulletin,
70, 391–405.
2. Clarac, F. (2005). The History of Reflexes Part 1: From Descartes
to Pavlov. International Brain Research Organization History of
Neuroscience.
3. Clarac, F. (2005). The History of Reflexes Part 2: From Sherrington
to 2004. International Brain Research Organization History of
Neuroscience.
4. Hall, M. (1833). On the Reflex Function of the Medulla Oblongata
and Medulla Spinalis. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society
of London, 123, 635–665.
5. Bennett, M. R. (1999). The Early History of the Synapse: From
Plato to Sherrington. Brain Research Bulletin, 50(2), 95–118.
6 When John B. Watson studied psychology in Chicago in 1900–1903, he attended

Dewey’s lectures and found it incomprehensible. “I never knew what he was talking
about then, and, unfortunately for me, I still don’t know,” Confessed Watson. Quoted
from Schultz and Schultz 2008: 298. Apparently his ignorance of Deweyan functional
psychology became his impetus for a new behaviorist psychology.
132 R. LI
6. De Carlos, J. A., & Borrell, J. (2007). A Historical Reflection

of the Contributions of Cajal and Golgi to the Foundations of
Neuroscience. Brain Research Reviews, 55, 8–16.
7. Castro F. D., Lopez-Mascaraque, L., & Carlos, J. A. (2007). Cajal:
Lessons on Brain Development. Brain Research Reviews, 55, 481–
489.
8. Grant, G. (2007). How the 1906 Nobel Prize in Physiology or
Medicine Was Shared Between Golgi and Cajal. Brain Research
Reviews, 55, 409–498.
B. Psychology Textbooks of the Late Nineteenth Century
To put Dewey’s ideas and his textbook in perspective, serious readers

can compare his writings with his predecessors and contemporaries.
The renowned predecessors’ textbooks are: Spencer (1855), Bain (1855,
1859) and Wundt (1874). His contemporaries are:
Lotze, R. H. (1886). Outlines of Psychology [1881].
Ladd, G. T. (1887). Elements of Physiological Psychology.
James, W. (1890). The Principles of Psychology.
Titchener, E. B. (1896). An Outline of Psychology.
They are all collected in Classics in Psychology, 1855–1914. A Collection
of Key Works, edited by Robert H. Wozniak (1998). Bristol: Thoemmes
Press and Tokyo: Maruzen Co. Ltd.
C. The Chicago School of Functionalism from Dewey to Angell
Most textbooks on the history of modern psychology will cover

The Chicago School of functionalism that Dewey founded and Angell
succeeded. The treatments are relatively short, but readers can find more
about James Angell and his successor Harvey Carr in their autobiogra-
phies in the last item.
1. Boring, E. G. (1950). A History of Experimental Psychology. New

Jersey: Prentice Hall Inc [See Chap. 22].
2. Schultz, D. P., & Schultz, S. E. (2008). A History of Modern
Psychology (9th Edition). Boston: Cengage Learning [See Chap. 7].
3. Greenwood, J. D. (2009). A Conceptual History of Psychology. New
York: McGraw-Hill Higher Education [See Chap. 10].
4. Hergenhahn, B. R., & Henley, T. (2014). An Introduction to the

History of Psychology (7th Edition). Wadsworth: Cengage Learning
[See Chap. 11].
5. Murchison, C. (Ed). (1936). A History of Psychology in Autobiog-
raphy, Vol. III . New York: Russell & Russell.
References
Boring, E. G. (1953). John Dewey: 1859−1952. American Journal of Psychology,
66, 145–147.
Hall, M. (1833). On the Reflex Function of the Medulla Oblongata and Medulla
Spinalis. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, 123, 635–
665.
James, W. (1890). The Principles of Psychology. Cambridge: Harvard University
Press. (Reprinted 1983).
CHAPTER 7
Psychological Fallacy, How We Think,

and Human Nature and Conduct
A Father Teasing His Offspring

In the last chapter, I outline how John Dewey has become the founding
father of functionalism in parody. In this chapter, I will continue to tell the
story of how this unwilling father satirizes psychology as “psychological
fallacy.” Then I will describe how he relentlessly thinks about thinking
for the next three decades. In my last section, you will see how he comes
back full circle to answering the ultimate question of psychology—human
nature.
Psychological Fallacy
Background and Storyline
Just before he was elected president of American Psychological Associa-
tion at the turn of the twentieth century, Dewey made a serious critique
on the state of American psychology, calling it “psychological fallacy”
(MW1: 118). To make his arguments easier to understand for present-day
readers, I present them as a melodrama traversed with Dewey and other
major players of psychology as protagonists. Hopefully this metaphorical
presentation will help you understand the story better.
Dewey’s Work in Psychology in 1899

Dewey was extremely busy and productive in psychology in 1899. First,
he traveled to California in May and addressed the Philosophic Union

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-7941-7_7
136 R. LI
of The University of California with the title Psychology and Philosophic

Method (MW1: 113-130). Six months later, in December, he was elected
president of American Psychological Association of 1899–1900 and gave
a presidential address in New Haven, the title being Psychology and
Social Practice (MW1: 175–191). At about the same time, his paper
on child development appeared in Transactions of the Illinois Society for
Child Study (4), 1899, entitled Principles of Mental Development as Illus-
trated in Early Infancy (MW1: 175–191). It was followed by a sequel,
Mental Development (MW1: 192–221), which covered childhood and
adolescence, published in 1900 by The University of Chicago. All along
Dewey busied himself with teaching, lectures and talks, in addition to the
management of The University Elementary School and the administra-
tion at the Department of Philosophy, Psychology and Education with
The University of Chicago.
Revisiting Psychology and Philosophic Method after 14 Years

1899 is also the mid-point of Dewey’s academic career in psychology.
Recall that Dewey started the debut of his psychology manifesto in 1884.
Two years later, in 1886, he proposed, against the tide of psychology
striving for independence from philosophy, that psychology should
remain in philosophy and integrate with it, where psychology is philo-
sophic method. His critic Shadworth Hodgson accused him of Illusory
Psychology, for Dewey brought in the notion of universal conscious-
ness. Dewey responded briefly by changing the term from universal
consciousness to universality of consciousness (see Chapter 5 for details).
How hard hit Dewey was by the criticism of Illusory Psychology we
do not know, but it is clear Dewey continued to keep his view of
psychology as method of philosophy. Based on this methodological posi-
tion, Dewey wrote his textbook, Psychology, published in 1887. He
constantly pondered over the individual and universal issues in psychology
as well as the relations between the two disciplines.
Fourteen years had passed. He wrote a textbook, taught many courses
in psychology and wrote numerous articles, including the epoch-making
Reflex Arc Concept in Psychology (1896). As his fame grew and his psycho-
logical thought came to mature, he revisited the relationship between
psychology and philosophy again, interpreting the issue in light of the
latest development of the two disciplines. By then, the new vocabulary
and framework had become functionalism and pragmatism to supplement
evolution.
7 PSYCHOLOGICAL FALLACY, HOW WE THINK, AND … 137
The Melodrama of Psychology

The Psychological Fallacy
Dewey’s criticism of psychology can be retold in the following drama. In
the second half of nineteenth century, philosopher-psychologists worked
hard to find out about consciousness. Notably Spencer offered evolu-
tionary principles, Bain supplied pleasure-pain principles, associationists
gave configuring principles and Wundt worked on elements of conscious-
ness, focusing mainly on attention and awareness. The young generation
of American psychologists took all the above and started their own busi-
ness, branding it as functionalism. To this burgeoning enterprise, Dewey
cautioned it with “misplaced fallacy” or “psychological fallacy” (MW1:
118): you psychologists create tools to measure what you can do on
an individual, but miss the content of his experience or consciousness,
which is dictated on the individual by different societies: “they procure
for the individual… different sorts of experience… different impulses…
different perceptions…” (MW1: 113). In other words, the psychologist
is the creator of all the tools, measurements and data of psychology!
More seriously and mistakenly, the psychologist did not work on with
ready-made material. Rather, he created and amassed abundant mate-
rial “developed by his investigation” (MW1: 118). But all these are not
directly experienced by the subject. So here comes the “psychological
fallacy” of the confusion of experience: “the confusion of experience as
it is to the one experiencing with what the psychologist makes out of it
with his reflective analysis” (MW1: 118). According to Dewey, psycho-
logical fallacy is the confusion between the subject’s concrete experience
and the psychologist’s reflective analysis. The outcome is artificial: the
subject experiences what the psychologist creates for the experiment, but
not what his natural daily experience is.
Readers should be aware that Dewey is not the first to coin the term
“psychological fallacy.” William James, in his celebrated The Principles of
Psychology, has suggested:
“The Psychologist’s Fallacy”. The great snare of the psychologist is the

confusion of his own standpoint with that of the mental fact about which
he is making his report. (James 1890, vol. 1: 196)
Here, the objectivity of the psychologist is called into question for putting
his words into the mouth of the subject, coming out as “mental fact.” The
138 R. LI
psychologist, “knowing the self-same object in his way, gets easily led to
suppose that the thought, which is of it, knows it in the same way in which
he knows it,” thus, “a counterfeit image of itself” (ibid.: 196–197).
But Dewey went further; he even challenged the notion of conscious-
ness, indicting the psychologist for creating it, then studying it but
missing the method. This is the melodrama on the front stage, like a
magician doing a performance in front of an audience without a wand. In
Dewey’s words,
I conceive that states of consciousness (and I hope you will take the
phrase broadly enough to cover all the specific data of psychology) have
no existence before the psychologist begins to work. He brings them into
existence. What we are really after is the process of experience, the way
in which it arises and behaves. We want to know its course, its history,
its laws. We want to know its various typical forms; how each originates;
how it is related to others; the part it plays in maintaining an inclusive,
expanding, connected course of experience. Our problem as psychologists
is to learn its modus operandi, its method. (MW1: 117)
Psychology Gets Its Revenge

One glaring view of this address was that “…psychology gets its revenge,”
as Dewey put it (MW1: 121). This emotive statement can be understood
in the melodrama of the intellectual history at the backstage.
In the early and middle nineteenth century, the consensus was that
psychology was to study consciousness. This domain of psychology was
firmly guarded as a legitimate branch of study, in England and Germany,
though it was called “mental philosophy.” When Wundt enthusiastically
promoted his version of experimental psychology, many philosopher-
psychologists believed that psychology, having found its method and
direction, had grown mature enough to become an independent, scien-
tific discipline. Here is my metaphor: psychology the child had grown into
a young adult and should leave the family, i.e., the house of philosophy.
This view was shared among psychologists of the late nineteenth century.1
William James himself is an illustrative example here. He saw that
psychology should focus on the scientific and physiological representa-
tion of the body and mind with consciousness while philosophy should
1 See Boring, E. G. (1950). A History of Experimental Psychology. New Jersey: Prentice

Hall Inc.
concern itself with metaphysics. After writing 1400 pages on psychology

from the point of view of natural science, he did not summarize any
breakthroughs or credulous findings of this new science in his Preface.
Instead, he confessed three starting assumptions of psychology which
cannot be resolved by itself. Psychology has to seek help from another
province—metaphysics:
Psychology, the science of finite individual minds, assumes as its data (1)
thoughts and feelings, and (2) a physical world in time and space with
which they coexist and which (3) they know. Of course these data them-
selves are discussable; but the discussion of them (as of other elements) is
called metaphysics and falls outside the province of this book. This book,
assuming that thoughts and feelings exist and are vehicles of knowledge,
thereupon contends that psychology when she has ascertained the empirical
correlation of the various sorts of thought or feeling with definite condi-
tions of the brain, can go no farther - can go no farther, that is, as a natural
science. If she goes farther she becomes metaphysical. All attempts to
explain our phenomenally given thoughts as products of deeper-lying enti-
ties (whether the latter be named “Soul”, “Transcendental Ego”, “Ideas,”
or “Elementary Units of Consciousness”) are metaphysical. (James 1890,
vol. 1: vi)
This being his position, James is positivistic about psychology but believes
that metaphysics can help to overhaul psychology to move on. A distinc-
tion and separation of psychology from philosophy, for James, is both
necessary and productive.
So here is supposed to be the division of labor: psychology should work
on the state of consciousness (SOC) only and should not ask any philo-
sophical question (validity, truth, beauty, good). But the consequence
is devastating, according to Dewey. When the psychologist carries on
its work, “experience has been reduced to SOC as independent exis-
tences” (MW1: 122). It focuses on experiment and the empirical facts of
consciousness but loses sight of the whole picture of human life. It cannot
move forward because it has no clear grasp of the philosophical meaning
of “Course or Process of Experience” (MW1: 122). As for philosophy,
it needs psychology to detail what state of consciousness (SOC) is, so
that “the subject can… ‘transcend’ itself as to get valid assurance of the
objective world” (MW1: 122). In fact, “state of consciousness can be
the vehicle of a system of truth, of an objectively valid good, of beauty”
(MW1: 122), the metaphysics of logic, ethics and aesthetics.
140 R. LI
Now, the entire fundamental problem of philosophy hinges on SOC,

but SOC is hard to pin down, to locate, to describe, let alone to elab-
orate into truth, goodness and beauty. Consequently, self-transcendence
becomes mission impossible, one of a Sisyphean nature (MW1: 122). The
outcome of this revenge is that both sides lose. Observed Dewey:
Such is the irony of the situation. The epistemologist’s problem is, indeed,
usually put as the question of how the subject can so far “transcend” itself
as to get valid assurance of the objective world. The very phraseology in
which the problem is put reveals the thoroughness of the psychologist’s
revenge. Just and only because experience has been reduced to “states
of consciousness” as independent existences, does the question of self-
transcendence have any meaning. The entire epistemological industry is
one—shall I say it—of a Sisyphean nature. Mutatis mutandis, the same
holds of the metaphysic of logic, ethic, and aesthetic. In each case, the
basic problem has come to be how a mere state of consciousness can be
the vehicle of a system of truth, of an objectively valid good, of beauty.
(MW1: 122)
The outcome of this revenge appears to be that both sides fall into a trap
and cannot get out. Psychology keeps amassing experimental data but
fails its mission to understand human life; philosophy keeps searching for
self-transcendence but cannot get hold of consciousness, the province of
which belong to psychology.
The Road Ahead for Psychology

Functionalism and Act Psychology
When Dewey’s Reflex Arc Concept (1896) was considered the first shot of
American functionalism in psychology, Psychology and Philosophic Method
gave a clearer outline of functionalism and how consciousness should be
studied. According to Dewey, psychologists start with operations, acts
and functions. Acts are concrete experiences and function is the point
of departure, prescribing the problem and setting limits:
The psychologist begins with certain operations, acts, functions as his

data…… Acts such as perceiving, remembering, intending, loving give the
points of departure; they alone are concrete experiences. To understand
these experiences, under what conditions they arise and what effects they
produce, analysis into states of consciousness occurs……it is the function
that fixed the point of departure, that prescribed the problem and that
set the limits, physical as well as intellectual, of subsequent investigation.
Reference to function makes the details discovered other than a jumble of
incoherent trivialities…… States of consciousness are the morphology of
certain functions. What is true of analysis, of description, is true equally of
classification. Knowing, willing, feeling, name states of consciousness not
in terms of themselves, but in terms of acts, attitudes, found in experience.
(MW1: 118–119)
For Dewey, SOC is an instrument of inquiring and a methodolog-

ical appliance (MW1: 119, footnote 4). State of consciousness is not
self-existent, it comes into existence because of research. Thus Dewey
succinctly states:
My contention is that the “state of consciousness” as such is always a

methodological product, developed in the course and for the purposes of
psychological analysis. (MW1: 120, footnote 6)
Students of psychology will immediately detect the similarities

between Dewey’s functionalism and Franz Brentano’s (1838–1917) act
psychology. Brentano was an eminent Italian philosopher-psychologist
who studied Aristotle and medieval philosophy and put forth the notion
of intentionality, to distinguish a mental act (such as thinking, memory,
loving) from a mental content (thinking about a woman, remembering
her face). His work, Psychologie vom empirischen Standpunkte (Psychology
from an Empirical Standpoint ) of 1874, rivaled with Wundt’s Physiol-
ogische Psychologie of 1873. Apparently Brentano and Dewey’s concern
are different. When Brentano sees psychology as an empirical science for
the study of mental or psychical phenomena with immanent objectivity
(Boring 1950: 360), thus mental acts and mental content, Dewey takes
mental acts as concrete experiences, analyzable and explicable by function.
Brentano studied basic human cognitive abilities such as vision and optical
illusions in the scientific experimental manner, while Dewey is more inter-
ested in the social and cultural content in which human cognition arises
and functions.
Evolution and Its Implication for Psychology

To Dewey, evolution is not an additional law but a stepping stone to the
knowledge of process:
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The conception of evolution is not so much an additional law as it is a

face-about. The fixed structure, the separate form, the isolated element,
is henceforth at best a mere stepping-stone to knowledge of process, and
when not at its best, marks the end of comprehension, and betokens failure
to grasp the problem. (MW1: 123)
Consequently, evolution is not the discovery of a general law but is

the generalization of all scientific method. I tend to summarize Dewey’s
conception of evolution in two premises:
1. Evolution is a dynamic process of change in form and content,

function and structure.
2. Evolution is a dynamic process of action with adaptation to circum-
stances.
The two premises, due to its abstract terminology, require philosophical

explanation and exploration. For example, what is process and change?
What is in the real world (noumenal world) for adaptation? What is reason
or rationality for its paramount role in action? Psychology, in studying
the elementary process of perception and attention, is far far away from
answering these big ultimate questions. Even worse, when psychology
divorces philosophy, she just loses sight of these issues to guide her to
search for human nature, reality and truth. Thus Dewey’s position is
that philosophy should help clarifying those terms so that psychology will
never lose sight of it.
Dewey’s Prescription
In conclusion, Dewey offers his prescription for both philosophy and
psychology. Philosophy must go to school: be humble to learn method
or data from other sciences.
Philosophy may not be sacrificed to the partial and superficial clamor of

that which sometimes officiously and pretentiously exhibits itself as Science.
But there is a sense in which philosophy must go to school to the sciences;
must have no data save such as it receives at their hands; and be hospitable
to no method of inquiry or reflection not akin to those in daily use among
the sciences. (MW1: 129)
Psychology is a transition of science to philosophy:

There is something in experience, something in things, which the phys-

ical and the biological sciences do not touch; something, moreover, which
is not just more experiences or more existences; but without which their
materials are inexperienced, unrealized. Such sciences deal only with what
might be experienced; with the content of experience, provided and
assumed there be experience. It is psychology which tells us how this
possible experience loses its barely hypothetical character, and is stamped
with categorical unquestioned experiencedness; how, in a word, it becomes
here and now in some uniquely individualized life. Here is the necessary
transition of science into philosophy. (MW1: 129)
How We Think---Thinking About

Thinking for Three Decades
Developmental Psychology and Thinking Research
During his Chicago years, Dewey wrote much on developmental
psychology, notably Principles of Mental Development as Illustrated in
Early Infancy (1899) and Mental Development (1900). The two papers
should be read together, which is the cognitive development from infancy
to early adulthood. Here Dewey’s interest in child psychology grew as
he ventured into education as well. Readers must be cautioned, however,
that Dewey is not an original frontline researcher or experimental psychol-
ogist as we know of today. With his philosophical training, Dewey takes
the role of a theorist to conceptualize and review research findings. This
is most evident in The Psychology of Infant Language (1893) where he
reviews the findings of a researcher on 5400 words used by two infants.
For his Mental Development , he relies exclusively on the works of his
contemporaries, Baldwin, Sully and Chamberlain (MW1: 192).
But Dewey appears more original and pioneering in thinking research.
How We Think appeared in 1909. The book cited very few references,
may be due to two reasons. First, it is more or less an original treatise and
not much former research is available. Second, it is written for frontline
teachers who need clear guidelines more than detailed research references.
The purpose of the book is to help teachers foster among children “the
attitude of the scientific mind” (MW6: 179; Preface).
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The Puzzle: Why Revising It After 24 Years

Dewey published Psychology (1887), a successful textbook reprinted 26
times from 1887–1946. He did not bother to revise it after 1891 (EW2:
xlix–liv; A Note on the Text ). What is so special about How We Think
that he has to revise it, calling it a “Restatement” in 1933? Readers can
try to solve the puzzle by comparing How We Think (1909) with How We
Think (1933). I have done a bit and found something interesting. He had
changed the word “thought” in 1909 to “thinking” in 1933. So are the
words “means and end” in 1909, which become “process and product”
in 1933. For the new edition, he revised the old Chapter 5 substantially,
added two chapters in Part 2, and expanded the former Chapter 9 into 2
chapters. Dewey himself admitted increasing it by 25% (LW8: 107). What
does that mean?
Textual Editors of LW8, Bridget A. Walsh and Harriet F. Simon, had
done a meticulous job comparing the two versions (LW8: 376–414).
They were able to summarize the substantive revisions like what I did
in the preceding paragraph, and described the circumstances surrounding
the revised work by quoting Dewey’s correspondence to Joseph Ratner
and Sidney Hook (LW8: 386–387) However, they failed to explain why
Dewey revised How We Think instead of writing something new. Why
was that improvement so important, so long as the basic ideas of 1909
How We Think had been retained, as Dewey assured us (LW8: 108)? The
answer cannot be found in How We Think itself but it can be unveiled in a
broader context of Dewey’s ideas in evolution. In 1909, Dewey used the
words thinking and thought more generally, but in 1933, he singled out
“reflective thinking” and emphasized that it must be an educational aim
(LW8, Chapter 2), so are there modes of thinking other than “reflective
thinking”?
The answer is yes. Probably Dewey had thought of it for more than
three decades. As early as 1900, Dewey discussed the child’s mind, its
inquiry, memory and associations (Mental Development , MW1: 204–5).
By 1909, he had formulated his notion of reflective thinking. In the
next twenty years, his taxonomy of thinking had evolved and expanded
to include: affective thought in 1926 (LW2), practical thought in 1926
(LW2), and qualitative thought in 1930 (LW5).
Dewey’s Taxonomy of Thinking

Reflective Thought—In 1909, Dewey defined reflective thought as
“active, persistent and careful consideration of any belief or supposed
form of knowledge in the light of the grounds that support it, and
the further conclusions to which it tends” (MW6: 185) He approached
the issue of thinking for truth, knowledge, belief and imagination and
considered reflection as most important. Reflective thought is in fact
scientific and logical thought. It includes inference (induction and deduc-
tion), judgment (interpretation of facts) and meaning (conception of
understanding) (Part II of How We Think, 1909) (MW1: 233–301).
Affective Thought—In 1926, Dewey mentioned affectivity, “the rest-
less, craving, desiring activity” which “is deep-seated in the organism, and
is constantly extended and refined through experience” (LW2: 105–106).
He called it affective thought which is more or less distinct for the intel-
lectual, the field of reasoning, the pure intellect. Affective thought is not
just emotion. Nor is it just the distinction between science and the arts
so that there is scientific thinking in contrast with artistic thinking. It is
a “greater differentiation and integration” of experience and is present in
the works of art. In other words, Dewey recognized “affective thought”
as different from scientific thought and reasoning. Readers would be
interested to note Dewey had just finished his monumental classic, Experi-
ence and Nature (LW1) in 1925 which has put experience in the forefront
of human existence and endeavor, be it intellectual or artistic, individual
or social.
Qualitative Thought—Carrying his ideas a step further, Dewey
proposed “Qualitative Thought” in 1930. Fesmire called it “Dewey’s
watershed essay” (Fesmire 2015: 206). Here Dewey argues: “The gist
of the matter is that the immediate existence of quality, and of dominant
and pervasive quality, is the background, the point of departure, and the
regulative principle of all thinking” and “….. the thinking of the artist, his
logic is the logic of what I have called qualitative thinking” (LW5: 262).
Apparently, Dewey wants to integrate art (feeling) with science (logic)
through his theory of experience. When the artists (poets, painters, musi-
cians and the like) experience something and express it, it does have a
logic, a complex cognitive component.
I hope by now I have shown readers why Dewey revised How We Think
in 1933 instead of writing something new. His ideas on thinking have
grown so much in the past two decades that reflective thinking is only
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a part of the bigger picture which includes affective thinking, qualitative

thinking, even practical thinking. He thus has to limit his scope of revising
How We Think to A Restatement of the Relation of Reflective Thinking to
the Educative Process. In other words, it will not touch the affective aspect
of thinking nor the qualitative and artistic aspect of thinking, not even
practical doings and thinking for living. But reflective thinking is impor-
tant in the educative process and so Dewey revises it for consumption of
the public and the education sector. He also strengthens his arguments in
logical considerations (Part II). Generally, it appears that thinking denotes
the process and thought denotes the end-product. As Dewey is concerned
with the education process, it becomes understandable that he uses the
term “reflective thinking” to denote the thinking process going on in the
educative process in his 1933 paper.
Dewey’s Notion of “Facts”

Reflective thinking is defined in terms of “facts.” It involves four colloca-
tions of “suggest” in one sentence! Readers are advised to read Dewey’s
examples of a cloud and ashes to decipher his definition:
(Reflective thinking is) defined as that operation in which present facts

suggest other facts (or truths) in such a way as to induce belief in what
is suggested on the ground of real relation in the things themselves, a
relation between what suggests and what is suggested. A cloud suggests
a weasel or a whale; it does not mean the latter, because there is no tie, or
bond, in the things themselves between what is seen and what is suggested.
Ashes not merely suggest a previous fire, but they signify there has been
a fire, because ashes are produced by combustion and, if they are genuine
ashes, only by combustion. It is an objective connection, the link in actual
things, that makes one thing the ground, warrant, evidence, for believing
in something else. (LW8: 120) (bold by author)
Dewey used the term “facts” in contradistinction with “idea”; the former
are “data,” “facts of the case” which may or may not be “susceptible
of direct observation by the sense” (LW8: 199); the latter may include
idle speculations, fantasies, dreams: poetry, fiction, drama or knowledge.
Reflective thinking is to review and evaluate the “facts” and to reach a
judgment. In this sense, Dewey’s facts/data can be better termed the
“raw material of a situation” (facts of the case), but even this is not well-
defined: what is and isn’t raw material is hard to decide. Culture and
evolution are some plausible criteria for accepting, ignoring or creating

“raw material.” Where to look at and look for is determined by many
background factors. Consequently, Dewey’s reflective thinking is open to
multiple means of discourse and is less descriptive than it seems.
Five Phases of Reflective Thinking

Dewey’s five phases of reflective thinking are:
1. Suggestion—A continuing activity is blocked, awaiting for thought

and appraisal of the situation.
2. Intellectualization—The problem and its perplexity is “felt.”
3. Hypothesis (guiding idea)—To confront it, an “insight into the
problem connects, modifies, expands the suggestion… (it) becomes
a supposition, or stated more technically, a hypothesis” (LW8: 202).
4. Reasoning—Elaboration and deliberation of the hypothesis or
guiding idea to see if it works. For Dewey’s examples, they are
mostly related to existing knowledge in school and maths (LW8:
204–205).
5. Testing (forecasting)—Testing, or an experiment is conceived:
“conditions are deliberately arranged in accord with the require-
ments of an idea or hypothesis to see whether the results theoreti-
cally indicated by the idea actually occur” (LW8: 205). Testing with
reference to the future is forecasting. Here Dewey quoted Einstein’s
theory forecasting an eclipse of the sun and the famous astronomical
expedition of 1919 (LW8: 208). See my review below.
Six Steps of Judgment

Throughout reflective thinking, judgment can be seen as the decision
process based on the facts and ideas pertaining to a hypothesis. Appar-
ently for the easy understanding of teachers, Dewey delineates judgment
into six steps:
1. Doubt—The starting point is from doubt and controversy: there is

some point at issue for rivaling interpretations.
2. Selection of facts—Relevant facts have to be selected; what is and
is not important and evidential has to be decided.
3. Selection of laws/principles—Dewey is concerned about relevant
laws or principles and their interpretation. With the evolution of
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conceptions and possible meaning, the selection has to consider “the

development and elaboration of the suggested meaning in the light
of which they are to be interpreted” (LW8: 214).
4. Decision—A judgment terminates in a decision; it fixes a rule or
method and meanings get standardized to become logical concepts
(LW8: 215–6).
5. Analysis—An analysis is to clear up, to objectify a quality. Though
Dewey does not elaborate in depth he does suggest going beyond
“anatomical” and “morphological” method. He is insightful to
point out that method and organization is a post hoc discovery
(LW8: 217).
6. Synthesis—It means “piecing together,” “in so far as it leaves the
mind with an inclusive situation within which selected facts are
placed” (LW8: 219).

Reflective Thinking as an Educational Aim
Dewey’s study of thinking is both descriptive and prescriptive. While
Dewey starts by saying “no one can tell another person in any definite way
how he should think,” nonetheless, “some of these ways are better than
others.” The purpose of educational training of thought is “the formation
of disciplined logical ability to think” (LW8: 187). It is more effective “in
turning a subject over in the mind and giving it serious and consecutive
consideration.” This he called it reflective thinking (LW8: 113). To begin
with, Dewey is concerned with how we should think, thus the “training
of thought” and thinking “must be an educational aim” (Chapter 2).
For Dewey, education is for living in freedom and liberty, where “gen-
uine freedom, in short, is intellectual; it rests in the trained power of
thought, in ability to ‘turn things over’ to look at matters deliberately,
to judge whether the amount and kind of evidence requisite for deci-
sion is at hand, and if not, to tell where and how to seek such evidence”
(LW8: 186). Consequently, the “training of thought” is an integral part
of education to guarantee “genuine freedom.” In other words, Dewey’s
study of thinking is not merely a scientific analysis of human thought,
but a philosophical treatise of how we should think. It ends up with an
ethical and moralistic tone where right thoughts help us solve problems
and wrong thought can kill us (lead to harmful beliefs and outcomes)
(LW8: 129–130).
From this ethical perspective, it becomes clear why Dewey is concerned

with the training of right thought. While a right thought will be carried
out by skilled methods of inquiry such as inference, deduction, logic, anal-
ysis and so forth, the attitudes behind it are even more important, which
include open-mindedness, whole-heartedness and responsibility.
Dewey urges for the union of attitudes and skilled methods (LW8:
136). In his words, “…, attitudes that, in the proper sense of the words,
are moral, since they are traits of personal character that have to be
cultivated” (LW8: 139).
Dewey’s thinking research is the union of moral philosophy and scien-
tific psychology. Moral philosophy is concerned with the cultivation of
personal character which fosters positive attitude in thinking. Scientific
psychology is concerned with the thinking process of correct inference, as
well as faulty reasoning (Dewey called it “bad thinking” LW8:131).
Reflective Thinking to Guide Action in Social Groups

The value, or goal of reflective thinking, is not to attain truth, but to
guide action, Dewey’s pragmatism entails. “It makes possible action with
a conscious aim” (LW8: 125). In contrast with animals acting on instincts,
human’s reflective thinking “enables us to know what we are about when
we act. It converts action that is merely appetitive, blind, and impulsive
into intelligent action” (LW8: 125). It also makes possible systematic
preparations and inventions, enriches things with meanings. In fact our
past thinking was embedded in culture, adding more and more meaning
and value to life (LW8: 126–128). The cumulative effect is “a truly
human and rational life” of existence (LW8: 129).
In other words, truth is not, but action is, the regulating concept of
reflective thinking. Wrong thoughts (or wrong beliefs) are harmful to us
in that it affects life or even threatens survival. Since we live in social
groups,
Social conditions also put a premium on correct inference in matters where

action based on valid thought is socially important. These sanctions of
proper thinking may affect life itself,…… (LW8:130)
Here Dewey puts thoughts and social value together: social conditions
lead to valid thought (correct inference) which is socially important.
Consequently social values encapsulate thought and truth. Reflective
thinking can turn out to be “correct thinking” when it is “socially
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correct” or “politically correct”; it can be “wrong thinking” when it is

“socially incorrect” and “politically incorrect.” In Dewey’s times, he may
not have envisioned the oppression of the totalitarian state in “correct
thinking.”
Dewey Pioneering but Superseded

Dewey was among the earliest researchers in the beginning of the twen-
tieth century to formalize scientific thinking, proposing five phases of
reflective thinking and six stages of judgment. More importantly he popu-
larized these ideas in the American education scene thanks to his writings
to teachers and his enthusiastic followers in the education sector. Suppos-
edly he had made a whole generation of American school children more
“scientific” in thinking.
How We Think has been taken as a starting point for some empir-
ical research, for example, Bruner, Goodnow and Austin (1956).2 In
their study of thinking, they applied the idea of hypothesis testing to
children’s learning of concepts. Dewey’s notion of suggestion and intel-
lectualization (to feel the perplexity of a problem) was reformulated into
problem-solving,3 an important domain of thinking research. Reasoning
and inference in his reflective thinking phases were extensively studied by
psychologists in the second half of twentieth century. They used compo-
nential analysis and reaction time measures to construct computational
models.4 In this sense, Dewey can be seen as a pioneer in the field of
thinking research.
During and after the period (1909–1933) Dewey wrote his How We
Think, however, many breakthroughs took place in the field of thinking
research, as well as in the philosophy of science. The first was Wolfgang
Köhler (1887–1967) who studied apes and discovered their problem-
solving ability in 1927, which set a paradigmic case of problem-solving.
The second is Karl Popper (1902–1994), who published, in German, The
Logic of Scientific Discovery in 1934, a year after Dewey’s restatement of
How We Think. Note that in How We Think Restatement (1933), Dewey
revised his old version and mentioned in a line on Einstein’s theory
2 Bruner, J. S., Goodnow, J. J., & Austin, G. A. (1956). A Study of Thinking. New
York: Wiley.
3 Most textbooks in cognition will cover this topic.
4 Li, R. (1996). A Theory of Conceptual Intelligence (pp. 100–114). New York: Praeger
Books.
being confirmed by the Eddington’s expedition of 1919. When Dewey

substantiated his testing and forecasting with this example, Popper made
a case with Einstein’s theory, showing the demarcation of science from
non-science by falsification, not by confirmation or verification.5 Then,
a few years later in 1938, Hans Reichenbach (1891–1953) introduced
the notion of probability in scientific prediction together with his view of
logical positivism.6 Moreover, scientific thinking, Dewey’s case of reflec-
tive thinking, had developed by leaps and bounds that by 1930s it could,
theoretically, be formalized with symbolic logic into computing systems
by Alan Turing (1936) and artificial neural network by Warren McCul-
loch and Walters Pitts (1943). All these ideas and breakthroughs cannot
be accounted for or accommodated in Dewey’s framework of reflective
thinking.
In The New Psychology (1884) Dewey hailed old psychology and
proclaimed, “the best we can do is to thank them, and then go about
our own work… for our work is in the future” (EW1: 50). The same
can be said of Dewey’s research on thinking: today we should thank
Dewey because certain roots of thinking research of the twentieth century
started from him. Since then, we may need a few volumes to chronicle
the development in this field.7
Human Nature and Conduct8

Historical Context
Dewey’s conception of human nature should be understood within the
historical context of nineteenth-century philosophy and psychology. The
two disciplines were trying to answer issues arising from the rise of
science, the notion of progress and the changing social order. More specif-
ically, these issues include the debate between science and religion, free
will and instinct, rationality and morality, hereditary and environment.
5 Popper earned his PhD by his Logic of Scientific Discovery.

6 Reichenbach, H. (1938). Experience and Prediction: An Analysis of the Foundations of
the Structure of Knowledge. Chicago: University of Chicago.
7 Readers interested in the field may refer to further readings below.
8 This section is based on my paper, John Dewey’s Notion of Human Nature,
presented in the International Symposium on the Centenary of Democracy
and Education, October 23, 2015, Hong Kong.
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It is in this context that Dewey formulated his “scientific” view of

human nature. I call his view “scientific” in two senses. First, the issue of
human nature is not for speculation but for scientific investigation. This
investigation may start from the study of the reflex arc, which Dewey
did in 1896, and went further into habits and conduct in 1918. Second,
Dewey is a believer of science and progress. Therefore, his position is that
morality should be based on scientific knowledge. However, Dewey is also
critical of science, which makes weapons and wars (He wrote Human
Nature and Conduct just after the First World War). So, how should
we constrain science? Should morality constrain science or should science
constrain morality? This is one of his main concerns.
A note on the title. When behavior and behaviorism gained
momentum in American psychology during the period, Dewey did not
call his book Human Nature and Behaviour. Instead he used the term
“conduct” to denote a broader spectrum of human behaviors. As we shall
see, it is Dewey’s deliberate choice of words to avoid the narrow vision of
unit of analysis in behavioral psychology.
The Puzzle of Dewey’s Notion of Habit

The book, Human Nature and Conduct (HNC), starts with an introduc-
tion on human nature and morality. Then it is followed by three parts:
habit and conduct, impulse and conduct and intelligence and conduct,
ending with a conclusion. I seem to get in a puzzle box once I started
reading Dewey’s notion of habit.
In psychology, habit was then defined as a “fixed way of thinking,
willing or feeling acquired through previous repetition of a mental experi-
ence” (Journal of Psychology, pp. 121–149, 1903). Afterward, the concept
was gradually replaced by overt behavior and behaviorism in the 1920s
and 1930s. We now use it to mean learned and repeated physical stances
such as tidiness, cleanliness, courtesy, nail-biting and smile. In addition,
popular psychology books try to capitalize on habits of effective people.9
Psychologists also study:
9 Covey, S. R. (1989). The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. New York: Free
Press. The author takes habits as mind-set and a character ethic.
• Habitual behavior;
• Mental/thinking/learning habits;
• Habit formation;
• Habit-directed vs goal-directed behavior.
But Dewey used the word in an unusual way. Habits are arts—skills of
sensory and motor organs. He uses “habit” to mean a lot of things: atti-
tudes, ways of thinking, judgments: doing and their impact. He is using
habit to mean thinking habits, mental and physical skills, may be even
feelings. It is like everything! (MW14: 15–16).
Then there are well-formed habits (MW14: 25), incorrect habit
(MW14: 26), old habit (MW14: 38), frustrated habit (MW14: 39), bad
habit (MW14: 21–27). He jokingly talked about walking habit (MW14:
29) and even used the habit of eating to illustrate the old question of
objectivity and subjectivity (MW14: 38–39). What is more, habit forma-
tion is based on the social/environing condition and all virtues and vices
are habits based on objective forces (MW14: 44). What does he mean?
And how is it related to the big picture of human nature?
Clarifying Dewey’s Concept of Human Nature Components

It takes me many rounds of reading, determinedly and deeply, to gain
a vague understanding of Dewey’s concept. Below can be taken as a
reading guide to help interested readers to decipher Human Nature and
Conduct . First, let me summarize Dewey’s notion of habit. There are at
least ten concepts and seven classes:
Concepts Classes
• Acquired mental and physical skills • Bad habit

• Learned attitude • Well-formed habit
• Ways of thinking • Incorrect habit
• Judgment • Old habit
• Habit formation is social • Frustrated habit
• Will and deed in union is concrete habit • Walking habit
• Bundle of habit is mind • Eating habit
• Institutions embody habit
• Character and conduct in union
• Motive and act in common
154 R. LI
Next, let me review “custom.” Dewey argues that customs are social
while habits are personal (p. 35). Examples of customs are: slavery, war,
wage-system (MW14: 78). Custom provides machinery and design for
war and custom is working out morals (MW14: 78). In this sense, I think
custom means human institutions.
To move on, we can now get into “impulse” and “conduct.” For
impulse, Dewey basically means instincts manifested in acts (see my elab-
oration below). As impulses cannot always be satisfied and are in conflict
with habit, custom and convention, it will lead to change and modi-
fication in both the individual and society. Conduct is not reflex nor
instinctive behavior. It is an act, or human action, which is constrained
by and subject to moral judgment.
The Deweyan Picture of Human Nature

I try to construct a pictorial representation for your easy understanding
(Fig. 7.1). In this Deweyan picture, the boy, a human being, is walking
down the road. He is in an environment, with physical and social forces.
He possesses human nature, of which the environment interacts to
become his conduct. Human nature has three components: intelligence
is in his head; his left hand signifies impulse, which conflicts with custom;
his right hand signifies habit, which is passed onto him as customs from
his parents who stand behind him. In other words, he will be in conflict
or in unison with customs, depending on varying situations. Morality is a
fetter that impedes his movement.
In this picture, habits are learned skills and attitudes; habits are
personal while customs are social. Impulses are human instincts. Customs
suppress impulses. Customs also work out morality to restrain and control
human nature. When impulses conflict with habits, customs or conven-
tion, it will lead to change. Finally, intelligence is thinking, reflecting,
serving as the go between of habit and impulse.
Habit, Impulse and Intelligence

The Significance of Habit
For Dewey, habit is regulated thought, absentmindedness, stimulus-
response link. It confines the eyes of mind to the road ahead (MW14:
121). When things work out by habit (without using conscious intel-
ligence), we call it absentmindedness (MW14: 121). When we bump
into the unexpected, we need consciousness, breaking into a new road
conduct
Fig. 7.1 A pictorial representation of Dewey’s notion of human nature
(MW14: 122). When we achieve a goal (in a deed, such as brush our
teeth), it is just mindless action (MW14: 122).
Habits are conditions of intellectual efficiency. They operate in two ways

upon intellect. Obviously, they restrict its reach, they fix its boundaries.
156 R. LI
They are blinders that confine the eyes of mind to the road ahead. They
prevent thought from straying away from its imminent occupation to a
landscape more varied and picturesque but irrelevant to practice. (MW14:
212)
Habit sets negative limits to thoughts. On the other hand, the more habits
we have, the more observation, perception, imagination we are capable of
(MW14: 123).
Habit is however more than a restriction of thought. Habits become nega-

tive limits because they are first positive agencies. The more numerous our
habits the wider the field of possible observation and foretelling. The more
flexible they are, the more refined is perception in its discrimination and
the more delicate the presentation evoked by imagination. (MW14: 123)
I think that according to Dewey, habit interacts with environ-

ment and provokes thoughts: no need to assume the existence of
mind/consciousness/soul/knower. “Habits are the means of knowledge
and thought” (MW14: 123). For Dewey, habits do all the cognitive
functions of perceiving, recalling, judging, … Consciousness is only func-
tions of habit (MW14: 124). Habits and impulses work together in the
real world by doing. Therefore, knowledge lives in the muscles, not in
consciousness (MW14: 124).
Yet habit does not, of itself, know, for it does not of itself stop to think,
observe or remember. Neither does impulse of itself engage in reflection or
contemplation. It just lets go. Habits by themselves are too organized, too
insistent and determinate to need to indulge in inquiry or imagination.
And impulses are too chaotic, tumultuous and confused to be able to
know even if they wanted to. Habit as such is too definitely adapted to
an environment to survey or analyze it, and impulse is too indeterminately
related to the environment to be capable of reporting anything about it.
Habit incorporates, enacts or overrides objects, but it doesn’t know them.
Impulse scatters and obliterates them with its restless stir. A certain delicate
combination of habit and impulse is requisite for observation, memory and
judgment. Knowledge which is not projected against the black unknown
lives in the muscles, not in consciousness. (MW14: 124)
How Does Dewey Treat Impulses

According to Dewey, there are “definite, independent, original instincts,”
manifested in acts of one-to-one correspondence. He listed nine of them
(MW14: 104):
• Fear; • Maternal love;

• Anger; • Sexual desire;
• Rivalry; • Gregariousness;
• Love of mastery of others; • Envy.
• Self-abasement;
All these instincts involve specific bodily organs as well as the whole
organism for action asserted Dewey. These are impulses. Among them,
sex, hunger and fear are the most prominent ones.
Dewey studied psychology and is deeply influenced by the ideas of his
time. Some terms are:
• Psychoanalysis; • Libido; • Sublimation;

• Introspection; • Psychic force; • Suppression;
• Internal state; • Feelings/soul; • Mental pathology
Basically the discipline is moving away from speculation to observables

but Dewey kept the sophisticated analysis in a metaphysical tone. Because
of his philosophical background, Dewey criticizes mistaken classification
of instincts by psychologists (MW14: 99).
For any activity is original when it first occurs. As conditions are continually
changing, new and primitive activities are continually occurring. The tradi-
tional psychology of instincts obscures recognition of this fact. It sets up a
hard-and-fast preordained class under which specific acts are subsumed, so
that their own quality and originality are lost from view. (MW14: 108)
Dewey illustrated his point with an example. He insisted there is no single

instinct of fear. When fear acts in muscular contraction, withdrawals,
evasions and concealments, it must be related to specific objects and envi-
ronment. Dewey listed them: (fear of dentist, ghost, success, humiliation,
bat, bear, cowardice, embarrassment, caution, reverence). He argued that
“They all have certain physical organic acts in common—those of organic
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shrinkage, gestures of hesitation and retreat. But each is qualitatively

unique” (MW14: 107). Then Dewey brings in fear of air-raid (bombs
from the sky).
High explosives and the aeroplane have brought into being something new
in conduct. There is no error in calling it fear. But there is error, even from
a limited clinical standpoint, in permitting the classifying name to blot from
view the difference between fear of bombs dropped from the sky and the
fears which previously existed. The new fear is just as much and just as
little original and native as a child’s fear of a stranger.
For any activity is original when it first occurs. As conditions are contin-
ually changing, new and primitive activities are continually occurring. The
traditional psychology of instincts obscures recognition of this fact. It
sets up a hard-and-fast preordained class under which specific acts are
subsumed, so that their own quality and originality are lost from view.
(MW14: 107–108)
I think Dewey is right to point out different types of fear. The point is to
distinguish innate fear (dark) from learned/conceptual fear (dentist, air-
raid, gun). It really depends on experience. For example, an Afghanistan
boy may fear aircraft sound while showing no fear to a dentist chair, and
vice versa for a Hong Kong child. Granted that each instance of fear is
new and “original,” and many fears are learned in a new environment, the
most important issue is to outline underlying and manifested mechanisms
in physiological terms. When some classifications of fear may be mistaken,
a scientific study must proceed with generalization and classification is the
first step of any scientific investigation.
To theorize further, Dewey outlines three possible outcomes of
impulses: surging, explosive discharge; sublimation—impulse operates as
a pivot of re-organization of habit; and suppression—leading to reaction
(MW14: 108).
Impulse has significant social consequences. When impulse is not
handled properly, it will lead to repression, enslavement, corruption and
perversion (MW14: 114).
The significant thing is that the pathology arising from the sex instinct
affords a striking case of a universal principle. Every impulse is, as far as
it goes, force, urgency. It must either be used in some function, direct or
sublimated, or be driven into a concealed, hidden activity. It has long been
asserted on empirical grounds that repression and enslavement result in
corruption and perversion. We have at last discovered the reason for this
fact. (MW14: 114)
They are all impulse in disguise, such as “a rebellious disposition (which)

is also a form of romanticism.” (MW14: 114). It will “view institutions as
slaveries” (MW14: 115). In other words, impulse may originate rebellion
and revolution for social change.
Thinking and Intelligence

For Dewey, deliberation is thinking, imagination and making choices. It
is like scenario thinking, with a start from habit and impulse into various
imagined paths.
Every object hit upon as the habit traverses its imaginary path has a direct
effect upon existing activities. It reinforces, inhibits, redirects habits already
working or stirs up others which had not previously actively entered in. In
thought as well as in overt action, the objects experienced in following out
a course of action attract, repel, satisfy, annoy, promote and retard. Thus
deliberation proceeds. To say that at last it ceases is to say that choice,
decision, takes place. (MW14: 134)
Deliberation includes choice, unifying, harmonizing competing tenden-

cies, elimination and recombination, imagined circumstances, sensitive-
ness, feeling and decision. Dewey argues that we do not do “calculation
of courses of action on the basis of the profit and loss” (MW14: 139).
We deliberate by experiencing the present, not calculating the future.
“Future pleasures and pains… are among the things most elusive of calcu-
lation” (MW14: 141). Deliberation is to evaluate the present and envisage
consequence.
Hence the problem of deliberation is not to calculate future happenings

but to appraise present proposed actions. We judge present desires and
habits by their tendency to produce certain consequences. It is our business
to watch the course of our action so as to see what is the significance, the
import of our habits and dispositions. (MW14: 143)
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The Whole Picture of Human Nature in Summary
Piecing together the above concepts, we can arrive at the vista of
Dewey’s whole picture of human nature. Impulses are instincts and
desires working in the human world without restraint. They are like laws
of nature. Borrowing terms from science, Dewey stated the metaphors
where motion is to progress as blind spontaneity is to freedom and atom is
to individuality. Thus impulses and instincts are unalterable laws of nature.
Custom suppresses impulse but may have led to unrestrained expres-
sion, for example, war. When we break custom, we release impulse by
doing old things in new ways. We can also construct new means and
ends (MW14: 118). Impulse affects habit and conduct. Morality is to
find ways to manage impulse in its manifestation to balance between
custom, tradition, privileges versus present needs. Apparently, tradition,
morality, customs and habits belong to the same category of inter-
woven ideas. Morality is underlying guidelines for customs and habits.
Here Dewey insists on the impact of social environment affecting habits
and customs. Traditional morality with a transcendental standard creates
tension. Impulses can help reorganize habits, leading to new morality.
To work it out, we need intelligence (thought) (MW14: 117). Theorizes
Dewey:
Impulse is needed to arouse thought, incite reflection and enliven belief.

But only thought notes obstructions, invents tools, conceives aims, directs
technique, and thus converts impulse into an art which lives in objects.
Thought is born as the twin of impulse in every moment of impeded
habit…… this discovery when once made marks the birth of intelligence.
(MW14: 118)
Traditional morality calling upon do-gooders is basically customs.

According to Dewey, Western morality from Plato to modern times
is based on religion. The belief of religious and transcendental reality
of goodness is rejected by Dewey. Consequently, morality, or code of
conduct, is in crisis. Where can we anchor it? Dewey’s answer is in
pragmatism.
Puzzle Solved: From Habit to Action

This has long been my working puzzle: how can habit mean so many
things and why. After reading Human Nature and Conduct a few times,
I see that habit and impulse are elaborated deeply. Especially in Part III,
Dewey talked about how habit and impulse work together and habit inter-
acts with environment, leading to his theory of perception and action.
Then I come across his criticism on utilitarianism with the following lines:
… this false psychology consist in two traits. The first, that knowledge
originates from sensations (instead of from habits and impulses) and the
second, … (MW14: 132)
Sensation, sense data, Tabula Rasa are terms by Hume (empiricism); pure
reason, synthetic aprori, are terms used by Kant (rationalism). Dewey
wants to go beyond and propose habit and impulse (pragmatism) to
anchor knowledge and also to ground morality! Following the tradition of
Hume’s empiricism and sensation and avoiding the transcendental “good-
ness” in morality, Dewey wants to get rid of subjective entities by using
two words to cover all: habits and impulses.
James proposes stream of consciousness and Dewey rejects an abstract
entity (soul) or a separate knower. Therefore, he proposes functional
psychology, where
Concrete habits do all the perceiving, recognizing, imagining, recalling,

judging, conceiving and reasoning that is done. “Consciousness,” whether
as a stream or as special sensations and images, expresses functions of
habits, phenomena of their formation, operation, their interruption and
reorganization. (MW14: 124)
Here, we see the obscure and unique use of the terms by Dewey. First,
habits and impulses are terms Dewey used to denote unconscious thought
and behavior and instinctual responses, respectively. They are practical to
life and living. Second, “knowing how” is the practical function of knowl-
edge and “knowing that” (of, about things) is the reflection and conscious
appreciation of the undescribed thing (reality). When habits and impulses
fail, Dewey calls in intelligence:
Yet habit does not, of itself, know, for it does not of itself stop to think,
observe or remember. Neither does impulse of itself engage in reflection or
contemplation. It just lets go. Habits by themselves are too organized, too
insistent and determinate to need to indulge in inquiry or imagination.
And impulses are too chaotic, tumultuous and confused to be able to
know even if they wanted to. Habit as such is too definitely adapted to
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an environment to survey or analyze it, and impulse is too indeterminately

related to the environment to be capable of reporting anything about it.
Habit incorporates, enacts or overrides objects, but it doesn’t know them.
Impulse scatters and obliterates them with its restless stir. A certain delicate
combination of habit and impulse is requisite for observation, memory and
judgment. Knowledge which is not projected against the black unknown
lives in the muscles, not in consciousness. (MW14: 124)
In this sense, Dewey’s notion of habit and impulses can be understood

within his theory and the intellectual context of his time. He wants to
find a term to express human action within a social environment. He
wants to show how this action, constrained by our cultural convention
and institution (custom), is driven by our underlying instincts (impulse),
breaking into a new path with the help of intelligence. Action is central
to Dewey’s thought and the following diagram may be helpful (Fig. 7.2).
Human Nature
AcƟon
Reflex Intelligent
Habit
acƟon acƟon
Habitual acƟon SƟmulus- Unconscious

(absent Response acƟon
mindedness) acƟon
Fig. 7.2 The centrality of action in Dewey’s notion of human nature

The Genesis of Human Nature and Conduct: Psychology, How We

Think and James’s and Freud’s Influences
You may be interested to note that traces of ideas of Human Nature
and Conduct can be found in Dewey’s own book on psychology he
wrote 30 years earlier. In Psychology, Dewey already denoted that habit
is a repeated routine; habit formation is through association and habit is
automatic, mechanical unconscious action (EW2: 100–104). For impulse,
sensuous impulse is pressure to act (example: sensation of hunger), and
instinctive impulse is impelled to act (example: infant takes food). There
are instincts of expression, with examples such as the cry of pain, laugh,
trembling of anger (EW2: 229–306).
Finally, for will, it is to construct knowledge beyond impulse and to
gain control (EW1: 357–364). To elaborate this point, Dewey wrote How
We Think in 1909, arguing that thinking habits and skills can be trained,
and that judgment is interpreting facts and meaning. In 1910, Dewey
was still wrestling with the ideas of how we think and how we should
think. By 1918, he had integrated thinking into his Human Nature and
Conduct framework. Intelligence is reflective thinking and his concern is
social psychology, not individual psychology.
Dewey’s ideas are not developed in a vacuum. Among the milieu of
early the twentieth century, two psychologists stand out to have influ-
enced Dewey’s Human Nature and Conduct . The first is William James.
It is no exaggeration to say that James’ Principles of Psychology (1890) has
significant impact on all psychologists of his time. By espousing a scientific
psychology, James has proposed the stream of thought, the consciousness
of self, a theory of emotion, mind-dust theory, among others. Less known
are his notions of habits and instincts, which he devotes an entire early
chapter (Chapter 4) on it, signifying the importance of these notions on
his psychology.
Dewey can be seen as building on James, who stresses the importance
of good habits and offers five maxims to develop them (James 1890:
122–127), the ideas of which were traceable to Bain’s “Moral Habits”
(p. 122). Dewey, on the other hand, takes habits within the sociocultural
context of customs and postulates thinking and intelligence to overcome
habits.
It is clear that James’ influences on Dewey were immense. In writing
his intellectual biography at age 71, From Absolutism to Experimen-
talism (LW5: 147–160), Dewey openly acknowledged James’ Principles
164 R. LI
of Psychology in which the “stream of consciousness,” substituted for “dis-

crete elementary states.” Dewey applauded that “the advance made was
enormous,” “the approach has been…… hardened by James” and that
“James’ sense of life was vital” (LW5: 157). Dewey came to know James
through reading and citing his work when Dewey wrote his Psychology in
1886. When James published The Principles of Psychology in 1890, Dewey
took it very positively and used it in his class (Coughlan 1973: 162). He
began corresponding with James, who influenced him and ushered him
from German idealism into American pragmatism (Reck 1984). While
the two were comrades-in-arms in the founding of pragmatism, Richard
Gale (2004) called them “the odd couple” with subtle differences and
individualities.
Back in 1886, James must have read Dewey’s Psychology with mixed
feelings: he himself was commissioned to write a textbook on psychology
eight years before and was unable to complete it. He knew the subject so
thoroughly that he confided to a friend on Dewey’s psychology, “I felt
quite enthused at the first glance, hoping for something really fresh; but
am sorely disappointed when I come to read.”10 In other words, he found
nothing new in Dewey’s book nor felt impressed with Dewey’s effort
integrating philosophy with psychology. However, his views changed and
wrote Dewey a “hearty note” when he read Dewey’s Outlines of a Critical
Theory of Ethics (1891) (Martin 2002: 120). By the time Dewey dedicated
his book, Studies in Logical Theory (1903) to James, he had had such a
high regard of Dewey’s work that he praised the book as “splendid stuff,
and Dewey is a hero. A real school and a real thought.” Thus James’s
famous remarks, “At Harvard we have plenty of thought, but no school;
at Yale and Cornell, the other way about” (Martin 2002: 195). Now there
is a school of thought in Chicago. James endorsed Dewey:
Chicago has a School of thought! - a school of thought which, it is safe

to predict, will figure in literature as the School of Chicago for twenty-five
years to come. Some universities have plenty of thought to show, but no
school. The University of Chicago, by its Decennial Publications shows
real thought and a real school.11
10 Quoted from Perry, R. B. (1935). The Thought and Character of William James
(p. 516). Boston: Little Brown, and Company, II.
11 Quoted from James, W. (1978). Essays in Philosophy (p. 102). Cambridge: Harvard
University Press.
The second one is Sigmund Freud, whose influences on Dewey look

much more superficial. Freud (1856–1963), a psychiatrist in private prac-
tice in Vienna almost unknown to America and the world at the turn
of twentieth century, suddenly surged to eminence by his Interpretation
of Dreams (1900). His method of psychoanalysis gained such euphoric
prominence that by 1908, the First International Psychoanalysis Congress
was held in Paris. Freud was invited by J. Stanley Hall to visit the USA
in 1909, with speeches published and discussed in American Psycholog-
ical Association. Freud quickly became an international and American
fad.12 That is why Freud’s terms like libido, psychoanalysis, sublimation,
repression entered Human Nature and Conduct .
To be sure, Freud’s psychosexual theory touches human nature in a
deep and insightful way, but Dewey appears to have ignored it. Most
hard-nosed functional psychologists working on experimental research
chose to reject Freud’s theory altogether and Dewey was no exception.
Dewey’s View on the Moral Crisis and the need for Pragmatism
Dewey interpreted western moral philosophy by putting them in a
dichotomy as two schools of social reform:
1. Spiritual Egotism (Christian Morality)
Morality is from within; man knows morality; man has free will and the
way is to purify the heart and pursue transcendental goodness, grounded
in good and Christianity. With a good heart, there will be position for
social and institutional change.
2. Romantic Morality (Social Determinism)
Man has no moral freedom. Man is made/product of environment:

human nature is malleable. It is hopeless to change people. Left alone
he will do whatever to satisfy his desires: greed, killing, fighting. Conse-
quently, we need to change institution directly—by revolution. It is not
12 For a short account of how Freud goes to America, please refer to: Fancher, R. E.,
& Rutherford, A. (2012). Pioneers of Psychology (4th ed., chapter 11, pp. 491–499). New
York: W. W. Norton.
166 R. LI
evolution, but laws of history and violent change. Then human nature
can be changed (malleable) by institutions.
Dewey is critical of Christian or romantic morality. Human nature can
be studied scientifically, thus science and progress. He is against glorifica-
tion of natural impulse. Morality should be based on scientific knowledge
of human nature. Conduct is interaction between human and environ-
ment. Freedom can be attained if we take into account of human drive
and human nature. Education is to help intelligence to attain and adjust
to the environment, or to adjust and change the environment.
Dewey is critical of both science and morality, “Disregard of the moral
potentialities of physical science” may lead to war. Taking morality as
human conscience and ultimate goodness without regard to the scientific
understanding of human nature may lead to slavery and human suffering
(p. 9). For Dewey, the crisis is that morality becomes unreal and tran-
scendental. Traditional morality presupposes a universe of goodness to
measure the existing world. When the existing world and actual experi-
ence does not work according to this morality, traditional moralists still
insist on a truer reality. Idealism is only an ideal and idea which is not real-
ized. So are other abstract concepts such as justice, equality and liberty.
Plato’s idealism (rationalism) is bankrupt, according to Dewey.
It is in this philosophical background that Dewey proposes pragmatism
to replace idealism, i.e., to ground morality in real-life experience. This
needs some clarification. To say what works constitutes goodness is naive
and simplistic pragmatism. Dewey insists that in the real-life experience we
can reflect, analyze and argue to find out what is good and what works,
not just to follow the tradition which he calls “customs.” Even goodness
can change and make progress. So is truth. This is more practical and
realistic than believing in the religious ultimate good.
Pragmatism goes beyond utilitarianism. It may mean that “good” is to
work out step-by-step, not the utilitarian calculation or consequentialism.
In a sense, working out, doing step-by-step, reflecting and improving are
human nature and good conduct.
Further Readings
In the early twentieth century, Dewey’s view on consciousness (1899),
thinking (1909) and human nature (1918) was pioneering. So much work
has been done in the last century that the following reading list is just an
introduction to the related subjects.
A. The Study of Consciousness in Twentieth Century
1. Revonsuo, A. (2010). Consciousness: The Science of Subjectivity.

New York: Psychology Press.
A Swedish professor of cognitive neuroscience who teaches
the subject writes this readable textbook. He terms the subject
consciousness science and explores the neuropsychological mech-
anisms and neural basis of consciousness. Philosophical theories
are put side by side with empirical ones.
2. Kreitler, S., & Maimon, O. (Eds.). (2012). Consciousness: Its
Nature and Functions. New York: Nova Science Publishers.
The editors identify ten approaches and invite several
dozen scholars to contribute to the subject. Most are micro-
physiological explanation, such as the neural mechanisms of
visual awareness (Chapter 17) and the description of the stream
of consciousness by neuroimaging techniques (Chapter 18).
The psychological approaches include the formation of meaning
system (Chapter 13) and mental dynamics (Chapter 15). Each
chapter is short and can be read separately.
3. Dehaene, S. (2014). Consciousness and the Brain—Deciphering
How the Brain Codes Our Thoughts. New York: Penguin Books.
This popular book written by a French experimental psychol-
ogist starts from Descartes and quickly jumps into the exciting
neuropsychological researches from 1980s onward. As the
Chapter 1 title suggests: consciousness enters the laboratory.
Informative, entertaining and written in a personal approachable
style.
4. Churchland, P. M. (2013). Matter and Consciousness.
Cambridge: MIT Press.
5. Searle, J. R. (2002). Consciousness and Language. New York:
Cambridge University Press.
168 R. LI
These two classics were written by two renowned philosophers

in 1980s and 1990s, respectively. Churchland is well-known for
his materialist/reductionist position while Searle is famed for his
Chinese room experiment of AI.
6. Das, J. P. (2014). Consciousness Quest: Where East Meets West: On
Mind, Mediation, and Neural Correlates. Thousand Oaks: Sage
Publications India Pvt Ltd.
Das is a psychologist of Indian descent. He compares the
concept of consciousness of the east and the west and brings in
Indian wisdom (meditation, mindfulness) on the subject.
B. Thinking Research
Thinking can be seen as one aspect of consciousness. Researchers
are now interested in both conscious and unconscious thinking.
1. Li, R. (1996). A Theory of Conceptual Intelligence: Thinking,

Learning, Creativity and Giftedness. Westport, CN: Praeger
Books.
My book has offered a short summary of thinking research
from 1930s to 1980s (See Chapter 4).
2. Keane, M. T., & Gihooly, K. J. (Eds.). (1992). Advances in the
Psychology of Thinking. New York: Harvester Wheatsheaf.
The editors collected eight papers on thinking research of the
1980s.
3. Eagleman, D. (2011). Incognito—The Secret Lives of the Brain.
New York: Vintage Books.
Written by a neuroscientist with latest research findings, the
book explores the subconscious brain and unconscious thinking
in daily life.
4. Brockman, J. (Ed.). (2013). Thinking: The New Science of
Decision Making, Problem-Solving and Prediction. New York:
Harper-Perennial.
Like other books he edited, Brockman invites experts in the
field to highlight what’s up for the general public.
C. The Study of Human Nature in twentieth Century
1. Stevenson, L., Haberman, D. L., & Wright, P. M. (2013).

Twelve Theories of Human Nature (6th ed.). New York: Oxford
University Press.
Since its first edition in 1970s, Stevenson’s book has gone

through 6th edition, and the number of theories has increased
from 7 to 12. More importantly, it has included global views in
addition to the former western ones. It is a good comprehensive
text for graduate seminars.
2. Stevenson, L. F. (Ed.). (2000). The Study of Human Nature: A
Reader. New York: Oxford University Press.
It is a comprehensive selection of original writings on the
subject by great thinkers such as Descartes, Hume, Rousseau,
Darwin, Freud, Satre, just to name a few.
3. Wilson, E. O. (1978, 2004). On Human Nature. Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press.
This Harvard myrmecologist who forefathers sociobiology
offers a theory of human nature from biology. The book is now
classic.
4. Zenka, K. (1997). The Unwritten Law. Part One, Human
Nature. Chicago: Galaxy Press.
Zenka called his book “a new philosophical treatise.” While
it starts by alluding to Locke and ends by mentioning Niet-
zsche’s superman, it is more like a self-styled exposition on
the human nature with 12 attributes (instinct, self-preservation,
mating, child rearing, emotion, love, hatred, fear, self-identity,
power, self-respect, intelligence, morality, purpose). Apparently,
the author has integrated numerous ideas but whether it can form
a consistent system remains doubtful.
5. Ashworth, P. D. (2000). Psychology and “Human Nature”.
Pennsylvania: Psychology Press.
The author reviews theories from the evolutionary perspective,
Freudian psychology to cognitive psychology, behaviorism and
postmodernism. The latest challenge is that human nature may
be an outmoded cultural presupposition.
References
Boring, E. G. (1950). A History of Experimental Psychology. New Jersey: Prentice
Hall Inc.
Bruner, J. S., Goodnow, J. J., & Austin, G. A. (1956). A Study of Thinking.
New York: Wiley.
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Coughlan, N. (1973). Young John Dewey. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Gale, R. M. (2004). William James and John Dewey: The Odd Couple. Midwest
Studies in Philosophy, XXVIII , 149–167.
Press (Reprinted 1983).
Reck, A. J. (1984). The Influence of William James on John Dewey in
Psychology. Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society, 20(2), 87–117.
PART III
Education
CHAPTER 8
Chicago Years, My Pedagogic Creed

and Resignation
Introduction---The Years of Irony

John Dewey’s Chicago years (1894–1904) is an irony. It starts with a
hellish beginning and terminates with an unhappy ending (Mayhew and
Edwards 1936: 18). In between, however, he worked so fervently and
achieved so magnificently that he put his name in modern intellectual
history: in education he became the theoretician and father of progressive
education; in philosophy, he became a major founder of pragmatism; and
in psychology, he gave birth to functional psychology.
I am not writing a comprehensive biography of John Dewey; many
details of his Chicago years will be omitted. Instead I will give a brief
account, followed by some telescoping of two significant events, one in
the beginning and the other at the end. They are important because the
first one left a permanent scar in his life experience and the second led to
a sharp turn of his career. I hope readers can follow me to explore these
episodes and, in the process, gain a deeper understanding of Dewey as a
man and a scholar.
The Michigan Link

After Dewey had left Michigan for Chicago, he summed up his feelings in
October 1894, “Ann Arbor seems to be a shell easily shaken off” (Martin
2002: 142). This sounds like a sensible metaphor but in fact it is in the
shell of Michigan that Dewey had his ideas undergone metamorphosis:

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-7941-7_8
174 R. LI
he had grown to become what he would be. As we shall see, Dewey’s

achievements in Chicago owed so much to his Michigan years. The first
and foremost achievement is, of course, education.
Dewey wrote extensively in education, but one of his earliest master-
pieces is undeniably My Pedagogic Creed in 1897, written during his years
in the University of Chicago (1894–1904). From My Pedagogic Creed,
his ideas in education were further developed in The School and Society
(1899), The Child and the Curriculum (1902), Democracy and Educa-
tion (1916), Experience and Education (1938). To help readers decipher
Dewey in education, my first task is to trace the roots of My Pedagogic
Creed and the story began in the University of Michigan.
Dewey “in Love” with Education

In September 1884, a female student was eagerly expecting the arrival
of a young professor of philosophy to teach her psychology. Her name
was Harriet Alice Chipman, then a philosophy major interested in both
philosophy and psychology. As a young woman with a brilliant mind
and receptive to new and scientific ideas, she belonged to the new type
of progressive, educated women with “indomitable courage, energy and
intellectual integrity” (Dewey 1939: 22). She helped found Collegiate
Sorosis, an international intellectual and feminist sorority with a chapter
in Michigan (Martin 2002: 93). He was John Dewey, a young PhD from
John Hopkins with specialization in psychology and philosophy.
While Alice had a “deeply religious nature,” she had “never accepted
any church dogma” (Dewey ibid.). Her views and attitudes matched those
with John Dewey. More importantly, she had a strong sense of social
responsibility and was interested in education, planning to pursue a career
in teaching after graduation. They lived in the same dormitory and very
soon the two fell in love. The first result: Dewey’s interest in feminism and
education grew. In Education and the Health of Women (EW1: 64–68)
and Health and Sex in Higher Education (EW1: 69–80), Dewey applied
statistics to prove that education did no harm to women’s health. But he
pointed out that “the art of taking things easy is not yet mastered by our
ambitious young women” (EW1: 73). Dewey also began to study educa-
tional theories in Europe and examined curriculum issues of high school
and college education. The second result: in fall 1885, John asked Alice
8 CHICAGO YEARS, MY PEDAGOGIC CREED AND RESIGNATION 175
to prepare lecture notes for his philosophy class!1 That led to the third
result: they were engaged in December 1885 and married in summer
1886.
Applying Psychology to Education

With Dewey in love of education in 1885, it was natural that he applied
psychology to examine education. This he did all through his academic
career. In 1884–1887, however, he was tirelessly building up his system
in psychology before he could put it in education. This he did by the
publication of The New Psychology in 1884, followed by his textbook,
Psychology, in 1886. See Chapter 6 for details.
Now what are some of the major ideas and themes in psychology that
Dewey applied to education? Briefly stated, Psychology deals with the adult
with a “mind,” a “self” and “consciousness.” Education will mean to
apply these ideas to children, often mistakenly seen as young adults. The
underlying theme of Psychology is consciousness and the self, in which a
few ideas stand out:
• Sense organs in active lookout for sensation (EW2: 47);

• Mind as selecting significance for attention—apperception (EW2:
78);
• Habit as automatic mechanism of the mind (EW2: 101);
• Self is activity, acts and feeling (EW2: 211);
• Self is constantly organizing itself (EW2: 211);
• Will as co-ordinating and regulating impulse (EW2: 299);
• Desire as realization of self (EW2: 313).
Note the ideas that self is activity and sense organs are in active lookout.
This is where Dewey’s pragmatism and concept of education originates:
education is living and is activity. Learning is not passive listening but is
active engagement and thinking. When will is to coordinate and regulate
impulse, Dewey followed this starting point to examine Interest in Rela-
tion to Training of the Will in 1897. Habit is another important concept
in Dewey’s psychology as well as education. In psychology, he gave a
1 In those days, there were only male professors. When the male professor asked a
female student to prepare notes, it amounts to the professor proposing a marriage.
176 R. LI
detailed exposition of habit in Human Nature and Conduct (1918); in

education, he analyzed the formation of school habits, “preserved intact”
within a school system in Ethical Principles Underlying Education (1897).
Even his idea of selecting significance for attention and memory, outlined
in Psychology, surfaced in his critique of rote memorization (EW5: 64).
Groundwork on Ethics
Recall Dewey’s adolescent crisis, with “an intense emotional craving,”
which I outlined in Chapter 1. The crisis is religious in nature (truth,
God, faith), coupled with moral values in philosophy (goodness, virtue).
When this crisis was resolved in his lost years in Oil City (see Chapter 2), it
had led to his faith in himself, in humanity and human experience. Gone
were the teenage and college days of Scotch philosophy and intuition-
alism, in which “all holy and valuable things was supposed to stand or
fall with the validity of intuitionalism” (LW5: 149). In Michigan, Dewey
still went to church and gave Sunday lectures to the Student Christian
Association, but he was building up his ethics in contrary to the church
orthodoxy.
This he did by offering classes in ethics, Psychological Ethics and
The History of Ethical Thought. Again his lecture notes became books:
Outlines of a Critical Theory of Ethics (EW3), published in 1891 and The
Study of Ethics : A Syllabus (EW4), published in 1894. In the first book,
Dewey examined the fundamental notions in ethics: the good, the idea of
obligation and the idea of freedom. First he criticized Jeremy Bentham’s
utilitarian hedonism, a form of hedonistic calculus, which aims at the
biggest “pleasure” for the most people. Then he contrasted it with Kant’s
“good in the act of will.” Finally he reached a synthesis that ethics are not
something added to behavior; ethics are behaviors—meaning that behav-
iors are good when they coordinate individual aims with the common
good. Dewey proposed an “ethical science,” to examine these individual
aims in the social historical context for the common good. In the second
book, Dewey went further to examine notions such as virtue, love, justice,
desire, freedom and responsibility. His ethics is real-life living and acting:
“normal and free living of life as it is” (EW4: 221).
Dewey’s treatise of ethics brought him recognition from his philosophy
peers. Mostly notably, William James sent him a hearty note and George
H. Palmer, James’s colleague in Harvard, praised him as “the first man in
the country in his subject of ethics” (Martin 2002: 120, 184). Naturally,
this intellectual support affirmed Dewey’s views and path in ethics, as well
as his application of ethics to education.
To sum up, Dewey fell in love with education, sharpened his
psychology and formulated his ethics in his Michigan years. When
psychology is the science of the human mind, ethics is the science of
morality. Dewey is critical of morality based on the bible or traditional
authority, and proposed an ethics based on modern science. He called
it “ethical science” (EW3: 239), with the growth of freedom as a guide
to human action in the evolution of democracy. Education, then, is to
combine psychology and ethics together, to apply our understanding of
the laws of the human mind, for the training of the young mind and for
the training of citizenry with democracy and freedom as its core values
(The Ethics of Democracy, EW1: 225–249).
Chicago Years in Brief

After working in the University of Michigan for almost ten years, Dewey
was fed up with the bureaucracy and petty politics there (Martin 2002:
141). In Spring 1894, he was headhunted by William Rainey Harper,
President of the University of Chicago, to become the head of the
Department of Philosophy. In addition to teaching and research, Dewey,
with the support of an ambitious and energetic Harper, planned to start
a laboratory school called the University College Elementary School. He
was also made the head of the newly established Department of Pedagogy,
to manage the laboratory school and to offer teacher training, research
and educational experiment for K-12.
This promising future did not start well. 1895 was a hellish year for
Dewey. In accepting Harper’s offer to move to Chicago, Dewey took
advantage of an extra 3-month paid vacation to visit Europe in 1895
with his family. A tragic accident took place in Italy: his son Morris died
of diphtheria. The whole family returned to America in June. Despite
all the grief, Dewey began his teaching in the University of Chicago,
including 6 lectures of Educational Ethics . His paper, Reflex Arc Concept ,
was published. See more details of the tragedy below.
In 1896, we saw the opening of the laboratory school. The Depart-
ment of Pedagogy sponsored many events and conferences on education,
including the 150th anniversary of the birth of Pestalozzi (January 1896)
and 100th anniversary of Horace Mann (May 1896). A Pedagogical
Club was formed and Dewey regularly attended meetings and presented
178 R. LI
papers (Dykhuizen 1973: 88). In 1896 and 1897, the following impor-
tant papers were published: Interest in Relation to Training of the Will
(1896), A Pedagogical Experiment (1896), The Psychological Aspect of the
School Curriculum (1897), My Pedagogic Creed (1897), Ethical Princi-
ples Underlying Education (1897). The laboratory school, soon widely
known as Dewey School, brought Dewey fame. Dewey became an inter-
national celebrity as some educators from Europe came to learn and get
training from his school. He also became a most sought-after speaker
which continued throughout his life.
1899 was another significant year for Dewey, this time with psychology.
His addresses to the University of California, American Psychological
Association and Illinois Society for Child Study later became important
published papers. You may wish to refer to Chapter 7 for details. Simul-
taneously Dewey also gave talks to parents and patrons of Dewey School,
which was released as The School and Society.
More publications were to follow after the turn to the twentieth
century. Of particular significance is The Child and the Curriculum in
1902 and Studies in Logical Theory in 1903, one on education and
the other on philosophy. The Child and the Curriculum is a critique of
the conventional school curriculum, a set of pre-written subject material
which does not take into account of the child’s growing needs. Dewey
proposed readjusting the curriculum and pedagogy to match and enrich
the child’s experience. Studies in Logical Theory is a collaborative effort
of Dewey and his colleagues in the University of Chicago. It is consid-
ered a watershed publication with critique of transcendental logic and a
reconceptualization of logic as an instrument of inquiry, thus the birth of
instrumentalism.
During the Chicago years, Dewey’s wife Alice gave birth to three more
children, Gordon in 1895, Lucy in 1897 and Jane in 1900.2 More than
a housewife, Alice was a working mother and became the principal of
Dewey School in 1901, also serving as director of the Department of
English and Literature (Mayhew and Edwards 1936: 9). All went well
but in 1903 Dewey School underwent merger and restructuring, so that
Harper did not intend to renew Mrs. Dewey’s contract in 1904. This led
to much indignation of the Deweys and both resigned from the University
2 During the Michigan years, she had given birth to Fred in 1887, Evelyn in 1889 and
Morris in 1892.
of Chicago. Readers may find more about this family as well as public
affair below.
The Hellish Beginning

I can feel the thrill and anticipation when the Deweys decided to leave
Michigan for Chicago. The exciting prospects were: a pay rise, a big city,
a pioneering university, and, most exciting of all, the whole family would
go to Europe on vacation.
In 1894, the Deweys had married for eight years. In their mid-thirties,
the young couple had three children; Fred, aged seven; Evelyn, aged five
and Morris aged one and a half. The Deweys had always been concerned
about the education of their children. In those days, Europe was the
center of modern Western culture and the wealthy Americans flocked
there to study, to learn European languages and to experience its way
of living.
The European Trip

In negotiating his contract with Harper, Dewey had already been sched-
uled to teach in the summer and fall semester of 1894 in the University
of Chicago, so that he could have a 9-month paid vacation starting
January 1895.3 As the family was leaving Ann Arbor in summer 1894,
they wanted to start their tour in Europe soon, but it was impossible for
the mother alone to take care of two children and one infant in a foreign
land. So the family plan was that the mother, Alice, would take the two
older children to Europe starting summer 1894, while the father, John,
would take care of the infant at home and worked in Chicago. Then John
and Morris would set sail to Europe and joined the family in early 1895.
This apparently sensible plan took its toll in Dewey, physically,
emotionally and psychologically. In July 1894, he landed in Chicago, an
unfamiliar place, all by himself with little Morris. He was busy teaching,
planning and managing the philosophy department, in addition to his
numerous talks and social engagements. While Dewey’s mother Lucina
came over to help taking care of Morris for some periods, Dewey himself
3 When Dewey taught in the summer of 1894, it would replace his teaching duties in
spring 1895. Together with his paid summer vacation of 1895, it would add up to a
period of nine months from January to September 1895.
180 R. LI
was physically involved and strained by the child-rearing duties. The work
kept pouring in, and Dewey moaned, “When I think of the lectures I’ve
got to give, and the writing I’ve got to finish up…… my hair turns white
in a single night” (Martin 2002: 180–181). His overwork had caused him
eye strain, which became so serious that he “had to give up all reading
for a year” (Martin 2002: 179).
Emotionally, his separation from Alice was agonizing. For seven
months, they exchanged letters on an average of three times a week. The
loving father was also longing for the two other children. In a letter on
August 5, John wrote to Alice, “I think yesterday was the bluest day
I have ever spent.” It looked like our philosopher was much depressed
throughout the summer and fall of 1894.
John and Morris

But he found comfort by closely attaching to Morris, calling his little
angel “the most perfect work of art” (Martin 2002: 160). Our philoso-
pher was a father and a scientist. On the one side, Dewey had so much
affection to his son: “he has a genius in language”; he was “distinctly
himself”; on the other side, Dewey was a scientist focusing on psycho-
logical research on child development and Morris became his subject.
The more time he spent with Morris, the closer bonding he built with
Morris as he experienced his fatherhood and the psychology of love and
attachment.
As was planned, John and Morris joined the family in France in January
1895. It was exhilarating: they stayed in Paris for some time while John
attended some philosophical lectures at the Sorbonne. Then they trav-
eled to Switzerland, Freiburg, ending in Milan. On the way, the mother,
Alice, and two children, Evelyn and Morris caught an epidemic and were
admitted to hospital in Milan. When Alice and Evelyn soon got better,
Morris deteriorated and suddenly died of “diphtheria” in March 1895.
This was probably the hardest blow to both parents, as Dewey’s autobi-
ography reveals: Morris’s death “was a blow from which neither of his
parents ever fully recovered” (Dewey 1939: 25). The devastated Deweys
returned to America in June 1895.
In reconstructing this griefing story, I can feel that Dewey was under-
going the most painful experience of his life. He remarked in a letter,
“I believe pain is as much an element in the highest moral experience”
(Martin 2002: 183). When our philosopher went through this hellish
year, he is no more talking about morality and experience but is living

through it, in its deepest form. If suffering makes us great, we can find
some comfort and meaning in this hellish year of Dewey’s.4
My Pedagogic Creed
When Dewey wrote My Pedagogic Creed in 1897, it is a personal state-
ment of his belief in education. One important idea stands out: education
is living. So, as a university professor and scholar, how well is Dewey living
his life and what are his values in education? I hope the following story
can give you some sense.
A Principled John and the Moment of Truth

“I would rather starve and see my children starve than see John sacrifice
his principles,” (Martin 2002: 241). Alice determinedly announced. What
are these principles and what is at stake for sacrifice?
It was in 1906 and you will soon see the relevance. By then John
Dewey had moved from the University of Michigan (1884–1894) to the
University of Chicago (1894–1904) and finally ended up in Columbia
University (1905–1930). There he was active in public life and social
justice, with Alice’s support. In April 1906, a radical Russian writer
Maxim Gorky visited America to raise funds for the revolutionary cause
in Czarist Russia. He was accompanied by his wife, a famed Russian
actress known as Madame Andreieva. As history tells it, progressive Amer-
icans used to support overseas revolution by making donation, notably
the French (1789), the Chinese (1911), among others. Dewey was in
the organizing committee to welcome Gorky, who was scheduled to
meet many American celebrities, such as Mark Twain, William Howells
and President Roosevelt. In a matter of days, Gorky had already raised
US$8000.
Then the event turned sour. Rumors circulated that Gorky’s “com-
panion” was not his wife, who was still in Russia with two children.
The actress was his mistress! Literally almost everyone turned their back
against Gorky. The New York hotels, scandalized by the rumor, threw
4 Readers may be interested to read Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Searching for Meaning
(1959). Frankl survived the Nazi’s concentration camp and discovered meaning in life
after suffering, brutality and despair.
182 R. LI
Gorky and Andreieva out. Not one single hotel dared to accommodate
them: flagrant breaches of conventional morality. Where would they stay?
Even a White House spokesman announced the President canceling his
meeting with Gorky.
This became the moment of truth for John and Alice. Would they
also desert this revolutionary novelist because of the rumors of conven-
tional immorality? Would they adhere to public opinion or independent
thinking? As the story unfolds, they invited Gorky and Andreieva, against
all odds, to move into their residence in Columbia, followed by a private
party where Andreieva spoke to a group of progressive American women.
Interested readers can get more details from The Education of John Dewey
(Martin 2002: 238–242) and research into the incident.
Freedom and Democracy

The principle involved is the freedom of speech, freedom of expression,
academic freedom, in short, free thinking and acting. This freedom is
essential to the inner working of a democratic society that Dewey believed
and cherished. What is at stake is John Dewey’s new job at Columbia.
University management, with its religious and theological past, generally
took the conservative stand on morality. Peirce was allegedly fired from
Johns Hopkins in 1884 because of cohabitation with another woman
other than his wife, an act of “moral indecency.5 ” When John Dewey
housed Gorky and Andreieva, he was risking his job.
This finally brings to my point: ethics, or morality, is the cornerstone
of John Dewey’s ideas in education. For Dewey, morality is not only for
theorizing but for practice. The couple had a strong sense of morality
and was critical of conventional morality. Even in his Michigan years,
John Dewey was lecturing and publishing on ethics. How we organize
our school system, how to conduct moral training for children and for
the betterment of our society, was a recurrent theme in Dewey’s ideas on
education. The concern of ethics was deep-rooted in his Michigan years;
it developed throughout his academic writings and showed up in all his
life and action.
In conclusion, Dewey’s educational ideas were traceable to his
Michigan years. With a gestation period of ten years based on psychology
5 For a biography on Peirce, please refer to Burch (2014).

and ethics, Dewey finally began to spell them out when he moved to
Chicago in 1894.
The Growth of Dewey’s My Pedagogic Creed (1897)

I try to chart the growth of My Pedagogic Creed (1897) in two routes.
In psychology Dewey published The New Psychology (1884), Psychology
(1887), followed by a study on The Psychology of Infant Language (1893),
among others. Also noteworthy is The Theory of Emotion (1894). In
ethics, Dewey published two books, Outlines of a Critical Theory of Ethics
(1891) and The Study of Ethics : A Syllabus (1893). All these took place
in Michigan. When Dewey moved to Chicago, he taught many classes; of
our relevance is Educational Ethics , a course of 6 lectures given in 1895
and Educational Psychology, a course of 12 lectures given in 1896. At
about the same time, Dewey published Interest in Relation to Training
of the Will in the National Herbartian Society Yearbook of 1895, which
built his connection between education and psychology. All the above
merged into My Pedagogic Creed (January 1897) with two more impor-
tant papers published in 1897, one in psychology, The Psychological Aspect
of the School Curriculum (April 1897) and another one in ethics, Ethical
Principles Underlying Education (1897). You may go to Chapter 9 for an
exposition and review of those ideas (Fig. 8.1).
Dewey’s Life World

In his Michigan years, Dewey was a budding scholar and he soon
succeeded in establishing himself as a top philosopher-psychologist in
America. In his Chicago years, he became the leader of American philos-
ophy and a national figure in education. During his Chicago years, Dewey
grew from mid-thirties to mid-forties. His family grew from three chil-
dren to five and he remained married to Alice (he remained so all through
his life until Alice’s death in 1927). The family lived in the university
campus and moved a few times from small apartments to bigger ones as
Dewey’s salary increased. He was a busy department head, traveled much
and gave numerous talks. Below I try to briefly depict his life world; the
social world, the organizational and personal life world.
184 R. LI
1884 The New Psychology (1884)

EW1: 48-60
1894 Psychology (1887)

EW2: 3-366
Outlines of a CriƟcal Theory of Ethics (1891)
EW3: 239-390
Theory of EmoƟon (1894)

EW4: 152-188
Psychology of Infant Language (1893) The Study of Ethics: A Syllabus (1893)

EW4: 66-69 EW4: 221-364
1895 Interest in RelaƟon to Training of the EducaƟonal Ethics –

Will (1896) 6 Lectures (1895)
EW5: 292-301
EW5: 111-150
(Second Supplement to Yearbook 1895,
1896 NaƟonal HerbarƟan Society)
A Pedagogical EducaƟonal Psychology –

Experiment (1896) 12 Lectures (1896)
EW5: 244-246 EW5: 304-327
Ethical Principles Underlying

1897 The Psychological EducaƟon (1897)
My Pedagogic
Aspect of the School EW5: 54-83
Creed (1/97)
Curriculum (4/97) NaƟonal HerbarƟan Society,
EW4: 84-95
EW5: 164-176 Third Yearbook (1897)
Fig. 8.1 How Dewey’s ideas grew into My Pedagogic Creed (1897)
Social World: Proletarian Revolution or Social Reform?

When Karl Marx (1818–1883) prophesied the proletarian revolution
in Continental Europe in 1848, it did not bring immediate success.
However, the ripples spread throughout the world and lasted for decades,
even centuries. It landed on the American soil about 50 years later, when
this new world underwent industrialization, where big cities became the
battleground between the proletariat and the capitalists. In 1894, Dewey
found himself in Chicago, one of these cities.
America was in rapid change in the final decades of the nineteenth
century. The industrial revolution spread from Europe to America:
steam engine, steamships, railroads, mechanized and mass production, oil
drilling, mining; all these conquered rural America, turning small towns
into big urban cities and creating factories, office buildings, and ghettos.
It was the heyday of technology and invention, of entrepreneurship and
frontier spirit; huge corporations began to take shape, big finance houses
started to flourish. So were social ills.
When Dewey arrived in Chicago, he observed, “This place is the
greatest stew house on earth” (Martin 2002: 158). He was right. Chicago
had just hosted the World’s Columbian Exposition (World’s Fair) in
1893 to commemorate Columbus’ voyage of 1492.6 With its tall modern
concrete and steel buildings signifying progress of science and tech-
nology and the riches of modern capitalism, Chicago quickly rose to
become a world class city. But beneath it were social ills and intense social
conflict: urban poverty, exploitation of workers, child labor, industrial
strikes, unemployment army, prostitution and government corruption.
The widespread Pullman Railroad Workers’ Strike of 1894 awakened
Dewey. Before he landed on his job in the University of Chicago, Dewey
visited the strikers on their National Day strike and supported their causes
with admiration. He had even thought of quitting his job to join the revo-
lution: “I felt as if I had better resign my job teaching and follow him
round till I got into life” (Martin 2002: 161). However, Dewey started
teaching his summer class in the University of Chicago and did not join
the revolution. What he took was a path of social reform, and he did so
by teaching in the famed Hull House, a settlement house for the unem-
ployed and new immigrants in Chicago, started by Jane Addams, who was
later honored as the “mother of social work,” plus a Nobel Peace Prize of
1931.7 Addams’s positive actions and commitment won Dewey’s admi-
ration, who now saw the possibility of social reform through democracy
without antagonism and revolution. Education is now seen as the tool
6 See Lawson (2003) for a comprehensive account.

7 For the life of Addams, see Berson (2004), Davis (1973).
186 R. LI
to achieve social reform, equity and justice. This explains why Dewey, in
giving his final word on education, in Democracy and Education (1916)
and Experience and Education (1938), puts freedom, democracy and
social reform in the forefront.
Organizational World—The “Michigan Gang”

In September 1894, Dewey became the head of Department of Philos-
ophy. Soon joined the department was his former colleague in Michigan,
James Tufts, who later co-authored with him on Ethics (1908). In
philosophy, he invited George Herbert Mead (1863–1931), his Michigan
colleague to join him. In psychology, Dewey had another former student
from Michigan, James R. Angell, who had just returned from the Univer-
sity of Berlin in Europe. He was recruited to teach psychology. Thus the
old “Michigan Gang” met again in the new Chicago department and
worked together, teaching, talking and collaborating on their philosophy,
psychology and sociological ideas. Judged from age and position, Dewey
is the big brother leading a team of aspiring young scholars.
Of course Dewey had a boss, President Harper, who had a strong
ambition to put his department of philosophy on the map of American
universities. Harper was an energetic visionary and had a keen interest
in education. When Dewey suggested in November 1894 the idea of a
laboratory school for research and experiments in early childhood educa-
tion, Harper responded with eagerness and proposed to establish a new,
separate department of pedagogy for teacher training, research and exper-
iments in pedagogy as well as a laboratory school. Soon Dewey was put
in charge of the new department of pedagogy. Being the head of two
departments and making plans for a new laboratory school, there was no
doubt Dewey was already working under stress in the very beginning of
his Chicago years.
Apart from the University of Chicago, Dewey had other public and
organizational engagements. The most important is the Hull House of
Jane Addams. He admired the high ideals of Addams in social justice and
social reform, seeing her as “the most magnificent exhibition of intellec-
tual and moral faith I ever saw” (Martin, 2002: 167). Dewey gave lectures
on social psychology there and later became a trustee of the Hull House.
As a tribute to Addams, Dewey named his last child, born in 1900, Jane.
To push ahead his work in education and pedagogy, Dewey proactively
expanded his organization network. He visited Colonel Francis Parker, a
leading figure in American education and gave talks in Parker’s teacher

training school. Dewey also gave talks to National Herbartian Society,
the Illinois Society for Child Study, among others.
The Personal World—Family, Friends and Personal Ambition

Dewey wore many hats: a famed scholar, a department head, a father of
five children and a husband. When he was the big brother in his depart-
ment, he was also like a big brother in his family, which was quite liberal
in child-rearing practices. The family was noisy but happy, and children
would roam around or climbed his lap when he was working. It appeared
the family slowly got over Morris’s death with the arrival of Gordon in
late 1895. All along Dewey worked hard to earn more for the family,
for a bigger home, for the increasing family expenditure and for a better
education of his children.
Dewey’s personal and family friends in his Chicago years were mostly
his colleagues in the Department of Philosophy, including the Meads,
Tufts, Moores, Angells and Smalls (Dykhuizen 1973: 106). Mrs. Helen
Mead, who was particularly close to Mrs. Alice Dewey, had connection
in Hawaii, so that Dewey went there to preach his education gospel in
summer 1899. Mrs. Helen Mead came from Hawaii’s prominent business
family, which wanted a “Parker-Dewey” type kindergarten and elementary
school in Hawaii. They invited Dewey to give talks and training there
through the University of Hawaii’s Extension Division. Dewey’s presence
in summer 1899 was greeted as a “Great High Priest” (Martin 2002:
202–203). The Deweys were also close to Jane Addams, who arranged a
memorial service at Hull House for Gordon’s death.
When Dewey went to church in Michigan, he abandoned Christianity
and stopped going to church altogether in Chicago. Yet he kept his reli-
gious faith and experiences. For Dewey, religious experience provides
aspirations to values and the realization of values in social life. God is to
denote the unity of the ideal and the actual. Simply put, Dewey believes
in man, humanity, the experience of community and friendship, in short,
love. He kept his religious faith for the rest of his life, an outline of which
can be found in A Common Faith (1934).
As a pioneer and leader in philosophy, psychology and education,
Dewey had his personal motives and ambitions. In philosophy, his ambi-
tion was to create America’s own philosophy. He noted that Tufts, Mead
and Angell all studied in Europe and had brought back the best to
188 R. LI
America, so that the University of Chicago could be the center of the

philosophy in America; students could come to Chicago to study philos-
ophy. He once remarked, “…… going to Germany to study philosophy
is, objectively viewed, the most ridiculous joke conceivable — when a
man can come to Chicago” (Quoted from Martin 2002: 143). In fact, he
succeeded in creating the Chicago School of Philosophy within a decade.
Dewey’s another ambition was to lead in pedagogy. He saw it as a
golden opportunity for the University of Chicago to excel because the
field was a virgin land. “I…… firmly and honestly believe that Chicago is
the most ripe place in America for undertaking this work” (Martin 2002:
178). With the setting up of the laboratory school, Dewey’s ambition
was slowly realized as many educators in America and Europe came to his
school to learn and for exchange. Soon, Dewey and Chicago was leading
in pedagogy until his sudden departure in 1904.
Finally in education, Dewey’s motive is social justice and reform.
Education is for living, and living in freedom and in a just and demo-
cratic society is Dewey’s personal goal. Education is the means to achieve
this goal. He spelt out many of his education ideas during his Chicago
years, notably in The School and Society (1899) and The Child and the
Curriculum (1902). His ideas and ambition had inspired the move-
ment of progressive education that changed the landscape of American
education.
The Unhappy Ending

The Resignation Puzzle
At age 45, Dewey was steadily advancing to the top of his academic
career. He was one of the shining stars at the University of Chicago.
Then without any early sign or indication, this eminent scholar tendered
his resignation to President Harper in April 1904. This was a surprising
move that had affected the Dewey School he founded and the trajectory
of his future career. What happened? Why was he leaving? What politics
and challenges did he face? Or, had he got another job offer? May I share
my investigation below with you.
Here is the background. Dewey had been doing so well and achieved
so much in the past nine years. He was the head of two departments.
He kept giving talks, writing and publishing, the latest being Studies in
Logical Theory (1903). With that he established the “Chicago School” of
philosophic thought. In psychology, he was seen as the founder of func-

tional psychology and honored as the president of American Psychological
Association (1900). In education, the Dewey School that he founded in
1896 had bought him fame. While the school was in red, there were lots
of social support as well as financial support from trustees. Dewey’s work
and duties kept expanding. By then, he had got used to administrative
duties. With the sudden death of his education comrade, Colonel Francis
Parker, in 1902, Dewey was further put in charge of the Chicago Insti-
tute, renamed as the School of Education of the University of Chicago.
By 1903, Dewey was in charge of four schools. In addition to John’s
hefty extra remuneration, Alice also became the paid principal of Dewey
School in 1901. The couple was an enviable high flyer in the University
of Chicago. Why did he suddenly quit, even against Harper’s repeated
begging?8
A Reconstruction—A Chronology of Major Events Leading to Dewey’s

Resignation
Pearl Hunter, Dewey’s secretary, once remarked, “Mr. Dewey left
Chicago because of [the president’s]…… mistreatment of Mrs. Dewey”
(quoted from Martin 2002: 213–214). How was Mrs. Dewey mistreated
by the president? How was she related to her husband’s resignation? Let
me offer a chronology.9
Plausible Reasons
Such is the chronology of events and circumstances. Readers would easily
infer that John, in support of his wife Alice, resigned as a protest against
the University of Chicago when President Harper refused to renew Alice’s
contract as principal. However, Dewey violently objected to this accusa-
tion; he was dissatisfied with President Harper’s management for many
instances, but not exactly for the contract with his wife. Wrote Dewey to
Harper after the resignation:
8 That Harper begged Dewey to stay is without doubt. See Martin (2002: 210–213),
Dykhuizen (1973: 112–115).
9 My chronology was based on secondary sources: Martin (2002), Dykhuizen (1973),
and Mayhew and Edwards (1936). It is a good research attempt for you to dig deeper in
Dewey’s archive (Table 8.1).
190 R. LI
Table 8.1 Chronology of Dewey’s resignation from University of Chicago
Year Month
1894 November Dewey proposed to Harper to establish a laboratory school.

Harper responded by creating a separate Department of
Pedagogy to run teacher training, research and a laboratory
school. Harper further suggested that Mrs. Dewey could
run it (Martin 2002: 207)
1896 January The University College Elementary School (UCES) opens;
later known as Dewey School
1897–1900 / Dewey’s fame in education grew. He felt the stress in his
administrative work in the University of Chicago; he was
busy writing memos, selling his projects and soliciting funds
from trustees
1899 / International Harvester Company, through its heir Mrs.
Emmons Blaine, donated one million dollars to found
Chicago Institute to implement Colonel Francis Parker’s
ideas on progressive education and teacher training:
1901 / (1) Chicago Institute, with its kindergarten and elementary
practice school (Parker School), was incorporated into
the University of Chicago as its School of Education.
Parker was appointed director and his associate Wilbur
Jackman appointed Dean of the School
(2) The Department of Pedagogy under Dewey changed its
name to Department of Education
(3) With further acquisition of South Side Academy and
Chicago Manual Training School, the University of
Chicago expanded its teacher education and Harper
appointed Dewey to be supervisor of the two secondary
schools. Dewey’s duties increased further
(4) Dewey appointed Alice as principal of UCES. The
trustees approved it as a one-year contract
1902 March Parker’s health deteriorated and suddenly died
May Dewey was nominated by Chicago Institute and endorsed
by the University of Chicago to be the new head of School
of Education. He now oversaw two departments, managed a
school of education and supervised four schools. Jackman
remained the Dean
September The University administration intended to merge Dewey
School and Parker School to avoid redundancy, but parents
of Dewey School and prominent educators of the
community opposed to it. They wanted an independent
stand-alone Dewey School. Consequently the University
administration accepted it reluctantly but would review it on
a year-to-year basis
(continued)
Year Month
1902–1903 In academic 1902–1903, it was decided that the merger

would take place in Fall 1903
1903 More consolidation was carried out:
(1) The Department of Education was abolished; its work
was transferred to School of Education (undergraduates)
and Department of Philosophy (graduates)
(2) Chicago Manual Training School and South Side
Academy merged to become Secondary School of the
School of Education
(3) Alice became the principal of the merged elementary
school for a one-year contract. There were conflicts
between the Dewey School clique and the Parker
School clique
(4) Jackman wrote to Harper about the problem of School
of Education and the UCES. Some teachers threatened
to resign
1904 February Harper advised Dewey that Alice’s contract was for one year
only. Wrote Harper, “It was against the university hiring
policy for ‘the employment of the wife of a professor in an
administrative or definite position in the university” (Martin
2002: 208)
March Alice Dewy met Harper face-to-face but did not resolve the
issue
April 5 Alice Dewey resigned from the principalship of UCES
April 6 John Dewey resigned from the directorship of School of
Education
April 11 John Dewey resigned from the post of Department Head of
Philosophy
Late April News of Dewey’s resignation began to spread
May 2 The University of Chicago trustees accepted Dewey’s
resignation
In presenting my resignation to the Board of Trustees, and in recom-

mending its acceptance, I request you to make it clear to the Board that
the question of the alleged failure to reappoint Mrs. Dewey as Principal
of the Elementary School is in no sense the cause of my resignation, and
that this question had never been discussed between us till after our resig-
nations were in your hands. Your willingness to embarrass and hamper my
work as Director by making use of the fact that Mrs. Dewey was Principal
is but one incident in the history of years. (Quoted from Martin 2002:
214)
192 R. LI
So what are “the history of years” of Harper hampering Dewey’s work?

Whatever they were, there must be numerous. But most important of all,
his biographer summarized Dewey’s feelings at the moment of resigna-
tion: “To his surprise, he realized that as soon as he had decided, he felt
tremendous relief, not anger at Harper” (Martin 2002: 209). Why was
Dewey relieved and what was wrong with his relationship with Harper?
Let me try to give some plausible reasons.
Dewey Overworked
Probably Dewey had very much over-stretched himself in the past nine
years, from one department to two departments, from one school to four
schools, plus the newly created School of Education. He was constantly
under tremendous stress, from holding meetings, giving talks, writing
memos, traveling, to writing academic papers, meeting parents, planning
and selling his projects and ideas. In 1902 when Parker died and Dewey
took up the post of director of School of Education, he was already the
most renowned educationalist in America. He took up the job mainly to
perpetuate Parker’s vision, not to enhance his personal career or ambition.
But he was displeased with the interference of his boss President
Harper. Disgruntled Dewey wrote to his mentor W. T. Harris shortly
after he made his decision to resign:
……with which I will not trouble you. But the gist of it is simply that I
found I could not work harmoniously under the conditions which the Pres-
ident’s methods of conducting affairs created and imposed. So it seemed
to be due both him and myself that I should transfer my activities else-
where. I resigned, however, without having anything in view. (Quoted
from Dykhuizen 1973: 114)
Harris was shocked, but he gave a sober, objective observation: How

could President Harper possibly let Dewey go? It must be his own
decision, responded Harris:
I am of course very much astonished. I do not think it possible that the

President of Chicago University can be persuaded to accept your resigna-
tion, but if you force it on him by accepting another call he cannot help
himself. (Quoted from Dykhuizen 1973: 115).
As I dig deeper, I believe that the underlying causes are that Dewey
had overworked and had long-time discontent with Harper’s manage-
ment style: bureaucratic, pushy and demanding achievement and sacrifice.
Dewey must have been tired with his work and fed-up with the demands
from Harper that his resignation brought him immediate relief.
“Mistreatment of Mrs. Dewey”

Now back to Hunter’s accusation: “Mr. Dewey left Chicago because of
[the president’s]…… mistreatment of Mrs. Dewey” (Martin 2002: 213–
214). This prevailing view was stated in the general history of the Dewey
School:
…… certain members of the administrative staff of the elementary school

would be eliminated at the close of the first year after the merger. Mr.
Dewey had been entirely ignorant of these assurances, found himself unable
to accept them and resigned……. (Mayhew and Edwards 1936: 17–18)
This reason is valid only in that it is the last straw that breaks the camel.
When Alice’s contract of principalship was not renewed in April 1904, it
merely served as a trigger point in the ongoing conflict and politics in
the School of Education. Shortly after Dewey was made director of the
School in 1902, he was having fights with the incumbent Dean Jackman,
who later wrote to Harper and complained against Dewey:
• Dewey rarely consulted his dean;

• He took little personal interest in the students in the School of
Education;
• He was rarely present in parents’ meeting;
• He did not call enough faculty meetings;
• He had no plans to consolidate the two schools.
Jackman further demanded that there should be “no dismissal of teach-

ers” and “principalship should not be ‘a family affair’” (Dykhuizen 1973:
111–112).10 There was accusation that the strong-headed Alice was ready
to dismiss teachers she found incompetent.
10 Dewey School was jokingly called “Mr. and Mrs. Dewey School” by some faculties
in the School of Education.
194 R. LI
It was under these circumstances that Harper tactfully suggested to

Dewey that Alice leave when her one-year contract of 1903–1904 ended.
Harper saw it as straightening out administrative issues but Dewey took
it an issue of injustice. He knew Alice had put extra effort and sacrificed
much to serve as the principal of Dewey School but which was not appre-
ciated nor trusted. In fact he felt disappointed and betrayed when teachers
did not speak candidly about his wife’s appointment. Reported Blaine on
her interview with Dewey in late April 1904:
I said to him [Dewey] that the Trustees had not felt at liberty to bring to
him the facts of the disagreement with the plan [to appoint Mrs. Dewey
principal], on the part of the teachers…… Mr. Dewey was greatly surprised
at the opposition of Miss [Zonia] Baber and Miss [Emily] Rice [teachers,
respectively, of geography and history and literature-]. His main feeling in
this interview was the injustice which he felt had been done him by not
having their position made known to him before on the question of the
Principalship…… (Quoted from Martin 2002: 212)
Review at a Distance
A century has passed and Dewey’s bitter resignation became part of his life
history. I hope to be at a distance to understand it, not to pass judgment.
As my chronology reveals, Parker’s death and Dewey’s increasing role in
the School of Education paved way for his final departure. As always,
university politics is fierce, and merger and acquisition bring causalities as
rival cliques jockey for positions and avoid redundancy. Seen in this way,
Alice is just one of the causalities.
Complex Motives Converged

I hope to have shown the complex motives behind the incident. Dewey
was fed up with the politics and stress from Harper that quitting would
give him relief. Harper, on the other hand, wanted Dewey to stay badly
that he kept pushing, which led to Dewey’s complete resignation from
the University of Chicago. Alice was “a woman of extraordinary dignity”
(Harper’s words) and could not be compromised. Mrs. Blaine wanted to
save the situation but she brought disappointment and a sense of betrayal
to Dewey. Jackman was a bureaucrat from the former Chicago Insti-
tute and wanted to protect his interests and his former colleagues. Their
motives converged into a picture of social relationship, the result of which

was Dewey and his wife’s departure from the University of Chicago.
Dewey’s Leadership
Dewey’s resignation calls into question his leadership. It can be seen that
Dewey was a successful leader in his academic departments but not so
in the School of Education. In the departments, he had good team-
work with his colleagues and close relationship with his students. He was
the big brother who practiced participatory democracy. He motivated
his colleagues and students, with ideas and vision, fostering a research
environment for the creation of Chicago school of philosophic thought
and functional psychology. In the newly created School of Education,
however, he was unable to exert his influence: he was too busy. For
the four elementary and secondary schools under him, he had a good
start with UCES in 1896 which he could look after for a few years, but
then he had limited time and control of the other schools. Especially
after the merger, personnels of Dewey School and Parker School were
in conflict and he was unable to resolve them. Participatory democracy,
which Dewey practiced successfully in his departments, did not seem to
work there. He was in constant disagreement with his dean. He wanted an
open and democratic discussion in the appointment process of the prin-
cipal, but the persons he consulted, Ms. Baber and Ms. Rice, did not speak
out their objection. Dewey was disillusioned with a sense of betrayal and
injustice. His poor leadership in the School of Education was attributed
either to his lack of time or to his lack of personnel management skills. A
candid and sincere Dewey is not a shrewd human resources director.
Ethical Principles
Dewey’s resignation can be seen as an ethical decision too. He holds his
virtues and principles high—personal integrity, participatory democracy
and justice. He found it unjust that his wife’s contract was not renewed
for objections that he was kept in the dark. On the personal side, Alice had
worked hard and sacrificed so much to the school but was treated with
suspicion in the merged school. She even became a scapegoat when some
teachers threatened to resign and actually did. To uphold his principles
and to support his wife, he found it necessary to resign. In this sense,
Dewey the philosopher is a man of his own ethical principles.
196 R. LI
Further Readings
Dewey School
The University College Elementary School (Dewey School) that
Dewey founded in 1896 ended and changed name when the Deweys left
Chicago in 1904, but it had left immeasurable legacy and inspiration to
education up to today. You may wish to dig deeper through the following
books and papers:
1. Mayhew, K. C., & Edwards, A. C. (1936). The Dewey School. New

York: Appleton-Century-Crofts.
When Alice Dewey left UCES (Dewey School) in 1904, she took
a lot of records and papers with her. She had all the intention of
writing the school’s history but it was never materialized because
of her ill-health. Upon her death in 1927, John Dewey requested
Katherine Camp Mayhew and Anna Camp Edwards, Alice’s close
associates in UCES, to finish the work, which was published in
1936.
Mayhew was the vice-principal and Edwards was a history teacher
in UCES. They documented the curriculum and practices of the
school from its inception in 1896 to its end in 1903, plus personnel,
organization and evaluation. Dewey wrote a short introduction
and contributed a paper to it, entitled The Theory of the Chicago
Experiment. It is the official and authoritative account of Dewey
School.
2. Lageman, E. C. (1996). Experimenting with Education: John
Dewey and Ella Flagg Young at the University of Chicago. Amer-
ican Journal of Education, 104, 171–185.
Ella Flagg Young (1845–1918) was a pioneer American educator
who later studied under John Dewey and earned her PhD in 1900.
She joined the Department of Philosophy and Pedagogy in Univer-
sity of Chicago in 1899 and was appointed supervisor of instruction
of UCES. During the years that followed, Young was one of the
major leaders in Dewey School and advised Dewey on school admin-
istration and curriculum matters. This paper examined how the two
worked together in those pioneering years.
3. Tanner, L. N. (1997). Dewey’s Laboratory School: Lessons for Today.
New York: Teachers College Press.
The author is a professor of education and curriculum studies.

She reviewed Dewey School nearly a century later and drew lessons
from it: the ideal, the school as a social community, a developing
curriculum, its administration and approach to discipline. No doubt
Dewey School helps keeping Dewey’s vision and practices alive.
4. Durst, A. (2010). Women Educators in the Progressive Era: The
Women behind Dewey’s Laboratory School. New York, NY: Palgrave.
The author dug into the archives for personal papers of four
Dewey School teachers—Anna Camp, Katherine Camp, Althea
Harmer and Mary Hill—and reconstructed the story. She took us
into the classrooms, the teachers’ meetings and showed how the
school operated in innovation, vision, trial and error and communal
responsibilities. Note that two teachers, Anna and Katherine, were
authors of The Dewey School (1936).
5. Knoll, M. (2014). Dewey as Administrator: The Inglorious End of
the Laboratory School in Chicago. Journal of Curriculum Studies,
47 (2), 203–252.
Knoll, M. (2016). John Dewey’s Laboratory School: Theory Versus
Practice, Catholic University Eichstaett, Germany, ISCHE Confer-
ence.
The author, a German educator, examined the sudden ending of
UCES and found Alice Dewey an incompetent principal and John
Dewey a poor administrator. By reconstructing the historical details
of the Dewey-Harper conflict and the bitter politics subsequent to
the merger in 1901, the author reached the same conclusion I did
independently on the plausible reasons of Dewey’s resignation.
References
Berson, R. K. (2004). Jane Addams: A Biography. California: Greenwood.
Burch, R. (2014). Charles Sanders Peirce. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
(Winter).
Davis, A. F. (1973). American Heroine: The Life and Legend of Jane Addams.
Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Dewey, J. (1939). Biography of John Dewey. In P. A. Schilp (Ed.), The Philosophy
198 R. LI
Lawson, E. (2003). The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at
the Fair that Changed America. New York: Vintage Books.
Mayhew, K. C., & Edwards, A. C. (1936). The Dewey School. New York:
Appleton-Century-Crofts.
CHAPTER 9
Educational Writings in Chicago Years
Introduction
In Chapter 8, I offered an outline of John Dewey’s Chicago years,
focusing on facts, events and some of his personal feelings. I did not go
deep into his ideas, albeit my brief outline of the genesis of My Pedagogic
Creed (1897). In this Chapter, I will discuss Dewey’s educational writ-
ings one by one. It starts from Interest in Relation to Training of the Will
(1896), moving into Ethical Principles Underlying Education (1897),The
Psychological Aspect of the School Curriculum(1897), and My Pedagogic
Creed (1897), finally ending in The School and Society (1899) and The
Child and the Curriculum (1902). For each piece of writing, I will give an
overview, identify the intellectual origins, examine Dewey’s key concepts
and web of ideas, and finally offer a present-day review and evaluation. In
the process, I make extensive direct quotes to help readers follow through
Dewey’s obscure ideas.
Interest in Relation to Training of the Will

Change of Terms Over Time
Interest in Relation to Training of the Will is Dewey’s first debut in educa-
tion. It is his first theoretical treatise of applying psychology to education,
which appeared in National Herbart society, second supplement to the
Herbart year book for 1895, in 1896. Readers today may be puzzled with

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-7941-7_9
200 R. LI
title and find it hard to understand what “training of the will” meant a
hundred years ago. Here is the history.
In 1859, Alexander Bain published The Emotions and The Will, in
which emotion is abroad concept to include feelings, perception and
interpreted sensations. For him, will means more than willpower; it
includes internal psychological state for action. By 1890s, one major
component of emotion—interest—was extensively discussed to contrast
with effort, or self-discipline. The concepts continue to evolve; today we
use the term curiosity and persistence or motivation instead.
In the late nineteenth century, it is customary to speak of training,
a rather didactic term. Later it was replaced with “education” or “nur-
turance” when we talk about young children. So you may substitute
“training” with “nurturance” and “will” with “effort” and the phrase
“nurturance of children’s effort” can convey a more or less similar
meaning of today. Throughout the article, Dewey uses the term “effort”
much more often than “will.”
The Controversy Between Interest and Effort

The issue of interest and effort had been a controversy in educa-
tion. Here Dewey tries to contrast interest with effort and brings into
light the controversy in the principles of teaching: should we focus on
nurturing children’s interest or nurturing children’s effort, later termed
self-discipline in learning? Dewey presents the views of both sides, like a
court case of “plaintiff and defendant” (EW5: 114) and after along delib-
eration in psychology, rules that the two sides are not really contradictory
but are the two opposing ends of an action of a unitary human organism.
Dewey brings in the concept of action, self, self-expression in support of
interest, and in the process the learner “assimilates material to reach its
end, does not find it necessary to oppose interest to effort” (EW5: 121).
In Dewey’s words,
……Genuine interest in education is the accompaniment of the identifi-

cation, through action, of the self with some object or idea, because of
the necessity of that object or idea for the maintenance of self-expression.
Effort, in the sense in which it may be opposed to interest, implies a sepa-
ration between the self and the fact to be mastered or task to be performed,
and sets up an habitual division of activities…… But when we recognize
there are certain powers within the child urgent for development, needing
9 EDUCATIONAL WRITINGS IN CHICAGO YEARS 201
to be acted upon, in order to secure their own due efficiency and disci-
pline, we have a firm basis upon which to build. Effort arises normally in
the attempt to give full operation, and thus growth and completion, to
these powers…… (EW5: 121)
Dewey’s Psychology of Interest

In Dewey’s descriptive account of interest, it has three characteristics:
first, it is active and dynamic; second, it is objective with an end, an aim
and an objective; third, it is subjective, for its internal realization, feeling
and emotion. Accordingly, interest is the instrument for “organic union”
between the subject (the child) and the object (the toy, for example).
Dewey further elaborates by the three phases of interest:
Active phase—“Impulse and the spontaneous urgencies or tenden-

cies” discharge and act. Spontaneous impulse is “the basis for natural
interest.” When it is excited to act, it is active, not passive.
Objective phase—Impulse or interest needs an object to bring it to
consciousness. For example, canvas, brushes and paint help to realize
an artist’s existing artistic capacity. The object gives impulse content
to realize itself.
Emotional phase—The subjective value of feeling of its worth.
When the activity is felt valuable and worthwhile, it will continue.
To summarize, interest is “a form of self-expressive activity.” It is “self

finds itself,” “reflecting itself in felt value”:
An interest is primarily a form of self-expressive activity—that is, of growth

through acting upon nascent tendencies. If we examine this activity on the
side of the content of expression, of what is done, we get its objective
features, the ideas, objects, etc., to which the interest is attached, about
which it clusters. If we take into account that it is self-expression, that self
finds itself, is reflected back to itself, in this content, we get its emotional
or feeling side. Any account of genuine interest must, therefore, grasp it
as outgoing activity holding within its grasp an intellectual content, and
reflecting itself in felt value. (EW5: 125)
Up to now, it is clear to me that Dewey applies Hegelian

ideas of subjectivity—objectivity—unity—spontaneity into psychological
202 R. LI
concepts, sharpening and reorganizing them into a system: interest,

impulse, self, effort, pleasure, emotion, will. As before, his philosoph-
ical analysis of concepts clarify the issues, but there is no psychological
research, experiment or evidence, only the employing of some psycholog-
ical concepts such as memory, mental imagery, divided attention, external
situation. His theory of interest and will is based on German philos-
ophy operating on the prevailing elusive psychological concepts. While his
whole theory makes good sense, it is hard to put to scientific verification.
The Core Concept: Self-Expression

At this point, readers may be bewildered with a new concept, self-
expression, which defines interest. So what does self-expression mean to
Dewey? Read the following quotes:
Self-expression in which the psychical energy assimilates material because

of the recognized value of this material in aiding the self to reach its end,
does not find it necessary to oppose interest to effort. Effort is the result
of interest, and indicates the persistent outgo of activities in attaining an
end felt as valuable; while interest is the consciousness of the value of this
end, and of the means necessary to realize it. (Archambault 1964: 269)1
In Dewey’s words, self-expression may mean a child “to be himself”

(Archambault 1964: 265). A child has “his demand for self-expression,”
which “cannot by any possibility be suppressed” (EW5: 119). In
self-expression, “the psychical energy assimilates material because of
the recognized value of this material in aiding the self to reach its
end.” Self-expression may mean the natural tendency of the child, her
self-progression to growth and development. It has some similarities
with Piagetian assimilation and accommodation. Self-expression is self-
assimilating material to reach its end—but what is the end? Dewey does
not say explicitly and in general terms what it is. My guess is that, it is
survival, stability, physical and mental growth to maturity.
1 In quoting Interest in Relation to Training of the Will , I use Dewey’s Collected Works
as much as I can, but they do not always match with Archambault’s (1964) John Dewey
on Education, Selected Writings based on National Herbart Society Third Yearbook, 1897.
It is likely there is some minor re-editing by Dewey himself. When I cannot locate the
quotes from the Collected Works, I will resort to quoting Archambault. On the whole, all
quotes and ideas form a consistent picture of Dewey’s thoughts.
Self-Expression Directs Interest: A Diagrammatic Presentation

Dewey employs numerous terms to explain self-expression: immediate
interest, mediate interest, pleasure, emotion, volition, effort. He even
states that “Both desire and effort are phases of self- expression” (Archam-
bault 1964: 276). These in fact are elaboration of the objective and the
subjective phases of interest mentioned earlier:
At this point, it is necessary to distinguish two typical phases into which

the one activity of self-expression, at the basis of all interest, differentiates
itself, as this differentiation gives us also two types of interest. These two
types of self- expression arise according as the end and means of expression
do, or do not, coincide in time. In the former case we have immediate
interest, in the latter mediate. It is all important to carry our analysis over
into an examination of these points, because it is in the matter of mediate
interest that the one-sided theories arise, which, on one side (isolating the
emotional phase), identify pleasure with interest; or, on the other (isolating
the intellectual or ideal phase), deny interest and identify volition with
effort. (Archambault 1964: 272)
I have painstakingly tried to clarify what Dewey means by Fig. 9.1.
The Process: From Interest to Effort (Will)

A child possesses inner capacity and impulse, which propels him from a
state of tension to future satisfaction. The impulse (interest) of action
gives pleasure. It grows with a desire to move from existing situation to
the ideal situation. It continues with a struggle for completion, which is
will (effort). For Dewey, emotion is agitation and disturbance, leading
to tension (EW5: 131). He thus brings in functional analysis of emotion;
how emotion creates tension and stirs up the organism to cope with novel
situations. In Dewey’s words,
The result is tension between habit and aim, between impulse and
idea, between means and end. This tension is the essential feature of
emotion…… It is obvious from this account that the function of emotion
is to secure a sufficient arousing of energy in critical periods of the life
of the agent…… The function of emotion is thus to brace or reinforce
the agent in coping with the novel element in unexpected and immediate
situations. (EW5: 131)
204 R. LI
Fig. 9.1 Dewey’s self-expression and interest
Desire is impulse made conscious for an end. It is pleasurable as it brings

into consciousness the end of self-expression. In Dewey’s words,
When the agent is in the condition known as desire, he is conscious of

some object ahead of him, and the consciousness of this object serves to
reinforce his active tendencies. The thought of the desired object serves,
in a word, to stimulate the means necessary to its attainment. (EW5: 131–
132).
There can be no doubt that desire is always more or less pleasurable.

It is pleasurable in so far as the end of self-expression is present in
consciousness. For the end defines satisfaction, and any conception of it
awakens, therefore, an image of satisfaction, which, so far as it goes, is
itself pleasurable. (EW5: 132–133)

Readers familiar with Dewey’s Psychology (1887) will not find it too diffi-
cult to understand Interest in Relation to Training of the Will . When
he elaborates on emotion, readers are drawn to his earlier Theory of

Emotion (1894) where Dewey argues that action comes before emotion
and that “emotional excitement is the felt process of realization of ideas”
(EW4: 172). In that paper, Dewey has already made a distinction between
interest and effort. Two years later, in 1896, Dewey moved to elaborate
interest further for education.
Interest-Arousal Theory
Dewey’s theory of interest and effort can be seen as the precursor of
an interest-arousal-tension-reduction theory later developed into Clark
Hull’s (1884–1952) theory of learning. It has a subjective and active part
that a child’s attention is drawn and interest is aroused. Then it has again
another subjective and internal part urging for tension reduction. It is
the prevalent paradigm of emotion and consciousness based on Darwin’s
evolutionary theory. Dewey’s theory can be seen as an elaboration of this
paradigm.
Dewey is in support of this interest-arousal-tension-reduction theory
because he has trust in man and consciousness. He believes that men are
not savage animals but with consciousness and then conscience. He sees
desire and volition positively. At the same time, he is against pleasure-
pain theory of conduct (against utilitarianism). His psychological theory
of action hopes to support a self-expression theory of conduct.
Description vs. Prescription

Now I will challenge John Dewey on confusing a theory of fact with a
statement of prescription. First he theorizes how impulse and desire work,
with interest as representing “emotional force aroused” for functioning.
This is his “arousal theory.” Then he suggests controlling desire to be
“calmed and studied,” which is “interest in the end” (Archambault 1964:
280). But this is a prescription, not a description of the state of affair.
Dewey gives the example of a young hunter too eager to shoot while an
experienced hunter keeps his interest “to accomplish his purpose,” one
acting with impulse and the other with interest (ibid.: 281). Throughout
the paper, Dewey is prescribing interest and controlling impulse for a
“proper balance” (ibid.: 279). His aim is a prescription for education than
a description of a scientific theory.
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Unverifiability
John Dewey as a leading psychologist of his time sets the problem of
interest in such a way that it is hard to verify or refute, even for today.
The terms are hard to define, the concepts are difficult to delineate
from one another and there are few testable statements to experiment
on. It is therefore natural that his conceptions and theories are largely
abandoned and ignored by experimental psychologists. The philosophical
tone, especially that of Hegelian dialectics, may have some substance in
subject-object transformation, growth and unity but it is as distant as the
revolving moon to give direction: the light is dim.
In summary, Dewey’s theory does not add much to our understanding
except for the clarification of the philosopher himself. Rather today’s
readers may expect scientific research on effort such as: duration, intensity,
nature of task and focus. At the turn of the twentieth century, Wilhelm
Wundt and many experimental psychologists were working in the lab
on human restlessness, anxiety, excitation and arousal but Dewey’s own
research interest is not in experimentation. He is interested in one grand
whole theory, not the numerous details. Dewey has witty and deep argu-
ments to capture readers in the beginning pages, but when it gets into
“dialectic” psychology, few can follow his line of thought. Fortunately,
his conclusion is simple: interest and effort are the two sides of the same
coin!
Ethical Principles Underlying Education

The Centrality of Ethics in Education
Five decades ago, Deweyan scholar Reginald Archambault pointed out
that for Dewey, “Ethics is central to the educational enterprise” (Archam-
bault 1964: xxi). He was right, as my outline on Dewey’s early writings
reveals. He further pointed out that for Dewey, ethics is the
…basis for determining the ends of education, the relation of means and
methods to those ends, and a general classification of educational values.
Dewey’s total approach to these problems is controlled by the ethical
principles. (ibid.: xxi)
Ethical Principles Underlying Education (1897) is an important piece

published around the time My Pedagogic Creed was released. As an ethical
treatise, readers may legitimately expect some underlying principles on
virtues, the good, obligation, freedom, and so on, in short, some prescrip-
tion of moral conduct at school. As these issues were treated in his
Outlines of a Critical Theory of Ethics (1891), Dewey was supposed to
elaborate here on how this can be carried out in a school setting or be
applied to education.
Puzzles of Ethical Principles Underlying Education

Surprisingly, this is not the case with his paper. Instead, it is a critique
of the school system: the school’s wrong focus of rote memorization,
while “the social spirit is not cultivated” (EW5: 65) in school; “fear is a
motive,” “fear of failure” and “emulation and rivalry” is prevalent; “the
child is prematurely launched into the region of individualistic competi-
tion” (EW5: 65) resulting in “person…… isolated…… selfish in quality”
(EW5: 65). What is this paper about? What is Dewey proposing here for
the ethical principles underlying education?
Bewildered readers may find comfort when Dewey points out that the
school is primarily a social institution with a purpose and its ethical aim is
to turn out moral and responsible citizens:
……The ethical aim which determines the work of the school must accord-
ingly be interpreted in the most comprehensive and organic spirit. We must
take the child as a member of society in the broadest sense and demand
whatever is necessary to enable the child to recognize all his social rela-
tions and to carry them out. The child is to be not only a voter and a
subject of law; he is also to be a member of a family, himself responsible,
in all probability, in turn, for rearing and training of future children, and
thus maintaining the continuity of society. He is to be a worker, engaged
in some occupation which will be of use to society, and which will main-
tain his own independence and self-respect. He is to be a member of some
particular neighborhood and community, and must contribute to the values
of life, add to the decencies and graces of civilization wherever he is……
(EW5: 58)
If this sounds cliché today, it may not be so in 1890s when public

schooling began to take shape in America. What, in the broad sense,
should schools do? Dewey’s above passage outlined an ideal industrial
American society that education could help to shape and create. When
Dewey criticized the prevailing school system, he was simply pointing to
their failure to achieve these aims.
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Dewey’s Line of Thought

Ethical Principles Underlying Education is Dewey’s earliest exposition on
the subject. He starts by arguing that ethics for school and for society are
one. This serves as a good reminder for some educators who preach high
morality at school but breach all moral standards in society. Ethics, or
conduct, has two sides: the psychological (individual) side and the social
side, the how and the what of conduct. It should be integrated as one
in school and for the child. For Dewey, moral and intellectual education
should be an integrated whole.
Remember Dewey’s notion of ethical science. He is against god-sent
rules prescribed by the church orthodoxy. Instead, he proposes to ground
ethical rules by scientific inquiry, by criticizing and evaluating these rules
in their daily use in society. In other words, an ideal school should not
prescribe and just follow conventional rules. It should nurture children
with a critical mind for the scientific evaluation of these rules.
Dewey utilizes again his bag of psychological concepts (instinct,
impulse, habit) and philosophical concepts (form, content, mean, end) to
elaborate on ethics. In this paper Dewey’s thought begins to take shape
by integrating the sociological dimension (a school is a social institution)
with the individual (a child to be educated to be a member of society).
There are abundance of rules in society that a child must learn to follow.
Do these rules suffocate a child’s development?
It is not a simple yes or no answer. Dewey sees that there is social inter-
action that leads to the evolution of morals over time. Education is the
union of the individual (impulse) and the social (rules) in the nurturance
of children, so that they can grow up to be morally responsible citizens
for the “rearing and training of future children, and thus maintaining
the continuity of society” (EW5: 58). It is not the rigid imposition of
the existing specific rules or values but the realization of a child’s inner
capacity for freedom and discipline that matters. In other words, a child
should learn to be critical and creative, and to make judgment so that
they can create new rules for the future.
Moral Habits at School and Character Formation

I mentioned earlier that Ethical Principles Underlying Education is a
critique of the existing values in practice at school: rote memorization,
rat-race competition, selfishness, fear. But not all moral training at school
are faulty. There are positive moral habits as well:
……in the school are habits which are created, as it were, ad hoc. Even the
habits of promptness, regularity, industry, non-interference with the work
of others, faithfulness to tasks imposed, which are specially inculcated in the
school, are habits which are morally necessary simply because the school
system is what it is, and must be preserved intact. (EW5: 63)
In addition, Dewey prescribes the training of character, or character

formation: “Stated in psychological terms, it means that there must be a
training of the primary impulses and instincts, which organizes them into
habits which are reliable means of action” (EW5: 78). Dewey enumerates
three features: force of character, good sense and judgment, and empathy
and recognition of others’ needs. In his words:
The individual must have the power to stand up and count for something
in the actual conflicts of life. He must have initiative, insistence, persis-
tence, courage and industry. He must, in a word, have all that goes under
a term, “force of character.”…… On the intellectual side we must have
judgment—what is ordinarily called good sense…… Good judgment is a
sense of respective or proportionate values. The one who has judgment is
the one who has ability to size up a situation……
……the material of ethical knowledge is related to emotional respon-
siveness…… that which is sympathetic, flexible, and open…… we count
upon it to accomplish more in the end by tact, by instinctive recognition
of the claims of others, by skill in adjusting, than the former can accom-
plish by mere attachment to rules and principles which are intellectually
justified. (EW5: 78–80)
Reconstruction and Evaluation

Democracy
Interesting enough, Dewey did not explicitly mention democracy here
but he was depicting a modern democratic society. Dewey’s idea of
democracy started as early as 1888. In The Ethics of Democracy (EW1:
227–249), Dewey suggested that:
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…… democracy is an ethical idea, the idea of a personality, with truly

infinite capacities, incorporate with every man. Democracy and the one, the
ultimate, ethical ideal of humanity are to my mind synonyms…… (EW1:
248)
Dewey’s ideas grew from The Ethics of Democracy (1888) to Ethical

Principles Underlying Education (1897). When the paper was revised to
become Moral Principles in Education (1909), the main ideas remained,
to be further elaborated in Democracy and Education (1916).
But democracy is more than a form of government. It is a way of
living, in which “the growth of freedom” is the underlying value, the
guide to moral development and basis of moral choice. In the Outlines
of a Critical Theory of Ethics (1891), Dewey had already examined the
idea of freedom, which he later contrasted with the idea of responsibility
and discipline. When ethics are behaviors and ethics is “normal and free
living of life as it is,” the same idea was transplanted into education a few
years later to become Dewey’s signature, “education is living.”
Love
In The Study of Ethics : A Syllabus (1894), Dewey tries to contrast “jus-
tice” with “desire,” leading to love. He points out that love is a virtue,
and love is the unity of freedom and responsibility.
Love is justice brought to self -consciousness; justice with a full, instead of

partial, standard of value; justice with a dynamic, instead of static, scale of
equivalency. Psychologically, then, love as justice is not simply the supreme
virtue; it is virtue. It is the fulfilling of the law— the law of self. Love is
the complete identification of subject and object, of agent and function,
and, therefore, is complete in every phase. It is complete interest in, full
attention to, the objects, the aims of life, and thus insures responsibility.
(EW4: 361)
Let me sum up his ideas with a graphic presentation on the core value,
meaning, methodology, and context of his ethics (Fig. 9.2).
Fig. 9.2 A graphic presentation of Dewey’s ethics
Social Justice
It is quite understandable that Dewey would develop his ethics in this
path of thought. First he was concerned with morality because of his
family upbringing. Then he studied philosophy and examined ethical
issues. With the impetus of psychology and experimental method, it was
natural that he would question existing customs and rules. Slowly moving
away from Hegelianism, he went beyond existing theories and proposes
ethical science. Our philosopher experienced love, which becomes the
core value of his ethics. His concern slowly moved from personal virtue
212 R. LI
to social justice by the end of his Michigan years. In Chicago, he applied

these ideas to education, seeing the centrality of ethics in it with his
acquaintance of Jane Addams and the Hull House. The social justice in an
industrial world was his social context. Then love, democracy and social
justice merged to become his ethics in education.
The Psychological Aspect

of the School Curriculum
Background
Earlier I mentioned that Dewey’s ideas on education arose from two
strands: psychology and ethics. When Ethical Principles Underlying
Education relates philosophy (ethics) to education, Interest in Relation
to Training of the Will is Dewey’s link from psychology to education.
His ideas did not go unchallenged, however. Notably in psychology, his
notion of interest was criticized by W. T. Harris, Dewey’s mentor-friend,
himself a Hegelian philosopher and a pioneer educator. The Psycholog-
ical Aspect of the School Curriculum (April 1897) is a response to this
challenge.
Harris’s Challenge
Harris’s challenge is simple. He argues that psychology is comparatively
worthless for “fixing educational values,” only a need for the “formal
training of certain distinct powers called perception, memory, judgment”
(EW5: 165). Harris prefers effort over interest. “It requires a sheer effort
of will power to carry the mind over from its own intrinsic workings
and interests to this outside stuff” (EW5: 166). Interest, or intrinsic
motivation, is “degraded to a very low plane.”
He takes interest to mean amusement, episodes to avoid boredom of
learning, or “tricks” and “certain sugar coating in the ways of extrinsic
inducements termed ‘arousing of interest’” (EW5: 171). Harris’s teaching
method was summarized as:
……the doctrine of interest interpreted to mean the amusing, and hold

that the actual work of instruction is how to make studies which have
no intrinsic interest interesting—how, that is, to clothe them with facti-

tious attraction, so that the mind may swallow the repulsive dose unaware.
(EW5: 166)
You may wish to note that in curriculum studies, there is an important

theory called “mental discipline.” It stresses that the most important
objective of teaching is to train up a child’s mental “muscle,” such as
memory, perception, association and recall. Examples are mental arith-
metic, rote memorization, rapid recall, etc. Teaching content is relatively
unimportant so long as the child’s mental “muscle” is trained up.2
Dewey’s Response: Education as Reconstruction of Experience

Dewey’s response is to uphold the primary importance of interest in
learning and see it in the light of growth and experience. He starts
with a critique on curriculum dualism, i.e., seeing teaching materials and
teaching methods as two separate domains. As expected, he dissolves it
by arguing that curriculum is never fixed: the selection of facts is based
on social and human interest. Psychology can throw light on teaching
method by discovering laws of learning and the growing experience of
the children, thus Dewey’s signature phrase of “the reconstruction of
experience.”
……Then we may see what both subject – matter and method of instruc-
tion stand for. The subject-matter is the present experience of the child,
taken in the light of what it may lead to. The method is the subject-
matter rendered into the actual life experience of some individual. The
final problem of instruction is thus the reconstruction of the individual’s
experience, through the medium of what is seen to be involved in that
experience as its matured outgrowth…… (EW5: 174–175)
Building on Criticisms
My reading is that Harris’s challenge is in fact productive to Dewey’s
thinking. Harris and his colleagues had been in the field of education and
curriculum for more than a decade before Dewey joined in 1895. In fact,
2 For an overview of mental discipline, please see Thorndike, E. L. (1924). Mental

Discipline in High School Studies. Journal of Educational Psychology, 15(1), 1–22.
214 R. LI
Dewey took Harris’s stand as a starting point, that education is social life,
for human civilization. Dewey was quoted stating Harris’s position as:
In substance, we are told that a study is the gathering up and arranging

of the facts and principles relating to some typical aspect of social life, or
which afford a fundamental tool in maintaining that social life; that the
standard for selecting and placing a study is the worth which it has in
adapting the pupil to the needs of the civilization into which he is born.
(EW5: 167)
Dewey succinctly states: “I do not question this statement, so far as it

goes, on the positive side” (EW5: 167). He merely wants to build a
theory of curriculum by adding in psychology. With a growing child and
her impulse and intrinsic interest, Dewey puts forward these at the dawn
of educational psychology:
I repeat, therefore, that the first question regarding any subject of study is
the psychological one, What is that study, considered as a form of living,
immediate, personal experience? What is the interest in that experience?
What is the motive or stimulus to it? How does it act and react with
reference to other forms of experience? How does it gradually differentiate
itself from others? And how does it function so as to give them additional
definiteness and richness of meaning? We must ask these questions not only
with reference to the child in general, but with reference to the specific
child—the child of a certain age, of a certain degree of attainment, and of
specific home and neighborhood contacts. (EW5: 170)
Summary and Review

Simply put, when Dewey moved from psychology and philosophy to
education, he was confronted with the issue of curriculum and teaching.
Naturally he brings in his former knowledge to it, notably “interest,”
“impulse,” “action,” “will,” “emotion,” etc. The Psychological Aspect of the
School Curriculum is to elaborate “interest” further to become “growth.”
In applying psychology to the school curriculum, Dewey proposes “a
psychological inquiry” of “interest”: “Our study is to find out what the
actual interests of the child are” (EW5: 172). Dewey puts the child’s
growth and experience in the fore front. Teachers must observe and
reflect on the children’s attention, focus, interest and experience to make
education meaningful to her:
We have first to fix attention upon the child to find out what kind of expe-
rience is appropriate to him at the particular period selected; to discover,
if possible, what it is that constitutes the special feature of the child’s
experience at this time; and why it is that his experience takes this form
rather than another. This means that we observe in detail what experi-
ences have most meaning and value to him, and what attitude he assumes
toward them. We search for the point, or focus, of interest in these expe-
riences…… We ask what habits are being formed; what ends and aims are
being proposed. We inquire what the stimuli are and what responses the
child is making. We ask what impulses are struggling for expression; in
what characteristic ways they find an outlet; and what results inure to the
child through their manifestation…… (EW5: 171–172)
In this paper, Dewey raised more questions than gave answers. He had
a research direction and approach but he had no research details. In
the next few years, Dewey would study and write about child devel-
opment. What is more, Dewey is a philosopher of action. He started
Chicago University College Elementary School to put his education and
curriculum in action. From a historical perspective, it is not sheer luck he
becomes the best-known figure in American education in the following
decade and beyond.
My Pedagogic Creed
A Passionate Vision and Personal Declaration
When The New Psychology (1884) is Dewey’s psychological manifesto,
My Pedagogic Creed (1897) is his educational manifesto. It summarizes
and outlines Dewey’s views on education after he founded, in 1896,
the Chicago University Elementary School. My Pedagogic Creed is by far
Dewey’s most widely read educational writing. So much has written on
this piece that I choose here to introduce it by quoting Martin Dworkin,
who wrote 60 years ago in his Dewey on Education: Selections:
Among the hundreds of books, essays, and other works Dewey produced in
his long career, the educational credo he wrote in 1897 is uniquely signif-
icant. In its style and content, it may most clearly exemplify the reformist
fervor of his Chicago period. Here is Dewey passionately, even flamboy-
antly, confident of his vision of the nature, purpose, and inevitable progress
of education. At once a personal declaration and a revolutionary manifesto,
it dispenses with supporting arguments or documentation. The resulting
216 R. LI
clarity, succinctness, and even eloquence have offered incomparable oppor-

tunities for interpretation, to both disciples and critics. (Dworkin 1959:
19)
The Five Articles and Their Origins

My Pedagogic Creed is not written for professional philosophers or
psychologists. Here Dewey is appealing to the public, teachers, educa-
tors and parents. His writing is short and simple (4113 words/12 pages).
He even tries a new style by enlisting five articles with 73 statements.
Each statement is a short paragraph of one to a few sentences to make his
points clear and precise. Nearly all ideas are traceable to the writings we
discussed above.
Article 1: Education is living. It has two sides, psychological and

sociological.
(traceable to Ethical Principles Underlying Education)
Article 2: The school is a school institution. The teacher is a facili-
tator.
(traceable to Ethical Principles Underlying Education)
Article 3: Education is the reconstruction of experience.
(traceable to The Psychological Aspect of the School
Curriculum)
Article 4: Teachers should observe children’s interest.
(traceable to Interest in Relation to Training of the Will
and The Psychological Aspect of the School Curriculum)
Article 5: Education is the fundamental method of social progress.
When the ideas of Articles 1–4 are traceable to earlier writings, Article 5 is
a more recent view. Readers will quickly see the connection with Chicago
and Jane Addams. By then, Dewey’s system of education is already in
place: that education, for him, has a social and personal meaning—educa-
tion is for social reform, social progress and democracy. Education is the
shaping of individual’s power into social resources for humanity. Dewey
sees education as empowering the individual. Education is living and is
an end in itself.
The Five Articles in Summary

Article 1: What Education Is
For Dewey, education is a socialization process, which he elaborates in
psychological terms. He sees the two sides: psychological and sociolog-
ical, where the child’s psychological capacities are the starting point of all
education, to be matched under the existing conditions for “an organic
union of individuals” (EW5: 86). Dewey is well aware of the advent of
democracy and modern individual conditions, that any training and prepa-
ration will be obsolete in 20 years. He therefore suggests nurturing a child
to his own command and developing his capacities:
……shaping the individual’s powers, saturating his consciousness, forming

his habits, training his ideas, and arousing his feelings and emotion-
s……this educational process has two sides—one psychological and one
sociological…… Of these two sides, the psychological is the basis. The
child’s own instincts and powers furnish the material and give the starting
point for all education…… (EW5: 84–85)
……the individual who is to be educated is a social individual and that

society is an organic union of individuals…… Education, therefore, must
begin with a psychological insight into the child’s capacities, interests, and
habits. It must be controlled at every point by reference to these same
considerations. These powers, interests, and habits must be continually
interpreted—we must know what they mean…… (EW5: 86)
Article 2: What the School Is

Dewey points out that a school is a social institution, that it should repre-
sent and simplify life. The school is a form of community life and moral
values are instilled through “a unity of work and thought” (EW5: 88).
The teacher should be facilitators to guide children, not to impose their
own ideas on children. “Exams are of use only as far as they test the child’s
fitness for social life” (EW5: 88).
……the school is primarily a social institution. Education being a social

process, the school is simply that form of community life……the school
must represent present life—life as real and vital to the child as that which
he carries on in the home, in the neighborhood, or on the playground……
(EW5: 86–87)
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……moral education centres about this conception of the school as a mode

of social life, that the best and deepest moral training is precisely that which
one gets through having to enter into proper relations with others in a
unity of work and thought…… (EW5: 88)
……The teacher is not in the school to impose certain ideas or to form

certain habits in the child, but is there as a member of the community
to select the influences which shall affect the child and to assist him in
properly responding to these influences…… (EW5:88)
Article 3: The Subject matter of Education

As a philosopher traversing through all types of human knowledge,
science, literature, history, geography and language, he wants to unify
them in education with a few ideas: social life, growth, social activity,
communication and critique of values, in short, the “continuing recon-
struction of experience” (EW5: 91). Dewey does not believe in the
compartmentalization of knowledge in a “purely objective form,” but that
it should be “treated as a new peculiar kind of experience which the child
can add to that which he has already had” (EW5: 90). He puts cooking,
sewing, woodwork, even factory work in the school curriculum because
it is part of a productive social life. The concept of science, mathematics,
geography, literature is to be integrated with these social activities. To
quote Dewey:
……the true centre of correlation of the school subjects is not science, nor
literature, nor history, nor geography, but the child’s own social activities.
(EW5: 89)
I believe that this gives the standard for the place of cooking,
sewing, manual training, etc., in the school……not for relaxation or
relief……rather that they represent, as types, fundamental forms of social
activity. (EW5: 90)
If education is life, all life has, from the outset, a scientific aspect; an aspect
of art and culture and an aspect of communication. (EW5: 91)
I believe finally, that education must be conceived as a continuing recon-

struction of experience; that the process and the goal of education are one
and the same thing. (EW5: 91)
Article 4: The Nature of Method

Dewey as a philosopher is always concerned with method. The method
of teaching, for Dewey, is to be based on “the order of development
of the child’s powers and interests” (EW5: 91). In other words, a child
grows with successive stages, as detailed in twentieth-century develop-
mental psychology, and teaching is to facilitate the development of these
inner powers of the child. In this article, Dewey intentionally lists three
postulates: The active child, the imagery child and the interesting child.
The first one, the active child, is in full accord with the underlying Kantian
view of nineteenth-century German psychology. Dewey espouses it in his
philosophy which would later become pragmatism. The imagery child is
of particular interest: Dewey may be accredited with being a pioneer in
image learning, albeit his giving no details.3 As for interest, Dewey is
just repeating his planned research program of child development with
interest as a unifying concept:
……the active side precedes the passive in the development of the

child nature; that expression comes before conscious impression; that the
muscular development precedes the sensory; that movements come before
conscious sensations; I believe that consciousness is essentially motor or
impulsive; that conscious states tend to project themselves in action. (EW5:
91)
……the image is the great instrument of instruction. What a child gets

out of any subject presented to him is simply the images which he himself
forms with regard to it……the child’s power of imagery and in seeing to it
that he was continually forming definite, vivid, and growing images of the
various subjects with which he comes in contact in his experience. (EW5:
92)
……interests are the signs and symptoms of growing power. I believe that
they represent dawning capacities. Accordingly the constant and careful
observation of interests is of the utmost importance for the educator……
(EW5: 92)
3 Readers may be interested to note that Oswald Külpe (1862–1915), a contemporary

of Dewey in Germany, proposed imageless thought and mental set.
220 R. LI
Article 5: The School and Social Progress

Dewey starts this article by asserting, “I believe that education is the
fundamental method of social progress and reform” (EW5: 93). Surely
he has high hopes for education, believing that education can direct the
purposes of a society and organize its resources. A school is an organ of
community life where morality can be nurtured. It is a union of “the
individualistic and the institutional ideals” (EW5: 94).
……education is a regulation of the process of coming to share in the

social consciousness…… in the ideal school we have the reconciliation of
the individualistic and the institutional ideals……through education society
can formulate its own purposes, can organize its own means and resources,
and thus shape itself with definiteness and economy in the direction in
which it wishes to move. (EW5: 93–94)
……the school as the primary and most effective instrument of social

progress and reform in order that society may be awakened to realize what
the school stands for…… (EW5: 94)
Review and Evaluation: Dewey’s Ideals and Creed

Such is the high ideals of Dewey on education. A century has passed and
the course of events teaches us to be less naïve. When Dewey wrote The
Pedagogic Creed, he never realized that education soon became a battle-
ground between the capitalists and the socialists, the former demanding
schools to train up skilled labor for production and the latter championing
to spread class consciousness for revolution. By the middle of twentieth
century, education was looked upon with suspicion for being the tool of
indoctrination and maintaining of the status quo in some countries.
Dewey is a grand theorist and he gives formidably grand visions. This
is understandable when an epoch-making scholar is reviewing the whole
system of knowledge. Remember that in his psychological manifesto of
1884, Dewey proposed that The New Psychology is at the center of
human sciences because it touches upon all realms of human sciences
(see my elaboration in Chapter 5). Thirteen years later, in 1897, Dewey
proposed that education “marks the most perfect and intimate union of
science and art conceivable in human experience” (EW5: 94) and that
the growth of social science (psychology included) supplies knowledge
to “the formation of the proper social life” (EW5: 95). In other words,
education offers “the most genuine springs of human conduct” and “best
service that human nature is capable of guaranteed” (EW5: 95). It is easy
to discern the continuity of a grand vision, that knowledge can be put to
the service of mankind, that education is the method of social betterment.
It may be this intellectual vision and inspiration that keeps Dewey going
and makes him great.
What struck me most is the term “creed.” Wasn’t education, as applied
psychology, a science? Wasn’t pedagogy, developed from Johann Herbart
(1776–1841) and later refined in Europe and America, a science of
instruction? Wasn’t ethics taken by Dewey to become “ethical science”?
Why did the scientifically-minded Dewey suddenly turn from a science
of education to a creed, a term synonymous to an attitude, a biblical
and belief system? My guess is that Dewey was probably well aware of
the meaning of the term. While he is a supporter of science, it may take
time for him to spell out the whole science of education, which he did
in his later years. For the time being, he was contented that education
and teaching must be taken as a commitment, a devotion, some kind of a
faith on humanity with a personal appeal. This committed personal belief
is what is behind My Pedagogic Creed.
The School and Society

Background
John Dewey’s education project started from his ideas in psychology—
interest and will (1895), materialized in the founding of The Chicago
University Elementary School (1896) and articulated in My Pedagogic
Creed (1897). The school, which was a pioneering project for a university
and a scholar, attracted national attention and even international visitors.
It was a laboratory school in the sense of trying out scientific experiments
in education, a novel concept borrowed from psychology.
Apparently, Dewey’s vision attracted top caliber teachers who worked
whole heartedly, professionally and passionately to put his ideas into prac-
tice with spectacular results and publicity. The school was real interactive,
idealistic, humanistic, community-spirited, learning by doing, drilling-
free, teachers as facilitators offering worksheets and chronicles. You
can get an overview by reading Dewey’s Three Years of the University
Elementary School (MW1: 57–66).
222 R. LI
In April 1899, Dewey gave three lectures to “parents and others” inter-
ested in the University Elementary School. His lectures were about the
“New Education” needed in light of larger changes in society (MW1: 6).
Joe Burnett (1974), who wrote an introduction to John Dewey’s Collected
Works, Middle Works, Vol. 1: 1899–1901, summarized that “industrial-
ization, urbanization, science and technology have created a revolution”
(MW1: xix). This social change leads to educational change, thus Dewey’s
famous phrase of “Copernican Revolution in Education,” a shift from
teacher-centered to child-centered education (MW1: 23). See my elabora-
tion below. The talk was so successful that it was published and reprinted
several times within a year for a total of 7500 copies (Jackson 1990: xi).
Together with other essays, the book was entitled The School and Society
(1899).
The School and Society can be read as Dewey’s collection of essays on
education from 1899 to 1900, covering a wide variety of topics: social
change in America, new education for a progressive society (Chapter 1),
curriculum and teaching in University Elementary School, subject plan-
ning (Chapter 2), University Elementary School progress and report
(Chapter 4), history of the school system (Chapter 3), theories of child
development and learning (Chapters 5, 7, 8), review of Froebel’s ideas
in education (Chapter 6), etc. You can find Dewey’s penetrating insights
here and there: he has moved from an outsider of education to an insider,
applying psychology to create a new education for theory and practice.
The University Elementary School’s success is in part due to the relentless
effort of Dewey’s elaborating and promoting his vision in education.
Main Ideas
Social, Industrial and Intellectual Revolution
Dewey is no sociologist by training, yet his insight of the rapid and
sweeping social change in America from 1860 to 1900 was succinctly
penetrating. Let us revisit this history retold by Dewey. I quote in length
to give my readers a sense of history a century ago:
The change……is the industrial one—the application of science resulting

in the great inventions that have utilized the forces of nature on a vast
and inexpensive scale: the growth of a world-wide market as the object of
production, of vast manufacturing centres to supply this market, of cheap
and rapid means of communication and distribution between all its parts.
Even as to its feebler beginnings, this change is not much more than a
century old; in many of its most important aspects it falls within the short
span of those now living. One can hardly believe there has been a revo-
lution in all history so rapid, so extensive, so complete. Through it the
face of the earth is making over, even as to its physical forms; political
boundaries are wiped out and moved about, as if they were indeed only
lines on a paper map; population is hurriedly gathered into cities from the
ends of the earth; habits of living are altered with startling abruptness and
thoroughness; the search for the truths of nature is infinitely stimulated
and facilitated, and their application to life made not only practicable, but
commercially necessary. Even our moral and religious ideas and interests,
the most conservative because the deepest–lying things in our nature, are
profoundly affected……
Back of the factory system lies the household and neighborhood system.
Those of us who are here today need go back only one, two, or at most
three generations, to find a time when the household was practically the
centre in which were carried on, or about which were clustered, all the
typical forms of industrial occupation. The clothing worn was for the
most part made in the house; the members of the household were usually
familiar also with the shearing of the sheep, the carding and spinning of
the wool, and the plying of the loom. Instead of pressing a button and
flooding the house with electric light, the whole process of getting illumi-
nation was followed in its toilsome length…… At present, concentration
of industry and division of labor have practically eliminated household and
neighborhood occupations. (MW1: 6–8)
With the above change, “the monopoly of learning” and “a high-

priesthood of learning” (MW1: 16–17) belonged to the past. The
invention of printing, cheap intercommunication, easy travel and freedom
of movement resulted in an intellectual revolution with a change of
attitude in the people and for the school. Dewey elaborates:
The result has been an intellectual revolution. Learning has been put into
circulation……Knowledge is no longer an immobile solid; it has been
liquefied. It is actively moving in all the currents of society itself.
It is easy to see that this revolution, as regards the materials of knowl-
edge, carries with it a marked change in the attitude of the individual.
Stimuli of an intellectual sort pour in upon us in all kinds of ways……all
this means a necessary change in the attitude of the school, one of which
we are as yet far from realizing the full force. (MW1: 17)
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Dewey’s Vision of Education Reform

The above social and intellectual revolution necessitates a change in
education. Dewey is highly critical of the existing education system,
“which is highly specialized, one-sided and narrow”, “an education domi-
nated almost entirely by the mediaeval conception of learning” (MW1:
18). Worst still, Dewey is well aware of the big picture of competition
and hurrying through schooling:
Hardly one per cent of the entire school population ever attains to what we
call higher education; only five per cent to the grade of our high school;
while much more than half leave on or before the completion of the fifth
year of the elementary grade…… by far the larger number of pupils leave
school as soon as they have acquired the rudiments of learning, as soon as
they have enough of the symbols of reading, writing, and calculating to be
of practical use to them in getting a living. (MW1: 18–19)
Dewey’s vision is an education based on modern child psychology: “our

impulses and tendencies to make, to do, to create, to produce, whether
in the form of utility or of art” (MW1: 18). He wants the school “to
become the child’s habitat, where he learns through directed living,”
thus Dewey’s signature phrases of “a miniature community, an embryonic
society” (MW1: 12). Dewey’s vision:
……development of social power and insight. It is this liberation from

narrow utilities, this openness to the possibilities of the human spirit that
makes these practical activities in the school allies of art and centres of
science and history. (MW1: 12–13)
In practice, it would mean the following reform programs, which he

termed “social evolution”:
The introduction of active occupations, of nature study, of elementary

science, of art, of history; the relegation of the merely symbolic and formal
to a secondary position; the change in the moral school atmosphere, in
the relation of pupils and teachers—of discipline; the introduction of more
active, expressive, and self-directing factors—all these are not mere acci-
dents, they are necessities of the larger social evolution. It remains but to
organize all these factors, to appreciate them in their fullness of meaning,
and to put the ideas and ideals involved into complete, uncompromising
possession of our school system. (MW1: 19)
Impulse and The Fourfold Interests of a Child

In just three years of observation and experimentation in the University
Elementary School, Dewey was able to enrich his concept of impulse and
interest. He now knows that a child “simply like(s) to do things,” and
“has not much instinct for abstract inquiry.” To the observant Dewey, a
child has no conceptual distinction between “experimental science” and
carpentry! Dewey distinguishes the fourfold interest of a child:
The child’s impulse to do finds expression first in play, in movement,

gesture, and make-believe, becomes more definite, and seeks outlet in
shaping materials into tangible forms and permanent embodiment. The
child has not much instinct for abstract inquiry…… not for the purpose of
making technical generalizations or even arriving at abstract truths. Chil-
dren simply like to do things, and watch to see what will happen. But this
can be taken advantage of, can be directed into ways where it gives results
of value…… (MW1: 29)
Now, keeping in mind these fourfold interests—the interest in conversation

or communication; in inquiry, or finding out things; in making things, or
construction; and in artistic expression—we may say they are the natural
resources, the uninvested capital, upon the exercise of which depends the
active growth of the child. (MW1: 30)
The Psychology of Elementary Education: Three Hypotheses and Two

Stages
In his essay, The Psychology of Elementary Education, Dewey proposes
three working hypotheses in the University Elementary School, a labo-
ratory school of applied psychology to test out laws in educational
psychology. These hypotheses center around the human mind and the
structure of the intellect. For easy understanding, I list them as hypotheses
of contemporary psychology to contrast with “old psychology” and
traditional curriculum (Table 9.1).
Based on the above working hypotheses of new/contemporary
psychology, Dewey needs the support of a laboratory to scientifically test
out the conceptions, materials, method, proportion and arrangement at a
given time (MW1: 72). His findings can be summarized in two stages of
growth plus relevant educational support (Table 9.2).
226 R. LI
Table 9.1 Hypotheses in psychology of elementary education
Contemporary psychology Old psychology Traditional view of

curriculum
Hypothesis 1 Mind is social Mind is individual • Instruction of

MW1: 69–79 • The human mind is a • A subject vs. an external facts in
function of social life external world geography,
• Human thought as • Physical stimuli of arithmetic,
humanity light, sound, heat grammar, etc.
• Social heredity • Mind to fill in • Subjects
• Childhood as socially external facts unrelated to
acquired inheritance real life or
social needs
Hypothesis 2 Intellect is intermediary Intellect is based on • Emphasis of
MW1: 70–71 • Function and action sensation and ideas abstract ideas,
• Between cognition and • Hypothesis of generalization
impulse innate mental and reason
faculty • Neglect of
interest and life
of practice
Hypothesis 3 Mind is a process Mind as ready-made • Subject matter
MW1: 71–72 • A growth process faculties as with logically
• Nothing is fixed • Growth of quantity arranged facts
• Sense of continuity of only and principles
life • Boy as little man • Studies broken
with little mind up into bits, to
be taught by
year
Table 9.2 Psychological development and education needs
Psychological development in stages Curriculum and educational support
Stage 1 (age 4–7) • The subject matter should be in social

• Direct social and personal interest form—in play, games, occupations,
• Motor outlet of impulse miniature industrial arts, stories,
• Unity of life pictorial imagination and conversation
(EW1: 73)
• Relate to family life and neighborhood
setting
Stage 2 (age 8/9–11/12) Dewey gives abundant examples in
• Possibility of permanent objective results American history, geography, science,
• Thinking of mean-end relationship physics and the arts to match this stage
(EW1: 76)

Dewey’s Oral History
The School and Society is a masterpiece that won Dewey’s leading posi-
tion in American education. I cannot but marvel at his attempt to depict,
especially in his first lecture to parents of the University Elementary
School (Chapter 1), the abrupt social change in American life from 1860
to 1900. It is all based on his personal life experience coupled with
keen observation and penetrating analysis. It is like an oral history by
an eminent scholar. If it inspires our historical imagination, a hundred
years later, I challenge my readers to compare it with other descrip-
tions of industrial revolution: Karl Marx’s revolutionary Europe (1848),4
Charles Dickens’s British child labor,5 George Elliot’s Victorian London
(1850s).6 Chinese readers may gain insight from novelist Lu Xun’s The
True Story of Ah Q (1921–1922) of pre-industrial imperial China,7
among others. This exercise will help us reach a global perspective of
how industrial revolution changes the whole world and human destiny.
Our rural-boy-turned-philosopher embraces this social revolution with
enthusiasm. In a sense, he represents the American pioneering spirit in
participation of this rapid social change. He moved from Vermont to
Michigan, then to Chicago and later to New York City. No doubt Dewey
witnessed all these upheaval changes, had to adapt to it and might even
take advantage of it. In the early days of American industrialization,
Dewey had high hopes and optimistic conviction, that the new society is
a positive one, a progressive society realizing human potentials and eman-
cipating human powers. Apparently, Dewy has no regrets to say good bye
to the old rural days of making candles from animal fat for light, which
was now replaced by electric light of simply pressing the button (EW1:
7). In character formation of children, we lose some but we gain many.
What Dewey misses in this modern world is the community spirit, the
sense of household cooperation, neighborhood support and team play.
4 Marx, K., & Engels, F. (1848) (Reprinted 2017). The Communist Manifesto. London:
Pluto Press.
5 Dickens, C. (1838) (Reprinted 2010). Oliver Twist. London: William Collins.
6 Elliot, G. (1860) (Reprinted 2003). The Mill on the Floss. London: William Blackwood
and Sons.
7 Lu, X. (1960). The True Story of Ah Q . Peking: Foreign Languages Press.
228 R. LI
That is why Dewey urges for an education reform, to turn the outdated
mode of instruction into the fostering of community spirit.
A Revolutionary and Optimistic Vision

Dewey’s vision of education is revolutionary in his times. He demands a
child-centered education, not a teacher-centered or knowledge-centered
education. He decrees an education of doing, not listening. He proposes
subject integration, classroom interaction and cooperative learning. All
these pioneering ideas are taken as a standard departure of our discourse
in education today, but it was innovative back in 1900. The following
humorous passage of Dewey shopping for school furniture suffices as an
example:
……Some few years ago I was looking about the school supply stores in
the city, trying to find desks and chairs which seemed thoroughly suitable
from all points of view—artistic, hygienic, and educational—to the needs of
the children. We had a great deal of difficulty in finding what we needed,
and finally one dealer, more intelligent than the rest, made this remark: “I
am afraid we have not what you want. You want something at which the
children may work; these are all for listening.” That tells the story of the
traditional education. (MW1: 21)
With an optimistic assumption of a future progressive society, Dewey

never believes that the future capitalistic society can be repressive with
alienation, that the state can turn into bureaucracy and iron cage,8
that power relations can deteriorate into new slavery and dependence,
that socialism does not solve economic problems, that capitalism creates
ecological disaster.9 The lesson, then, for the study of Dewey today, is to
see where he was, show where we are and chart where we are heading to.
8 Weber, M. (1905) (Reprint 2010). The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism.
London: Oxford University Press.
9 Empson, M. (2018). Karl Marx’s Ecosocialism: Capitalism, Nature, and the Unfinished
Critique of Political Economy. Monthly Review, 69(11), 56–61.
The Child and the Curriculum

Background
At the time when Dewey was busy teaching, managing his department
in the University of Chicago and overseeing his visionary school, he
was also engaged in psychological research. The outcomes were Princi-
ples of Mental Development as Illustrated in Early Infancy (1899, MW1:
175–191) and Mental Development (1900, MW1: 192–221). By then,
Dewey’s view on children’s inner spontaneous needs to grow was further
articulated, and he was very critical of the curriculum as a set of pre-
written subject material. The Child and the Curriculum is probably
Dewey’s last major writing in education during his Chicago years. Let
me quote here Martin Dworkin’s introduction on The Child and the
Curriculum:
His pamphlet The Child and the Curriculum further elucidated the
emphasis upon the present experience of the child that was central in the
philosophy and practice of the School. Nowhere is Dewey’s opposition to
the “old” subject-centered curriculum—or to the extremes of the “new”
child-centered approach—stated more clearly. One of Dewey’s last writings
on education while at Chicago, it is also one of the most widely reprinted
and translated. (Dworkin 1959: 91)
Dewey Formulates His System of Educational Thought

A Short but Original Work
The Child and the Curriculum is short, a pamphlet of only 7262 words,
but I have a discovery. I found a paragraph in the first few pages
which indicates that our psychologist-philosopher has, alas, formulated his
system of thought in education! In 1884, in The New Psychology, Dewey
was concerned with the vague and transitory consciousness, the complex
but active human mind. He saw psychology as the science of human expe-
rience. By 1887, Dewey detailed in Psychology the cognition, emotion and
volition of the human mind, seeing impulse and will as the impetus in the
realization of selfhood. Then in 1896, he championed “psychical unity”
and the pivotal role of experience, proposing functional psychology in
The Reflex Arc Concept in Psychology. This was his line of thought in
psychology and the science of the human mind. In philosophy, Dewey
is concerned with the unity of subject and object, content and method,
230 R. LI
the nature of knowledge, fact, meaning and value. He sees logic as the
method of scientific inquiry. With these tools and ideas, Dewey ventured
into education. In Interest in Relation to Training of the Will , in 1896,
he immediately identified interest and affection as the key to the growth
and learning of a child. Action, activity and personal experience is the
starting and growth point of a child. Naturally, it stands in contrast with
the curriculum, a pre-set logical system of knowledge. When My Peda-
gogic Creed (1897) is just his belief in education, his augmentation finally
came in The Child and the Curriculum, in 1902, when his psychology
and philosophy were placed into a system of thought for education.
(For the child), (t)he vital ties of affection, the connecting bonds of activity,
hold together the variety of his personal experiences. The adult mind
is so familiar with the notion of logically ordered facts that it does not
recognize—it cannot realize— the amount of separating and reformulating
which the facts of direct experience have to undergo before they can appear
as a “study,” or branch of learning. A principle, for the intellect, has had to
be distinguished and defined; facts have had to be interpreted in relation to
this principle, not as they are in themselves. They have had to be regath-
ered about a new centre which is wholly abstract and ideal. All this means
a development of a special intellectual interest. It means ability to view
facts impartially and objectively; that is, without reference to their place
and meaning in one’s own experience. It means capacity to analyze and to
synthesize. It means highly matured intellectual habits and the command
of a definite technique and apparatus of scientific inquiry. The studies as
classified are the product, in a word, of the science of the ages, not of the
experience of the child. (MW2: 275)
Signature Terms and Three Premises

When I analyzed the above paragraph I can find many familiar and
signature terms of Dewey’s: affection, activity, personal experiences, facts,
direct experience, principle, wholly abstract, interest, objective, meaning,
one’s own experience, analyse, synthesize, intellectual habits, technique,
apparatus, scientific inquiry. Now they are put together, which can be
presented in three premises:
• A child is born and grows with impulse, affection, activity and

subjective personal experience.
• The curriculum is adult knowledge, objective reformulated facts with
scientific principles.
• Education (in the sense of teaching) is to guide a child, through

his impulse, interest in and meaning of his own experience, into
a growth path for matured intellectual habits: analysis, synthesis,
apparatus of scientific inquiries.
‘Psychologizing’ the Curriculum

Dewey satirized the prevalent view of curriculum as “subdivide each topic
into studies; each study into lessons; each lesson into specific facts and
formulae. Let the child proceed step by step to master each one of these
separate parts, and at last he will have covered the entire ground” (MW2:
276). It did not work because the facts and ideas are out of the experience
of the child. Dewey proposed “psychologising” the material, i.e., “turned
over, translated into the immediate and individual experiencing within it
has its origin and significance” (MW2: 285). In Dewey’s words,
……When the subject -matter has been psychologized, that is, viewed as
an outgrowth of present tendencies and activities, it is easy to locate in
the present some obstacle, intellectual, practical, or ethical, which can be
handled more adequately if the truth in question be mastered. This need
supplies motive for the learning. An end which is the child’s own carries
him on to possess the means of its accomplishment. But when material
is directly supplied in the form of a lesson to be learned as a lesson, the
connecting links of need and aim are conspicuous for their absence……
(MW2: 287)
Thus, a Deweyan teacher will be concerned with a child’s development

of experience more than the prescribed material:
……As a teacher he is not concerned with adding new facts to the science
he teaches; in propounding new hypotheses or in verifying them. He is
concerned with the subject-matter of the science as representing a given
stage and phase of the development of experience. His problem is that of
inducing a vital and personal experiencing…… He is concerned, not with
the subject-matter as such, but with the subject-matter as a related factor
in a total and growing experience. Thus to see it is to psychologize it……
(MW2: 285–286)
A Dynamic View of Continuous Reconstruction

In The Psychological Aspect of the School Curriculum (1897), Dewey sees
education as a reconstruction of experience (EW5: 174–175). The same is
232 R. LI
noted in My Pedagogic Creed (EW5: 91). By 1902, Dewey develops this

notion further, seeing that everything is growing and nothing is fixed. The
subject matter, or human knowledge is growing, not fixed; the child’s
experience is also growing, “fluent, embryonic, vital” (MW2: 278). In
Dewey’s words,
Abandon the notion of subject-matter as something fixed and ready-made

in itself, outside the child’s experience; cease thinking of the child’s experi-
ence as also something hard and fast; see it as something fluent, embryonic,
vital; and we realize that the child and the curriculum are simply two
limits which define a single process. Just as two points define a straight
line, so the present standpoint of the child and the facts and truths of
studies define instruction. It is continuous reconstruction, moving from
the child’s present experience out into that represented by the organized
bodies of truth that we call studies. (MW2: 278)
Child-Centered Education?
Is Dewey proposing a child-centered education? Proponents say so and
have quoted Dewey in The Child and the Curriculum. “The child is the
starting point, the centre and the end. His development, his growth,
is the ideal” (MW2: 276). He was found saying, “Moreover, subject-
matter never can be got into the child from without. Learning is active. It
involves reading out of the mind. It involves organic assimilation starting
from within” (MW2: 276).
A careful reading will show otherwise. In a preceding paragraph,
Dewey is putting forth the position of a subject-centered curriculum;
then in this paragraph he is setting up the position of a child-centered
curriculum. As always, he dissolves the two extremes by proposing a
middle ground. It is the same here. While Dewey is sympathetic to child
development and leans toward a child-centered curriculum, his position is
more on guiding and directing a child to a growth process. He is against
“Indulge and spoiling” a child. By this, he means that we should not
keep looking and indulging in a child’s present interest as achievements.
The child needs to grow and move on to a higher plane: “Appealing to
the interest upon the present plane means excitation; it means playing
with a power so as continually to stir up without directing it toward defi-
nite achievement” (MW2: 281). In other words, Dewey supports guiding
and directing a child by “selecting appropriate stimuli for instincts and

impulse.”
Development does not mean just getting something out of the mind. It is
a development of experience and into experience that is really wanted.
And this is impossible save as just that educative medium is provided
which will enable the powers and interests that have been selected as valu-
able to function. They must operate, and how they operate will depend
almost entirely upon the stimuli which surround them, and the material
upon which they exercise themselves. The problem of direction is thus the
problem of selecting appropriate stimuli for instincts and impulses which it
is desired to employ in the gaining of new experience. (MW2: 282–283)
Such are Dewey’s views on child development and the role of the
curriculum. As you will see later, Dewey’s views have been misunderstood
and misinterpreted, unfortunately though understandably, throughout
the twentieth century.
Conclusion
Dewey’s ideas in education did not develop in a vacuum. It was based
on his philosophy—the Hegelian ideas of wholeness and organicity, and
his psychology—an active mind with impulse, emotion and volition. In
his Chicago years, he continued his research on child psychology, writing
and teaching educational psychology and mental development. In his
department, he was in close association with Herbert Mead and Albion
Small and learned about their sociological perspectives. At the same time,
his interest in education brought him in contact and collaboration with
Francis Parker and William T. Harris. The former had brought European
pedagogy and psychology to America, notably the ideas of Frobel and
Pestalozzi, while the latter was a Hegelian concerned with morality and
discipline, seeing the school curriculum as an organized study of human
civilization. In the background was the received wisdom of Herbert
Spencer’s idea that education is to prepare for future living (Spencer
1860).
Dewey was an original thinker with immense integration capability.
Based on his philosophy and psychology he began to formulate his theory
of education. First he dissolved the problem of interest and effort by his
psychology and dialectic argument. Then he insightfully picked growth
234 R. LI
and self-expression as the core concept in child development. Together

he integrated ideas in ethics and sociology, seeing school as a social
institution and turning Spencer’s idea upside down: education is for
living, not to prepare for future living. The hows of education become
a psychological problem of “psychologizing the curriculum.”
Such are Dewey’s ideas in education during his Chicago years. Readers
would be amazed that Dewey also published in psychology and philos-
ophy during this most productive period of his academic career. How
could he have achieved so much? Trained as a philosopher and psychol-
ogist, Dewey had a 10-year incubation period in Michigan. His ideas
evolved into a few unifying concepts: growth, experience, wholeness.
He then applied them in all subject areas. Summarizes Jay Martin, his
biographer,
Whether Dewey wrote or lectured about logic, education, psychology,

ethics, conflicts between labor and capital, or social change, underpinning
these and all that he thought and did were a few unifying concepts—
wholeness, growth, and experience. When he considered social issues, this
meant the search for justice; if he reflected on education, it took the
form of interest in knowledge; in psychology, the watchword was the ever
expanding circuit; in logic, the indissoluble engagement between idea and
reality; in all, the primacy of inquiry…… Only by achieving a focus and
confidence in his basic convictions was Dewey able to do so much during
the ten years following his arrival at Chicago. The work that he accom-
plished in any one field would have sufficed for most person’s decade……
(Martin 2002, pp. 197–198)
To the above, I will also add action and meaning. Action and “to be
active” is a psychological state that Dewey sees as fundamental: the
human eye is always on the active lookout. This concept moves from
psychology to philosophy, where action transforms the subject and object
into an integrated whole and brings about dynamic change. Meaning is
the higher-order human value created by human existence. It starts from
basic needs of survival value such as food, shelter, safety and grows into
meaning, customs and culture. These and the above key unifying concepts
permeate in Dewey’s thoughts from his Chicago years and beyond.
Further Readings
See reading list in Chapter 13.
References
Archambault, R. D. (1964). John Dewey on Education: Selected Writings.
Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
Burnett, J. R. (1974). The Collected Works of John Dewey: The Middle Works,
Volume 1 Introduction (pp. ix–xxiii). Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois
University Press.
Dworkin, M. S. (1959). Dewey on Education: Selections. New York: Teachers
College Press.
Jackson, P. W. (1990). John Dewey’s The School and Society: The Child and The
Curriculum. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Spencer, H. (1860). Education: Intellectual, Moral and Physical. New York: A.L.
Burt Company.
CHAPTER 10
Educational Writings in Columbia Years
Introduction
When John Dewey quit Chicago and landed on Columbia University in
February 1905, he was 46 years old. Columbia was his last stop in institu-
tional affiliation, in which he stayed for 34 years, from 1905 to 1939. This
chapter will focus on his first 14 years which comes to a convenient stop
in 1918. In that year when the First World War came to an end, Dewey
took a sabbatical leave and taught in California, which was followed by
his two-year visit and lecturing trip in Japan and China.
In these 14 years, we see Dewey undergoing a metamorphosis. First
he shrank from education and moved inward, retreating himself to philos-
ophy. When he slowly returned to education, he was concerned more with
the issues of social justice, equality and democracy than with pedagogy,
curriculum and teaching. His social activism and personal rendezvous with
the New York Avant-Garde (Dalton 2002: Part Two) slowly forged him
to transform from an academic scholar into a public intellectual.
Dewey continued to stay in Columbia after his return from China in
1921. He retired from Professor Emeritus in 1930 but was still active
in politics, education, social issues and academic work well through the
Second World War. I will tell his story of involvement in progressive
education movement and his visit to China in the next two chapters.

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-7941-7_10
238 R. LI
Early Columbia Years in Brief (1905–1918)

Another Move, Another Blow
Dewey’s Appointment with Columbia
When Dewey submitted his resignation letter to the University of Chicago
on April 11, 1904, he had no job offer. A week later, he wrote to
his confidants, William James, James McKeen Cattell and W. T. Harris.
Cattell, his fellow classmate of Johns Hopkins, now professor and head of
Department of Philosophy with Columbia University, responded imme-
diately. He spoke to President Nicholas Murray Butler, who saw a golden
opportunity of hiring a star philosopher to strengthen his department.
The offer was $5000 for the professorship. When Dewey accepted it, the
Columbia trustees proudly announced the appointment on May 5. “Pro-
fessor Dewey is one of the two or three most distinguished students and
teachers of philosophy now living” (quoted from Dykhuizen 1973: 117).
No doubt, Dewey was the top most and a pricey philosopher in demand.
The Tragedy
Mockingly and not uncoincidentally, this hefty job offer repeated the
tragedy in Dewey’s family history. Recall that when Dewey moved from
Michigan to Chicago in 1894, the Dewey family took advantage of the
holiday break for a long vacation in Europe. The tragic result: their
youngest son Morris died of diphtheria. Ten years had passed; the Deweys
had raised five children, Fred, 16; Evelyn, 14; Gordon, 8; Lucy, 6 and
Jane, 4. Again the father was moving onto another job with another
paid-holiday break. Again the family set sail to Europe.
This time, the third child, Gordon fell ill on the vessel and was diag-
nosed as having “food poisoning”. When the ship reached Liverpool,
England, Gordon was rushed to hospital while the other children were
taken care of by Dewey’s friends. Sadly Gordon was said to have caught
typhoid and died on Sept 11 in the arms of both parents. How unsur-
mountable this tragedy was that Dewey wrote, “The light went out,” and
“how much harder and emptier it gets all the time.” Our philosopher
confided to William James, “I shall never understand why he was taken
from the world” (Martin 2002: 231).
The Mourning Period and Compensation

In this mourning period, Dewey began his teaching duties in Columbia
in spring 1905 while Alice continued the trip in Europe with the four
10 EDUCATIONAL WRITINGS IN COLUMBIA YEARS 239
children. John stayed alone in the dormitory, waiting for letters from his
wife and children in Europe. All told, he had interest only in visiting
colleagues who had children (Martin 2002: 232). In times of grief and
solitude, he turned inward and kept his hectic teaching load going. Now
in New York City, he had daily walks along the Hudson River, at sunset,
with lights on the water, palisades, floating ice, and his own melancholy.
He was alone and in depression.
Meanwhile in Europe, Alice and the children toured through France,
Germany and Italy. The only comfort was that Fred and Evelyn were old
enough to take care of the younger ones. Fred even took time to study
German in Jena. When they ended up in Italy, the father, with his spring
duties hastily finished, set sail to meet them. As the family toured from
Rome to Venice, they met a poor young Italian boy, about Gordon’s
age. The Deweys boldly approached the boy, Sabino, fed him and met
his mother. Within days, they concluded the adoption of Sabino; he was
taken back to America and, raised in the Dewey family!1
Dewey’s Family Drama

Such is the Dewey family drama, a drama of replacement child. When
John Dewey’s parents mourned for the loss of their first son in 1859,
John was born ten months later, as the third child, more or less like a
replacement child. A generation had passed. John got married with Alice
who gave birth to their third child Morris in 1892. Tragically, history
repeats itself. Morris died in the family’s first European trip two years
later. The next year, Gordon was born, somehow as a replacement child
to ease their parents’ grief. Eight years later and again in another family
European trip, Gordon was taken away. To face this unpredictable fate,
the only intentional human effort was for the Deweys to adopt Sabino as
the latest replacement child.
1 Sabino left for America when he was eight and returned to Italy in his twenties
to rediscover his roots, meeting his brothers and sister. As was told, Sabino was good at
work with his hands and became a farm manager in Long Island, New York. For firsthand
information, see Sabino Dewey interview, Sabino Dewey Papers, Morris Library, Southern
Illinois University. A brief account can be found in Martin (2002: 330–333).
240 R. LI
Retreating to Philosophy
Turning Inward
What a dramatic change for Dewey’s life in 1905. In early 1904, he was
still busy overseeing four schools in Chicago and managing his depart-
ment. By early 1905, he was alone in the Columbia dormitory, walking
the Hudson River sunset. He was bitter about university politics and
both he and his wife, disillusioned with the University of Chicago, left
UCES that Dewey founded. Most devastating of all, Gordon’s death was
a tragedy he could never overcome. Despite his seeming success, he had
lost many things he valued: his school, his close friends in Chicago and
then his son Gordon.
It was natural that Dewey turned inward in depression. He had no
interest in people, in meetings or in research. He just carried on with his
busy teaching schedules and moved onto something he found comfort
in—philosophical reflection. With the reunion with his family and adop-
tion of Sabino in mid-1905, he slowly got better but he did not show
much interest in education or psychology. He taught mainly in the
Department of Philosophy in Columbia and took up little administra-
tive duties. When he occasionally offered lessons in Teachers College, he
did not involve himself in teacher education as much as he did before in
Chicago. With the abrupt ending of his education enterprises in Chicago,
he was not in the mood to start over again in Columbia, at least for the
time being.
“Comfort Zone”
In his “comfort zone” of philosophical discourse, Dewey faced challenges
that he didn’t have before. In his Michigan years, he was working under
George Morris in the shadow of Hegel. When he moved to Chicago,
he was the big brother in the Department of Philosophy he estab-
lished, taking lead in philosophical question formulation and creating
the Chicago School of Philosophical Thought. Now in Columbia, a
mature Dewey was to face challenges from other accomplished philo-
sophical colleagues, notably F. J. E. Woodbridge, Felix Adler, William P.
Montague, George Stuart Fullerton, and Wendell T. Bush, among others.
Naturally Dewey faced his critics graciously. He did so all through
his life. In 1905 and 1906, he turned out many philosophical papers
to formulate his position on experiences, knowledge and pragmatism:
Reality as Experience (1906, MW3: 101–106), The Experimental Theory
of Knowledge (1906, MW3: 107–127), The Realism of Pragmatism

(1905, MW3: 153–157) and The Postulate of Immediate Empiricism
(1905, MW3: 158–167). When William James announced the founding
of pragmatism in his watershed lecture, Pragmatism: A New Name for
an Old Way of Thinking (1907), Dewey offered a review and supported
it in What Pragmatism Means by Practical (1908, MW4: 98–115). At
about the same time, Dewey co-authored with James Tufts Ethics (1908,
MW5: 3–540), a textbook of moral philosophy, which sold very well for
two decades until its revision in 1934.
Social Activism and Public Intellectual

Social Activism
Another equally important development for Dewey in Columbia was his
social activism and role of public intellectual. To begin with, Dewey’s
philosophy of pragmatism was one of action and progress, freedom and
morality. In Chicago, he founded a school aimed at educational reform
and social progress. He was involved with Jane Addams, Hull House for
the social justice of new immigrants. Now in New York, he saw the need
for social reform through active political participation. Formation of social
groups and unionization was a step to muster more political power and
to move toward democracy.
To promote equality and human rights for the blacks, Dewey became,
in 1909, the founding member of National Association for the Advance-
ment of Colored People (NAACP). In support of woman suffrage which
his wife Alice championed, Dewey gave a lecture entitled Woman’s
Suffrage in 1912 and joined a march down Fifth Avenue in New York
City (Dykhuizen 1973: 150). He appealed to teachers to form profes-
sional organizations to have a voice in education policy. In his address to
the League of New York Teachers in February 1913, he urged for “pro-
fessional spirit, permeating the entire corps of teachers and educators”
(Dykhuizen 1973: 146). He foresaw “the development of a strong profes-
sional spirit, and to the intelligent use of their experience in the interest of
the public……for training children for citizenship in democracy” (Martin
2002: 246). In the same spirit, Dewey planned and promoted, with
Arthur O. Lovejoy and others, for the founding of the American Associa-
tion of University Professors (AAUP) and became its founding president
in 1914. Two years later, he helped found the American Union Against
242 R. LI
Militarism (AUAM), which later evolved into American Civil Liber-

ties Union (ACLU). Readers may appreciate that Dewey was the first
generation of American human rights activists. He was the champion of
participatory democracy and he became his own living example.
Public Intellectual
Dewey wrote not only for publication in academic journals but he
also wrote with the public in mind, so that his writings appeared on
Atlantic Monthly, The New Republic and other popular magazines. He
was frequently interviewed by New York Times and top newspapers in
America. Slowly Dewey emerged as a public intellectual, in times when
the First World War began in Europe and the USA was wavering on
whether to join the war. The nation was divided on the pro-war camp
and anti-war (pacifist) camp. Dewey’s position was to fight the war against
Germany, seeing it as a war between democracy and autocracy. He held
a strong belief that democracy would prevail, with the hope of ending
future wars and creating a League of Nations for long-term peace. Natu-
rally, Dewey became an opinion leader and a public intellectual who spoke
on public and political issues ever since.
In 1914, Dewey was bitterly criticized by pacifists. When US President
Woodrow Wilson, Dewey’s classmate at Johns Hopkins, finally convinced
the houses to declare war on Germany in 1917, pacifists were silenced as
any anti-war voices were treated as subversion. In fact, some outspoken
anti-war professors in Columbia, notably James Cattell and Henry W. L.
Dana were fired in fall 1917 (Martin 2002: 271–272). Dewey imme-
diately jumped to their defense in support of freedom of speech in a
democracy.2
Mid-life “Crisis” and Resolution

During his early Columbia years, Dewey faced some personal crises. It
took place when he was well over 55, so it is not a typical mid-life crisis.
As it turned out, he was successful in resolving these problems.
2 For Dewey’s wartime activism, readers may refer to Chapter 7, The Politics of War in
Westbrook, R. B. (1991). John Dewey and American Democracy, Cornell University Press,
Ithaca, NY. You may also refer to Dykhuizen (1973: Chapter 9).
Physical Fatigue and Alexander Technique

Except for the first few years when Dewey withdrew himself, he was
sociable, proactive and open to new ideas. This led to his rendezvous
with the New York Avant-Garde (Dalton 2002: Part Two). He met many
young aspiring intellectuals, among them Wesley Mitchell and his wife
Lucy. Wesley was an economist who came to Columbia in 1912 while
Lucy was an energetic visionary who would soon learn from Dewey
and contribute much to child development and education. The Mitchells
settled in Greenwich Village in New York City and their homes became
the saloon of avant-garde ideas in social sciences, arts and literature. There
Dewey got acquainted with a wide spectrum of intellectuals and one of
them was Frederick Matthias Alexander.
Frederick M. Alexander (1869–1955) is an Australian actor and a
self-made physiotherapist who developed the “Alexander Technique,”
through which he coached his patients (he called them students) to
correct their poor posture which caused them physical pain and psycho
or behavioral tension.3 Note that Dewey, all through his Chicago and
Columbia years, had been suffering from neck pain and eye strain. Always
ready to try new things, Dewey took Alexander’s lessons in 1916. Within
months, his physical conditions had substantially improved. With his
improvement of physique, Dewey was able to become more energetic
in his physically declining years.
That Dewey endorsed Alexander and his technique was attributed to
the same underlying theoretical approaches the two held.4 Alexander
believed that physical pain and tension resulted from physical posture, not
something “psychological” to be discovered by Freudian psychoanalysis, a
fad of 1910s. He developed a sequence of steps for the conscious control
of human physical postures. These steps could be learned and it could be
used to deliberately override existing “poor” postural habits that caused
back pain and tension. Dewey, advocate of conscious, reflective thought,
might not have thought of applying it to one’s own physical body. To
Dewey, Alexander Technique is not only a painkiller, but is evidence
of conscious thought in action. When Dewey supported Alexander, he
3 Frederick M. Alexander had a very colorful and legendary life. His “Alexander
Technique” is still alive today.
4 For Dewey’s acquaintance with Alexander, see Eric McCormack, Frederick Matthias
Alexander and John Dewey: A Neglected Influence (Ph.D thesis, University of Toronto,
1958) (quoted from Dalton 2002: 311).
244 R. LI
was in fact supporting his own theory of psychology. Consequently,

Dewey threw his weight on Alexander and wrote lengthy introductions
to Alexander’s book5 (Dalton 2002: 97–101, 118–120).
Emotional Engagement with Anzia Yezierska and Resolution

Dewey’s emotional engagement in 1917–1918 with Anzia Yezierska, a
novelist of Polish decent, was short-lived. By that time, Dewey was a
famed scholar and a social activist. His class and lectures attracted students
worldwide and people of all walks of life. Yezierska enrolled in one of
his classes and intentionally called on Dewey in December 1917. With
his usual compassionate and helpful personality, Dewey read Yezierska’s
work and tried to find her a job, first in teaching and later in publishing.
Dewey’s network landed her on major publishers and one of her short
stories was selected to be the best of the year in 1919. Some of her
short stories were then collected in 1920 in Hungry Hearts, published
by Houghton Mifflin and soon became a successful silent film.
Back in 1918, Dewy came in close contact with Albert Barnes, an
art collector and philanthropist, who admired Dewey’s Democracy and
Education and wanted to apply Dewey’s ideas of democracy in an immi-
grant community. He initiated the Polish Experiment, which was a social
survey plus an immigrant integration program in the Polish community
in Philadelphia. The experiment started in spring 1918; Dewey became
the principal investigator and Yezierska was hired as a typist. The two got
closer and exchanged letters and poems.
Dewey’s emotional discharge and engagement with Yezierska were
deep and intense. In Dewey’s poems, it could be seen that he described
himself as “Joyless, griefless” and full of “duties.” He felt her compas-
sion but had to remain restrained and aloof. By September 1918, Dewey
ended this emotional engagement, not at all an extra-marital relationship,
and did not see Yezierska any more. His puritanical morality forbid any
sexual relationship; the social web—wife, children, family, friends, posi-
tion—disallowed any office romance. Dewey as a renowned professor and
a faithful husband could not accept any public scandal. Probably, it was
upon his reflective thought that he stopped the relationship consciously.
As Dewey’s future life unfold, this event did not result in any damage to
his image as a scholar or public intellectual. Ironically, however, it was his
5 Alexander’s book, Men’s Supreme Inheritance, was first published in 1910 in London.
It was substantially revised and published in 1918 in the USA.
deep emotions plus his immense fame that had attracted Yezierska and
ignited the whole event.6
Major Educational Writings: An Overview

After moving to Columbia, Dewey turned himself to philosophy,
becoming President of the American Philosophical Association (1905–
1906). He turned inward and withdrew himself from education, teaching
mainly for Columbia’s Department of Philosophy and only occasionally
for Teachers College. Though he wrote commentary on education from
time to time, his focus was more on ethics and philosophy, producing
notable works, such as Ethics (1908) with James Tufts and The Influ-
ence of Darwinism on Philosophy (1909) and “Introduction” to the Essays
in Experimental Logic (1916). His Moral Principles in Education (1909)
was a mere expansion of the main ideas in Ethical Principles Underlying
Education (1897). His How We Think (1910) is more a psycholog-
ical treatise than an educational one. At the same time, he tried to
ground education in his new philosophical pragmatism. This he did in
The Bearing of Pragmatism Upon Education (1909).
Dewey started with intelligence: “According to pragmatism, intelli-
gence or the power of thought is developed out of the struggles of
organic beings to secure a successful exercise of their functions” (MW4:
178). Then he went on to explain the growth of the human mind and
knowledge by pragmatism:
……Now the pragmatic view of mind and knowledge agrees with this latter
account in that it regards mind as a development and lays a great stress
upon the relation between organism and the environment. But it regards
the evolution of mind as a growth out of the constant tendency of life to
sustain and fulfill its own functions through subordinating environment to
itself rather than by passively accommodating itself to a coercion working
from without. It does not regard intelligence, therefore, as merely a result
of evolution, but as also a factor in guiding the evolutionary process; for
it regards intelligence as an evolution of the functions of life to the point
at which they can be performed most effectively. Similarly, knowledge, on
6 When Dewey’s early biographer George Dykhuizen wrote Dewey’s biography in 1973,
he did not seem to be aware of the Yezierska’s affair. It was told in 1977 by Jo Ann
Boydston, ed., The Poems of John Dewey (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press,
1977), pp. 4–5. Subsequent interest and studies on the affair flourished in the 1980s.
246 R. LI
this view, is not a copy whose truth is to be judged by its fidelity to an

original; it is an instrument or organ of successful action…… (MW4: 180)
Clear-minded readers would easily discern that the above ideas are no new
discoveries: growth, organism and environment, function, action, evolu-
tion were repertories of Dewey’s psychology. What was new was when
it was applied to education—the training of mind. Here the fallacy of
traditional education is severely acute: “……it developed mental depen-
dency and submissiveness. Docility, or obedient absorption of material
presented by school teacher and text-book, has been the traditional and
conventional virtue of the schools……” (MW4:182)
To remedy the situation, Dewey proposed a reconceptualization of
education method, subject—matter, social and moral aims of schools. The
end was, of course, Deweyan and ethical: to bring about “social sympathy,
co-operation and progress” (MW4: 191).
The most important works in education that Dewey produced during
that period were: Schools of Tomorrow (1915) and Democracy and Educa-
tion (1916). For the first work, Dewey established himself as the promoter
and spokesman of progressive education movement. On the second, it
was his most significant work that epitomized Deweyan education, in
which he offered a final and comprehensive system of thought in educa-
tion. Before these two books, Dewey also contributed to A Cyclopaedia
of Education (1911–1914). It was written as entries to a cyclopaedia
on terms and names in education, for example (art in education, indi-
viduality, idealism and realism), philosophy (humanism and naturalism,
hedonism, hypothesis) and psychology (imitation, accommodation). Alto-
gether Dewey made 120 entries of one to a few paragraphs each, but it is
not a systematic treatise of the subject.
Schools of Tomorrow
Background and Writing Style
It 1914, a major publisher, E. P. Dutton, wanted to start a series on
progressive schools and invited Dewey to write the first volume, with
a proposed title of “Schools of Tomorrow.” Dewey’s hands were full
and he asked his daughter Evelyn to help. At that time, Evelyn was
already a grown-up young lady, aged 26, having graduated from Smith
College. Their collaboration was that John would write the theory
part and Evelyn would supply information and write the practical side.
In other words, she would go on field trip to visit notable progres-
sive schools and interview principals, teachers, parents and students to
describe the progressive education movement then in America. So off
she went to collect information from Mrs Johnson’s School in Fairhope
Alabama (Chapter 2), Professor J. L. Meriam’s Elementary School of the
University of Missouri, Columbia (Chapter 3), the kindergarten of the
Teachers College of Columbia University (Chapter 5), the school district
in Gary, Indiana (Chapter 10) and many more schools. In each chapter,
John Dewey substantiated it with education theories from Rousseau,
Pestalozzi, Frobel, Montessori, and of course his own.7
Schools of Tomorrow is collected in Dewey’s Middle Works Volume 8,
with an introduction by Sidney Hook, one of Dewey’s students and
later close associates. Writing in 1976, Hook pointed out that Schools
of Tomorrow was in fact describing something very pioneering: student
tutoring, the open classroom, the classroom without walls, collaborative
learning, etc. (MW8: xxxii). In sharp contrast with Dewey’s other schol-
arly writings, School of Tomorrow is written in a journalistic style; it is an
investigative reporting of progressive schools, trying “to show what actu-
ally happens when schools start out to put into practice” their own new
ideas (MW8: 207). These schools are dreamed schools that the book will
chronicle, because:
…… all of them (are) directed by sincere teachers trying earnestly to give

their children the best they have by working out concretely what they
consider the fundamental principles of education. More and more schools
are growing up all over the country that are trying to work out definite
educational ideas. It is the function of this book to point out how the
applications arise from their theories and the direction that education in
this country seems to be taking at the present time. We hope that through
the description of classroom work we may help to make some theories
living realities to the reader…… (MW8: 207–208)
In the preface, Dewey points to the common features of these schools:

“…… tendencies towards greater freedom and an identification of the
child’s school life with his environment and outlook; and, even more
7 Dykhuizen gave an anecdote of how this book was commissioned, written and revised
(Dykhuizen 1973: 369).
248 R. LI
important, the recognition of the role education must play in a democ-

racy……” (MW8: 208)
Dewey is writing in such plain English style that even in the theory
part, it is directly addressed to the public (parents, teachers, educated
readers) instead of philosophers. It is like an oral transcription by a
stenotypist, probably Evelyn or someone from Dutton.
John Dewey on Major Education Theorists

It is of particular interest that Dewey reviewed major education theo-
rists in this book. In fact, they were the most prominent thinkers of
modern education before him. Here we saw a confident Dewey inter-
preting and evaluating these thinkers, seeing through the lens of American
pragmatism he helped founded as he built up his own theories. While
Dewey endorsed all these modern theorists, he held different opinions
on them with his personal preference: he disliked and satirized Rousseau,
admired and trusted Pestalozzi, sympathized with but challenged Frobel,
and supported Montessori with some reservation.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778)

Rousseau is a French philosopher of the Enlightenment, whose ideas in
The Social Contract and Discourse on Inequality became the cornerstone
of modern political thought. Himself more a political and social theo-
rist than an educator, his Emile (1762) nonetheless became a classic: his
romantic inclination of human nature necessitates a natural unfoldment
thesis, which becomes the starting point of modern child psychology and
education. However, he never intended to be an educator. His contribu-
tion is to rid of the traditional conception of children as “little adult,” but
his problem is idealizing self-expression and self-development which are
not scientifically substantiated.
His ideas appear simple today: education is natural development and
so don’t push children into an adult world or adult mode of thinking or
preference. “Ripening takes time; it cannot be hurried without harm”
(MW8: 213). When Dewey made flirtation on Rousseau (“Rousseau
did many foolish things” (MW8: 211)), he endorsed Rousseau’s idea of
natural unfoldment and built on it. Below is a short comparison between
Rousseau and Dewey, or more accurately, Rousseau in Dewey’s eyes and
Table 10.1 Dewey vs. Rousseau on education
Rousseau (romanticism) Dewey (pragmatism)
Learning Learning is necessity, a process of Learning is a necessity in dealing

self-preservation and growth with real situations (MW8: 212)
(MW8: 212)
Growth Learning is to let children grow • Teaching is to guide natural
naturally. “Ripening takes time” growth (MW8: 218)
(MW8: 213) • To give children typical
experiences (MW8: 218)
• To help them master the tools
of learning (MW8: 221)
Mental training Stresses physical and mental • “Senses…… as necessary
training, the training of senses adjustments of human beings
for judgment (MW8: 215, 218) to the world around them”
(MW8: 217)
• Correction of error by
experience (MW8: 218)
Dewey himself. You will see that Dewey is formulating his pragmatic expe-
riential theory of education and moving a step forward from romanticism
(Table 10.1).
Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi (1746–1827)

Pestalozzi is a Swiss writer and pioneer educator. He was inspired by
Rousseau’s Emile and The Social Contract and started a school for the
education of farmers and the poor in Neudof in 1777. Note that at that
time education and private tutoring were mostly the exclusive privilege
of the nobility. By operating an orphanage in Stans in 1798 and a school
in Burgdorf in 1800, Pestalozzi successfully taught 5- and 6-year-olds
to read, write, draw and do simple maths. It attracted visitors all over
Europe and brought him fame. His book, The ABC of Sense Perception
(1803), Lessons on the Observation of Number Relations (1803) and The
Mother Book (1813) were among the earliest treatises on pedagogy and
child development.
In Schools of Tomorrow, Dewey outlined Pestalozzi’s ideas and praised
his contribution to curriculum and teaching. More specifically Pestalozzi
had proposed a few important ideas that Dewey interpreted, endorsed
and developed further (Table 10.2).
250 R. LI
Table 10.2 Dewey vs. Pestalozzi on education
Pestalozzi Dewey’s own ideas

(as interpreted by Dewey)
Education and social Dewey quoted Pestalozzi Dewey endorsed

relations saying: “Nature educated man Pestalozzi’s idea and went
for social relations, and by further, seeing education
means of social relations. as living in society,
Things are important in the entering in to social
education of man in relations and participating
proportion to the intimacies of in community life (My
social relations into which man Pedagogic Creed, EW5:
enters” (MW8: 249). Dewey 84–86)
interpreted it as “The more
closely and more directly the
child learns by entering into
social situations, the more
genuine and effective is the
knowledge he gains” (MW8:
249)
Presentation of subject Pestalozzi believes “there are While supporting
material certain fixed laws of Pestalozzi’s view, Dewey
development” and is more concerned with
object-lessons must be the children’s personal
“presentation of things to the experience and
senses.” Since “the order of “purposeful activities.”
nature consists in going from The implication for “the
the simple to the complex,” it progressive way of
is “his endeavour to find out teaching” is that “if we
in every subject the ABC of can enlarge the child’s
observation” “the simplest experience by methods
elements…. put before the which resemble as nearly
senses” (MW8: 250–251) as possible the ways that
the child has acquired his
beginning experiences, it
is obvious that we have
made a great gain in the
effectiveness of our
teaching” (MW8: 254)
Pedagogy Dewey interpreted Pestalozzi’s Dewey himself proposed
pedagogy, as “Pestalozzi “psychologizing the
himself called it the curriculum,” i.e.,
psychologizing of teaching, organizing the curriculum
and, more accurately, its based on child
mechanizing…… We must, psychology and children’s
therefore, take care, in order capacity of understanding
to avoid confusion and (MW2: 285)
superficiality in education, to
make first impressions of
objects as correct and as
complete as possible” (MW8:
251–252)
(continued)
Pestalozzi Dewey’s own ideas

(as interpreted by Dewey)
Learning by doing Though Dewey does not According to Dewey,

quote it in Schools of students learn “not by
Tomorrow, Pestalozzi has a reading books or listening
famous motto: “Learning by to explanations……
head, hand and heart,” where but…… by doing things”
“hand” means learning by (MW8: 254). Interesting
doing enough, “learning by
doing” has become the
defining characteristic of
progressive education
(MW8: 261)
Friedrich Wilhelm August Fröbel (1782–1852)

Fröbel is a pioneering German educator and is considered the father of
early childhood education. He coined the word “kindergarten” which
refers to play centers for young children.
Fröbel studied in the University of Jena in 1799 and worked at
Pestalozzi’s Institute in Yverdon-les-Bains in 1808–1810. In 1826, he
published The Education of Man and a Weekly magazine, The Educating
Families. Ten years later, he founded Play and Activity Institute and
started manufacturing play materials for children, which he termed
“gifts.” By 1840, the Royal Families of the Netherlands began to use his
“gifts.” Fröbel died in 1852, and his kindergartens were banned by the
Prussian Government for its “destructive tendencies in the areas of reli-
gion and politics.”8 When the ban was lifted in 1867, Fröbelian teaching
flourished in Germany and all over the world. Today Fröbel’s legacy is
manifest in Fröbel eV, Fröbel Town, Fröbel Diploma, Fröbel Academy
and so forth.
The first Fröbelian Kindergarten in the USA was founded by Fröbel’s
student Margarethe Schurz in Wisconsin in 1856. Fröbel’s principles are:
free work (games) with singing, dancing, gardening, and the like, i.e.,
self-activity and “gifts.” In Schools of Tomorrow, Dewey gave a sympathetic
8 It appears the ban was a confusion made by the Russian government between the two
names, Friedrich Fröbel and his nephew Karl Fröbel, who advocated female colleges and
kindergartens. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_Fr%C3%B6bel.
252 R. LI
and positive introduction of Fröbel. In Dewey’s words, “Fröbel showed

himself a true prophet of what has been accomplished in some of the
schools such as we are dealing with in this book” (MW8: 277).
Dewey acknowledged Frobel’s contributions but criticized his meta-
physics:
The efforts to return to Froebel’s spirit referred to above have tried to

keep the best in his contributions. His emphasis upon play, dramatization,
songs and story telling, which involve the constructive use of material, his
deep sense of the importance of social relations among the children—these
things are permanent contributions which they retain. But they are trying
with the help of the advances of psychological knowledge since Froebel’s
time and of the changes in social occupations which have taken place to
utilize these factors directly, rather than indirectly, through translation into
a metaphysics, which, even if true, is highly abstract. (MW8: 276)
That Dewey criticized Fröbel’s metaphysics may require some elabora-

tion. According to Dewey, Fröbel is a philosopher trying to discover
“laws” of development for children. These laws show correspondence
between the inner mind of the child and the external world, based on
the belief of the absolute. Dewey interpreted it like this:
While Froebel’s own sympathy with children and his personal experience
led him to emphasize the instinctive expressions of child-life, his philosophy
led him to believe that natural development consisted in the unfolding
of an absolute and universal principle already enfolded in the child. He
believed also that there is an exact correspondence between the general
properties of external objects and the unfolding qualities of mind, since
both were manifestations of the same absolute reality. (MW8: 275–276)
Note that Fröbel himself is a pious Christian and believes that these
universal laws manifest the existence of the absolute (God), and “they
symbolize some Law of universal being” (MW8: 276). Even the children
gathering in a circle is taken to mean “the circle is a symbol of infinity
which will tend to invoke the infinite latent in the child’s soul’ (MW8:
276). Dewey called this “mystical metaphysics” (MW8: 275). You may
recall Dewey’s rebuttal to Shadworth Hodgson on universal conscious-
ness in 1886 (see Chapter 5 of this book). Then a Hegelian Christian,
Dewey defended the existence of universal consciousness but by his
Chicago years he had abandoned this “mystical metaphysics” himself and
founded pragmatism. To keep up with his own views, he was criticizing

Fröbel’s universal being and absolute reality in 1915.
Despite Fröbel’s shortcomings, Dewey endorsed Fröbel’s emphasis of
play, for “schools all over the country are at present making use of the
child’s instinct for play, by using organized games, toy making, or other
construction based on play motives as part of the regular curriculum”
(MW8: 277). As always, Dewey enriched others’ concepts by adding his
own. This time, Fröbel’s concept of play was “value-added” with interest,
experience, social relations and problem-solving. Dewey illustrated the
case with children playing dolls:
the children’s instinctive activities were linked up with social interests

and experiences. The latter centre, with young children, in their home.
Their personal relations are of the greatest importance to them. Children’s
intense interest in dolls is a sign of the significance attached to human
relations. The doll thus furnished a convenient starting point. With this as
a motive, the children have countless things they wish to do and make.
Hand and construction work thus acquired a real purpose, with the added
advantage of requiring the child to solve a problem. (MW8: 280)
Maria Montessori (1870–1952)

A shining and flamboyant modern pioneer in early childhood education,
Maria Montessori was a pediatrician-turned-educator who left a legacy
of successful early childhood education enterprise. In 1890, Montessori
studied natural sciences and medicine in the University of Rome, special-
izing in pediatrics and mental retardation. In 1907, she was asked by
a charitable institution to work on children aged 3–7 for low-income
families in Rome. She found that the method of the mentally retarded
child could be adapted for the normal child and published her findings in
Italian in 1909.9 The English edition appeared in 1912: The Montessori
Method: Scientific Pedagogy as Applied to Child Education in the Chil-
dren’s Houses. Montessori’s success attracted international observers. In
1909, she was already training up teachers with her method. In 1912,
Montessori schools were opened in Paris. By 1913, the first international
training course was held in Rome and more than 100 Montessori schools
sprang up in the USA.
9 The title in Italian was: II Metodo della Pedagogia Scientifica applicato all’ educazione
infantile nelle Case dei Bambini (1909).
254 R. LI
Montessori took America by storm when she traveled there in 1913

and 1915 to offer training courses. Thousands of visitors looked behind
glasses on her demonstration classroom. The Montessori fad did not go
without controversy. William H. Kilpatrick, then an Associate Professor
with Teachers College and a former student of Dewey, was highly critical
of her work. He wrote The Montessori System Examined (1914) and chal-
lenged her in that “She generalizes unscientifically as to the condition of
contemporary educational thought and practice from observation limited,
it would seem, to the Italian schools” (Kilpatrick 1914: 3).10
In Schools of Tomorrow, Dewey devoted the whole Chapter 6 on this
famed female contemporary of his. In sharp contrast with Kilpatrick,
Dewey in fact faithfully summarized and endorsed her work. Judging
from its tone and style, I suspect that his chapter might have been written
by Evelyn but the ideas must have been reviewed by John himself.
Montessori’s ideas were presented in such as way in Schools of Tomorrow
that Dewey and Montessori seemed to share many similar views. For
example, both advocated that “freedom and liberty are necessary for
the child’s work” (MW8: 300). When Montessori stressed that “liberty
is activity” and “activity is the basis of life” (MW8: 300), it is another
way of saying “learning by doing” and action transforms life and reality
in Dewey’s pragmatism. Montessori never punished students, just “qui-
etly told” them to respect others (MW8: 301), much as Dewey rejected
authoritarian discipline in a conventional classroom because it would only
make docile and passive learners.
Most significantly, Dewey started theorizing education in 1896 by
postulating the importance of the child’s interest to growth, learning and
self-expression (Interest in Relation to Training of the Will , 1896). This
was operationalized in Montessori’s method, where “little children……
select the didactic materials in which they show themselves to be inter-
ested” (MW8: 303). You may recall that Dewey satirized the mechanical
conventional curriculum as “subdivide each topic into studies; each study
into lessons, each lesson into specific facts and formulae” (MW2: 276).
Montessori overcame this by inventing self-corrective “didactic mate-
rial” which could go without fixed order: “the normal child is allowed
10 It appears that Kilpatrick’s criticism had a serious negative impact on Montessori’s

fad in the USA. However, other “native” progressive kindergartens continued to flourish,
such as Caroline Pratt’s Play School, the kindergarten of Teachers College. Montessori
Schools had a comeback in the USA after the Second World War.
complete liberty in its use just “to exercise powers that the child is using
constantly in all his daily actions,” and “to develop the faculties of the
child” (MW8: 304).
In the above fundamental ways, then, the two were alike. The only crit-
icism that Dewey waged against Montessori was that her method might
be less intellectually free than it seemed, and that “there is no freedom
allowed the child to create. He is free to choose which apparatus he will
use, but never to choose his own ends, never to bend a material to his
own plans.” Since it did not present real-life problems and material, it
might not “represent truly the conditions they (children) have to deal
with out of school” (MW8: 309). You may appreciate that Dewey did
not support the notion of “innate faculties” in psychology, but tried to
replace it with “impulse.” Apparently, the theoretical difference between
the two was stated below:
A child is not born with faculties to be unfolded, but with special impulses
of action to be developed through their use in preserving and perfecting
life in the social and physical conditions under which it goes on…… the
educators of this country differ with Montessori as to the existence of
innate faculties which can be trained for general application by special
exercises designed only for training…… (MW8: 311–312)
As a final remark, Dewey’s criticism of Montessori was not typical of his

own style. In his usual way of presenting an academic problem, Dewey
would polarize the two positions and then propose a middle ground.
In this case, he would have elaborated innate personal faculties in sharp
distinction with the position of social relations. Then he would have crit-
icized the underlying assumptions of both, showing their similarities or
differences. Finally, Dewey would have settled for a middle ground. But it
is not the case here as the arguments did not follow this pattern. Instead,
it was just a brief commentary and observation. My guess, then, is that
it is not John’s own writing but is a transcription of both John’s and
Evelyn’s ideas by Evelyn herself.
256 R. LI
Evelyn Dewey11 on Major Educational Innovations

Parents and educators today must be amazed with the innovations in these
progressive schools a hundred years ago, though they accounted for only
a very small proportion of all the then American schools. They surely were
“schools of tomorrow,” ahead of their time. How far we can achieve or
excel them today remains an intriguing question. Their innovations are
so many that I can only chronicle eleven major and relevant ones for
your interest reading. Let me outline these education principles and make
direct quotes of related innovative practices in Table 10.3.
Democracy and Education

Life After Death
John Dewey died in 1952, but his ideas survive up to today. This is most
evident in the interest of his monumental work in education, Democracy
and Education, which attracted reviews, talks, and symposiums ever since
its publication in 1916. Below is a short note on more recent publications.
Ninety years have passed and David T. Hansen, a professor with
Teachers College, Columbia University, published John Dewey and Our
Educational Prospect: A Critical Engagement with Dewey’s Democracy
and Education (2006). Hansen served as chairman of John Dewey
Society (2003–2005) and the book is collection of presentations in
the society’s annual symposium together with the American Educational
Research Association. In the same vein, Patrick H. Jenlink of St. Edward’s
University, Austin, Texas edited Dewey’s Democracy and Education Revis-
ited: Contemporary Discourses for Democratic Education and Leadership
(2009). Jenlink gathered teacher educators, public school administrators
and college professors to focus on democratic leadership in schools. He
challenged educators for “the transformation of public schools into public
spaces of democratic practice, which is a new vista of teachers and school
leaders as public intellectuals, as critical agents of democracy” (Jenlink
2009: 393).
11 Evelyn Dewey went on with her education career and published New Schools for Old
(1919) and The Dalton Laboratory Plan (1922), the latter of which crossed the Atlantic
and made an impact on British education. See Cowan, S., & McCulloch, G., The Reception
and Impact of Democracy and Education: The Case of Britain, in Higgins, S., & Coffield,
F. (2016). John Dewey’s Democracy and Education: A British Tribute (pp. 7–29).
Table 10.3 Innovative practices in Schools of Tomorrow
Education principles Innovative practices
Joyful learning Joyful learning is not new in America. A hundred years ago in Fairhope
(Fairhope School) School, the children liked school and learned unconsciously:
“The ability of a child to put all his native initiative and enthusiasm into
his work; the power to indulge his natural desire to learn; thus preserving
joy in life and a confidence in himself which liberates all his energies for
his work. He likes school and forgets that he is “learning”; for learning
comes unconsciously as a by-product of experiences which he recognizes
as worth while on their own account.” (8: 228)
Teachers as When we are paying lip service to “teachers as facilitators” today, Fairhope
facilitators School and Montessori School were practicing this ideal of teachers as
(Fairhope School) helpers and observers:
(Montessori School) “At Fairhope the children do the work, and the teacher is there to help
them to know, not to have them give back what they have memorized.”
(8: 228)
“Where the teacher’s role has changed to that of helper and observer,
where the development of every child is the goal, such freedom becomes
as much a necessity of the work as is quiet where the children are simply
reciting.” (8: 98)
Small group learning Small group teaching and learning probably started one hundred years ago
(Fairhope School) in America:
“Division into groups is made where it is found that the children naturally
divide themselves…… The work within the group is then arranged to give
the pupils the experiences which are needed at that age for the
development of their bodies, minds, and spirits……” (8: 225)
Peer learning and Below you can find the earliest form of peer learning and collaborative
collaborative learning learning in America:
(Public School #45 “……the pupils were conducting the recitations themselves whenever there
Indianapolis) was an opportunity. One pupil took charge of the class, calling on the
others to recite; the teacher becoming a mere observer unless her
interference was necessary to correct an error or keep the lesson to the
point. When the class is not actually in charge of a pupil, every method is
used to have the children do all the work, not to keep all the
responsibility and initiative in the hands of the teacher. The pupils are
encouraged to ask each other questions, to make their objections and
corrections aloud, and to think out for themselves each problem as it
comes up.” (8: 258–259)
Catering for It appears that individual differences slowly emerged as an important issue
individual differences in education by the turn of the century and some schools, such as
(Fairhope School) Fairhope, are working on it:
“The school has provided conditions for wholesome, natural growth in
small enough groups for the teacher (as a leader rather than an instructor)
to become acquainted with the weaknesses of each child individually and
then to adapt the work to the individual needs.” (8:235)
(continued)
258 R. LI
Education for a Nowhere has this purpose of education been succinctly stated than was in
happy and fulfilling here. We educators today have so much to learn from their far-sighted
life vision:
(Elementary School “The purpose of the experiment is not to devise a method by which the
of the University of teacher can teach more to the child in the same length of time, or even
Missouri) prepare him more pleasantly for his college course. It is rather to give the
child an education which will make him a better, happier, more efficient
human being, by showing him what his capabilities are and how he can
exercise them, both materially and socially, in the world he finds about
him. If, while a school is still learning how best to do this for its pupils,
it can at the same time give them all they would have gained in a more
conventional school, we can be sure there has been no loss.” (8: 247)
Education of the We saw the work on the education of the gifted here, even earlier than
gifted Lewis Ternan in Stanford and Leta Hollingworth in Columbia:
(Gary Public “Pupils are classified…… as “rapid”, “average” and “slow” workers. Rapid
Schools, Indiana) pupils finish 12 years of school at about 16 years of age……” (8: 330)
“……The rapid child moves as quickly as possible from grade to grade
instead of being held back until his work has no stimulus for him, and
the slow worker is not pushed into work before he is ready for it…… the
children are happy and interested; while from the point of view of the
teacher and educator, the answer is even more positively favorable, when
we consult the school records.” (8: 332)
Learning to listen Most parents must have had the headache of asking children to listen. In
(Elementary School fact listening is a skill that can be trained. In the lesson, children take
of the University of turn to read stories to each other and listen:
Missouri) “Every child likes to be listened to, and they soon discover they must tell
their story well or they will get no audience. Some stories they tell by
acting them out, others by drawing.” (8: 241)
School as a Dewey’s ideas of school as a community were expanded to become a
workplace workplace for students. Going to school is like going to work. Examples
(Gary Public School abound in Gary Schools:
System, Indiana) • Boys of fifth grade take entire charge, keep records, order and
distribute school supplies
• Older students study stenography, typing or bookkeeping and go “to
school office and do an hour of real work, helping one of the clerks.”
(8: 334–335)
• To run the school canteen, the girls do all the menu, planning, buying,
keeping accounts. Some students serve tables. Both boys and girls do
cooking
• Boys make furniture: tables, cupboards and book shelves. Girls do
sewing and make clothes
• Pupils become estate managers and maintenance workers. (8: 342–344)
(continued)
Learning by doing Dewey notion of learning by doing is transformed into authentic learning
(Interlaken School by real-life doing here. With the education experiment going on, Schools of
Indiana, The Public Tomorrow chronicles many stunning real-life doings that amaze even
School District 45, today’s educators:
Indianapolis) • Pupils are not only learning carpentry; the picture shows they are
building the school houses by measuring and making windows
(Interlaken School Indiana) (8: 264)
• Pupils are not only studying gardening. The Public School District 45,
Indianapolis, bought a large plot of land and the picture shows students
are clearing up land and making a garden. (8: 270)
“The school has also bought the local newspaper from the neighboring
village and edits and prints a four-page weekly paper of local and school
news. The boys gather the news, do much of the writing and all of the
editing and printing, and are the business managers, getting advertisements
and tending to the subscription list. The instructors in the English
department give the boys any needed assistance.” (8: 265)
Schools for civic The ultimate ideal of Deweyan education is to foster social reform. This
societies can be realized step-by-step by first opening the school plant for the
(Gary Public neighborhood center, then organizing civic clubs to improve community
Schools, Indiana, Mr. services, such as cleaning up streets and even “mock elections” and “self
Valentine’s School) governments” (MW8: 352). Dewey states his high hopes:
“The Gary schools and Mr. Valentine’s school have effected an entire
reorganization in order to meet the particular needs of the children of the
community, physically, intellectually, and socially. Both schools are looking
towards a larger social ideal; towards a community where the citizens will
be prosperous and independent, where there will be no poverty-ridden
population unable to produce good citizens. While changes in social
conditions must take place before this can happen, these schools believe
that such an education as they provide is one of the natural ways and
perhaps the surest way of helping along the changes. Teaching people
from the time they are children to think clearly and to take care of
themselves is one of the best safeguards against exploitation.” (8: 351)
2016 marked the centenary publication of Democracy and Education.

Many International conferences were held to commemorate this event,
notably in Hong Kong, Shanghai and Cambridge. In Hong Kong, the
Gifted Education Council hosted the International Symposium on the
Centenary of Dewey’s Democracy and Education in 2015 with scholars
from Germany, China, USA and Hong Kong. In Shanghai, the Dewey
Center of Fudan University started the John Dewey Lectures Series in
2016. In the UK, the Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain
and the history of Education Society brought together a collection of
260 R. LI
papers, which was edited by Peter Cunningham of Cambridge University

and Ruth Heilbronn of UCL Institute of Education, in Dewey in Our
Time: Learning from John Dewey for Transcultural Practice (2016). In
the same year, Steve Higgins of Durham University and Frank Coffield,
a retired UK educator, edited John Dewey’s Democracy and Education:
A British Tribute. It was clear that Dewey’s ideas have travelled far and
wide, from Teachers College of Columbia to Austin, from the UK to
Hong Kong, from Japan to China, Turkey, Russia, Continental Europe,
in short, all through the world.
Publishing Background: Is Democracy and Education a Textbook?

Both Hansen (2006) and Cunningham and Heilbronn (2016) gave a
comprehensive account on the publication of Democracy and Educa-
tion. Hansen quoted the book contract Dewey signed with Macmillan in
1911, originally entitled, “An Introduction to the Philosophy of Education”
(Hansen 2006: 1). Became of the impending First World War in 1915,
the publishers urged Dewey “to change the title in light of pressing polit-
ical issues” (ibid.: 1). Thus, the title Democracy and Education came into
being, but “Dewey’s curt preface certainly sounds textbookish,” observed
Hansen (ibid.: 5). With further analysis and explanation, however, Hansen
concluded:
Dewey’s publishers had asked for a textbook for teachers, but he gave them
much more. He produced a book that teachers, even as it articulates from
Dewey’s point of view the elements of an education in and for a democratic
society. Readers may not accept his lessons, and they may disagree with
his methods. However, they can only reach those judgments by entering
the inquiry with him. In so doing, they put themselves in a position to
learn—to grow. (Hansen 2006: 20)
Cunningham also dwelt on the issue of textbook. He did a historical

research on textbook publication on education in the USA at the turn
of the twentieth century. One interesting fact was about Columbia’s
Teachers College:
And in the case of Columbia’s Teachers College, enrolment grew from

hundreds of students to thousands, national and international, over this
period. It became the largest school of education in the world, generating
a huge income…… Success generated a huge and lucrative market for
educational publications. The academic journal Teachers College Record was

launched in 1900. In 1901 Edward L. Thorndike began to write textbooks
“to make money and to spread the word”. (Cunningham and Heilbronn
2016: 25)
When it looks like Dewey was following Thorndike’s motive and foot-
steps, the publishers had bigger plans. The Macmillan Company of New
York, for example, was not just planning one textbook, but a series of
textbooks on education. Naturally, it required an editor and they recruited
Paul Monroe, Professor at Teachers College for this Job. Monroe was a
historian of American education and knew Dewey personally. Earlier on,
he invited Dewey to contribute to his 5-volume Cyclopaedia of Education,
in which Dewey wrote 120 entries. Then he got Dewey into his textbook
series (Monroe himself wrote three).
Today a textbook writer remains a respectable job but it is incom-
parable to or less prestigious than an innovative researcher who has
something new or important to publish. That is why Hansen tries to
defend Dewey’s Democracy and Education, which is not a dry text-
book but an innovative treatise on the subject. Cunningham, on the
other hand, saw Dewey’s textbook as a good way of disseminating
his educational philosophy, but it needs institution (teacher education)
and promoters to perpetuate Dewey’s ideas (he identified William H.
Kilpatrick and Philip. W. Jackson). My knowledge is that, the image of
a textbook writer and the role of textbooks have changed, then and now.
In Dewey’s times, a textbook writer is in fact an innovative researcher.
He/she was expected to synthesize all existing knowledge of a subject
and came up with a theory, a position, even a paradigm. Take a snapshot
of Alexander Bain, whose The Senses and The Intellect (1855) and The
Emotions and The Will (1859) became a standard textbook of psychology
for many decades in England and America (see Chapter 4). It summa-
rized mental philosophy up to 1850s. Dewey himself wrote his first book,
Psychology (1887) which was a textbook. It brought him immediate fame
and recognition. Psychology was not just a textbook, but was an innovation
in which Dewey tried to show how psychology could become philosophic
method. A few years later, William James’s, The Principles of Psychology (2
volumes) (1891) appeared. It was again a textbook, but James explored
consciousness and the human mind so deeply that it became the starting
point of the modern study of consciousness. The above evidence shows
262 R. LI
that “textbook” a hundred years ago was associated with innovation; it

was not synonymous with “boring”, nor was it a derogatory term at all.
Dewey’s textbook writing efforts started in Michigan and continued
in Columbia. His Ethics (1908), co-authored with James Tufts, sold well
for three decades, to be revised in 1933. His How We Think (1909),
is in fact a textbook for teachers to teach children “reflective thinking,”
i.e., scientific thinking. Thus in 1911, when Dewey signed a contract to
write An Introduction to the Philosophy of Education, it was a textbook in
Monore’s textbook series. Dewey’s textbook writing career went on, for
Human Nature and Conduct (1922) was subtitled An Introduction to
Social Psychology.
Scope and Structure

Democracy and Education comes with 26 chapters in 420 pages. This
work starts with education as life (Chapter 1) and education as social func-
tion (Chapter 2), slowly developing into education as growth (Chapter 4),
with Dewey criticizing Frobel, Hegel, Herbart and the mental discipline
schools (Chapter 5), finally reaching his signature thesis of education
as “continuous reconstruction of experience” (Chapter 6). Here Dewey
brings in the democratic conception in education (Chapter 7) and exam-
ines the three competing aims in education: natural development, social
efficiency and cultural or personal mental enrichment (Chapters 8 and 9).
As expected, the Deweyan dialectic is to reject each and put them together
into unity. The remaining chapters are on the education proper: learning
motivation (interest, discipline), thinking, teaching method, curriculum,
subject matter (science, geography, history, physical and social studies),
finally ending in moral education. In fact, Dewey had considered all
these issues in his Chicago years, only to put them together to become a
systematic philosophy of education.12
No doubt, Democracy and Education has such a broad scope that
it deserves to be called “an introduction to the philosophy of educa-
tion.” On the other hand, its treatment on different domains is the
presentation of Dewey’s own views rather than an outline or an histor-
ical account of the domains themselves. For example, when Dewey pays
tribute to former philosophers of education such as Rousseau, Frobel,
12 Hansen offered an interpretive synopsis of Democracy and Education and organized

it in four primary sections. See Hansen (2006: 10–13).
Hegel, Herbart (Chapters 5–6), he has no intention to present their ideas

in a systematic way, but rather to critique and build on them. In this sense,
it is “Dewey’s philosophy of education” more than an “introduction to
the philosophy of education.”
In subject matter and curriculum, Dewey emphasizes the importance
of “meanings (to) supply content to existing social life” (p. 226), as
it is intricately related to democracy. He does not bother to go into
details of three Rs (reading, writing, arithmetic), dismissing essentialism
as “ignorance of the essentials needed for the realization of democratic
ideals” (p. 226). Similarly, his treatment of geography (Chapter 16),
history (Chapter 16), science (Chapter 17), vocational subjects (Chap-
ters 20, 23), social studies (Chapter 21) is just general principles related
to interest, personal experience, reflective thinking, man and nature. No
subject content nor teaching principles can be found or discussed there.
What Is New in Democracy and Education

In his Chicago years, Dewey’s educational writings started from Interest
in Relation to Training of the Will (1996) and ended with The Child and
the Curriculum (1902). It was a long academic journey (see Chapter 9)
and by the time Dewey left for Columbia, his major ideas in education
were all in place. More importantly, I argue that his system of thought
in education was largely formulated in The Child and the Curriculum.
My challenge is to find out what is new in Democracy and Education; are
there new ideas added on in his Columbia years?
My discovery is that most ideas in Democracy and Education are elab-
oration of his old ideas in Chicago, but there are a few new ones. As
always, Dewey’s ideas interlock and overlap; they are not discrete, not like
an integer or a natural number. Well-knowing this constraint, I searched
through Democracy and Education’s 26 chapters. I try my very best and
identify 12 potentially new items. When I review them in depth, I come
to a list of 7 elaborated ideas and 5 new ideas (Table 10.4).
Below I will just outline his new ideas. I will skip the elaborated ideas
as you can find their original forms in Chapter 9.
264 R. LI
Table 10.4 Dewey’s former ideas in education and new ideas in Democracy and
Education
Former ideas New ideas

(Ideas found in Chicago years, further (Ideas not found in Chicago years, newly
elaborated in Columbia years) developed in Democracy and Education)
• Education as living • Philosophy as general theory of

• Schools and social customs education
• Life customs • Critique of Rousseau’s Idealization
• Social control • Interactive Unfoldment
• Habits • Plasticity
• Growth • Political philosophy
• Value
Summary of Dewey’s New Ideas in Democracy and Education

Philosophy as General Theory of Education
Dewey never put forth this position before in his early writings. During
his Columbia years from 1905 to 1914, he further developed and sharp-
ened his pragmatic philosophy. Philosophy is an inquiry into humanity,
human nature and how humans grow and live, according to Dewey.
Since humans grow and live within an environment, our adaptations
are our thinking and action on the environment with meaning, value
and experience, solving problems and resolving conflicts. It therefore
follows that philosophy is human inquiry for action, and education is a
human process to communicate shared meanings for intelligent action.
In Dewey’s words,
Philosophy was stated to be a form of thinking, which, like all thinking,

finds its origin in what is uncertain in the subject matter of experience,
which aims to locate the nature of the perplexity and to frame hypotheses
for its clearing up to be tested in action. Philosophy is at once an explicit
formulation of the various interests of life and a propounding of points
of view and methods through which a better balance of interests may be
effected. Since education is the process through which the needed transfor-
mation may be accomplished and not remain a mere hypothesis as to what
is desirable, we reach a justification of the statement that philosophy is the
theory of education as a deliberately conducted practice. (MW9: 341–342)
Going Beyond Rousseau’s Idealization

In his writing in Michigan and Chicago years, Dewey never gave a
comprehensive review of major education thinkers. By the time he
contributed to Cyclopedia of Education and wrote Schools of Tomorrow,
he was compelled to review these predecessors of educational thought.
The result was that Dewey give a critique on Rousseau (Chapter 3) and
Frobel (Chapter 5) as he built his system.
Briefly stated, Rousseau believes that human nature are good but civi-
lization “corrupts” them, thus his signature statement, “Man is born
free and everywhere he is in chains.” In the age of enlightenment,
Rousseau believes in the goodness of innate human nature. He specu-
lated that humans were initially solitary animals, without reason, language
nor communities. Animal-like passions led humans to develop language,
reasoning and complex communities. When humans became political,
rational with language, they formed civilizations that were repressive to
human nature: unnatural, unjust and unequal. Thus, he wrote Discourse
on Inequality (1754) and The Social Contract (1762) for an equitable and
just political system. In education, his Emile (1762), espoused the natural
unfoldment thesis, i.e., a child’s good human nature will naturally unfold
and it should be kept away from society’s “bad” influences.
Let me briefly compare Rousseau’s ideas in 1762 and Dewey’s in 1915.
In 1762, Rousseau saw man as born free and everywhere in chains. He
suggested natural unfoldment for children to overcome society’s “chains”
and bad influences. In 1915, Dewey replaced “free” and “chains” with
“impulses” and “life-customs.” For Dewey, a child is born with impulses
for action which are not in alignment with life-customs. There is social
control to his impulse and action where control means acts (approval,
disapproval, etc.) to influence others’ action in a stimulus-response frame-
work. It is not one person’s control over one child, but a social control by
the whole society so there must be “common understanding of the means
and ends of action” by its group members. (Democracy and Education,
Chapter 3)
It is clear that Dewey had built on and gone beyond Rousseau. A
hundred and fifty years of research in psychology, anthropology and
science had made this possible, epitomized in Dewey’s views. Instead of
a simplistic insistence of natural unfoldment, Dewey hits upon internal
control and intrinsic disposition in education. This becomes the study of
motivation a few decades later.
266 R. LI
Moving from Natural Unfoldment to Interactive Unfoldment

Here is another important new idea in Democracy and Education. Dewey
is not following the traditional view of “unfolding from within” from
Rousseau (natural unfoldment) to Fröbel (mystic symbolic value) to
Hegel (absolute whole) “in process of unfolding” (MW9: 75). He crit-
icizes Rousseau as idealizing the child and human nature; Fröbel as
emphasis upon mathematical symbols and Hegel as embracing institu-
tions. He sees them as ignoring the interaction between organization
and environment, leading to growth from present to future. He sees the
whole process as natural growth and maturity materialized through the
environment (Chapter 5).
Dewey is always skeptical of the “teleological” thesis, in that there is
an inner force that unfolds in a process. Instead, he sees growth as a
process of interaction. He takes a broader perspective that growth and
development is not only for children; it is human progress (adult and chil-
dren) in the adaptation to the environment through adjustment and the
“reconstruction of experience.” Dewey does not talk much about child’s
biological growth; his child’s mental development is just a description of
logical stages. His growth is an evolutionary and developmental process
of all humanity, which can be better termed “interactive unfoldment.”
The Notion of Plasticity

Plasticity is a central notion in the architecture of the human mind today,
especially for the child’s mind. Dewey rightly asserted in Chapter 4:
Plasticity lies near the pliable elasticity by which some persons take on
the color of their surroundings while retaining their own bent. But it is
something deeper than this. It is essentially the ability to learn from experi-
ence; the power to retain from one experience something which is of avail
in coping with the difficulties of a later situation. This means power to
modify actions on the basis of the results of prior experiences, the power
to develop dispositions. Without it, the acquisition of habits is impossible.
(MW9: 49)
From this assumption of plasticity, children have the power to learn from
experience, leading to the formation of habits. While Dewey does not
elaborate much on the nature or organization of plasticity and leaves
room for future psychologists, he rejects the assumption of mental facul-
ties at birth. Instead of focusing on traditional abilities such as perceiving,
remembering, willing, judging, generalizing, attending, etc.… (MW9:

73), he emphasized initiative, inventiveness and readaptability. Whatever
the case, Dewey proposes some new important ideas in human cognition
basic to child education.
Democracy as a Way of Life

In Chapter 7 of Democracy and Education, Dewey outlines his posi-
tion on political philosophy, criticizing the undesirable political ideals
and systems of the past. This includes the Platonic class society without
freedom, the eighteenth-century individualistic ideal of freedom with
humanity in chaos and the more recent nineteenth-century national states
as institutions dominating over the individual. Here for the first time,
Dewey applies his political philosophy to education and puts democracy
in the forefront. But what is that notion of democracy? Summarizing
Dewey’s political thought, his notion of democracy starts from ethics, and
grows into the following main ideas that include social justice, equality,
participation and finally a way of living. The basic tenets are:
• Interests are shared by all groups;

• Freedom of interaction and communication between groups are
important for the sharing of experience;
• Community members participate on equal terms with a flexibly
adjusted institution;
• A democratic society requires a positive mind and habit which can
be nurtured through education. It can secure social change without
disorder.
Dewey acknowledges that “education is a social process” and there is a

criterion implied in “a particular social ideal.” The criteria are “the worth
of a form of social life…… in which the interests of a group are shared by
all its members, and the fullness and freedom with which it interacts with
other groups” (MW9: 105). Following these criteria, Dewey argues that
democracy is the education ideal of contemporary American society:
A society which makes provision for participation in its good of all its
members on equal terms and which secures flexible readjustment of its
institutions through interaction of the different forms of associated life is in
so far democratic. Such a society must have a type of education which gives
268 R. LI
individuals a personal interest in social relationships and control, and the

habits of mind which secure social changes without introducing disorder.
(MW9: xvi)

Dewey’s Startling Claim: Philosophy as Theory of Education
Dewey’s claim of philosophy “as the generalized theory of education” can
be presented as follows. For Dewey, philosophy is to clarify thinking, for
testing and for action. In the process, philosophy has to review uncer-
tainties faced in different “social conditions, aims, organized interests and
institutional claims” (MW9: 341). Based on the above, philosophy can
make explicit views and methods for a balanced interest and harmonious
readjustment in society. Since education is a process to achieve what is
desirable, so philosophy is the theory of education for deliberate practice
to bring about improvement of social life in harmony (MW9: 387).
Seen in this way, Dewey’s position as a pragmatic view of philosophy
is not necessarily agreed by linguistic or postmodern philosophers. When
philosophers try to review social conditions, aims, interests and claims, it
is the realm of political philosophy and social philosophy, not education.
When Dewey assumes it possible to balance different interests and aims
for a harmonious society, his assumption was not shared by other schools,
such as the Marxists, the phenomenologists or the humanists. Worse still,
it was not supported by twentieth-century political reality: conflict and
uncompromised interests never reach a balanced readjustment in society
or among nations. Instead, we see unresolved conflicting ideology and
power relations.
When it is logical for Dewey to see the relation of philosophy and
education this way, this is just another bold claim and macroscopic
perspective characteristic of Dewey’s. Thirty years before, a young 25-
year-old Dewey saw psychology as the centre of human sciences (see
Chapter 5). Two years later, he saw psychology as philosophic method.
By 1915, he took philosophy as theory of education. Yes, this time he
might have solved his problem as a professional philosopher and attracted
interest from technical professors, but his “logical deduction” did not add
much meaning and value to social theorists, politicians or the public.
Dewey’s Notion of Democracy

Readers with a different culture from the West may inquire: Why did
Dewey put democracy in the forefront? Why is democracy, only one
form of government in human history, occupying the central role in
Dewey’s conception of education? With Dewey’s focus on political and
social philosophy in his Columbia years, he saw public education as an
enterprise serving a social function, where the modern American society
need education to perpetuate its democratic ideal. In his words,
……to detect and state the ideas implied in a democratic society and to
apply these ideas to the problems of the enterprise of education. The
discussion includes an indication of the constructive aims and methods
of public education…… which…… operate, in societies nominally demo-
cratic, to hamper the adequate realization of the democratic ideal. As will
appear from the book itself, the philosophy stated in this book connects the
growth of democracy with the development of the experimental method in
the sciences, evolutionary ideas in the biological sciences, and the industrial
reorganization, and is concerned to point out the changes in subject matter
and method of education indicated by these developments… … (Preface
of Democracy and Education) (MW9: 3)
For Dewey, this democratic ideal is not just a form of government,

but also a way of living, and a positive mindset of justice and equality.
In particular, he sees the importance of free communication: “(S)ince
democracy stands in principle for free interchange, for social continuity, it
must develop a theory of knowledge which sees in knowledge the method
by which one experience is made available in giving direction and meaning
to another” (MW9: 354).
As I understand it, Dewey is too eager to bring philosophy into
human action and social sciences. His democracy in fact means free
communication and he has high hopes that with sincere and in-depth
communication, we can reach an agreed and better outcome by positive
action. Of course, twentieth century’s course of events show the oppo-
site. Communication brings heated-debate and opposite camps may never
compromise in their views. American party politics is a case in point that
does not need my elaboration. Probably, we need more research in polit-
ical sciences, public opinion, cognitive stickiness (fixation) in psychology
to chart the course of human communication.
The credit of John Dewey is he starts with a naïve, idealistic starting
point: to break down barriers for communication, to move on for
270 R. LI
genuine communication. When we begin to understand the underlying

vested interests, ideology, worldview, aspiration and motive behind partic-
ipants, we can hopefully reach more understanding and some temporary
consensus. Today we are at a position of naivety lost.
Dewey’s Moral Education and Ideal School: An Impossible Dream?

To state in a simple, positive way, John Dewey wants to integrate knowl-
edge with conduct (desirable action and behaviour), which is what moral
education should achieve. He wants learning to affect “character forma-
tion” with “the moral end as the unifying and culminating end of
education” (MW9: 370).
His ideal is that learning should be in-depth activity related to dispo-
sition and motive. He wants learning to be “the accompaniment of
continuous activities or occupations which have a social aim and utilize
the materials of typical social situations” (MW9: 370). Again, he is too
eager to integrate.
My view is that this is an impossible dream, an unnecessary dream and
even a bizarre dream. How can all knowledge transmission come with
moral action? Many skills, for example, learning of alphabets, to add, to
read, are not moral. Many abstract ideas in science have no moral value
at all. It is just human mental interest and exercise, for example the idea
of DNA, black hole, etc. When a teacher thinks of everything she teaches
with a social moral aim such as division for a equal share, circle as same
distance from social vicinity, it doesn’t add much to knowledge.
In the final paragraph of Democracy and Education, Dewey summa-
rizers his ideal school where learning and morality meets:
For under such conditions, the school becomes itself a form of social life,
a miniature community and one in close interaction with other modes of
associated experience beyond school walls. All education which develops
power to share effectively in social life is moral. It forms a character which
not only does the particular deed socially necessary but one which is inter-
ested in that continuous readjustment which is essential to growth. Interest
in learning from all the contacts of life is the essential moral interest.
(MW9: 370)
In short, his ideal school encapsules the following characteristics:

• Social life • Share effectively

• A miniature community • Form socially positive character
• Close interaction • Continuous readjustment (growth)
• Associated experience • Interest in learning
No doubt this is very idealistic, and some progressive educators try to

work toward it. A hundred years have passed and this ideal remains a
good dream and direction.
Further Readings
See reading list in Chapter 13.
References
Cunningham, P., & Heilbronn, R. (Eds.). (2016). Dewey in Our Time: Learning
from John Dewey for Transcultural Practice. London: UCL Institute of
Education Press.
Dalton, T. C. (2002). Becoming John Dewey: Dilemmas of a Philosopher and
Naturalist. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Hansen, D. T. (2006). John Dewey and Our Educational Prospect: A Critical
Engagement with Dewey’s Democracy and Education. Albany: State University
of New York Press.
Jenlink, P. M. (Ed.). (2009). Dewey’s Democracy and Education Revisited:
Contemporary Discourses for Democratic Education and Leadership. Lanham:
Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.
Kilpatrick, W. H. (1914). The Montessori System Examined. Boston: Houghton
Mifflin.
PART IV
Involvement in Education and Impact

CHAPTER 11
Dewey in China
Introduction
Once-in-a-lifetime Experience
In academic 1918–1919, John Dewey took a sabbatical leave from
Columbia which, with a chain of events, led to his visit to China. Humor-
ously comparing his visit to China as “like Mars to him,” Dewey told his
children that he “never expected to go there and did not know anything
that was happening there.”1 As it turned out, his stay in China for 2 years
and 2 months was the longest visit he had ever had to a foreign country in
his life time. This once-in-a-lifetime experience was a single most signifi-
cant event with lasting impact on his future life. His daughter wrote many
years later, “China remains the country nearest his heart after his own”
(Jane Dewey 1939: 42). What had happened that had led to Dewey’s
strong affection to China? Why did he stay there for such a long period
of time?
Today international academic exchange is so common, frequent, effi-
cient that a US scholar in demand can fly to Shanghai in 15 hours, gives
a talk and then flies to Europe for another conference the next day. Tele-
communication through Internet, such as skype, facetime, zoom, may
even make international conferences obsolete. Not so a hundred years
1 John Dewey to Dewey children. April 1, 1920 (#03593).

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-7941-7_11
276 R. LI
ago. It took the Deweys 20 days to cross the Pacific (January 22, 1919–
February 9, 1919)2 and landed onto Japan. Why did the Deweys go to
Japan? Why did they go to China two months later? What did they do in
China and what were their impact?
The Historical Inevitability Thesis

Dewey’s visit to China can now be treated as a historical event. It can be
likened to the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand that triggered
the First World War. The historical questions thus arise: Is the assassina-
tion of the Archduke inevitable? Can the First World War be avoided?
Can it be fought differently and ended differently? In our case of John
Dewey’s China trip, which took place just a few years after the notorious
assassination, I always ponder over the law of historical immutability. The
questions can be formulated in four inevitability theses:
1. Is Dewey’s visit to China inevitable?

2. Is Dewey’s extended stay in China for over two years unavoidable?
3. Is the popularization of Dewey’s ideas in China after his visit
inevitable?
4. Is the purge of his ideas (1950–1976) and resurrection (1980–
present) inexorable?
I will try to answer these questions as I go along telling Dewey’s China

trip story.
1918: Dewey’s Year of Complicated

Political Involvement
End of First World War
Our story began in 1918, which was a year of complicated political
involvement for Dewey. Note that the European War (later termed the
First World War) had started in 1914 and Dewey urged America to
fight against aristocratic Germany. It was a progressive ideal to stage
2 The Deweys took the Shunyu Maru from San Francisco to Yokahama (Dykhuizen
1973: 187).
11 DEWEY IN CHINA 277
“the war to end all wars” and to make the world “safe for democracy.”
Initially, the Americans remained neutral, but when American ships were
sunk by German submarines, the US declared war on Germany in April
1917. By 1918, it looked like the Germans were losing and Woodrow
Wilson, President of the USA, announced his famous Fourteen Points
for peace negotiation. Outlined in January 1918, the Fourteen Points
included open diplomacy, freedom of navigation, elimination of trade
barriers, disarmaments, adjustment of colonial claims, self-determination
of the peoples, and finally the formation of an “association of nations”
for “political independence and territorial integrity of great and small
nations alike.” Though seen as “Wilsonian idealism” by the European
Allies, this American progressive diplomacy became the basis for the terms
of German surrender in November 1918 and the subsequent Treaty of
Versailles in April 1919.
Dewey and Wilson were classmates during their Johns Hopkins years
(see my Chapter 3). He was generally in support of Wilson’s Four-
teen Points, especially for the formation of a League of Nations. As
a key opinion leader in American politics, Dewey wrote many articles
on the subject, such as The Approach to a League of Nations (MW11:
127–130), The League of Nations and the New Diplomacy (MW11: 131–
134), The Fourteen Points and the League of Nations (MW11: 135–138),
A League of Nations and Economic Freedom (MW11: 139–142).But
Dewey’s involvement was more than that; he was also involved in Wilson’s
13th point: the establishment of an independent Polish State.
The Independence of Poland

With the publication of Democracy and Education in 1916, Dewey
became the spokesman of American education for a democratic society.
He had attracted many followers; among them Albert Barnes, a busi-
nessman and an art collector, who attended Dewey’s seminars and came
up with a bold idea: to try out the ideas of Democracy and Education
in the experiment of assimilation of new Polish immigrants in Philadel-
phia. The experiment became some kind of a research project financed
by Barnes, supervised by Dewey and conducted by a team of Dewey’s
graduate students.
While the Polish study did not yield any substantial research results,
it did induce Dewey into the Polish question. Historically Poland was a
commonwealth, partitioned by Germany and Russia in 1795. The rising
278 R. LI
tide of modern Polish nationalism began in the 1890s, and the First
World War was a golden chance for the Poles to gain independence. The
Polish National Committee was formed in Paris to lobby for international
support for Polish independence. Its leaders, Roman Dmowski (1864–
1939) and Ignacy Paderewski (1860–1941) met President Wilson and
subsequently the independence of Poland became an American agenda in
Wilson’s 13th Point.
Dewey’s investigation in Philadelphia showed that there were two
groups. The first group related to Paderewski and the Roman Catholic
Church was conservative. The second group related to the American Jews
was more liberal, socialist in spirit and progressive. Dewey believed that
post-war Polish democracy would be at stake if the conservative group
gained power. Through his network, Dewey met Colonel E. M. House,
President Wilson’s military attaché, in August 1918, to present the Polish
situation he knew of. A week later Dewey received a telegram from the
office of Military Intelligence asking him to come to Washington imme-
diately. All Saturday and Sunday he was reporting his information on
Poland. To Dewey’s complete surprise, he was asked to accept a captaincy
“in the Propaganda Department of the Intelligence Bureau” (Martin
2002: 297). By September, he finished his full report and sent it to the
Intelligence Office. He even sent a copy to President Wilson and received
a thank you note from the latter.
On November 6, 1918, the office of Military Intelligence contacted
Dewey again for more reliable information, saying that “we cannot alto-
gether trust the newspaper reports and I am appealing to you to lend
your good offices” (Martin 2002: 298).
On 11 November 1918, Poland declared independence.
It can be seen that John Dewey was a private informant in Polish poli-
tics as much as a public opinion leader. While he was not a politician and
did not actually influence the course of political events in Poland, he had
strong views on the First World War and the League of Nations, and he
tried to influence the democracy and independence of Poland.3 Let us not
3 You may note that Dewey’s influence on the independence of Poland was minimal.
Even President Wilson’s influence was much less substantial than the European powers.
Germany was the first to “grant” Poland independence during the First World War by
creating the kingdom of Poland, a puppet state under the German Empire. The actual
Polish independence took place on November 11, 1918, when Polish Commander-in-
Chief Jozef Pilsudski (1867–1935) declared independence. Pilsudski remained Chief of
State from 1918 to 1922 while Paderewski became prime minister and foreign minister
be naïve to believe that Dewey is a neutral independent scholar without

any political interest, network or affiliation. With his political views and
real political encounter, he was to set foot on China the following year.
Family Issues and Family Trip

When most researchers focus on Dewey’s trip to China, his lecture series
and its enormous impact, few study why Dewey went on the trip at all. A
casual reader may assume that it was a well-planned trip that had created
unprecedented impact. Not so. My study of the related circumstances
suggests that it was more like a family trip to start with.
Family Finance
In spring 1918, Dewey was still teaching in Columbia but he knew he
would have a sabbatical leave in academic 1918–1919, i.e., to start in
September 1918. Instead of taking a real vacation of hiding away to
focus on his writing, Dewey tried to take up some more teaching jobs.
First he taught in Stanford (May–June 1918), then UC Berkeley (Fall
1918), finally Japan (Spring 1919). In between he conducted research in
Philadelphia (July–August 1918).
The reason for Dewey’s packed teaching was family finance. A village
boy from a very modest family, Dewey had to borrow $500 from his aunt
to start his graduate study (see my Chapter 2). He started as an assistant
professor in the University of Michigan, was married and raised a family
of six children. When he moved to the University of Chicago, he was
head of two departments and got about $5000 per year. As disclosed by
his biographer:
As late as 1900, the Deweys had no telephone in their home, but relied on
the people in a neighborhood drugstore to relay calls to them. …… When
Frederick, the oldest child, expressed a desire for a bicycle, the proposal
precipitated a “family crisis,” with the family debating the matter long and
hard before deciding to get him one. Since the family could not often
to sign the Treaty of Versailles. Paderewski is a world renowned musician, philanthropist,

nationalist and not as conservative as Dewey described. The American Jews that Dewey
favored had little impact on the independence of Poland. For more information on the
independence of Poland, please read Richard M. Watt (1979) Bitter Glory: Poland & Its
Fate 1918–1939. New York: Hippocrene Books.
280 R. LI
afford the more expensive forms of recreation such as theater, opera, and
concerts, they contented themselves with visits to the several parks and
museums for which Chicago was noted. (Dykhuizen 1973: 107)
The fact was that the Deweys saved up their money for European trips to
enrich the education of their children. Their family finance did improve
when Alice became principal of University College Elementary School and
John became head of two more schools. However, their hasty decision to
quit put them in financial burden again, as the new job in Columbia paid
much similar to Chicago’s but the living expenses in New York were far
much higher. That explained why Dewey was taking up teaching jobs
in Teachers College, giving talks where possible and writing books, all to
contribute more income to the family. Seen in this way, Dewey’s lecturing
trip to Japan was just one more of his lectures which would bring extra
income.
Family Trouble
On the surface, John Dewey had an enviable family: loving and intelligent
wife, smart and adorable children, stable income, respectable status. But
when we look inside, there was always trouble.
The trouble was Alice’s depression. A smart and progressive student
when Dewey met her in his class, she had a troubled past. Her mother
died when she was four and her father died two years later. This child-
hood trauma must have had lasting impact on her life. Brought up by her
grandparents, Alice became a “moody loner,” very much like her grandfa-
ther who was moody, discontented, hypercritical. Depression and negative
thoughts frequently set into disturb her later life.
Apparently, the intellectual stimulation in Michigan eased her depres-
sive mood, so was the marriage and children, but she was always restless
and had a strong urge to travel. She seemed to be troubled by “Ameri-
canitis,” or neurasthenia, a psychotic symptom that was said to have struck
the American middle class in late nineteenth century, William James being
an example (Schultz and Schultz 2008: 184).
The death of their second son Morris in 1895 hit her hard. She lapsed
into depression and wished she were dead. John was patient and took her
to vacation for rest. Before the birth of the third daughter Lucy in 1900,
Alice was severely depressed. After Lucy’s birth, John took care of the
family and Alice travelled to Georgia, Florida and New Orleans with the
eldest daughter Evelyn.
When she got better and took up the position as principal of University
College Elementary School in 1902, she was critical of her teachers and
fired those she thought incompetent. Her clash with President Harper led
to Dewey’s sudden resignation from Chicago in 1904 (see my Chapter 8).
The unintended consequence was that the Deweys took a second trip to
Europe in which they lost their third son Gordon (see my Chapter 10)
“The blow to Mrs. Dewey was so serious that she never fully recovered
her former energy” (Jane Dewey 1939: 35).
It was clear that Alice had a long history of depression and John, as a
faithful husband, had to accommodate and deal with it. His prescription
was “think positive” and “travel cure,” and he would take care of the
children and household chores. A pattern seemed to have developed:
depression → restless → travel → new experience and new challenges

→ signs of improvement → depression again.
In May–June 1918, Alice’s depression seemed to have worsened. She was

travelling to California with John and she wrote to Evelyn, “I have been
through some hard times in my life, but for concentrated dull misery of
a fruitless sort this summer.” She was still troubled by Gordon’s death
and asked a San Francisco sculptor to make a sculpture of Gordon’s face.
When John left California for Philadelphia in July, she sighed on “the
hopelessness of anticipating anything humane for the future.” Then she
wrote to Lucy who was in her final year in New York, “I feel something as
if I died, and was hearing of these things… from another world” (Martin
2002: 309–310).
Family Trip
It appeared that Alice’s depression had loomed to such an immense extent
that the only hope of cure, at least temporarily, was a long trip with
extraordinary and new experience that might divert her attention and
bring her back to normal again. John kept persuading her to take a tour to
Japan and finally she gave her consent. Then she began studying Japanese
art and culture and her mood lifted up a bit.
By gathering the facts and circumstances leading to Dewey’s visit to
the Far East, it was clear that Dewey’s visit to China was not intentional
282 R. LI
nor inevitable. He had no intention visiting China in 1918. His initial

intention was to lecture in Japan and earned some extra income during
his sabbatical leave. Later he was determined on the Japan trip because
he wanted to take his wife for a longer and novel vacation, hoping that it
would somehow help to “cure” her depression. As we shall see, it worked
wonder for her and paved way for their China trip.
A Contingent Trip Extended and Extended

Dewey arrived in Shanghai, China on 30 April 1919 and left on 2
August 1921. It was not a pre-scheduled trip of 26 months. His visit was
extended and further extended. Let’s gather the facts before explaining
why.
Invitation from China

Since America was a long way from Japan, the Deweys had an initial plan
of visiting nearby China for six weeks as tourists before returning to the
US (Martin 2002: 312). The constraint was that Dewey had to be back
to teach in Columbia for the fall semester of 1919. His former Chinese
students, Hu shi and Tao xing-zhi knew about it and Tao wrote to Hu
on 12 March 1919: “Three weeks ago, I heard that Dr. Dewey was in
Japan as an exchange professor with Tokyo Imperial University…… Let’s
invite him to China for sightseeing, or let’s go to Japan to see him……
I talked to Guo and decided that he would go to Japan to invite him”
(Zhang 2001: 299).
On 14 March, Guo bing-wen and Tao lu-gong called on the Deweys in
Tokyo and made the invitation on behalf of the higher institutions from
China. Dewey was positive but asked for local expenses; at that time, he
intended to visit three cities, Guangdong, Nanjing, Beijing, gave talks
and returned to America by September. Guo’s meeting with Dewey was
reported in Peking Daily News on 27 March as Tao’s letter to Hu (Gu
2019: 36). On 28 March, Peking Daily News again published Dewey’s
letter to Hu, confirming his visit “to Shanghai in mid-May.” Dewey
further wrote, “By July it may be too hot; we may go back to Japan
for a few weeks and then back to America” (Gu 2019: 37). The publica-
tion of Dewey’s letter served as an announcement of his impending visit
to China.
From a Few Months to a Whole Year

So the fact was that the Deweys had no fixed plan for China in February.
By March, John accepted an invitation for talks in three cities, and the
route was to start from the south (Guangdong). His plan was to stay
just for a few weeks and returned to Japan in July, then to America in
September.
In the above letter, Dewey added, “I’m also willing to stay for a year
to lecture, subject to the approval from the two universities” (Gu 2019:
38). In other words, he intended to stay for a year but need Columbia’s
approval. Why did Dewey want to stay for a whole year in China?
Again it was Alice. During the trip to Japan, she was attracted to the
novel culture there, describing in every detail what she saw and exclaimed,
“We are having so many interesting experiences and impressions” (Dewey
1920: 7; 11 February 1919).4 She learned to speak Japanese (14 March
1919), attended many social events (20 March 1919) and felt humorous
about Japanese etiquette (27 March 1919). Apparently, her depression
had evaporated. When John was invited to lecture in China, Alice “imme-
diately expressed her desire to accept this plan” (Martin 2002: 312–313).
Apparently “travel cure” worked well for her and John was thus eager
to follow through. By mid-April, Columbia sent in a cablegram and
approved Dewey’s extended leave for his one-year exchange in China. It
added later, to Peking University, the sponsoring body, that Dewey was
on no-paid leave.
Well, Dewey’s Chinese students got a contract for their teacher to
lecture in China for a year. It was from June 1919 to March 1920
(Dykhuisen 1973: 195). Now, they had to solve the problem of financing
the project, plus planning his itinerary and marketing him. Finance was a
major issue. Initially Tao planned that the three parties, Peking Univer-
sity, where Hu taught, Nanking Normal College, where Tao taught, and
Jiangsu Education Association would jointly sponsor Dewey’s salary and
living expenses in China. But the May-fourth movement which started on
4 May 1919 had led to student unrest and Peking University President
Cai yuan-pei resigned on 10 May. Nobody was to follow up the expenses
4 Dewey, J., Dewey, A. C., & Dewey E. (Ed.). (1920). Letters from China and Japan.
Boston: E.P. Dutton & Company.
284 R. LI
of this exchange professorship program with Columbia and Hu was indig-

nated and worried.5 Finally an academic society, Shangzhi Society, came
to rescue and raised enough funds for the project.
Evidence showed that Dewey’s visit to China was a contingent one,
with an initial plan of only a few weeks, next to a few months and then to
a year. As we shall see, it was further extended for another year in April
1920. Many contingent factors were at work in this visit: personal family
interest, Dewey’s Chinese students, Columbia University and financiers.
The visit, with its extension and further extension, was never inevitable.
Zhang bao-gui, a Chinese Deweyan scholar, came up with this speculation
though without giving evidence (Zhang 2001: 18).
A Chronology of Dewey’s China Trip (1919)

Details of Dewey’s China trip have been organized as chronology by
many researchers. Li jie-hua, a Chinese scholar, had created a chronology
in 1985.6 This was followed by Chen wen-bin, who made up another
one in his doctoral dissertation in 2006.7 More importantly, Gu hong-
liang, a Chinese Deweyan scholar with East China Normal University,
published a lengthy collection, Dewey in China: A Chronology in 2019. It
was the author’s extensive collection of available sources and information
on the subject for over 20 years. This scholarly work of 368 pages has
now become an important source of historiography of Dewey in China.
My short chronology below will give a brief account of Dewey’s visit
(Table 11.1).
Meeting Dr. Sun yat-sen

In the first 8 months, Dewey had visited 9 cities and delivered dozens
of lectures, based on the arrangement of his sponsors, Jiangsu Educa-
tion Association in Shanghai, Nanjing Normal College in Nanjing, and
Peking University and Ministry of Education in Beijing. His lectures were
simultaneously translated by his students, Jiang, Tao and Hu in respec-
tive places. In his trip to Japan, Dewey told reporters that he “wanted
5 Gao, S. P. (1984) in Chinese.

6 Li, J. H. (1985) in Chinese.
7 Chen, W. B. (2006) in Chinese.
Table 11.1 Dewey’s China trip, May–December 1919
May The Deweys traveled from Shanghai to Hangzhou, Nanjing and

Tianjin. They visited factories, schools, villages, walked crowded streets
and department stores. In Shanghai, he gave his first talk toJiangsu
Education Association
12th Dewey had a dinner with Dr. Sun yat-sen, ex-president of
Republic of China
18th Dewey gave a lecture series in Nanjing Normal College
from 19 to 26 May
29th The Deweys arrived in Beijing
June 8th Dewey gave his talk in the auditorium of the Ministry of
Education. On that evening he was treated with a welcome
dinner by over 300 celebrities. His talks continued all
through June
July 25th Lucy arrived in Beijing
August 21st Lucy was admitted to hospital for influenza but soon
recovered and was discharged
September 20th Dewey attended the Peking University Class
Commencement Day and was introduced by President Cai.
His lecture series in Peking University was scheduled every
Saturday at 4 pm. It started on 20 September 1919 and
ended by 6 March 1920
21st Another lecture series with the Ministry of Education was
scheduled every Sunday at 9 am. It started on 21
September 1919 and ended by 20 February 1920
October 6th–14th The Deweys visited Taiyuan, the capital city and largest city
of Shanxi province in Northern China. They attended the
5th Congress of National Education Association and Dewey
gave five talks
19th Dewey’s 60th birthday dinner celebration
November 2nd–9th The Deweys visited Shenyang, the capital city and the
largest city of Liaoning province
December 24th–29th The Deweys visited and gave talks in Jinan, the capital city
of Shandong province in Eastern China
very much to talk with Japanese leaders on matters of domestic and inter-
national importance and to report his findings in the New Republic and
Dial ” (Dykhuizen 1973: 187). Same for China. Of interest was that he
met Dr. Sun Yat-sen on 12 May, just days after he set foot on China.
Dewey found out that Sun was a philosopher and that the Chinese people
are pragmatic and action-oriented. Revealed in Dewey’s letter to children,
Ex-President Sun Yat Sen is a philosopher, as I found out last night during
dinner with him. He has written a book, to be published soon, saying that
286 R. LI
the weakness of the Chinese is due to their acceptance of the statement

of an old philosopher, “To know is easy, to act is difficult.” Consequently
they did not like to act and thought it was possible to get a complete
theoretical understanding, while the strength of the Japanese was that they
acted even in ignorance and went ahead and learned by their mistakes;
the Chinese were paralyzed by fear of making a mistake in action. So he
has written a book to prove to his people that action is really easier than
knowledge.8
60th Birthday Celebration in Family Trip

Another interesting event was the celebration of his 60th birthday orga-
nized by his sponsors. In the celebration dinner, President Cai compared
Dewey with Confucius:
…… President Cai toasted on behalf of Peking University, saying that

Dewey’s sixtieth birthday fell that year precisely on the day the rotating
lunar calendar indicated as the birth date of Confucius. The ancient
Chinese culture could be represented by Confucius while the new Western
culture could be represented by Prof. Dewey. There were both differences
and similarities among the ideas of Dewey and Confucius…… Confu-
cius said respect the emperor, Dewey advocated democracy; Confucius
said females were a problem to raise, Dewey advocated equal rights for
men and women; Confucius said transmit not create, Dewey advocated
creativity; These were very different…… I think Confucius’s ideal and
Dewey’s ideas were very similar, which was the evidence of the interfacing
of Chinese and Western culture. However, new interpretation would only
be arose by organizing Chinese old theories with the spirit of Western
experimentation.9
Though treated as a philosopher king with cheering crowds whenever

they went, the Deweys took the China visit as a family trip, combining
sightseeing with work. Lucy, Dewey’s second daughter, had just gradu-
ated from Barnard, and she come to join her parents as a graduation trip.
Her arrival in July eased Alice’s incessant worry about her children, but
8 Dewey, J., Dewey, A. C., & Dewey E. (Ed.). (1920). Letters from China and Japan.
9 Gu, H. L. (2019) in Chinese. President Cai’s speech in Chinese translated here was
based on Keenan, B. (1977). The Dewey Experiment in China: Educational Reform and
Political Power in the Early Republic. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, pp. 10–11.
Table 11.2 Dewey’s China Trip, January–December 1920
January Dewey continued his lectures in Peking University and the Ministry of
Education
31 December–2 January The Deweys visited Tianjin
24 February Evelyn arrived in Beijing
March 5–23 March Dewey delivered three talks on three
contemporary philosophers: James, Bergson,
Russell
31 March Dewey wired Columbia for a further
extension
April 4 April–16 May Dewey was in Nanjing for a lecture series
of 8 hours per week for 6 weeks
June 17 May–30 June The Deweys toured throughout all the
major cities in Jiangsu and Zhejiang
July The Dewey’s stayed in Nanjing in summer. Alice promoted her
September feminism and co-education
October 17 October Dewey was conferred an Honorary Degree
by Peking University
25 October–2 November Dewey gave a series of talks to Hunan
Education Association
November 2 November The Deweys visited Hubei, a landlocked
province in Central China, and gave a few
talks
December 1 December Dewey wrote a confidential report to the
US Embassy entitled Bolshevism in China
then Lucy caught typhoid. As the Deweys had pitifully lost two children
in their previous European trips, you could easily imagine their unspoken
worries. Should Lucy’s illness have deteriorated further or died, it might
have ruined the whole trip. John might have to console Alice and the
trip might have to be abandoned abruptly. This further supports the
thesis that Dewey’s two-year visit is never his pre-scheduled plan. Fortu-
nately, Lucy was admitted to hospital and had a speedy recovery in August
(Table 11.2).
High-spirited
In January and February 1920, Dewey continued his lectures in Peking
University and the Ministry of Education, which ended in early March.
Despite his hectic schedule, Dewey was high-spirited and felt rejuvenated,
beginning to see things in a new angle. In his letter to John Jacob Coss,
a colleague at Columbia, on 13 Jan, he wrote, “Nothing western looks
288 R. LI
quite the same anymore, and this is as near to a renewal of youth as

can be hoped for in this world” (MW12: 285–286). In another letter to
Coss on 7 November, he reflected: “the trip was the most interesting and
intellectually the most profitable thing I’ve ever done” (MW12: 285).
Extending for the Second Year

At that time, the Deweys hadn’t any concrete plan for their second year.
They told their children, “You can never tell, we may decide to go to
India and the vale of cashmir or even Tibet before we return” (Martin
2002: 320). Their eldest daughter Evelyn, now a publisher with Dutton,
had just arrived in Beijing on 24 February. She was offered a job in Peking
University, so was Lucy (ibid.). Alice, like John, was busy lecturing and
promoting feminism in Beijing. The whole family was so much engaged
in Beijing that Dewey wired Columbia for a second year extension on
31 March, as he wanted to assist “in the democratic reform of Chinese
Education” (ibid.: 321). Columbia’s approval came on 21 April (Gu
2019: 187). By then, the Deweys were already in Nanjing for another
series of lectures with Nanjing Normal College. After the lectures, the
Deweys spent six weeks touring through the major cities in Jiangsu and
Zhejiang.
More Talks
In summer, the Deweys were in Nanjing and Alice got a big boost of her
feminism in China. In the summer school of Nanjing Normal College,
co-education was for the first time instituted, and Alice was there to give
lectures, to advise and to give support. Subsequently, she was made an
honorary Dean of Women at Nanjing (Jane Dewey 1939: 41). Back to
Beijing, when John was appointed professor of philosophy and education,
Lucy was appointed professor of history! (Gu 2019: 243).
When fall 1920 set in, Dewey was again teaching in Peking Univer-
sity. On 17 October, he was conferred an Honorary Degree by Peking
University. About the same time, Bertrand Russell, the famed British
philosopher, arrived in China. From 25 October to 4 November, the
Deweys visited Changsha, the capital city of Hunan province, and met
Russell and other renowned Chinese scholars. When John gave talks
organized by Hunan Education Association, Alice was busy promoting
co-education with talks in convent schools (Gu 2019: 260–261). It was
Table 11.3 Dewey’s China Trip, January–July 1921
January Dewey stayed in Beijing, taught at Peking University and wrote a few
articles to The New Republic
March 26 March Russell was admitted to hospital for pneumonia. He
dictated a will to Dewey, who witnessed it by his bed
April 5–22 April The Deweys arrived in Xiamen and gave talks
28 April–9 May The Deweys arrived in Guangdong and gave talks
May 10 May The Deweys returned to Beijing
June 30 June The sponsors gave a farewell party to the Deweys
July 11 July The Deweys left for Shandong
18–23 July Dewey gave his last talks in Jinan before returning to
America
clear that the whole Dewey family were much engaged in different ways
in their second year in China (Table 11.3).
To the South
Dewey’s stay for the last seven months was less eventful. One anec-
dote was that on 26 March he was at the “death” bed of Bertrand
Russell who dictated him a will. (Russell later recovered and left China
in May). Another interesting episode in 1921 was Lucy met her future
husband, Wolfgang Brandauer, an Austrian working in Beijing. The two
got married two years later, again in Beijing but Dewey had already left
(Martin 2002: 216–218).
In April, the Deweys went south to Fujian province. He gave talks in
Xiamen University on 6 April, followed by more talks to other colleges
and schools. By 12 April, they reached Fuzhou where they delivered 23
talks in 10 days! On 23 April, they got on a cruise which took them to
Guangdong province on 28 April. There the Deweys met scholars, politi-
cians and government officials. He was welcomed by Chen jiong-ming,
the warlord and head of Guangdong province. The Deweys continued to
deliver talks there for more than a week and returned to Beijing on 10
May.
On 30 June, the sponsors gave a farewell party to the Deweys, who
left for Shandong on 11 July, and gave more talks in Jinan before leaving
for America via Japan on 2 August 1921. Summarizing Dewey’s visit to
China, Hu observed:
290 R. LI
We can say that, there was never a foreign scholar like Dewey who had such
a significant impact among the Chinese intellectuals since the interfacing of
Chinese and Western culture. We can also say that, in the next few decades,
there would hardly be another Western scholar affecting China as much as
Dewey did…… His influence will continue forever, with more growth and
fruitful future. Dewey loves China and the Chinese people. In these two
years, he was not only the mentor and friend of the Chinese, but also our
interpreter and defender.10
Promoting American Diplomacy

Dewey Promoting American Democracy and Values
When Dewey was speaking on democracy and education in China he was
elaborating his own philosophy as much as promoting American values.
When he sided with China against the Treaty of Versailles and denounced
Japanese aggression in Shandong, he might have been unknowingly
promoting American diplomacy in China.
A year after John Dewey set foot on China, his impact on diplomacy
and education was being felt. On 29 May 1920, in a farewell dinner in
Shanghai, Dewey’s interpreter Guo bing-wen praised Dewey:
“In foreign policy, the Americans get more information on China from
Dewey and form a correct public opinion; in education, Dewey is like
soothing rain after drought.” Dewey thanked his sponsors by pointing
to “the similar spirit of self-help and solidarity between the Chinese and
Americans.” (Gu 2019: 207–208).
In another note of thanks at a farewell dinner on 30 October 1920 in

Hunan, Dewey repeated his role of a goodwill ambassador:
The diplomatic relations between the two republics on both sides of the
Pacific could be symbolized by the two national flags. Last time when the
American ambassador visited China, he was instructed by President Wilson
to offer our best support to the Chinese people. Americans in China, in
whatever capacities, are willing to assist the Chinese people regardless of
their own interest.11 (Gu 2019: 266)
10 Hu, S. (2003) in Chinese.

11 Takungpao (1920) in Chinese.
Dewey as an Informant
But Dewey was more than a goodwill ambassador. He also served as an
informant. Note that Bolshevism in China was on the rise, especially when
Russia relinquished its territorial claims and rights in China in April 1920.
Now in China, America and Russia were cautiously seen as “friends” while
Japan and Britain were bitterly seen as “foes.” Some time in late 1920, the
US Embassy handed a cablegram to Dewey. It was from a Colonel Drys-
dale from the office of Military Intelligence. “With the unrest in China
and the instability of the government, the office now wanted information
about the possibility of a Communist revolution in China” (Martin 2002:
321).
Dewey was a liberalist and was against communism all his life. He
personally knew many young socialists but noted, “They are practically all
socialists, and some call themselves communists. Many think the Russian
revolution a very fine thing. …the whole social and economic back-
ground of Bolshevism as a practical going concern is lacking” (ibid.:
321). Dewey’s confidential report was sent to Washington on 2 December
1920.12
Role of US Government
That the US government actively promoted democracy and diplomacy in
China during and after the First World War had been studied by histo-
rians. Hans Schmidt (1998) showed that the US government, through its
Committee on Public Information (CPI)’s foreign section, had promoted
US democracy to China by creating Wilson as a “super-hero” and capital-
izing on China’s positive attitude with America. They were also gathering
information on the May-fourth movement and the subsequent change
of political views among Chinese radicals. No doubt John Dewey’s pres-
ence in China was beneficial to the American government in promoting
US diplomacy and in getting first-hand intelligence. As noted in Colonel
Drysdale’s forward on Dewey’s report, “Dr. Dewey…… has had unusual
opportunity of getting into touch with the element in China that maybe
considered as radical. I know of no one any where, better qualified to
report on this important matter than Dr. Dewey” (MW12: 287).
12 For details, please see Middle Works (MW12: 254).

292 R. LI
The Red Scare Thesis

More recently, Peng shan-shan (2018) of Chinese Academy of Social
Sciences proposed an intriguing thesis: the October Revolution of 1917
in Russia had led to the Red Scare in the US which had led to Dewey’s
prolonged stay in China in 1920. According to Peng, “The New Republic
was classified as a revolutionary magazine, and John Dewey was identified
as the person ‘most dangerous to young people’…… At the peak of the
Red Scare in February, Hu shi warned Dewey that he would be expelled if
he returned to the US…… Accordingly, Dewey decided to stay in China.
The Red Scare is the main reason why he described living in America as
unattractive” (Peng 2018: 71).
It is hard to confirm the above speculation. So far I have not come
across evidence of Hu shi warning Dewey. Instead, Hu begged Dewey to
stay for the modernization of China’s university in teacher training and
curriculum. In his correspondence to John Coss on 22 April 1920, Dewey
disclosed:
Hu shi and a few others are very anxious to modernize the university, and
to do [this] means not only getting teachers but material in shape. He is
anxious to have me give a course in the interpretation of the history of
western philosophy, which can become for a while a kind of standard basis
for that subject.13
Dewey also unveiled his work of condensed lectures, the intense political
atmosphere among students, and his decision to stay for another year:
I have decided to stay over here and teach another year… to try to clinch
whatever may have got started this year… The students are on strike again
as a protest [against] the Government’s dealings with Japan, but they have
excepted (expected) my lectures. I’m lecturing… 8 hours a week alto-
gether, but the interpretation has to come out of the time, so it is rather
a lesson in selection, condensation and illustration. (MW12: 286)
Dewey was a public figure in China and America in 1920. He was a

respectable scholar symbolizing American values and culture. Publicly,
he was well-received in his lecture tour throughout China, serving as
13 Quoted from Dykhuizen (1973: 197). Original source in Butler Library, Dewey to
Coss, 22 April 1920.
America’s goodwill ambassador. Privately, he was an informant to the

Office of Military Intelligence of US State Department. Personally, he
had many faithful Chinese disciples from whom he learned much about
China. He was excited to witness the birth of a new nation but was
deeply moved of the demise China was facing and what the students were
fighting for. For a whole year, he had met numerous students and intel-
lectuals who were generally very positive to his ideas. On the family side,
Dewey and Alice, Lucy and Evelyn were all enjoying their trip in China
in March 1920. When John was busy planning and delivering his lectures
on three contemporary philosophers, Alice was busy promoting feminism
and helping students to further their studies in America. One event was
she had a social gathering with nine female undergraduates of Peking
University on March 14 (Gu 2019: 176). Lucy was helping her mother all
through and she was invited to talk about American culture and history.
When Evelyn arrived in Beijing, she had ambitious publishing plans on
China. The first was her parents’ Letters from China and Japan, already
prefaced for publication in January 1920. With all these facts and circum-
stances taken together, it was more likely that Dewey extended his visit
because he enjoyed his responsibility of contributing to the moderniza-
tion of China through his talks. It was unlikely that Dewey extended his
second year stay because of the Red Scare. It was just unthinkable that he
would be expelled from the US in case he decided to return.
Dewey’s Chinese Disciples

The Young Chinese Intelligentsia
Few Chinese people spoke English in the 1910s and they had to rely
on translation for Dewey’s lectures. These were performed dutifully by
Dewey’s Chinese disciples, who studied under him in Columbia just a few
years before he visited China. In fact, Dewey’s tour was an orchestrated
effort among his Chinese students, each working in different locations
with different emphasis in a coordinated fashion. Their goal: to promote
Dewey’s thoughts wherever he went.
These disciples had a few things in common. First they were the young
emerging Chinese intelligentsia since the founding of the new republic in
1911. Second, they all studied and graduated in Columbia in the first
and second decade of the new century. Third they were all Dewey’s
faithful disciples who tried to apply his ideas for the improvement of
294 R. LI
China, in political, social, cultural or educational domains. Not only were

they major organizers and interpreters of Dewey’s visits, but they became
renowned Chinese intellectuals and educators of the first half of twen-
tieth century, and many left their marks on modern Chinese intellectual
history.
Promoters and Translators

Hu shi (1891–1962)
Hu shi was among the most enthusiastic promoters of Dewey’s thoughts.
Hu went to America in 1910. First he studied in Cornell, but having
heard of Dewey, transferred to Columbia in 1915. Two years later he
returned to China, taught at Peking University and proposed a literary
reform, which later spread into a new cultural movement. He had
close personal contact with Dewey and made an invitation of visiting
professorship to Dewey on behalf of Peking University.
Before Dewey’s arrival in May 1919, Hu had written articles to
introduce pragmatism and Dewey. To make sure the Chinese audience
could understand Dewey’s ideas, Hu gave many introductory talks before
Dewey’s actual lectures. Then in the actual lectures, Hu became the
star translator and official interpreter. Before each lecture, Dewey had
prepared a lecture outline in English, which Hu read, translated and
distributed. It had made Dewey’s complicated ideas and monotonous
tone more intelligible. When most Chinese audience were eager to learn
new ideas but failed to understand Dewey’s English, they were attracted
by the young, handsome interpreter and his vivid and eloquent transla-
tion (Yuan 2001: 227). According to a doctoral dissertation, Hu served
as translator in 26 lecture series of over 80 talks, most of which were
held in Beijing in 1919 (Chen 2006: 19–20). Thanks to Hu’s transla-
tion and follow-up publications, Dewey’s complicated ideas were able to
popularize in China.
Jiang meng-lin (1886–1964)

To start his first lecture in Shanghai for Jiangsu Education Association on
3 May 1919, Dewey was escorted and translated by Jiang, who studied
in the US from 1908 to 1917, earning his PhD in Columbia. Upon
return to China, Jiang started in Shanghai, formed The New Education
Society and published a new journal entitled New Education. Through
the journal, Jiang wrote and promoted Dewey’s ideas, devoting a special
issue on John Dewey (vol. 1, no. 3). Soon Jiang was recruited as a
professor with the Education Faculty of Peking University and assisted
the university president in daily administration.
Guo, Tao and the Columbia Alumni

The third sponsor was from Nanjing. When the Deweys paid their first
visit to Nanjing (18–26 May 1919), they were welcomed by Guo bing-
wen, President of Nanjing Normal College. Guo earned his PhD in
Columbia in 1915 and joined Nanjing Normal College with a vision of
building the foremost Teachers College in China. In a matter of years,
he hired Tao xing-zhi, Zheng xiao-cang, Chen he-qin, all graduates of
Teachers College of Columbia. Another PhD from Northwest University,
Liu bo-ming, was also recruited (his wife was a graduate of Columbia).
By the time Dewey visited China, Nanjing Normal College had become
the center of educational innovation in China, somewhat like a Columbia
Alumni Club. In his first visit to Nanjing Normal College in May 1919,
Dewey’s lectures were translated by Tao. In his second visit in April to
June the following year, the translation was done by Liu, who also served
as Dewey’s tourist guide all through Jiangsu and Zhejiang (Yuan 2001:
186–187).
Zhang bo-ling (1876–1951)

On 29 July 1919, the Deweys made a short trip to Tianjin and they were
welcomed by Zhang bo-ling, a renowned educator who founded Nankai
College, which later became Nankai University. Zhang had also studied
in Columbia in 1917–1918 and he served as translator to Dewey’s talk
on The Teaching of Scientific Method (Gu 2019: 96).
Different Themes
Dewey gave different talks on different locations for different themes.
In his first talk in Shanghai, Dewey gave an overview of his Democ-
racy and Education. When he went south to Nanjing, he talked almost
exclusively on education: education and experience, education and evolu-
tion, the educators’ calling, trends in education, education and society,
etc. In Tianjin, he talked about the scientific method. When he lectured
in Peking University and the Ministry of Education, his talks varied,
including topics on social and political philosophy (16 lectures), philos-
ophy and education (16 lectures), ethics (15 lectures), and types of
296 R. LI
Table 11.4 Dewey’s lectures and translators (1919)
Time Location Sponsors Translators Major themes
May 1919 Shanghai Jiangsu Jiang meng-lin Democracy and

Education education
Association
May–June 1919 Nanjing Nanjing Normal Tao xing-zhi Education
College
June–December Beijing Peking University, Hu shi Social and
1919 Ministry of political
Education philosophy, ethics,
education
July 1919 Tianjin Nankai College Zhang bo-ling Scientific method
6–14 October Taiyuan 5th Congress of Hu shi Education reform
National
Education
Association
thinking (8 lectures). Upon the audience’s request, he even gave a critique

on the three contemporary philosophers: William James, Henri Bergson
and Bertrand Russell (3 lectures, March 1920). When Dewey visited
Taiyuan on the 5th Congress of National Education Society in October
1919, his talks were on education reform. Below is a summary of Dewey’s
major lectures and translators in 1919 (Table 11.4).
Interpreter or Misinterpreted?
Hu Interpreting Dewey
When Hu became the “official interpreter” of Dewey in China, questions
arise as to whether Hu had faithfully interpreted Dewey’s ideas. Yuan
qing, in his dissertation, argued that Hu was Dewey’s loyal disciple and
had promoted Dewey’s ideas all his life (2001: Chapter 5). However,
Cecile Dockser, another researcher, pointed to the difference between
Hu and Dewey. When Hu advocated wholesome westernization for
Chinese culture, Dewey believed in cultural integration. Hu saw experi-
ence as “responsive behavior” but Dewey saw it as “creative intelligence”
(Dockser 1983: 43). In her dissertation, Dockser contrasted the two:
Dewey is flexible; Hu is rigid. Hu is a determinist —— his view of the

natural universe is social Darwinian and mechanistic; Dewey’s universe is
open and free. Hu’s conception of democracy is elitist; Dewey’s is egal-

itarian. Dewey’s politics are radical; Hu is a political conservative. Hu
rejects the Chinese past and embraces the west totalistically; Dewey believes
in wedding traditional values to contemporary realities. Hu is a cultural
reformer; Dewey is concerned with institutional, particularly economic,
change as well. Dewey’s dread of having his ideas hardened into dogma
is such that he avoids devising specific programs for the United States.
But Hu transforms Dewey’s ideas into an ideology for the New Culture
moment in China. (Dockser 1983: 101–102)
There is no doubt that the two scholars are different, one Chinese
and one American, each imbued with different cultures and faced with
different historical problems. It could surely be interpreted that Hu
promoted Dewey for his own ends of cultural reform in China (Zhang
2001: 24). However, it was not his own ends, but a shared vision of
promoting science and democracy in modern China which had slowly
emerged among the progressive Chinese intelligentsia. Surely Dewey was
representing this western thought and a group of young Chinese intel-
ligentsia was consciously promoting him. Seen in this way, the subtle
difference between Hu and Dewey’s ideas becomes academic.
Dewey, Hu and Mao

Dewey’s impact on the young Chinese intelligentsia was all-pervasive.
Even Mao ze-dong (1896–1976), the future leader of Chinese Commu-
nist Party, had been influenced by Dewey and his student Hu shi. In early
1919, Mao was working in the university library of Peking University
but he had returned to Hunan in April. There he started Xiang Jiang
Commentary, a progressive magazine, in which an article appeared on
Dewey (Gu 2019: 94). Mao urged for the study of problems in China.
Around that time, Hu had argued for “more study on problems and less
discussion on –isms.”14 Mao responded by setting up “Society for the
Study of Problems” in Changsha. Mao continued to support Hu’s ideas in
the earlier 1920s when he began to shift to Marxism. It was reported that
he was among the audience in Dewey’s talk in Shanghai in May 1920.15
In October 1920, he covered Dewey’s talk in Hunan as a correspondent

15 Tian Xia Shao Shan Website. (2009).
298 R. LI
to Da Gong Post (Gu 2019: 264). Among the many –isms gaining popu-
larity in China, Mao particularly focused on the study of pragmatism,
nihilism and socialism.
Popularization of Dewey’s Ideas

The Most Popular American in China
During the Second World War in late 1942, Dewey wrote to the people
of China:
Your country and my country, China and the United States, are alike in
being countries that love peace and have no designs on other nations. We
are alike in having been attacked without reason and without warning by
a rapacious and treacherous enemy. We are alike, your country and mine,
in having a common end in this war we have been forced to enter in order
to preserve our independence and freedom.
……We are now comrades in a common fight and in defending
ourselves, all our energies are pledged to your defense and your
triumph……the United States and China will win against Japan…… You
have won the undying respect and admiration of all nations that care
for freedom…… The coming victory will restore to China her old and
proper leadership in all that makes for the development of the human
spirit. (LW15: 369–370)
His message was printed on thousands of leaflets scattered all over China
by US warplanes. At that time, China and America were allies fighting
against the Japanese; this wartime operation was strong evidence that the
US government considered Dewey a most popular American in China.
And so was he. His ideas were popularized in China during and after
his visit, thanks to his students and “grand-students” (students’ students).
He once remarked to the members of Youth Society Magazine in Nanjing
in April 1920, “I admire your determination and effort for social reform.
I’m flattered to have you as my grand-students” (Gu 2019: 186). In other
words, Dewey was aware that his ideas were spreading rapidly in China.
Popularization of Ideas
But what part of Dewey’s ideas were spreading? Dewey’s scope of work
ranges from education, psychology, social and political philosophy, general
philosophy, ethics, etc. His main ideas were: education, democracy,

science, reflective thinking (How We Think), pragmatism, logic, method,
morality, impulse and human nature. Some of his ideas were spreading
while others did not. Why? We are back to the inevitability question again:
Is the popularization of Dewey’s ideas in China inevitable?
In his doctoral dissertation entitled Dewey and China in 2001, Yuan
provided a list of 31 journal articles written on and about Dewey from
1919 to 1929, in addition to another list of Dewey’s published lectures,
excerpts, interviews, reports and translated works (Yuan 2001: 117–125).
Moreover, he mentioned about a “Dewey heat” in education (ibid.: 171).
It was clear Dewey’s ideas were spreading successfully in education, prag-
matism, philosophic method, but not so much in psychology and political
philosophy or democracy.
Education
Remember Nanjing Normal College became a Columbia Alumni Club,
where Dewey’s disciples practiced and spread his educational ideas? As
early as 1918, Tao was promoting Dewey’s education in his writing Prag-
matism in Education (Yuan 2001: 173). Dewey’s basic texts in education
were subsequently translated and his Democracy and Education became
a standard text in schools of education (Yuan 2001: 173–175). More
importantly Tao extended Dewey’s educational ideas in rural areas in the
1920s and 1930s, to eradicate illiteracy and to institute social reform.
While this was subsequently suppressed by the warlands and the govern-
ment, it nonetheless demonstrated the power of ideas, from Dewey to
Tao and then from Tao to rural China. In early childhood education,
Chen he-qin pioneered in child study in China, somewhat similar to what
Dewey’s disciple Lucy Mitchell did in the USA (see my Chapter 12). As
for the reform of the school grade system, project method, individualized
instruction and so forth, these progressive ideas forefathered by Dewey
were imported to China from America in the 1920s and 1930s. Dewey’s
educational ideas and principles had spread far and wide.
Philosophic Method
Dewey is basically a philosopher and his philosophic method is inquiry
and criticism. His student Hu shi summarized his philosophic method as
pragmatism in two steps:
300 R. LI
1. Historical Method – He never takes a theory or system as some-

thing independent, but sees it as a process: in the start, there is a
cause; in the end, there is a consequence. This is a revolutionary
method because he tries to evaluate the value of the theories or
systems by consequences. It is fair and powerful. This critical spirit
is an important weapon in academic pursuit.
2. Experimental Method—(a) to start from fact and real situation. (b)
all theories, ideals, knowledge are presumptive. (c) all theories and
ideals should be validated by action. Experimentation is the acid test
of truth.
A specific idea has its limits in application, but a method has no
limits. While Prof. Dewey has left us, his method will gain more
disciples in the future.16
In fact, Hu was applying this method in the study of Chinese philosophy

to earn his PhD. All through his life, he was studying and reassessing
Chinese classics. He and a whole generation of Chinese scholars had
begun reassessing Chinese culture with a Deweyan eye, in Chinese liter-
ature, Chinese history and Chinese philosophy. Dewey’s impact on the
post May-fourth scholars in their evaluation of traditional Chinese classics
had been phenomenal.
Political Philosophy
In social and political philosophy, Dewey’s impact was complex and
mixed. Let me start with democracy, Dewey’s core concept which forms
his signature title, Democracy and Education. Related to it is the concept
of science. Democracy is in fact a novel concept to traditional Chinese
culture. In Chinese political history, people were ruled by emperors and
nobilities and there was hardly any concept of “ruled by the people.”
So was the idea of science and experimentation. While these two novel
concepts had been introduced to China much earlier in the nineteenth
century, they were never taken that seriously until China faced unprece-
dented chaos in the early twentieth century. In 1915, Chen du-xiu, a
progressive intellectual, started his influential progressive journal The New
Youth. In it, he emphasized these two concepts as the most important
weapon to rescue China. He called them Mr. D and Mr. S. Chen gave a

phonological translation as Mr. Demokelaxi (democracy) and Mr. Saiyinsi

(science). To elaborate further, he explained them as human rights and
science. Obviously the concepts of democracy and science were not intro-
duced by Dewey, but a researcher highlighted Dewey’s image as “Mr.
Science” and “Mr. Democracy” (Wang 2007: 15–17). Apparently, the
translation of the term “science” was based on knowledge disciplines,
such as science, philosophy, maths, physics, which was less problematic,
but for democracy, there was no agreement to its translation. Throughout
Dewey’s visit, democracy had been translated as Min Zhi Zhu Yi, Min Ben
Zhu Yi, Min Zhu Zhu Yi. A consensus slowly emerged in the 1930s and
Min Zhu Zhu Yi prevailed.
Dewey’s democracy is American democracy with political institutions,
systems, rules and culture. His version is participatory democracy and he
had been involved in third party politics to improve the system. But these
conditions were all lacking in China. As it turned out, China moved
on the direction of communism while rejecting American democracy.
Dewey’s political ideas were never popularized in China, even up to today.
Reasons Underlying Popularization

We have seen that subsequent to Dewey’s China visit, part of his ideas
(education and philosophic method) were popularized but other parts
(political philosophy and democracy) were not. Apparently, the reasons
lie in the context of Chinese intellectual history than Dewey himself. My
initial examination shows that Dewey’s education and philosophic method
provide good answers to Chinese intellectual needs but his political
philosophy does not.
In education, the Chinese had a long tradition of high respect for
education and the intelligentsia, as evidenced in Confucius being seen
as the “greatest teacher in all ages” in Chinese history. That Dewey was
seen as the coming of the second Confucius was not at all a joke. It
was an unparalleled respect ever given to any Western scholar. When
subsequently Dewey’s educational ideas flourished in China in the 1920s
and 1930s, it was due much to the work of Dewey’s disciples as to this
Chinese mentality on education, which was seen as a cultural match (Yang
and Li 2019). The Chinese respect to education continues up to today.
On the other hand, Dewey’s ideas on education had gained popularity
in the first half of the twentieth century all over the world. Thus, it was
302 R. LI
just natural that his ideas gained support in China as much as it did in
America, even in Britain and Turkey.
In philosophic method, Hu was applying Dewey’s method of inquiry
and criticism to Chinese classics. He was not alone. The young Chinese
intellectuals believed the demise of the defunct and obsolete Chinese
culture had hindered China’s modernization. Figuratively, Chen du-xiu
had proposed “to demolish the Confucius House.” On the one hand,
the Chinese intellectuals had to dismantle the Chinese culture; on the
other hand, they had to import new ideas from the West. In the process,
Western tools such as Dewey’s philosophic method were employed to
reassess Chinese culture, history and philosophy. Research and publica-
tions along this line flourished in the 1920s and 1930s. There was no
doubt that Dewey’s visit and his students, Hu in particular, had helped
to spread his method of inquiry in the academic field.
As for political philosophy, the political situation in China in the early
twentieth century was entirely different from that of America. What China
as a nation faced was a problem of survival, of foreign aggression, of polit-
ical continuity. America at that time was reaching out to the world with
its Wilsonian idealism, and slowly emerging as a dominant world power.
It was not realistic to import the American political system to China and
Dewey’s political philosophy, such as his participatory democracy, looked
irrelevant to China. Dewey could not provide quick-fix to any of the
pressing political problems in China. On the other hand, Marxism, with
its extreme form in Bolshevism, was seen as an answer. The Russian revo-
lution offered a model for the Chinese intellectuals to emulate. Dewey
was aware of this and remarked that the students were “much inclined
to new ideas, and to projects of social and economic change…… they
are practically all Socialists, and some call themselves Communists. Many
think the Russian revolution a very fine thing” (MW12: 253–254). In
another letter to Barnes in September 1920, Dewey wrote:
The whole temper among the younger generation is revolutionary, they

are so sick of their old institutions that they assume any change will be for
the better——the more extreme and complete the change, the better. And
they seem to me to have little idea of the difficulties in the way of any
constructive change. (Martin 2002: 323)
Not surprisingly, the Chinese political atmosphere inspired the growth

of Marxism and the subsequent formation of the Chinese Communist
Party in July 1921, the time when Dewey left China. Dewey’s political
philosophy left little mark on China, saved a few loyal disciples such as
Hu, Tao, Jiang.
Inevitability Thesis
Finally, we are back to the inevitability thesis. Having briefly examined the
related issues of Chinese intellectual history of early twentieth century, I
come to the following tentative conclusion. It is inevitable that some of
Dewey’s ideas were popularized while some were not. Dewey’s disciples
served only as human agents acting to popularizing them. Even without
them, or even without his China visit, Dewey’s ideas in education would
be popularized in the first half of twentieth century, as it did in the US,
in UK and other parts of the world. It is a global trend which looks
inevitable. The popularization of his method of inquiry, pioneered by
Hu, was also inevitable for it was the trend of the Chinese intellectuals to
reassess Chinese culture by Western method. Finally, the “depopulariza-
tion” of Dewey’s political philosophy is also inevitable because it did not
meet the urgent political needs of China of the times. Here Dewey lost
to Marx, despite Dewey’s living visit to China and his frequent updated
commentary, sympathy and involvement in Chinese politics.
The Purge and Resurrection of Dewey’s Ideas

Ideology Dictates Purge
Dewey had a good political sense. When the Chinese Communist Party
took over China in 1949, Dewey immediately predicted what would
happen to his ideas: “Now that they are Bolshevized, my name will be
mud——the philosopher of imperialistic bourgeois capitalism” (Martin
2002: 327). The purge of Dewey’s ideas started in the 1950s. Initially,
it was mild: Dewey was criticized by critical views quoted from his
colleagues such as Sidney Hook, Harold Rugg, Boyd Bode and Isaac
Kandel. In 1954–1955, coincidentally after Dewey’s death in 1952, a
“purge movement” started on Tao and then Hu. The attack on Hu
had reached a word count of three million, calling Hu a “corrupted
Chinese Dewey.” A notable Dewey disciple, Chen he-qin, was forced to
make a public confession, calling Dewey “the biggest crook in education
304 R. LI
history.”17 No educators dare to talk about Dewey from 1950 to 1978,

except for those ordered to purge him.
Resurrection Since 1980

It appears to me that the purge and resurrection of Dewey’s ideas were
both inevitable. Dewey was purged because his students Hu and Tao had
had significant influence in China. Hu openly opposed to communism
all his life, same as Dewey did, and fled to Taiwan and then America in
1949. Tao’s ideas did not strictly follow the official orthodoxy and was
subsequently purged. Fortunately he died in 1946 before the communists
took power. All social science disciplines were seen as bourgeois ideology
and it was just logical and inevitable that Dewey’s ideas would be purged
together with other “bourgeois” social science disciplines.
When China opened her door again in 1978, censorship on academic
ideas began to ease and many Western ideas and disciplines were studied.
Dewey was slowly resurrected and books and dissertations on him
appeared. The Dewey Centre in Fudan University was established in
2004; his Collected Works were all translated by 2016. His Selected Works
were published in 2017. The Chinese Society for Taoxingzhi Studies
has been formed in 1985 to study Tao’s educational ideas. Hu was also
resurrected and reassessed more fairly. Such change looks sensible, even
inevitable, as China begins to join the global community and is more
receptive to academic ideas, old and new. If a school is a miniature of
society, Dewey in China and its subsequent development can be looked
upon as a miniature of China’s intellectual history.
Further Readings
My research on Dewey in China shows that the topic has attracted quite
a number of doctoral dissertations, partly because it is a unique event in
modern intellectual history of China and the West. And more Chinese
scholars than Americans were interested in the issue. Some were written
in English while others in Chinese.

1. Dewey, J., Dewey, A. C., & Dewey E. (Eds.). (1920). Letters from
China and Japan. Boston: E.P. Dutton & Company.
This is the original source of the Deweys’ impression on Japan
and China. Their letters to their children, which covered the period
from February to August 1919, were collected and edited by their
daughter Evelyn and published by EP Dutton & Company.
2. Dockser, C. B. (1983). John Dewey and the May Fourth Move-
ment in China: Dewey’s Social and Political Philosophy in Relation to
His Encounter with China, 1919–1921. Ann Arbor, MI: University
Microfilms International.
Cecile Dockser studied in Harvard and finished her disserta-
tion in 1983. She reviewed Dewey’s visit to China and examined
Dewey’s disciples, with a critical comparison between Hu shi and
Tao xing-zhi. She was among the earliest to discover Dewey’s special
emotional attachment to China and “immersion in Chinese culture”
(p. 177), plus how China had “stimulated Dewey to rethink his
western presuppositions” (p. 178).
3. Keenan, B. (1977). The Dewey Experiment in China: Educational
Reform and Political Power in the Early Republic. Cambridge:
Harvard University Press.
A pioneering study on the topic, Barry Keenan began his study in
Claremont Graduate School in the 1960s. In writing his dissertation
Keenan had informative interviews with Lucy, Dewey’s daughter
who was on the trip with her parents. He had also gained much
first-hand information and ideas from related Chinese scholars of
the period, notion Dr. Ou tsuin-chen and Prof. Chow tse-tsung.
4. Wang, C. S. (2007). John Dewey in China: To Teach and To Learn.
Albany: State University of New York Press.
In her doctoral dissertation, Jessica Wang proposed an interesting
notion: China was learning from Dewey as much as Dewey was
learning from China. No doubt Dewey learned much about China
during his visit and from his disciples who had studied with him in
America. In the two-year-period, “Dewey was both a spectator and
a player” (p. 5). Wang discovered that Dewey’s China experience
had shaped his political philosophy, such as expanding the concept
of the state with the idea of the public (pp. 101–102), and seeing
democracy as a form of culture in community life rather than just a
form of government (p. 112).
306 R. LI
5. Yang, J. Z. (2016). When Confucius “Encounters” John Dewey: A

Historical and Philosophical Analysis of Dewey’s Visit to China.
Yang studied in University of Oklahoma and wrote this doctoral
dissertation in 2016. He studied the educational encounters
between Dewey and the five Chinese scholars (Hu shih, Liang
shuming, Tao xingzhi, Guo bingwen, and Jiang menglin). In a theo-
retical framework of educational theory of encounter by Jane Roland
Martin, Yang employed Martin’s notion of “double-entry cultural
bookkeeping,” “cultural asset” and “cultural liabitlity,” and discov-
ered that “Dewey’s Chinese students tried to adopt, transfer and
apply Dewey’s pragmatism into Chinese reality mostly because they
were eager to find a ‘miraculous medicine’ that would supposedly
cure any ill within Chinese society” (Yang 2016: Abstract).
6. Chen, Wen-bin (2006). John Dewey’s Lectures in China: How
Chinese Intellectuals Respond to It. Doctoral Dissertation, Depart-
ment of History. Fudan University, Shanghai (in Chinese).
This is Chen’s doctoral dissertation in History with Fudan
University, Shanghai in 2006. After reviewing numerous historical
data, Chen found that there were a lot of historical facts to be clari-
fied. He also focused on the responses and the changing attitudes of
the intellectual circles through analyzing over Dewey’s 200 lectures
at that time.
7. Gu, Hong-liang. (2019). Dewey in China: A Chronology. Shanghai:
East China Normal University Press (in Chinese).
Gu is a professor of philosophy in East China Normal Univer-
sity. He amassed abundant data on the subject for over 20 years and
compiled this book, which gives detailed information on Dewey’s
visits to China. This 368-page book has now become the most
important resource of Dewey’s chronology in China.
8. Yuan, Qing (2001). Dewey and China. Beijing: People’s Press (in
Chinese).
Yuan graduated from the Faculty of History in Nankai University,
Tianjin, specializing in contemporary history of eastern and western
cultures. His doctoral dissertation, Dewey and China, analyses the
changes of the intellectual atmosphere and attitude before and after
the visit of Dewey during the May-fourth Movement.
9. Zhang, Bao-gui (2001). Dewey and China. Shijiazhuang: Hebei
People’s Press (in Chinese).
Zhang studies Dewey’s aesthetics. His Dewey and China briefly

and concisely covers the visit of Dewey to China, Dewey’s most
prominent talks in China, as well as the views of the Chinese
intellectuals on Dewey.
References
Dewey, J. (1939). Biography of John Dewey. In P. A. Schilpp (Ed.), The
Philosophy of John Dewey (p. 10). New York: Tudor Publishing Company.
Dockser, C. B. (1983). John Dewey and the May Fourth Movement in China:
Dewey’s Social and Political Philosophy in Relation to His Encounter with
China, 1919–1921. Ann Arbor, MI: University Microfilms International.
Peng, S. S. (2018). A Journey to Mars: John Dewey’s Lectures and Inquiry in
China. Journal of Modern Chinese History, 12(1), 63–81.
Schmidt, H. (1998). Democracy for China: American Propaganda and May
Fourth Movement. Diplomatic History, 22(1), 1–28.
Wang, C. S. (2007). John Dewey in China: To Teach and To Learn. Albany: State
Chinese References
Chen, W. B. (2006) in Chinese:
陳文彬 (2006)。五四時期杜威來華講學與中國知識界的反應。復旦大學博士論文,
歷史學系,116–124頁。
Dewey, J. (2001) in Chinese:
杜威 (2001)。杜威談中國。杭州:浙江文藝出版社。
Gao, P. S. (Ed.). (1984) in Chinese:
高平叔(編) (1984)。胡適致蔡元培函(1922年6月22日),蔡元培全集(第三卷)
(1917 –1920),北京:中華書局。第305頁。
Gu, H. L. (2019) in Chinese:
顧紅亮 (2019)。杜威在華學譜。上海:華東師範大學出版社。
Hu, S. (1919) in Chinese:
胡適 (1919年7月20日) 多研究些問題,少談些「主義」。《每週評論》 ,第31號。
308 R. LI
胡適 (1921)。杜威先生與中國。《東方雜誌》 ,第18期13號。

1959年7月16日胡適在夏威夷大學所作的英文演講,夏道平譯文載1959年8月16日
《自由中國》第21卷第4期。
胡適 (2003)。胡適全集(第一卷)。合肥:安徽教育出版社。
Li, J. H. (1985) in Chinese:
黎侫華 (1985)。杜威在華活動年表。華東師範大學學報,第一至三期。
Takungpao. (1920) in Chinese:
《各公團歡迎名人記》 ,湖南《大公報》 1920年10月31日.
Tian Xia Shao Shan Website. (2009) in Chinese:
天下韶山網 (2009)。淺析杜威實用主義哲學對毛澤東的影響。2019年8月20
日:http://www.txssw.com/newswrmzd/maozedongxingjiulunwenku/13558.
htm.
Yang, Y., & Li, J. P. (2019) in Chinese:
楊旭,李劍萍(2019)。文化契合性:杜威教育理論在中國傳播流行的深層原因。《教育
科學研究》 ,第3期。
Yuan, Q. (2001) in Chinese:
元青 (2001)。杜威與中國。北京:人民出版社。
Zhang, B. G. (2001) in Chinese:
張寶貴 (2001)。杜威與中國。石家莊市:河北人民出版社。
CHAPTER 12
John Dewey and Progressive Education
Introduction
Dewey Reads Science Fiction
Imagine you were bookish John Dewey, a graduate-turned-professor from
Vermont (1875–1879) to Michigan (1884–1894). What leisure reading
would you do? The answer is important for it might reflect Dewey’s
personal interest as much as the social ethos of his times. Needless to
say, the ideas from leisure reading might have crept into ones thinking.
You may be astonished that Dewey read science fiction. Looking Back-
ward: 2000–1887 was a science fiction written by American novelist
Edward Bellamy in 1888, eight years before the famed British novelist
H. G. Wells published The Time Machine.
When asked in his seventies about what books he considered the most
influential in his life time, Dewey named William James’s Principles of
Psychology and Bellamy’s Looking Backward (Martin 2002: 83). It is not
surprising that Dewey would name Principles of Psychology for its lasting
impact on American intellectual thoughts but to name Looking Backward
appears a bit out of expectation.
Edward Bellamy’s Looking Backward: 2000–1887

For readers unfamiliar with the nineteenth-century American literature,
Edward Bellamy (1850–1898) was a novelist with a strong socialist incli-
nation, which made him a good comparison with H. G. Wells. Bellamy’s

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-7941-7_12
310 R. LI
father was a Baptist minister, who sent his son to Europe to study law.
Upon returning to the USA, Bellamy took up journalism instead and
worked in the New York Post. By 1878, he was publishing novels. After
a few unnoticeable attempts, Bellamy stormed the literary world in 1888
with his utopian science fiction Looking Backward: 2000–1887 . It sold
over one million copies within a few years.
Looking Backward was set in Boston in 1887, during which the
protagonist, Julian West, fell into a mesmerized sleep in an underground
sleeping chamber. He was revived and woken up in the year of 2000 and
found himself in an utterly different society. In 1887, Boston was a busy
city with noisy streets. There were huge income gap between the rich
and the poor; the poor lived in crowded slums while the rich lived in
huge mansions with lavish decoration. The haves owned everything and
paid the have-nots very low wages, leading to frequent workers’ strikes
and riots.
In 2000, as Bellamy’s utopian novel unfolded, Boston became a small
garden city with tree-lined boulevards and modern facilities. Poverty and
hunger was eradicated by means of a government-planned economy in
which everybody received an equal share of the domestic products. All
citizens had college education and young men and women had free choice
of their career, retiring at the age of 45. People led an efficient and
orderly life, with a sense of brotherhood and fraternity. The dark side
of human nature such as selfishness, greed and hypocrisy became history,
being transformed into selflessness, benevolence and sincerity.
The American Reformers’ Quest

For readers of the twenty-first century, you may think Bellamy’s futur-
istic vision of 2000 too naïve. But imagine you were in the time-space
capsule of 1887 Boston, what intellectual resources did you have for your
dreams? In 1887, you did not have any historical evidence of the failure of
the central-planning state economy, nor the suspicion of the “big brother
watching”1 that infringed on individual freedom. You, like Dewey, might
belong to the new middle class who might have witnessed social injustice
and economic inequity with indignation. All told, Bellamy’s vision had
inspired intellectuals and the public to eliminate social ills by equitable
1 The famous dystopian novel by British novelist George Orwell (1949): Nineteen
Eighty-Four.
12 JOHN DEWEY AND PROGRESSIVE EDUCATION 311
distribution of economic goods. A Bellamyite movement started, and by

1891, 162 “Nationalist Clubs”2 were formed for a movement to cham-
pion for state ownership and the abandonment of market competition.
When Bellamy himself went into politics but died young at the age of
48, his vision had inspired a generation of American reformers for a more
equitable society, though not necessarily a socialist one. The above sets
the stage of progressivism and progressive education that we will explore
in the next section.
Progressivism in America (1860–1920)

For American cultural history, readers can get more complete informa-
tion from college courses of American history or even from high school
textbooks. Below is a very brief account of the emerging ideas of progres-
sivism in American culture during Dewey’s times, which is relevant to this
chapter.
From Tradition to Modernity (1860–1879)

A British colony having gained independence in 1776, the USA was
culturally more attached to Britain than to Spain, France or Holland,
though immigrants and the religious persecuted from all Continental
Europe sought refuge there. Thus, the New Englanders settled there with
the British protestant ethic plus liberal individualism without an aristoc-
racy but a power structure rested on mercantilism, liberty and pioneering
spirit.
British classical economists such as Adam Smith and David Ricardo all
had their impact on early American thought of free market economy and
perfect competition. By the mid-nineteenth century, Charles Darwin’s
evolutionary theory and Herbert Spencer’s notion of “survival of the
fittest” permeated American thought. With most Americans living in
isolated rural communities, their Christian faith was aligned with their
belief in individualism, laissez-faire and progress. Their values were
summarized below by Robert Wiebe in his most acclaimed work, The
Search for Order, 1877 –1920:
2 The advocates called themselves “nationalists” instead of “socialists”. Their goal was
to nationalize private industries.
312 R. LI
Most important, the theory, the [Darwinian] theory, for all of its harsh
qualities, drew upon a rich tradition of village values. Equal opportunity
for each man; a test of individual merit; wealth as a reward for virtue;
credit for hard work, frugality, and dedication; a premium upon efficiency;
a government that minded its own business; a belief in society’s progres-
sive improvement; these and many more read like a catalogue of mid
nineteenth-century virtues. (Wiebe 1967: 136)
To my readers, it is instructive to read Dewey’s own account in his The

School and Society (1899), which outlined how America changed from
the rural self-sufficient agrarian economy into an early industrial urban
economy. A vivid example is that in the 1860s the villagers still used
animal fat and wicks to make their own candles. Then came electric light
(MW1: 7). Soon, candle-making became mass production.
It was the forces of industrialization and urbanization that changed
the face of America. With railroads cutting through cotton fields and
connecting towns and villages; with the discovery of oil and the growth
of the manufactory industry, small towns grew into big cities with new
problems and social ills. Traditional values gave way to modern ones
amid poverty and progress. This became the title of a best seller, Poverty
and Progress (1879) written by Henry George (1839–1897), a journalist,
political economist and pioneering progressivist. He studied the paradox
of poverty and increasing inequity during a period of rapid economic
growth through technological progress and argued, following the line
of Ricardo, that land ownership, the monopoly of land, was the crux of
the problem. The landowner simply held the property, reaped the benefit
from other factors of production—capital, labor, entrepreneurship. To
remedy the situation, George proposed a single tax, or land value tax, i.e.,
to tax the value of the land and use the tax to finance public investment
and service, such as infrastructure building, transportation, education and
social welfare. His rationale: land belongs to all people. He respected
private property and did not advocate the confiscation of private property,
however.
The publication of Poverty and Progress in 1879 marked the beginning
of the Progressive Era. The book had had lasting impact on American
thought and social reform.3 John Dewey must have read it in his forma-
tive years and he later estimated that it “had a wider distribution than
almost all other books on political economy put together” (LW9: 300).
The Progressive Era (1879–1920)

In the 1880s, the American society was plagued with immense social ills
caused by industrialization and urbanization. When Poverty and Progress
became a best seller in 1880s, it had gone into the American psychic
that the capitalists and landowners, by taking advantage of the laissez-
faire economics and free market mechanism, reaped most of the economic
wealth and left the mass in poverty, amid technological progress. They
had erected monopolies in major industries and widespread political
corruption was a way for them to perpetuate the system. The pressing
problems of urbanization, city vices and immigration became the back-
ground of the intensifying conflict between the proletarians and the
capitalists.
One bloody incident was the Haymarket Square Riot in Chicago in
May 1886. A peaceful rally for an eight-hour day led to clashes between
demonstrating workers and the police, followed by a bomb explosion
killing 7 police officers and 4 civilians. The subsequent trial sentenced
seven rioters to death. All these took place in big cities. Jacob Riis (1849–
1914), one of the earliest reformist-journalists, described the New York
slums, the dark streets and tenement apartments in How the Other Half
Lives (1890): a poor, hungry and ragged man, unable to feed his children,
became a man with a knife, seeking to kill and revenge at the wealthy
outside Fifth Avenue of New York downtown. Observed Weibe,
Now danger lurked everywhere. Farmers and wage earners, dissenting

ministers and angry editors, immigrants and ideologists, peaceful peti-
tioners and armed strikers, all blurred into visions of a society unhinged.
(Wiebe 1967: 78)
Despite conflict and antagonism, the progressivists looked at these prob-

lems optimistically: they believed in progress and took active action to
3 Many eminent thinkers and activists acknowledged Henry George’s influence on their
thoughts and action, including some US Presidents, Sun Yat-sen and John Dewey. See
Earth Rights Institute http://www.earthrightsinstitute.org/.
314 R. LI
solve them. The era was supposed to end with the First World War
(1914–1918), after which the USA rose to become a dominant world
power.
The Idea of Progress

Beneath these economic and political conflicts lies the idea progress,
the nineteenth-century assumption that everything, society included, was
moving forward and making progress toward perfection. Nineteenth-
century progressivism embodied two important concepts: stage and
evolution. Auguste Comte (1794–1859), the father of modern soci-
ology, was among the first to postulate that human societies underwent
three stages: the theological stage, the metaphysical stage and the posi-
tive (scientific) stage. As for evolution, progressivism picked up Charles
Darwin’s theory of evolution, manifest in Herbert Spencer’s notion of
“survival of the fittest,” thus the term social Darwinism to justify fierce
market competition as well as political struggle for the fittest, leading to
the fittest and perfect outcome.
American progressivists took up these two notions with some ingenious
revision. Notably, Lester Ward, an American sociologist of the Progres-
sive Era, proposed in Dynamic Sociology (1883) that society evolved in
four stages: natural man, loose aggregates, national states and universal
integration. Around 1900, progressive economist Simon Patten proposed
three stages in economic progress: pain economy (scarcity), pleasure
economy (abundance) and creative economy (self-direction, cooperation
and altruism) (Quoted from Wiebe 1967: 141). As for social Darwinism,
all progressivists were against “social” or “economic” survival of the
fittest. They had a crusading mission to eliminate economic inequity.
Instead of leaving society alone to take care of itself, they advocated
social intervention. Thus, Patten suggested breaking the bonds of “social
heredity” and William Bagley (1874–1946), an educationalist, suggested
nurturing the “socially efficient individual.”
Progressive Politics and Agenda

With social and economic upheaval aggravated by an economic depression
of 1893–1894, the political elites felt the mood and joined force with
city reformers for a new, improved society. The authors of the two best
sellers, Henry George and Edward Bellamy, joined politics in different
ways. Henry George campaigned for mayor of New York City twice: first
as a candidate of the United Labor Party in 1886 and the second time as
an independent Democrat in 1897 (He died of a stroke four days before
the election). When Edward Bellamy inspired the Bellamyite movement
for an utopian, nationalizing America, he founded a magazine, The New
Nation, in 1891 and promoted united action between Nationalist Clubs
with The People’s Party (Populist Party).
More importantly, progressive politics moved to the national level
at the turn of the twentieth century as the two presidents, Theodore
Roosevelt, serving from 1901 to 1908, and Woodrow Wilson, serving
from 1913 to 1920, were increasingly progressive. Theodore Roosevelt
Jr. (1858–1919), an image of an American “Cowboy” with robust
masculinity, was the driving force behind progressive politics. As the
26th President of the USA, he proposed “square deal,” which means
changing the rules for more equality of opportunity. In his 94-page
pamphlet of A Square Deal for Every Man (1904),4 Roosevelt set forth 75
topics, which more or less covered control of corporation, conservation
of natural resources, hygienic food and consumer protection. During his
presidency, he worked to break the trusts, regulated the railroads, estab-
lished national parks and advocated pure food and drugs, among other
progressive measures.
Roosevelt aimed at a comeback for the 1912 election but was unable
to win the Republican nomination. Thereby he founded the Progressive
Party (nicknamed Bull Moose Party) and finished second (27.4% of the
popular vote) in the presidential election. While Democratic nominee
Woodrow Wilson won the election (41.8% of the popular vote), both
Roosevelt and Wilson were considered progressivists so that American
progressive politics lasted from 1900 to 1920.
One “public enemy” of progressive politics was the trusts. In 1890,
the Sherman Antitrust Act was passed almost unanimously to prohibit
agreements between big businesses to restraint trade or competition. Pres-
ident Roosevelt sued 45 companies under the Sherman Act while the
succeeding President Taft sued 75. In 1914, the Congress passed the
Clayton Act and the Federal Trade Commission Act as further antitrust
measures. It must be noted, however, that many progressivists were not
against big business per se; they were against big evil corporations which
4 Roosevelt, T. (1904). A Square Deal for Every Man: A Collation of Quotations from
the Addresses and Messages of Theodore Roosevelt. R.J. Thompson.
316 R. LI
acted ruthlessly and greedily. They had in mind a new society, an orderly
society that fostered cooperation between labor and big corporations.
They supported social efficiency and social engineering but were generally
anti-socialist in outlook.
Progressivists did not come as a unified band, but with diverse values
as social gospelers, Christian socialists, romantic Marxists, corporate exec-
utives, political elites, public intellectuals. What united them was the
faith of progress and social reform through human action. With the
deep-rooted value of British mercantilism and individualism, they aimed
to improve free market capitalism and rejected socialism. The diverse
reform movements had attained enviable achievements: purifying the elec-
torate, attaining women suffrage, improving municipal administration,
regulating monopolies and corporations (trust-busting), anti-corruption,
anti-prostitution, improving labor laws, prohibiting child-labor, conserva-
tion, etc.5
The Rise of the New Middle Class

Marxian political economy has it: industrialism created antagonism of the
two classes: the bourgeoisie (capitalists) and the proletariat (workers).
There were also petti-bourgeois, which we call them middle classes. In
America, as in other nineteenth-century Western economies, the rise of
the middle class probably started with industrialization and urbaniza-
tion. They were a diverse group of professional occupations bound by
unique professional skills and functions: in medicine, law, economics,
accounting, administration, management, teaching, social work, archi-
tecture, engineering and so forth. They offered services of paramount
need to support a new industrial society and a self-enhanced consumer
society. They formed professional associations, published trade journals,
established standards of practice and joined with tertiary institutions to
confer qualifications. They actually offered upward social mobility for the
lower class, and they outnumbered the capitalists, landowners and aris-
tocracy. As the number of farmers dwindled, the number and kinds of
professionals were on the rise. Armed with new knowledge and tech-
nical know-how, they were the impetus of more efficient work, improved
5 For a historical account of American progressive politics of 1900–1930, see Dawley,

A. (2003). Changing the World: American Progressives in War and Revolution. Princeton:
Princeton University Press.
services and better life. They were the educated with a new language, a
new perspective to old problems and a scientific outlook to solve prob-
lems. Their zeal and optimism created a hopeful future—a progressive
society.
The Beginning of Scientific Management

In retrospect, scientific management looks like the last piece of jigsaw
puzzle to fit in the American progressive society. With science as the new
religion and efficiency as the new gospel, how to produce more, produce
better and avoid waste is a crucial issue of productivity.
Frederick Taylor (1856–1915), an efficiency expert in industrial
production, became one of the leaders in the efficiency movement. His
ideas were simple: to replace the rule-of-thumb work method with a
scientific study of the tasks and steps involved, followed by a detailed
improved plan of instruction and supervision. He first worked in Midvale
Steel Works and later Bethlehem Steel Corporation in the machine shop,
where, through empirical tests, he was able to quadruple cutting speeds.
Initially, he used the term “process management” and “shop manage-
ment” but later adopted the term “scientific management” in his best
remembered work, “The Principles of Scientific Management (1911).”6
The purpose of scientific management, also known as Taylorism, is to
improve efficiency and avoid wastes. In his book, Taylor pointed out that
there was “inefficiency in almost all of our daily acts” (introduction, p. 2).
The solution was not to find “the right man” to supervise the work, but
to set up a system of management by scientific rules, laws and principles.
While he supported the prevalent “initiative and incentive” system for
the employee for better work, Taylor stressed the importance of scientific
task analysis, such as his famous time-motion study, to set standard and
flow of work. Taylor further stressed the importance of training workers
as well as their hearty cooperation (Chapter 2). By applying scientific
management to improve efficiency, both employers and employees would
benefit (Chapter 1) and that there would be equal division of work and
responsibility between management and workers (Chapter 2).
6 The term caught national attention in a court case brought to the Interstate
Commerce Commission in 1910 where the plaintiff argued that scientific management
could overcome railroad inefficiencies so that there was no need to raise train fare despite
rising labor costs.
318 R. LI
The Progressive Nation

Taylor argued that systematic scientific management could be applied to
the manufacturing plant, to great corporations and even to government.
He saw efficiency as a national goal, for even President Roosevelt urged
for “national efficiency.”7 This view echoed those of other progressivists
such as Herbert Croly (1869–1930), a political philosopher who sought
to improve the government administrative machinery by training experts
in public services. More specifically, in his influential book, The Promise
of American Life (1909), Croly argued for a strong national govern-
ment and the strengthening of labor unions, with efficient management
to promote equity among its citizens. Croly coined “New Nationalism”
and later worked for Roosevelt in the 1912 presidential election, followed
by publishing another book, Progressive Democracy in 1915.
In summary, both Taylor and Croly championed for efficiency. Taylor
found the means (scientific management) and Croly found the sphere
(Federal Government). Through science and technology, more goods and
services could be produced efficiently and a strong government could
help to manage and distribute them fairly. Both saw the importance
of cooperation: Taylor urged for the cooperation between workers and
management and Croly urged for the cooperation between labor unions
and government.
Such is the social, political and intellectual background of the Progres-
sive Era which has led to the emergence of progressive education. The
mood of progressivism was one of science, optimism, efficiency and
cooperation for a hopeful future. The public sentiments in politics were
antitrust, anti-corruption, muckraking, fair election and fair voting. The
organizing principles for society and government were: equity, democ-
racy, efficiency, scientific management and rationality. These principles
created a new social order, which moved American society from a tradi-
tional personal community into a modern impersonal world. The rising
middle class is both the cause and the outcome of forging professionaliza-
tion, bureaucratization and accountability in social institutions, including
education.
7 In his book, Taylor quoted Roosevelt saying, “The conservation of national resources
is only preliminary to the larger question of national efficiency” (p. i).
From New to Progressive Education

When I began my study of progressive education many years ago, I
pondered over a simple but basic question: Who started progressive
education and when? Apparently it was John Dewey who was named
as “the father of progressive education” (Encyclopedia.com).8 However,
Dewey himself gave the credit to his colleague Francis Parker, calling him
“the father of the progressive education movement” (LW5: 320). So who
started progressive education, when and how?
Francis Parker—The Father of Progressive Education

Apparently progressive education is a movement traceable to Parker’s
Quincy System in 1876, twenty years before John Dewey entered the
field. As a movement, it was not started by just one person but grew out
of social needs envisioned by many like-minded reformers. To begin with,
the movement did not even have a name, only discontent with existing
conditions and demand for changes.
Francis Wayland Parker (1837–1902) was a self-made pioneering
educator of nineteenth-century America. Born in New Hampshire and
educated in public schools, he started as a village teacher at the age of 16,
first in New Hampshire and later Massachusetts. He fought The Amer-
ican Civil War (1861–1865) and obtained a colonel title, after which
he traveled to Europe in 1872 and studied at the Humboldt Univer-
sity of Berlin, learning the latest European pedagogy and psychology.
Upon return to the USA, Parker was elected superintendent of schools
in Quincy, Massachusetts. During his term of office from 1875 to 1880,
Parker implemented sweeping curriculum reform. He abolished alphabet
learning by rote: the speller, the reader, the grammar, the copybook were
replaced with magazines, newspapers and school-based materials. Arith-
metic was taught by application, not by learning the rules. Geography
was taught in field trips. The “Quincy System” quickly caught national
attention, but he modestly stated he had nothing new to offer:
I repeat, ……that I am simply trying to apply well established principles

of teaching, principles derived directly from the laws of the mind. The
8 https://www.encyclopedia.com/social-sciences-and-law/education/education-terms-
and-concepts/progressive-education.
320 R. LI
methods springing from them are found in the development of every child.
They are used everywhere except in school. I have introduced no new
principle, method, or detail. No experiments have been tried, and there is
no peculiar “Quincy System”. (Quoted from Cremin 1962: 130)
The Quincy System produced impressive results: school children there

excelled at reading, writing and spelling and stood fourth in their county
in arithmetic (Cremin 1962: 131). In 1880, Parker left and became super-
intendent of the Boston Public Schools and later principal of the Cook
County Normal School, Chicago (1883–1899). In 1894, Dewey visited
the school, impressed with Parker’s work and enrolled his children Evelyn
and Fred there. Parker was no theoretician, only a dedicated practitioner
of education. He believed in child-centered education (from Fröbel), the
scientific study of pedagogy (from Herbart) and learning with meaning
(from Pestalozzi). He had given talks on teaching, published as Talks on
Teaching (1883) and Talks on Pedagogics (1894). Still under the pre-
Darwinian Christian faith for crusade of child education, Parker preached
in 1894:
……the divinity…… striving imagination stretches away to the invisible, all

powerful, all-controlling, all-loving. One who permeates the universe, lives
in it, and breathes his life through it, the eternal life to be taken into the
human soul. The myth is the obscure image, in the child’s soul, of God
Himself. (Talks on Pedagogics, 1894)
When Dewey began his work in education at age 35 in 1894, Parker was
already an established pioneer in his late-fifties. Their professional rela-
tionship was that of mutual admiration and respect. They were comrade-
in-arms where Parker worked on the practice and Dewey offered the
theory. The two differed in appearance and personality as well: Dewey was
young, gentle and studious; Parker was bald head, emotional and aggres-
sive. Dewey sent his children to Parker’s school and Parker invited Dewey
to offer course of lectures there. A reporter once attended the lecture and
gave a vivid and interesting contrast of the two personalities—a lion and
a lamb:
…… one would never dream that the quiet man with his level eyebrows
and pleasant gentle voice was the lion, and the great Colonel Parker was
the lamb. Such, however, is the case. Col. Parker sits at one side of the
platform, listening, often with closed eyes, as is his wont, to the agreeable
voice of Dr. Dewey, as he quietly utters those radical ideas. …… Col.

Parker, in his aggressively earnest way, has been lustily pounding for years,
on the same thing. Dr. Dewey does not pound. He quietly loosens the
hoops, and the bottom insensibly vanishes.
Dr. Dewey is worshipped by his hearers. There is a charm about his
personality which is simply irresistible. He is as simple in his language as
in his manner… At the close of the lecture…… Col. Parker then rose,
…… said: “Ladies and gentlemen, if what Dr. Dewey has been telling you
is true, the millions upon millions which are expended upon our public
school system is not only spent in the wrong way, but we are dulling
bright intellects and doing incalculable harm to the future generations.”9
It appears Parker well knew that his metaphysical and romantic pedagogy
had to give way to a more scientific functional approach. No doubt Parker
welcomed Dewey but Parker’s untimely death in 1902 ended their fruitful
collaboration.
Charles Eliot—The New Education

It would be of research interest to see how the term “progressive educa-
tion” evolved. In 1860, Herbert Spencer’s writings in education were
collected and published in Education: Intellectual, Moral and Physical. He
proposed that education was “to prepare us for complete living,” which
included self-preservation, necessities of life, offspring rearing, proper
human relations and gratification of tastes and feelings.10 His ideal educa-
tion had had much impact on the American public, especially on Charles
W. Eliot (1834–1926), who became president of Harvard University in
1869. In that year Eliot wrote The New Education,11 which was about
reforming higher education in America. Eliot was actively involved in
secondary education reform as well. As for primary education, a writer
in 1883 called the Quincy System “The New Education and Colonel
Parker.” In other words, all reform effort in education, be it primary,
secondary or tertiary, was under the generic term of “New Education.”
9 Quoted from Dykhuizen (1973: 93–94). The reporter was Ellen Graff; the newspaper
clipping was kept in Colonel Parker’s Scrapbook (Dykhuizen 1973: 349).
10 Spencer, H. (1860). Education: Intellectual, Moral and Physical. New York.
11 Eliot, C. W. (1869). The New Education. The Atlantic Monthly, XXIII, 203–220,
358–367.
322 R. LI
Dewey’s Changing Usage

In 1884, Dewey called his vision in psychology “The New Psychology.”
Then, he used the term “new education” in 1899 for the education
he delivered in the laboratory school, as seen in his lecture to parents
(The School and Society, MW1: 6). In another address at the Francis W.
Parker School in 1904 (MW3: 240), Dewey employed the term “indirect
education,” which was published with a note from the editor as “new
education” (MW3: 418).
In November 1908, the first volume of Progressive Journal of Education
appeared. By then, the term “progressive” had already got into the public
mind, together with President Roosevelt’s progressive politics. In 1915,
when Dewey published his Schools of Tomorrow, he called the schools he
investigated “progressive schools” (MW8: 263, 311) and those teachers
“educational reformers” (MW8: 207). The term “new education” was
dropped and “modern education” was used instead (MW8: 208). Finally
in 1916, “progressive education” appeared in Democracy and Education,
with a brief statement that “it is the aim of progressive education to take
part in correcting unfair privilege and unfair deprivation, not to perpet-
uate them” (MW9: 72). This usage was in line with the progressivist
ideal. Apparently, the early usage of the term by Dewey was to denote
some kind of reform effort for equity and fairness, similar to what the
connotation of “progressive” politics would carry.
When John Dewey returned from China in 1921, Progressive Educa-
tion Association had already been formed with the term “progressive
education” further popularized. From the 1920s to 1940s, Dewey
employed the term “progressive education” frequently in his education
writings to denote either the ideal education in his mind or the new,
non-traditional education already in practice. It is of interest to note,
however, that many educators continued to use the term “new educa-
tion” even in the 1930s. One symposium organized in 1930 had the title
of “The New Education Ten Years After,” which was an evaluation of
progressive education of the 1920s. Even in Experience and Education
of 1938, Dewey was using “new education” and “progressive education”
interchangeably (LW13: 4, 14, 61).
The Diversity in Progressive Education

The Progressive Education Association
With progressive schools and practices already in place for more than two
decades, Stanwood Cobb (1881–1982), Eugene Randolph Smith and
other like-minded young educators founded the Progressive Education
Association in 1919. They were inspired by Marietta Johnson’s organic
school in Fairhope, Alabama and set forth statement of principles very
much in Johnson’s vision:
• Freedom to Develop Naturally

• Interest as Motive of Work
• The Teacher as Guide, Not a Task-Master
• Scientific Study of Child Development
• Attention to the Child’s Physical Development
• Co-operation Between School and Home
• The Progressive School as Leader in Educational Movements12
Caught in the mood of progressivism, the Progressive Education Asso-

ciation started with a bold aim: reforming the entire school system in
America (Cremin 1962: 241). The association was not a professional
body; it was “primarily an association of parents and others who are inter-
ested in education as it affects the community and the nation,” serving to
exchange views between parents and experimental educators (ibid.: 245).
To start with, it was on the fringe of the education system; no support
from university, nor schools of education, only the lay public. While Cobb
and Smith both became teachers and later school principals, their experi-
ence was mainly confined to private schools rather than the mainstream
public schools.
The Progressive Education Association invited John Dewey to be its
first honorary president. When Dewey declined (he would be in Japan
and China in the next two years), they were excited to get President Eliot
of Harvard to fill this symbolic position. In 1927, they invited Dewey
12 Quoted from Cremin, L. A. (1962). The Transformation of the School: Progressivism

in American Education, 1876–1957 (pp. 243–245). New York: Knopf. Simplified and
edited by author.
324 R. LI
again upon Eliot’s death. This time Dewey accepted it but gave a critical
presidential address in 1928 (see below for detail).
The Diversity of Progressive Education

In the 1920s, we saw the Progressive Education Association slowly rising
to national prominence. However, it did not monopolize or solely direct
the progressive education movement. Rather there were many prominent
players, nearly all of them related to Dewey. Below is an outline of eight
educators and their work. My list is never intended to be exhaustive but
I hope to have covered the major ones as well as showed their diver-
sity. Each educator probably deserves a chapter in a whole book on the
subject.
Marietta Johnson’s Fairhope School

Marietta Johnson (1864–1938) dreamed of teaching at the age of ten
and had taught elementary and high school. She read a book on
child psychology (Nathan Oppenheim: The Development of the Child)
and Dewey’s early educational writings. In 1903, she visited Fairhope,
Alabama and later started her “Organic Education” for body, mind
and spirit: to “minister to the health of the body, develop the finest
mental grasp, and preserve the sincerity and unself-consciousness of the
emotional life” (Cremin 1962: 149). In her Thirty Years with an Idea
(1939), she outlined her utopian education:
No examinations, no tests, no failures, no rewards, no self-consciousness;

the development of sincerity, the freedom of children to live their lives
straight out, no double motives, children never subjected to the temptation
to cheat, even to appear to know when they do not know; the development
of fundamental sincerity, which is the basis of all morality.13
In 1914, Dewey visited Johnson’s school and was very much impressed
with the Fairhope experiment. Naturally, Dewey supported the notion of
organicity: the child and her education was seen as an organic whole, and
Johnson called it “a unit organism.” In addition, Dewey had always had
preference of a rural setting for education.
13 Quoted from Cremin, L. A. (1962). The Transformation of the School: Progressivism

in American Education, 1876–1957 (p. 151). New York: Knopf.
Dewey reported the Organic School in Schools of Tomorrow, which

brought Johnson to national attention. Johnson’s child-centered educa-
tion, as reported, resonated Dewey’s child interest, freedom and self-
expression. Both saw the importance of teacher guidance in child-
centered education. Johnson’s vision became the guiding spirit of the
Progressive Education Association and many child-centered schools in the
1920s.
William Wirt’s Gary Plan

William Wirt (1874–1938) was a farm boy, studied political science and
later attended some of Dewey’s class in the University of Chicago. He
witnessed urbanization and wanted to preserve the traditional American
values of liberalism, community and self-advancement through education.
In 1907, he became the school superintendent of Gary, Indiana, which
was a new industrial town 27 miles southeast of Chicago. While Wirt was
not much an original thinker (Cohen 1966: 21), he had a vision to inte-
grate a few disparaging ideas together: Dewey’s school as an embryonic
community, Taylor’s scientific management for efficiency and pedagog-
ical reform for manual training. This he did by his “platoon system” and
“work-play-study” program.
From the onset, the Gary Schools were designed with the concept of
shared facilities and floating class (platoon system). The school facilities
were also community facilities: the school auditorium was another town
hall where townspeople gathered, socialized and learned. Schools were
open all day with adult evening classes and Saturday classes. To maximize
the utilization of space and resources, fewer classrooms were built and
the budget was spent on setting up manual training workshops, kitchens,
laboratories, playground, gymnasium and other facilities. Students did not
stay in one homeroom; through ingenious timetabling, students were
“herded” from classroom to workshop, laboratory to gymnasium, play-
ground to kitchen, etc. where they were actively and busily engaged in
the “work-play-study” program.
In Gary, boys and girls learned cooking, carpentry, gardening, sewing,
molding, through work and practice with workmen, gardeners, artisans.
Academic subjects were departmentalized with attention on rapid, normal
and slow learners. In this way, the Gary plan was implementing the
progressive ideal of “learning by doing,” manual training, education of
the gifted, and operating an embryonic community life in efficiency.
326 R. LI
The Gary plan attracted much publicity since 1911. After Evelyn
Dewey had visited it in 1914 and Schools of Tomorrow described it with
endorsement, Gary became an object of emulation. While Dewey might
not have met William Wirt personally and the two had only a few corre-
spondences (Thorburn 2017: 4–5), Dewey’s brilliant student Randolph
Bourne took it as par excellence of progressive education in his work, The
Gary Schools (1916):
Those who follow Professor Dewey’s philosophy find in the Gary schools
– as Professor Dewey does himself – the most complete and admirable
application yet attempted, a synthesis of the best aspects of the progressive
“schools of tomorrow”. (Bourne 1916: 144)
For Bourne, the Gary plan was American; it had caught the mood of
the Progressive Era: efficiency and democracy. Philosophically speaking,
it was Deweyan and American:
Its philosophy is American, its democratic organization is American. It is

one of the institutions that our American ‘Kultur’ should be proudest of.
Perhaps professional educators, accustomed to other concepts and military
methods and administrative illusions, will not welcome this kind of school.
But teachers hampered by drill and routine will want it, and so will parents
and children. (The New Republic II , 1915: 328)
It appears Dewey did not have direct influence on Wirt. It was Wirt who
took Dewey’s ideas and developed it into a system which could become
a model for public schools. Despite the failure to implement it in New
York, the Gary plan and platoon system continued to grow in the 1920s,
with over 200 cities in 41 states experimenting it. It was the triumph of
Dewey’s ideas as much as the pursuit for efficiency by school districts that
had led to Gary’s popularization.
Helen Parkhurst’s Dalton Plan

Helen Parkhurst (1886–1973) was an acclaimed American educator in
progressive education. She graduated from Wisconsin State Teachers
College in 1904 and began teaching farm children. Parkhurst encoun-
tered Dewey while doing postgraduate work at Columbia (Higgins
and Coffield 2016: 18). Motivated by Dewey’s notion of freedom and
self-expression, Parkhurst tried out experiments of self-directed and self-
spaced learning in 1911–1912. She asked students to sign contract and
took responsibility of their learning; teachers only prepared material, gave

assignments (tasks) and offered guidance while students planned and
worked on their own pace. It was the earliest form of individualized
instruction.
In 1912–1913, Parkhurst traveled to Italy and studied under Maria
Montessori. When the latter visited the USA in her whirlwind lectures
in 1913–1915, Parkhurst worked for her and became the director of
all Montessori Schools in the nation. In 1919, Parkhurst continued
her experiment in a high school, the Children’s University School in
Dalton, Massachusetts. She argued that lockstep teaching was not effi-
cient. Her experiment was an “efficiency measure” in which she “creates
conditions… for the learner to learn.”14
According to Steven Cowen and Gary McCulloch, professor with
the London Institute of Education, Evelyn Dewey became a mentor to
Parkhurst, and her Dalton Plan was introduced to Britain by Rosa Bassett,
a headmistress of a London secondary school15 (Higgins and Coffield
2016: 18). In 1922, Parkhurst published Education on the Dalton Plan,
which was complemented by Evelyn Dewey’s The Dalton Laboratory
Plan as well as another book The Dalton Plan in the Elementary School
by Albert Lynch. By then, Dalton Association had sprung up all over
England.
It appears the Dalton Plan was more popular in the UK than in the US.
Here again Dewey had an indirect influence on Parkhurst by inspiring her
direction of research and experiments. In fact, the terminologies behind
Parkhurst’s method, such as “create condition,” “liberation of the pupil,”
“learning equals experience,” “experience is the best teacher,” “self-
direction,” “interaction,” “co-operation,” etc. are all Deweyan. Parkhurst
14 Quoted from Parkhurst, H. (1922). Education on the Dalton Plan (1922) (p. 34).
15 Readers who follow through my chapters will know that Evelyn Dewey (1889–
1965), John Dewey’s eldest daughter, was three years younger than Helen Parkhurst.
When Evelyn started her career in education and co-authored Schools of Tomorrow with
her father in 1914–1915, Helen had already been in education for ten years, became
a protégé of Montessori and then head of all Montessori schools in the USA. In 1919,
Helen was conducting her experiment in Dalton when Evelyn published her second book,
New Schools for Old. Judging from their age and experience, it is unlikely that Evelyn was
a mentor of Helen, though the two young ladies knew each other well and were close
associates.
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remained influential in American education and later became a radio and

TV host of children programs.16
Caroline Pratt and Lucy Mitchell’s Play School

During the Progressive Era, many women of the new age worked on
early childhood education. Caroline Pratt and Lucy Mitchell were among
them, based in New York City.
Caroline Pratt (1867–1954) taught in a village school and later earned
a Bachelor of pedagogy from Teachers College, Columbia University in
1894. Afterward she taught manual training and carpentry. Around 1911,
she designed a line of toys, called “do-with toys,” for children to play
and tell their own open-ended stories in familiar settings. She believed in
hands-on experience and learning through play. In 1913, she launched
her Play School in Greenwich Village, New York City. It was reported in
Schools of Tomorrow as:
The “Play School” conducted by Miss Pratt in New York City organizes
all the work around the play activities of little children…… her plan is:
To offer an opportunity to the child to pick up the thread of life in his
own community, and to express what he gets in an individual way. The
experiment concerns itself with getting subject-matter first hand,…… and
with applying such information to individual schemes of play with related
toys and blocks as well as expressing himself through such general means
as drawing, dramatization, and spoken language. (MW8: 283)
Caught in the mood of expressionism of the Greenwich Village intel-

ligentsia, Pratt saw children as creative artists. She was joined by Lucy
Sprague Mitchell (1878–1967), a fervent educator who wanted to
study how mental growth affected learning experience. In 1912, Lucy’s
husband Wesley took up a teaching position in Columbia and they moved
to New York City. The Mitchells and Deweys became friends and Lucy
studied John Dewey’s work, met and learnt much about child devel-
opment from John personally. In 1916, she founded the Bureau of
Educational Experiments (BEE), which aimed to collect information on
experiments and research to understand the “whole child” (Dalton 2002:
16 For Parkhurst life and works, you may refer to: Lager, D. (1983). Helen Parkhurst
and the Dalton Plan: The Life and Work of an American Educator (Unpublished Doctoral
dissertation). University of Connecticut.
97). Through BEE, Mitchell established a nursery school as laboratory

for observations and expanded Play School to become City and Country
School in 1921.17 She also revolutionized children’s literature in her Here
and Now Story Book with child-centered daily life stories of rhythm, rhyme
and repetition. By 1930 BEE moved to Bank Street, New York City and
was renamed Bank Street College of Education in 1950.
When Dewey endorsed Pratt and supported Mitchell, the two were
not only Dewey’s personal friends, but they elaborated Dewey’s philos-
ophy of education in early childhood education. Pratt stressed hands-on
experience, play and community, which aligned with Dewey’s learning
by doing and school as a miniature community; the do-with toys are
miniature of made-believed living. Mitchell was an ambitious educator
whose innovations were mostly focused on early childhood education.
Inspired by Dewey, she tried out many child-centered experiments and
funded many projects, such as nutrition and sex education classes, rural
school programs and a special laboratory school by Neurological Insti-
tute (Dalton 2002: 97). She helped to popularize Dewey’s ideas in early
childhood education.
The Columbia Connection

At the turn of the twentieth century when Dewey arrived at Columbia
University, its Teachers College had already become the center of educa-
tional research and teacher training of the nation. Teachers College
graduates came to dominate education faculties in other universities and
school districts throughout the USA (Cunningham and Heilbronn 2016:
25). They were a prominent part of the progressive education movement.
In the first half of the twentieth century, Dewey was the superstar
in Columbia for education while James Cattell and Edward Thorndike
dominated psychology and educational psychology there, respectively.
A few Teachers College professors had had significant impact as well,
notably William Kilpatrick, Harold Rugg and George Counts.
William Kilpatrick and Project Method

William Kilpatrick (1871–1965) was Dewey’s student, colleague and
advocate. After teaching and a number of administrative posts, Kilpatrick
17 The name was so changed to include its country campus when they established a
summer school in the farm of Hopewell Junction, New York.
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came to Columbia in 1907 and earned his doctorate in 1912. He taught

at Teachers College for the next 25 years until retirement, strongly
promoting Deweyan education.
At a time when teacher education and teacher certification became
a must for a teaching career, thus the professionalization of teaching,
Kilpatrick’s classes in Teachers College were always full. Over the years,
he had taught over 35,000 teachers and so carried the title of “teacher
of teachers” and “million dollar professor.” In 1918, Kilpatrick proposed
The Project Method, a short article to advocate “whole-hearted purposeful
activity proceeding in a social environment” with four steps: purposing,
planning, executing and judging. It looks like an extension of Dewey’s
How We Think with five phases (see Chapter 7 of this book). Kilpatrick’s
idea was Deweyan and revolutionary because he started from the child’s
active learning and was against a fixed curriculum, fixed-ordered teaching
and memorization. On the other hand, he tried hard to integrate Dewey
and Thorndike’s ideas (see elaboration in the next section). In 1923, he
published Source Book in the Philosophy of Education, followed by Founda-
tion of Method in 1926. The former was to support and scaffold Dewey’s
philosophy of education in Democracy and Education with other readings
and perspectives while the latter is a detailed argument for the project
method.
For good or for bad, Kilpatrick put Dewey into mainstream educa-
tion and became Dewey’s principal interpreter. Academically, his ideas
and theories had closely followed Dewey’s line of thought. In the same
vein, Kilpatrick’s project method became a popular label attached to
progressive education.
On a personal basis, Kilpatrick was closely attached to Dewey. It was
once quoted Dewey saying: “He (Kilpatrick) is the best I ever had”
(Cremin 1962: 216). For readers’ interest, Kilpatrick was present in
Dewey’s 70th, 80th and 90th birthday celebrations. In the 70th birthday
celebration, Kilpatrick, then president of Teachers College, served as
chairman of the advisory board for the event. In the 80th celebration,
he delivered a speech: “John Dewey and American Life” and intro-
duced Dewey. By the 90th birthday, Kilpatrick, already retired and nearly
80 years old, again chaired a committee of sponsors to raise funds for

Dewey’s cause.18
The contribution of Kilpatrick to the populization of Dewey’s ideas
must be enormous; for without him, Dewey may remain a little more
than an outspoken public intellectual and an obscure philosopher of
education, very much similar to the fate of Dewey’s teacher E. Stanley
Hall, a seldom-mentioned pioneer of child-study movement of the late
nineteenth century.
Harold Rugg on Child-Centered Schools and Progressive Curriculum

The progressive education movement took off after the publication
of Schools of Tomorrow in 1915. Experiments and innovations sprung
up throughout the USA, as Evelyn Dewey continued her investigative
report in New Schools for Old in 1919, plus The Dalton Laboratory
Plan, a whole book on individualized instruction in 1922. To chron-
icle the development of the 1920s, Harold Rugg, another professor
with Columbia, co-authored with Ann Shumaker, The Child-Centered
School: An Appraisal of the New Education in 1928. In it we saw schools
tending toward child-centeredness, focusing on the child’s creative self-
expression, the child’s physical and emotional needs as well as her artistic
development.
According to Rugg and Shumaker, the new “child-centered” schools
operated under the following principles: child’s freedom, child’s initia-
tive, child’s interest, activity, creative self-expression and personality and
social adjustment. These schools were revolts against traditional formal,
mechanical teaching, freeing the child as the master of learning. It was the
triumph of the child’s creative self-expression over the standardization in
teaching. Many “new” schools provided laboratory and demonstration
facilities for the dissemination of their practices.
The “new” schools were not without shortcomings. Rugg and
Shumaker gave a critique for their chaos, their lack of design and plan-
ning and their neglect of training in thinking. A reviewer also pointed to
its lack of purpose and values:
18 Jay Martin has described each celebration in some detail. See Martin, J. (2002). The
Education of John Dewey (pp. 371–376, 434–438, 475–478). New York, NY: Columbia
University Press.
332 R. LI
No one who has studied the accomplishments of children who are intensely
interested or who have set up desirable purposes can doubt that interests
and purposes are essential to the educational process, but this does not
mean that transient child interests should be the center of the course of
study. If interests and purposes are to have educational worth, they must
be based on values, and the more universal and permanent the values, the
better.19
Readers may be interested to note that Harold Rugg’s (1886–1960)

contribution to progressive education was more on curriculum work than
child-centered schools. He graduated in civil engineering from Dart-
mouth College in 1909 and later earned his doctorate in education from
the University of Illinois in 1915. His engineering background became his
strength when he worked with Charles Judd at the University of Chicago,
applying statistics to education and publishing Statistical Methods Applied
to Education in 1917. In 1920, he moved to Teachers College and began
working on social studies and school curriculum. He published Man and
His Changing Society, which later became a junior high textbook series in
social studies. His approach was to engage students in the investigation
of social problems from a critical perspective and to propose solutions.
His textbooks, which sold over one million copies since 1929, advocated
social justice with a progressive overtone. The textbook was attacked in
the 1940s by conservatives for its “pro-socialist” ideas and was censored
and systematically removed from some school districts across the USA.20
It became a dark chapter in progressive education.
George Counts’s Social Reconstructionism

On October 29, 1929, the Wall Street stock market crashed, which
soon developed into an economic depression. It swept through America
in all aspects, including education. In face of rising unemployment
and economic hardship shortly after the roaring twenties of innova-
tion, reform, automation and ludicrous consumption, the public tried to
19 Book review by Horn, E. (1929). The Child-Centered School: An Appraisal of the

New Education by Harold Rugg and Ann Shumaker. The Elementary School Journal,
29(7), 549.
20 Readers can dig deeper in: Evans, R. W. (2008). This Happened in America: Harold
Rugg and the Censure of Social Studies. Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing.
comprehend and find a new direction for society. The concern of progres-
sive educators also changed from child-centered education to education
for social improvement. The new spokesman: George Counts; his vision:
social constructionism.
George Counts (1889–1974) was a high school principal before
earning his PhD under Charles Judd in the University of Chicago in 1916.
Thereafter he taught in a few colleges and universities before landing to
Teachers College in 1926 and stayed there until his retirement in 1955.
Counts was a political activist, a socialist as well as a scholar. His starting
point was Dewey’s idea of embryonic community and education for social
reform. Counts elaborated it with a sociological analysis in The Selec-
tive Character of American Secondary Education (1922) and The Social
Composition of Boards of Education (1927), arguing that business interests
and the upper-class controlled high schools and school boards.
Being critical of American education, Counts’s ideas became more pro-
socialist after his visit to the Soviet Union in 1927 and 1929. Counts was
invited to deliver a speech to the Progressive Education Association in
1932. At the onset of the Great Depression, Counts challenged the basic
premise of child-centered progressive education in his address entitled
Dare Progressive Education be Progressive?, which was later published in
Dare the School Build a New Social Order? 21 Counts saw that progressive
educators were afraid of influencing children to avoid “indoctrination”:
they worked with the assumption that children would develop their own
understanding of the world by themselves. They wanted to keep poli-
tics out of education, but in fact they had supported the status quo and
middle-class values. Counts argued that education was basically a political
and social venture. When business and financial elites (oligarchs) blun-
dered and led to the current economic crisis, he challenged teachers to
lead children and education for the creation of a new social order, a just
society with true democracy.
It can be seen that Counts had moved a step further in Dewey’s
education for democracy and social reform. He dared to call teachers
to action, to urge educators to become social reformers. Counts’s true
collective democracy resonated with Dewey’s participatory democracy
where everyone participates and shares others’ point of views. Counts
21 There were three addresses and papers in Counts’s Dare the School Build a New
Social Order? They were: Dare Progressive Education Be Progressive; Education Through
Indoctrination; and Freedom, Culture, Social Planning and Leadership.
334 R. LI
became anti-communist after Stalin’s political purge in the Soviet Union.

He served as president of American Federation of Teachers from 1939 to
1942 was founder of New York State Liberal Party and ran for the US
Senate in 1952. Counts remained politically active throughout his life.
It is of interest to note that Counts and Dewey had had the same polit-
ical inclination. Both visited the Soviet Union in the 1920s. When Counts
spoke with enthusiasm, Dewey spoke with caution. Counts became disil-
lusioned and turned to anti-communism in the 1930s as the Soviet Union
showed its totalitarian nature. About that time, Dewey defended democ-
racy against the rising tide of dictatorship in Germany, Italy and Russia.
When Dewey was about to retire from Columbia, Counts joined the
faculty in the 1920s and became associated with Dewey. Both addressed
the Progressive Education Association and were critical of progressive
education. In 1934, Counts founded a new journal, Social Frontier:
A Journal of Education Criticism and Reconstruction. In the journal,
Counts set aside a “John Dewey’s Page” for Dewey to write what-
ever he desired. In 1940, when British philosopher Bertrand Russell was
appointed visiting professor to the City College of New York, it became
a court case for he was accused of being “an alien and an advocate of
sexual immorality.” Dewey immediately jumped to Russell’s defense, and
Counts unreservedly supported Dewey. They wrote to the mayor of New
York City, demanding academic freedom and calling it “the persecution
of Socrates and Galileo” (Martin 2002: 445). It shows clearly that the
two were comrade-in-arms to fight for the cause of liberty.22
Dewey’s Role in Progressive Education

No Consensus in Research
What was Dewey’s role in the progressive education movement? Many
historians have tried to answer this question. As early as 1959, Martin
Dworkin pointed out that Dewey’s role “was largely that of a rever-
ently misinterpreted prophet rather than a carefully obeyed commander”
(Dworkin 1959: 9). When Lawrence Cremin saw “the dialectic between
Dewey the observer and Dewey the reformer” (The school Review 1959:
22 Dewey had written on the case. See Dewey, J., & Kallen, H. M. (Eds.). (1941). The
Betrand Russell Case: Social Realities Versus Police Court Fictions. New York, NY: The
Viking Press.
163), he argued that in both roles, Dewey affected the movement, but
which had developed in ways different from his ideas. Dispute this failure,
Cremin saw Dewey’s triumph as his ideas of progressive education became
conventional wisdom in 1940s (Cremin 1962: 328).
A high school textbook typically saw Dewey as the leader of the educa-
tional reform: “under the leadership of Professor Dewey, an effort was
made to rid American schools of the rigid, factory-like atmosphere which
had long prevailed.”23 On the other hand, Raymond Callahan argued in
his Education and the Cult of Efficiency (1962), that Dewey’s progres-
sive ideas were utterly defeated and replaced by the social forces behind
public school administration which urged for social efficiency and scien-
tific management. This view was taken up more than 20 years later when
Ellen Lagemann proposed an intriguing thesis and argued cogently, with
historical factual support, that “Edward L. Thorndike won and John
Dewey lost” (History of Education Quarterly, Vol. 29, No. 2, 1989:
185). Her point was that Thorndike’s scientific psychology (she called
it positivist approach) gained popularity and became mainstream Amer-
ican education while Dewey’s pragmatic philosophy of education did not.
To follow up with this controversy, Herbert Kliebard (2004), in his most
acclaimed American history on school curriculum, entitled The Struggle
for the American Curriculum (1893–1958), advanced yet another thesis.
He told the story of the American curriculum as a struggle among
four competing schools and groups: the humanists (traditionalists), the
child-centered movement, the social efficiency educators and the social
meliorists (social reformers). However, Dewey belonged to none of them.
Dewey as a towering figure simply hovers over them. “I decide in the end
that he did not belong in any of them and that he should appear in the
books as somehow hovering over the struggle rather than as belonging
to any particular side” (Kliebard 2004: xix). Readers may be bewildered
with the impression that historians have not yet reached a consensus on
Dewey’s role in the progressive education movement.
William Hayes, writing on The Progressive Education Movement
(2007), made a point: that a historical movement such as progressive
education can seldom be attributed to the work of any one individual
(Hayes 2006: 17). He thus put alongside Dewey with Francis Parker,
Jean Piaget (1896–1980) and William Kilpatrick as other pioneers in the
23 Craven, A. O. (1961). American History (p. 584). Boston: Ginn & Co.
336 R. LI
progressive education movement (Hayes, Chapter 3), without specifying

who influenced whom in what role. As I showed earlier, Parker was an
elder colleague of Dewey, pre-Darwinian in outlook and a Frobelian,
so that his views could be subsumed in Dewey’s; William Kilpatrick was
Dewey’s faithful disciple who further elaborated Dewey’s ideas with the
implementation of the “project method.” Piaget was a Swiss psychologist
whose impact on American education was not felt until the translation of
his works in the 1950s. We thus came back to a full circle: Dewey was the
single most influential theoretician in progressive education movement
but what was his role?
Dewey and Thorndike Integrated

In response to Lageman’s claim that “Thorndike won and Dewey lost,”
I wish to briefly introduce my readers to Edward Lee Thorndike (1874–
1949), who was a student of James McKeen Cattell, Dewey’s classmate
in Johns Hopkins (see my Chapter 3). Of Thorndike’s long affiliation
with Teachers College, Columbia University since 1899, he pioneered
in educational psychology, comparative psychology, behaviorism, animal
learning, psychometrics and had published over 450 books and articles.
He started the trend of behavioral psychology and psychological measure-
ment which had had impact on American education up to today. But
American education of the twentieth century was not just a fight between
Dewey and Thorndike, or their ideas. It was the competition of many
contending ideas; some became more dominant in a certain period and
waned. Others might have undergone metamorphosis and reinterpreta-
tion. In this case, Dewey’s ideas in education seem to have survived longer
than Thorndike’s psychology.
On the other hand, Dewey’s disciple Kilpatrick had tried to integrate
Dewey’s education with Thorndike psychology in The Project Method.
Notably, Kilpatrick’s purposeful activity had integrated Thorndike’s law
of effect. In a broad sense, the animal interacts with the environment
to solve problems for a purpose. So do the human species. To a certain
extent, the law of effect, of learning by trial and error, has some superfi-
cial, or universal, similarity with learning by doing. It can explain animal
and human learning as well. The difference is that Thorndike tried to
discover universal laws of learning for all species while Dewey tried to
account for the unique process of human learning. The former focused
on precise measurement, such as learning curve and quantity of reinforce-

ments while the latter was concerned with the qualitative description of a
growth process.
The Emerging View

Amidst the above divergent views, a few consensus have emerged.
First, Dewey is the foremost theoretician of American education reform,
whether we call it new, progressive, child-centered or otherwise.
Supporters and opponents alike would quote Dewey for their own needs,
motives and interpretation. One example of bizarre criticism was that
Dewey’s notion of impulse had led to classroom nihilism (Edmondson III
2006: 32–33). The critic further pointed to “Dewey’s abuse of language
for his rhetorical convenience” (ibid.: 96). Fact is he wanted a more
academic education and a disciplined classroom in America. Second, there
were contending forces and orientations of reform before, during and
after Dewey’s times. Some were more aligned with Dewey’s, such as the
child-centered educators and the social meliorists, but others were less so,
such as the traditionalists and the efficiency experts. But all competing
schools felt the impact of Dewey’s ideas, so that it is sensible for Kliebard
to put Dewey as a towering figure above them. Third, there is no doubt
that Dewey’s ideas would be misinterpreted and distorted in the course of
the progressive education movement. To quote from Richard Hofstadter,
one of Dewey’s critics:
It is commonly said that Dewey was misunderstood, and it is repeatedly

pointed out that in time he had to protest against some of the educational
practices carried on in his name. Perhaps his intent was widely, even regu-
larly violated, but Dewey was hard to read and interpret. He wrote a prose
of terrible vagueness and plasticity. (Hofstadter 1964: 361)
Finally, while Dewey did not intentionally or directly lead the progressive
education movement, his impact on American education has been felt.
More specifically, in elementary education, his child-centered approach
becomes the dominant paradigm since the 1920s, though practitioners
might not have followed through Dewey’s ideals. In secondary education,
we saw the publication of the Cardinal Principles of Secondary Education
by the Commission on the Reorganization of Secondary Education of
338 R. LI
the National Education Association in 1918. The report was fully imbued
with Deweyan concepts and principles, such as the following:
Education in a democracy, both within and without the school, should

develop in each individual the knowledge, interests, ideals, habits, and
powers whereby he will find his place and use that place to shape both
himself and society toward ever nobler ends…… The purpose of democracy
is to so organize society that each member may develop his person-
ality primarily through activities designed for the well-being of his fellow
members and of society as a whole.24
Hofstadter has soberly observed, “Dewey’s thought was constantly

invoked. His vocabulary and ideas, which were clearly evident in the
Cardinal Principles of 1918, seem to appear in every subsequent docu-
ment of the new education. He has been praised, paraphrased, repeated,
discussed, apotheosized, even on occasions read” (Hofstadter 1964: 361).
Historian Joel Spring echoed the same view: “The Cardinal Principles,
the comprehensive high school, vocational guidance, and the junior high
school represent, of course, the main stream” (Spring 1970: 69). In this
way, many of Dewey’s ideas have been incorporated into mainstream
American education of the twentieth century.
A personal note on Teachers College, the seedbed of progressive
education in America. I studied there some 30 years ago. There was a
building named after Thorndike and a statue of Dewey placed at the
entrance of its Milburn Library. Faculties talked about the ideas of both
men enthusiastically and students studied them with reverence.
Further Readings
For readers interested in John Dewey and Progressive Education, you may
dig deeper in the following.
A. The Progressive Era (1879–1920)
This is an important historical era of America transforming from tradition

to modernity. The following books are of interest; they offer intellectual
history, political history and important personalities of the period:
24 Quoted from Spring, J. (1970). Education and Progressivism. History of Education

Quarterly, 19(1), 68.
1. Wiebe, R. H. (1967). The Search for Order, 1877 –1920. New York:
Hill and Wang.
Wiebe gave a comprehensive history of the Progressive Era. It
offers a historical narrative and sociological analysis for an era of
rapid economic and political change. The nation moves from crisis in
the communities (Chapter 3) to the revolution in values (Chapter 6)
and to the illusion of fulfillment (Chapter 8). The book is part of
The Making of America Series, a six-volume history of the USA.
2. Dawley, A. (2003). Changing the World: American Progressives in
War and Revolution. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
As the title suggests, The American progressives wanted to
change the world. A kind of New Internationalism (Chapter 1)
and a new form of Social Republic (Chapter 2) were in the making
during the period. Dawley wrote with a sober and detached tone as
world history underwent revolution from Mexico to China to Russia
plus the rise of nationalism (Chapter 3) with World War and Recon-
struction (Chapter 5). A scholarly and interpretative work imbued
with details and quotes.
3. McGeer, M. (2014). A Fierce Discontent: The Rise and Fall of the
Progressive Movement. New York: Oxford University Press.
A recent book on the history of the Progressive Era, Mc Geer
explained how the rise of the American middle class started a revo-
lution: redefine the role of women, rewrite the rules of politics,
revolutionize marriage and ban the sale of alcohol, and many more.
It has created drastic and lasting change in America comparable
to the New Deal of Franklin Roosevelt and New Frontier of John
Kennedy.
In politics, the dilemma between social good of progressivism and
the American value of individual freedom keeps surfacing in two-
party politics and continues up to today.
4. Flanagan, M. A. (2007). American Reformed: Progressive and
Progressivisms. New York: Oxford University Press.
Written as a textbook on the American Progressive Era, the
author tries to show how democracy and “social justice” movement
permeates throughout the period in politics, social justice, economic
equity and foreign policy. It covers how women, the blacks, the
minorities and the labor unions involved and revolved around the
movement which defined democracy in this young nation.
340 R. LI
5. Gould, L. L. (2000). America in the Progressive Era (1890–1914).

London: Routledge.
Gould’s book offers an analytical narrative of the rise and decline
of progressive reform from 1890 to 1914. The author puts focus
on Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson, both progressive in
outlook and set somewhat similar agenda as America emerged to
become a world power.
B. Progressive Education
The following books and papers can introduce you to the subject:
1. Cremin, L. A. (1962). The Transformation of the School: Progres-

sivism in American Education, 1876–1957 . New York: Knopf.
A classic on the history of progressive education, Cremin amassed
enormous data to show the transformation of the American schools
from 1876 to 1957. In Part 1, he detected the progressive impulse
and outlined the pedagogical pioneers (Chapter 5). In Part 2, he
examined the progressive ideas, people (Chapter 6), organization
(Chapter 6) and its impact (Chapter 8). A must read on the subject.
2. Fallace, T. D. (2011). Tracing John Dewey’s Influence on Progres-
sive Education, 1903–1951: Toward a Received Dewey. Teachers
College Record, 113(2), 463–492.
In this paper, Fallace argued that Dewey’s influence on progres-
sive education was assumed, not demonstrated. He pointed out four
methodological flaws and saw that many historical actors were held
responsible for the misinterpretation and misapplication of Dewey’s
ideas. Fallace’s claim was justified in so far as history is often open
to interpretation: many forces were at work to affect progressive
education and John Dewey was but one of them.
3. Hayes, W. (2006). The Progressive Education Movement: Is It Still a
Factor in Today’s Schools? Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Education.
A short introduction by a retired educator. Hayes tries to relate
progressive education to present-day American schools.
4. Howlett, J. (2013). Progressive Education: A Critical Introduction.
New York: Bloomsbury Academic.
Howlett, a British lecturer in education, tried to show that
progressive/liberal education started in Europe (Chapters 1 and 2)
and gave a short account of Parker, Dewey and the American tradi-
tion (Chapter 6). It is updated with postmodernism, deschooling,
critical pedagogy, Paulo Freire and Ivan Illich (Chapter 8). Written
in a British style of complicated English, you may read it to avoid
American-centeredness.
5. Zilversmit, A. (1993). Changing Schools: Progressive Education
Theory and Practice. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Zilversmit was educated in a traditional “old-fashioned New York
City public school” in the early 1940s. He was attracted to the
freedom of progressive education and wrote about it with a calm
and fair tone. He was on the sympathetic side and offered a historical
study with in-depth schools in progress during the period in various
locations, including Winnetka, Illinois and several school systems in
the Chicago area. Zilversmit saw progressive education as genuine
American ideology in education.
6. Semel, S. F., & Sadovnik, A. R. (1999). “Schools of Tomorrow,”
Schools of Today: What Happened to Progressive Education. New York:
Peter Lang.
Susan Semel worked on her research in the 1980s and was
inspired and encouraged by Lawerance Cremin, the historian of
Progressive education. Her collaboration with Alan Sadovnik has
turned into this volume, published in 1999, that documents the
history of some of the most prominent progressive schools of the
early twentieth century. It has also included a number of progressive
schools of today to show how the legacy of progressive pedagogy
has continued to strive. The title is a volume in the History of Schools
and Schooling Series. Its second edition appeared in 2016, which was
completely revised to include the more recent progressive charter
schools, the experience in public progressive education and KIPP
(knowledge is Power Program).
7. Edmondson, H. T. (2006). John Dewey and the Decline of American
Education: How the Patron Saint of Schools Has Corrupted Teaching
and Learning. Wilmington: ISI Books.
A more recent short book (114 pages) to attack John Dewey. The
author indicted “America’s education decline” (p. xii) as witnessed
by low standard scores to the education system being controlled
by teachers (National Education Association, American Federation
of Teachers) who move along John Dewey’s education theory (p.
342 R. LI
xiv). A source book of emotional criticism with lots of quotes but

misunderstandings.
8. Peal, R. (2014). Progressively Worse: The Burden of Bad Ideas in
British Schools. London: Civitas.
A British history teacher explains how “progressive education has
plunged British schools into a decades-long crisis, leaving genera-
tions of pupils illiterate and under-educated” (from book bluff). Peal
was hailed as a young voice in British education.
C. The Teachers College Professors on Progressive Education

As stated in my chapter, a few professors at Teachers College who were
colleagues with John Dewey have had significant impact on progressive
education. You may wish to know more about them:
1. William Kilpatrick
a. Biography
Tenenbaum, S. (1951). William Heard Kilpatrick: Trail Blazer
in Education. New York: Harper.
b. Selected Works
Kilpatrick, W. H. (1923). Source Book in the Philosophy of
Education. New York: Macmillan.
Kilpatrick, W. H. (1925). Foundations Of Method—Informal
Talks On Teaching. New York: Macmillan.
Kilpatrick, W. H. (1941). Selfhood and Civilization: A Study of
the Self -Other Process. New York: Macmillan.
2. George Counts
a. Biography
Gutek, G. L. (1984). George S. Counts and American Civi-
lization: The Educator as Social Theorist. Macon, GA: Mercer
University Press.
b. Selected Works
Counts, G. S. (1927). The Social Composition of Boards of
Education: A Study in the Social Control of Public Education.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Counts, G. S. (1928). School and Society in Chicago. New York:

Harcourt Brace.
Counts, G. S. (1952). Education and American Civilization.
New York: Teachers College, Columbia University.
3. Edward Thorndike
a. Biography
Joncich, G. M. (1968). The Sane Positivist: A Biography of
Edward L. Thorndike. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University
Press.
b. Selected Works
Thorndike, E. L. (1903). Educational Psychology. New York:
Lemcke and Buechner.
Thorndike, E. L. (2010 [1904]). An Introduction to the Theory
of Mental and Social Measurements. Charleston,SC: Nabu Press.
Thorndike, E. L. (1906). Principles of Teaching, Based on
Psychology. New York: A. G. Seiler.
Thorndike, E. L. (2017 [1911]). Animal Intelligence. North
Charleston, SC: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform.
Thorndike, E. L. (2009 [1921]). The Teacher’s Word Book.
Charleston, SC: BiblioLife.
Thorndike, E. L. (2012 [1927]). The Measurement of Intelli-
gence. London, UK: Forgotten Books.
Thorndike, E. L. (1966 [1931]). Human Learning. London:
The MIT Press.
D. Notable Progressive Leaders in America

Below is a list of American progressive leaders and their areas of special-
ization based on Progressive Era, Wikipedia.
1. Jane Addams, social reformer

2. Susan B. Anthony, suffragist
3. Robert P. Bass, New Hampshire politician
4. Charles A. Beard, historian and political scientist
5. Louis Brandeis, Supreme Court justice
6. William Jennings Bryan, Democratic presidential nominee in 1896,
1900, 1908; Secretary of State
344 R. LI
7. Lucy Burns, suffragist

8. Andrew Carnegie, steel magnate, philanthropist
9. Carrie Chapman Catt, suffragist
10. Winston Churchill, author (not the British politician)
11. Herbert Croly, journalist
12. Clarence Darrow, lawyer
13. Eugene V. Debs, American socialist, political activist, trade
unionist, and five times the candidate of the Socialist Party of
America for President of the USA.
14. John Dewey, philosopher
15. W. E. B. Du Bois, Black scholar
16. Thomas Edison, inventor
17. Irving Fisher, economist
18. Abraham Flexner, education
19. Henry Ford, automaker
20. Henry George, writer on political economy
21. Charlotte Perkins Gilman, feminist
22. Susan Glaspell, playwright, novelist
23. Emma Goldman, anarchist, philosopher, writer
24. Lewis Hine, photographer
25. Charles Evans Hughes, statesman
26. William James, philosopher
27. Hiram Johnson, Governor of California
28. Mary Harris “Mother” Jones, union activist
29. Samuel M. Jones, politician, reformer
30. Florence Kelley, child advocate
31. Robert M. La Follette Sr., Governor of Wisconsin
32. Fiorello LaGuardia, US Congressman from New York; New York
City mayor
33. Walter Lippmann, journalist
34. Mayo Brothers, medicine
35. Fayette Avery McKenzie, sociology
36. John R. Mott, YMCA leader
37. George Mundelein, Catholic leader
38. Alice Paul, suffragist
39. Ulrich B. Phillips, historian
40. Gifford Pinchot, conservationist
41. Walter Rauschenbusch, theologian of Social Gospel
42. Jacob Riis, reformer
43. John D. Rockefeller Jr., philanthropist

44. Theodore Roosevelt, President
45. Elihu Root, statesman
46. Margaret Sanger, birth control activist
47. Anna Howard Shaw, suffragist
48. Upton Sinclair, novelist
49. Albion Small, sociologist
50. Ellen Gates Starr, sociologist
51. Lincoln Steffens, reporter
52. Henry Stimson, statesman
53. William Howard Taft, President and Chief Justice
54. Ida Tarbell, muckraker
55. Frederick Winslow Taylor, efficiency expert
56. Frederick Jackson Turner, historian
57. Thorstein Veblen, economist
58. Lester Frank Ward, sociologist
59. Ida B. Wells, Black leader
60. Burton Kendall Wheeler, Montana politician
61. Woodrow Wilson, President
References
Bourne, R. S. (1916). The Gary Schools. New York: Houghton Mifflin Co.
Callahan, R. (1962). Education and the Cult of Efficiency: A Study of the Social
Forces That Have Shaped the Administration of the Public Schools. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press.
Cohen, J. (1966). A New Introduction to Psychology. London: Allen & Unwin.
Cremin, L. A. (1959). John Dewey and the Progressive Education Movement,
1915−1952. The School Review, 67 (2), 160–173.
Cremin, L. A. (1962). The Transformation of the School: Progressivism in
American Education, 1876–1957 . New York: Knopf.
Education Press.
College Press.
346 R. LI
Edmondson, H. T. (2006). John Dewey and the Decline of American Educa-
tion: How the Patron Saint of Schools Has Corrupted Teaching and Learning.
Wilmington: ISI Books.
Hayes, W. (2006). The Progressive Education Movement: Is It Still a Factor in
Today’s Schools? Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Education.
Higgins, S., & Coffield, F. (Eds.). (2016). John Dewey’s Democracy and
Education: A British Tribute. London: UCL Institute of Education Press.
Hofstadter, R. (1964). Anti-intellectualism in American Life. New York:
Random House.
Kliebard, H. M. (2004). The Struggle for the American Curriculum, 1893–1958.
New York: Routledge.
Lagemann, E. C. (1989). The Plural Worlds of Educational Research. History of
Education Quarterly, 29(2), 183–214.
Spring, J. (1970). Education and Progressivism. History of Education Quarterly,
10, 53–71.
Thorburn, M. (2017). John Dewey, William Wirt and the Gary Schools Plan: A
Centennial Reappraisal. Journal of Educational Administration and History,
49(2), 1–13.
Wiebe, R. H. (1967). The Search for Order, 1877–1920. New York: Hill and
Wang.
CHAPTER 13
Late Writings on Education
Dewey’s Network of Enterprise (1921–1940)

A Network of Four Domains
Howard Gruber (1922–2005), a psychologist on creativity of eminent
persons, has proposed the notion of network of enterprise (1989) which
can be used as a framework of analysis for the work of a person’s life-
time.1 The idea is that an eminent person may work on a number of
projects simultaneously which may form a network. On the other hand,
each project may have its own developmental path. Let me bring this to
Dewey’s life and works from 1921 to 1940. For our interest, I will arbi-
trarily put Dewey’s network of enterprise into four domains: education
and psychology, philosophy, political writings and action, and personal
events and international travels (Table 13.1).
A Prolific Writer in Philosophy and Politics

Immediately I discover that education and psychology is not his major
focus, philosophy is. In a period of 20 years, Dewey delivered four impor-
tant lectures and turned out nine books, some of which were based on
his lectures. His most impressive contribution to philosophy can be found
in: Reconstruction of Philosophy (1921), Experience and Nature (1925),
1 Wallace, D. B., & Gruber, H. E. (1989). Creative People at Work: Twelve Cognitive
Case Studies. New York: Oxford University Press.

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-7941-7_13
Table 13.1 John Dewey’s network of enterprise (1921–1940)
348
Year Education and psychology Philosophy Political writings and action Personal events and
international
R. LI
travels
1921 Reconstruction of Philosophy Visits China

(62) (1920)
1922 Human Nature and Conduct Paul Carus Lecture:
(63) Experience and Nature
1923
(64)
1924 Visits Turkey
(65)
1925 Experience and Nature
(66)
1926 Visits Mexico
(67)
1927 The Public and Its Problems Death of wife
(68)
1928 • Honorary President of PEAa Visits USSR
(69) • Progressive Education and The
Science of Education
international
travels
1929 The Sources of a Science of Gifford Lecture: The Quest of • President of People’s • Visits Scotland
(70) Education Certainty Lobbyb • 70th Birthday
• President of League for Celebration
Independent Political
Action
1930 Individualism, Old and New • Visits Europe
(71) • Retires from
Columbia
• Continues as
Professor
Emeritus
13
1931 William James Lecture: Art as The Need for a New Party
(72) Experience
1932 Honorary President of NEAc Ethics (revised)
(73)
1933 How We Think (revised) The Committee of Civic
(74) Workers and Educators on
New York Corruption
1934 • South Africa Conference: The Terry Lecture: A Common New York City Teachers Visits South Africa
(75) Need for a Philosophy of Faith Union politics (1933–1935)
Education
• Dewey Page on Social Frontier
(continued)
LATE WRITINGS ON EDUCATION
349
350
international
R. LI
travels
1935 John Dewey Society foundedd Liberalism and Social Action

(76)
1936 Acquaintance with
(77) Roberta Lowitz
1937 Dewey Commission on Visits Mexico
(78) Trotskye
1938 Experience and Education Logic: The Theory of Inquiry
(79)
1939 Theory of Valuation • Committee for Cultural
(80) Freedom
• Freedom and Culture
1940 Defends Bertrand Russell
(81)
a Progressive Education Association, please see more detail in Chapter 12 of this book
b Dewey had pushed for a third political party and served as presidents for two organizations. For more information, please refer to Westbrook, R. B.
(1991). John Dewey and American Democracy (Chapter 12). Ithaca: Cornell U. Press
c National Education Association is the largest labor union and professional interest group in the United States. It was founded in 1857. Its members
are about 3,000,000 up to 2015. The stated mission of the NEA is “to advocate for education professionals and to unite our members and the
nation to fulfill the promise of public education to prepare every student to succeed in a diverse and independent world”
d John Dewey Society is still active today: http://www.johndeweysociety.org/ It has sponsored annual John Dewey Lectures
e Leon Trotsky (1879–1940) was a Russian revolutionary who had a political struggle with Josef Stalin. He lost, was put on trial but fled to Mexico in
the 1930s. Pro-Trotskyists formed an international tribunal to “hear” Stalin’s charges. Dewey as an impartial liberalist was invited to chair the tribunal
13 LATE WRITINGS ON EDUCATION 351
The Quest of Certainty (1929), The Theory of Inquiry (1938), Theory of

Valuation (1939). Simultaneously, he was writing on political philosophy
and taking part in political action. There his most notable publications
were: The Public and Its Problems (1927), Individualism, Old and New
(1930), Liberalism and Social Action (1935) and Freedom and Culture
(1939). That was at an amazing rate of a book in every two years!
As an independent scholar, Dewey had been engaged in third party
politics; he became president of People’s Lobby and League for Inde-
pendent Political Action in 1931, investigated in New York corruption
in 1933 and took part in New York City Teachers Union politics from
1933 to 1935. In international politics, Dewey headed a Commission
of Inquiry in Mexico in 1937 on the charges against Leon Trotsky and
“acquitted” the latter. All along Dewey was the vanguard of academic
freedom: he supported Professor Arthur Kraus’s hunger strike in City
College of New York in 1937, formed The Committee for Cultural
Freedom in 1939 and stood up for Harold Rugg when his text-
book was considered subversive and banned in some school districts in
1940. Of international sensation was his defense of Bertrand Russell,
who was charged with “immorality and indecency” in his teaching (see
Chapter 12).
Widower and Emeritus Harvesting on Education

A few important personal events took place during that period. Alice
Chipman, whom Dewey married for forty years, died of heart failure in
1927. Apparently Dewey did not recover until two years later, when his
friends and colleagues treated him to his 70th birthday celebration. By
then, Dewey was a national celebrity.
In 1930, Dewey retired from Columbia as a full-time professor so
that he could be relieved from his teaching duties for more time on
his writing. He became Professor Emeritus of Philosophy in Residence
and maintained his office, meeting and advising graduate students from
time to time. Even before his retirement, Dewey had been squeezing time
for international travels. During the period, he made eight international
trips, mostly to give talks, to receive honorary degrees or to do some
research. The 70-year-old Dewey had some acquaintance with women
and developed, in 1936, an intimate relationship with Roberta Lowitz,
the daughter of an old friend. They got married in 1946 when Dewey
was 86.
352 R. LI
Piecing together the above facts in Dewey’s network of enterprise, I

can see that Dewey is a scholar in continuous progress and on the move.
I can also safely conclude that philosophy is Dewey’s major enterprise,
followed by his political writings and action. He made many international
trips during the period, alongside some major changes in his personal life.
Education and psychology, then, is more like his sideline business, though
he had, by then become an icon and spokesman of American education. A
well-sought-after speaker, Dewey became honorary president of Progres-
sive Education Association and National Education Association in 1928
and 1932, respectively. A society to his name, John Dewey Society, was
founded in 1935. In education, it is a time of harvesting and refining, not
for creating and system building; this he would leave to his students and
junior colleagues.
Dewey’s Late Writings on Education (1928–1940)

After returning from China in 1921, Dewey worked on his philosophy
and political writings and did not write much on education from 1921
to 1927. In 1924, he visited Turkey, upon the invitation of the Turkish
Government, and advised on its education. In 1926, he visited Mexico
and delivered lectures there. More significantly, he joined a US delegation
to visit the USSR in summer 1928 and upon return, wrote a few articles
on his Russian impression, such as “What are the Russians Schools Doing ?”
(LW3: 224) and “New Schools for a New Era” (LW3: 233). He witnessed
Russia undergoing a national experiment, and he found it distasteful for
indoctrination in Russian Schools.
In the same year, Dewey accepted the post of honorary president of
Progressive Education Association and delivered a presidential address.
Joseph Ratner (1901–1979), Dewey’s student and close associate in his
late years, edited a book entitled Education Today by John Dewey in 1940.
It must have been authorized by Dewey himself, which is a collection
of Dewey’s educational writings from My Pedagogic Creed of 1897 to
Democracy and Education in the World of Today of 1938. The book did
not select or adapt any passages from Dewey’s essential education texts,
such as The Child and Curriculum, Schools of Tomorrow, or Democracy
and Education, probably because of copyright or publishing right issues.
Of the 45 articles collected, about half were Dewey’s late writings
from 1928 to 1938, which focused on democracy and social change.
It reflected Dewey’s ideas and concern in his late years as well as
the then social mood. According to Ratner, the publication was timely
because it tried to answer the basic question of “education today” “total-
itarian dictatorships have… taken as a challenge for democratic societies”
(Ratner 1940: foreword, vi). Pointed out Ratner, “The future of Amer-
ican democracy will depend upon the effort and intelligence with which
we attack our present problems. Education Today, … throws [light] on
the key problems of a democratic society” (ibid.: xiii).
Ratner’s selections were analogous to my organization of Dewey’s late
writings into three periods. Since many of Dewey’s late writings on educa-
tion elaborated a few similar ideas, I have picked nine more representative
papers below for synopsis and review. Hopefully my picks are broader and
more comprehensive than Ratner’s since my review poses no copyright
issues.
His late writings on education (1928–1940) can roughly be divided
into three periods, each with a special focus.
Period One (1928–1934): Support and Critique of Progressive

Education
Period one (1928–1934) was mostly writings to support and critique of
progressive education. The more notable articles were: Progressive Educa-
tion and the Science of Education (1928), How Much Freedom in New
Schools ? (1930), Monastery, Bargain Counter or Laboratory in Education?
(1932), Why Have Progressive Schools ? (1933) and The Need for a Philos-
ophy of Education (1934). Dewey also elaborated the scientific status of
education in The sources of a Science of Education (1929).
Period Two (1934–1937): Moving Toward Social Constructionism

During Period two (1934–1937), in the depth of the Great Depression,
Dewey was concerned with social change and social reconstruction. Some
important addresses and papers were: Education for a Changing Social
Order (1934), Can Education Share in Social Reconstruction? (1934) and
Education and Social Change (1937). He also outlined, in Rationality
in Education (1936), a debate between the conservatives (represented by
Robert Hutchins) and the progressives (represented by Lancelot Hogben)
on the aims and methods in higher education.
Dewey was also concerned with the role of teachers in education,
giving talks and writing articles such as The Duties and Responsibilities
354 R. LI
of the Teaching Profession (1930), The Teacher and His World (1935) and
The Teacher and The Public (1935).
Period Three (1938–1940): Experience and Democracy

By Period three (1938–1940), with the impending the Second World
War, Dewey summed up his education ideas in Experience and Educa-
tion (1938) and expounded his support to democracy in Democracy and
Education in the World of Today (1938). Other articles on democracy
in education included: Class Struggle and the Democratic Way (1936)
and Democracy and Educational Administration (1937). Related to it was
academic freedom that Dewey strived for, such as the article, The Social
Significance of Academic Freedom (1936).
Synopsis and Review of Late Writings

Progressive Education and the Science of Education (1928)
In this address as honorary president of Progressive Education Association
in 1928, Dewey was very much in support of progressive education. He
outlined the common characteristics of progressive schools and endorsed
them: respect for individuality, increased freedom, building upon expe-
rience, atmosphere of informality, activity, real-life communication and
personal relations, respect of individual capacities, respect of self-initiated
and self-conducted learning (LW3: 258–259). In fact, all these are
Deweyan ideals in education.
As always, Dewey was critical of traditional schools. Now in the 1920s,
Dewey criticized their new paradigm which emphasized on the notion of
social efficiency with concerns of waste, resources, efficiency and effective-
ness (LW3: 260). He was also aware of the fad of IQ and its measurement.
Simply put, “The aim is to establish a norm. The norm, omitting statis-
tical refinements, is essentially an average found by taking a sufficiently
large number of persons. When this average is found, any given child can
be rated” (LW3: 260). Unwittingly, it becomes “assigning to the indi-
vidual child a determinate point on a curve” (LW3: 261). Dewey pointed
out it was a mistake, for quality was reduced to quantity without relating
to the “qualitative processes” and “intellectual form.” Moreover, one
cannot measure something “which does not exist.” In education, where
growth is a paramount “moving and changing process” with new capac-

ities and elements surfacing every day, the adherence to pre-established
static measurement simply doesn’t work.
Dewey was aware that educators in progressive schools were attacked
for “criticism that they are unscientific” (LW3: 262). Dewey argued that
it is a matter of orientation of science, whether science is to maintain the
status quo or to effect for change:
If you want schools to perpetuate the present order, with at most an elim-
ination of waste and with such additions as enable it to do better what
it is already doing, then one type of intellectual method or “science” is
indicated. But if one conceives that a social order different in quality and
direction from the present is desirable and that schools should strive to
educate with social change in view by producing individuals not compla-
cent about what already exists, and equipped with desires and abilities to
assist in transforming it, quite a different method and content is indicated
for educational science. (LW3: 262)
In 1928, Dewey saw progressive education as moving from negative

to positive, from destructive to constructive. He noted that “freedom
is no end in itself,” but “an opportunity to do something of a posi-
tive and constructive sort” (LW3: 262). Thus, Dewey hoped progressive
education could “enter upon organized constructive work, ……to make
definite contributions to building up the theoretical or intellectual side of
education…… science or philosophy of education” (LW3: 263).
In closing, Dewey urged progressive schools to make contribution
on “the development of organized subject-matter,” i.e., curriculum
development, and on studying “the conditions favorable to learning”
(LW3: 267). Here again, Dewey took a broader perspective beyond
micro-teaching. He wanted to discover conditions for self-learning in
cooperative activities:
It is no longer a question of how the teacher is to instruct or how the

pupil is to study. The problem is to find what conditions must be fulfilled
in order that study and learning will naturally and necessarily take place,
what conditions must be present so that pupils will make the responses
which cannot help having learning as their consequence. ……The method
of the teacher, ……becomes a matter of finding the conditions which call
out self-educative activity, or learning, and of cooperating with the activities
of the pupils so that they have learning as their consequence. (LW3: 267)
356 R. LI
How Much Freedom in New Schools? (1930)

In 1930, Dewey attended a symposium on “The New Education Ten Years
After” and made a final contribution with a paper entitled “How Much
Freedom in New Schools ?”. Here, Dewey kept his support to progres-
sive education but denounced that some “child-centered schools” had
gone too far in their inculcation of freedom, leading to “one-sidedness,”
“operating in a blind and spasmodic fashion,” “undeveloped and egoistic
activity,” “bent on the fulfillment of personal wishes and ambitions”
(LW5: 321). The fear of adult imposition and avoidance of adult dicta-
tion led to “child dictation.” Dewey warned, “…… some of these schools
indulge pupils in unrestrained freedom of action and speech, of manners
and lack of manners…… the thing they call freedom nearly to the point
of anarchy… deplorable egotism, cockiness, impertinence and disregard
for the rights of others” (LW5: 322–323). Dewey’s position was that the
teacher should offer guidance and direction:
The teacher, because of greater maturity and wider knowledge, is the

natural leader in the shared activity, and is naturally accepted as such. The
fundamental thing is to find the types of experience that are worth having.
(LW5: 322)
He saw that “the weakness of existing progressive education is due to the

meagre knowledge which anyone has regarding the conditions and laws of
continuity which govern the development of mental power” (LW5: 324).
When traditional schools could draw on the existing knowledge of pre-set
curriculum and teaching, progressive education had to build up its new
foundation of knowledge. Dewey thus made a call for the study of child
learning, the subject matter (curriculum) “which induces growth of skill,
understanding and rational freedom …worked upon co-operatively,” and
the “study of society and its moving forces” (LW5: 324–325). In other
words, “child-centered schools” should never lose sight of the “social-
centered” child and the specific society he was in.
Why Have Progressive Schools? (1933)

Written in 1933, Why Have Progressive Schools ? is another defense of
progressive education. Dewey began with the universal purpose of educa-
tion—“to give the young the things they need in order to develop in an
orderly, sequential way into makers of society” (LW9: 147) which had led
to different methods in ancient Greece, Soviet Russia, Hitler’s Germany,

Aboriginals in Australia. Then he brought in the psychological discoveries
for its application to teaching methods: learning based on previous expe-
rience, individual differences and learning motivation with interest. While
these sound cliché today, they were new applications to education in the
1930s. The science of individual psychology, Dewey argued, lent support
to the progressive education movement for freedom and individuality.
Suddenly, I have a strong feeling that Dewey was a relentless learner,
constantly updating himself and keeping up with the times. In his
presidential address to Progressive Education Association in 1928, he
mentioned and criticized the fad of IQ and the vogue of social effi-
ciency. Note that social efficiency was promoted by Frederick Taylor in
the 1910s and Lewis Terman (1877–1956), a Stanford pioneer educator
of the gifted, brought IQ to American land in 1916. Since then, effi-
ciency and measurement spread throughout America in all endeavors.
Dewey was well aware of these ideas and attacked them. Then in his
paper of How Much Freedom in New Schools in 1930, he personally visited
some progressive schools and spoke harshly of “unrestrained freedom”
and “lack of manners.” Now in this 1933 article, I discovered many
new and unique terms to reflect the academic and social milieu of the
1930s. Here was about the first time Dewey used “individual differences”
(LW9: 150) a term which gained attention in psychology in the 1910s
and 1920s. So were “individual learning” and “individual psychology.”
Readers may wish to note that Alfred Adler (1870–1937), an Austrian
social psychologist, formulated his system of individual psychology and
gained popularity in the 1920s. Adler’s stress of social interest was in
line with Dewey’s social psychology. When Dewey did not use the term
“dyslexia,” he did raise the issue of “backward about learning to read”
(LW9: 154). Undoubtedly, Dewey had kept up with the latest trend and
ideas.
In this article, Dewey mentioned that education was life with growth,
which could mean “something to be enjoyed now.” A cultivated indi-
vidual should be “able to enjoy leisure” and a progressive school had
to create success “with each child.” Such was the mood of middle-class
parents in the 1930s. Understandably, many progressive schools were
working hard to get their graduates into colleges. Whatever the case,
Dewey was enthusiastic about progressive schools for their catering for
individual needs, offering more freedom, providing outreach activities and
furnishing cooperation and self-discipline among their students.
358 R. LI
The Need for a Philosophy of Education (1934)

In July 1934, Dewey traveled to Cape Town and Johannesburg to partic-
ipate in the South African Education Conference. With 4000 attendants
from all over the world, Dewey gave a speech entitled The Need for a
Philosophy of Education.
Dewey started with progressive education, a protest against the existing
order in education and urged for a philosophy of education. With his
usual pragmatic approach, Dewey saw that “The educational end and the
ultimate test of the value of what is learned is its use and application in
carrying on and improving the common life of all” (LW9: 202). With his
social inclination, Dewey argued that “[t]he greatest need of and for a
philosophy of education to-day is the urgent need that exists for making
clear in idea and effective in practice the social character of its end and that
the criterion of value of school practices is social” (LW9: 202). Dewey is
no philosopher of the ivory tower. He was aware of global capitalism and
competition and the rising tide of nationalism. In the end of his speech,
he criticized the demise of ruthless competition and urged education to
foster international understanding and cooperation:
…… In a world that has so largely engaged in a mad, often brutal, race

for material gain by means of ruthless competition the school must make
ceaseless and intelligently organized effort to develop above all else the
will for cooperation and the spirit which sees in every other individual an
equal right to share in the cultural and material fruits of collective human
invention, industry, skill and knowledge. ……With the present unprece-
dented wave of nationalistic sentiment, of racial and national prejudice,
of readiness to resort to force of arms. ……the schools of the world can
unite in effort to rebuild the spirit of common understanding, of mutual
sympathy and goodwill among all peoples and races, to exorcise the demon
of prejudice, isolation and hatred. (LW9: 203–204)
Education for a Changing Social Order (1934)

In this address to the American Association of Teachers Colleges in Cleve-
land, Ohio, in February 1934, Dewey was less radical than his junior
colleague George Counts who had, two years before, challenged teachers
to build a new social order. Dewey simply noted “the present chaos”
(LW9: 158–159) and urged teachers to understand the social forces
underlying change. “Education for a changing social order must be based
on an understanding of the facts…… on insight into the causes that are

producing these changes – the forces that are at work” (LW9: 162). Here,
Dewey outlined the American faith in democracy, which slowly evolved
into “power rules.” Observed Dewey:
We live in a time when money not only talks but acts. There is an accumu-
lation and concentration of wealth. Our industrial and commercial system
is carried only by means of capital that is amassed and organized. I do not
complain of this fact. I only say that it is an outstanding fact and affects
politics. (LW9: 163)
Clearly Dewey was among the earliest critic of money politics. Though
critical of American capitalism, Dewey was aware that “we could not have
our present type of civilization… without the aggregation of impersonal
capital.” His concern was “how the aggregated capital is controlled and
how it is used plus its social effects” (LW9: 164).
With the deepening Great Depression from 1930 to 1933 and the
start of President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal (1933–1936), Dewey
saw a unique opportunity for teacher training institutions “to educate
the young for a changing social order” (LW9: 165). Dewey urged that
teacher could lead students to learn more about how social and economic
forces were at work, to “enable students to do their part in directing
the changes that are going on so that we would move to a juster, more
humane and more secure social order” (LW9: 167).
Dewey’s position as a social reformer rather than a radical revolutionary
was consistent with his political inclination, even at times of unprece-
dented change. Dewey never advocated hot-headed social change. He
was less militant than his junior colleagues whom he supported: George
Counts urged teachers to create a new social order and Harold Rugg
engaged students in critical evaluation of social problems. While Dewey
criticized the existing order of promoting “the habit of listening and of
accepting,” that of mental passivity and docility (LW9: 160), his remedy
was to cultivate “an inquiry disposition,” which he had elaborated in his
How We Think, revised a year earlier.
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Can Education Share in Social Reconstruction? (1934)

In 1934, Dewey began contributing to Social Frontier and this article
appeared on his John Dewey’s Page. Dewey was well aware of the liber-
alist agenda of social reconstruction after the Great Depression. When
education was accused of supporting the status quo, Dewey argued that
“the actual status quo is in a state of flux” (LW9: 206). It had grown
from “rugged individualism” to “a complex industrial order with highly
concentrated economic and political control” (LW9: 205–206). It was
“an economic form of success which is intrinsically pecuniary and egois-
tic” (LW9: 207), and there had always been competing forces between
laissez-faire capitalism and collectivism for the “control of capital” (LW9:
207).
Dewey was ambivalent about the power and role of schools and
teachers in creating a new social order. On the one hand, Dewey
observed, “I do not think…. that schools can… be the builders of a new
social order” (LW9: 207). On the other hand, he “believe[s] there are
enough teachers who will respond to the great task of making schools
active and militant participants in creation of a new social order” (LW9:
208). But he cautioned radical educators who tried to correct abuses:
“Abuses cannot be corrected by merely negative means; they can be
eliminated only by substitution of just and humane conditions” (LW9:
209). In a word, Dewey was an educational reformist and was not an
“educational fascist,” a term he coined at the end of this essay.
Education and Social Change (1937)

Because of the John Dewey’s Page, our philosopher contributed regularly
to Social Frontier, and Education and Social Change appeared in May
1937. In this article, Dewey merely reiterated his position that “schools
do have a role – and an important one – in production of social change”
(LW11: 409). But he found himself fighting on two fronts, the conser-
vatives and the Marxists. All through the 1930s, Dewey was in support
of progressive education and against traditional education. Following this
line of thought, Dewey here attacked the conservative view for “they tend
to favor return to older types of studies and to strenuous disciplinary
methods,” which in effect was “to express their opposition to some of
the directions social change is actually taking” (LW11: 410). Simultane-
ously, Dewey rejected the Marxian view that “the school, like every other
social institution, is of necessity the subservient tool of a dominant class,”

which led to the conclusion that “to change education in any important
respect is first to overthrow the existing class-order of society and transfer
power to another class” (LW11: 413).
Dewey was not as naïve as “to suppose that the schools can be a main
agency in producing the intellectual and moral changes, the changes in
attitudes and disposition of thought and purpose, which are necessary
for the creation of new social order” (LW11: 414). But he was hopeful
that schools could foster democracy. He appealed to the past history of
American education:
Our public school system was founded in the name of equality of oppor-
tunity for all, independent of birth, economic status, race, creed, or color.
The school…… is to create individuals who understand the concrete
meaning of the idea with their minds, who cherish it warmly in their hearts,
and who are equipped to battle in its behalf in their actions. (LW11: 416)
Experience and Education (1938)

Background
As a researcher who has followed through Dewey’s lifelong writings
in education and psychology, I have every reason to expect something
extraordinary in Experience and Education, the final word of his education
theory published in 1938. In 1915, Dewey had formulated his educa-
tion theory in Democracy and Education. By 1922, he had formulated
his theory of human nature in Human Nature and Conduct . Three years
later, in 1925, he published his metaphysics in Experience and Nature,
which was considered his magnum opus in philosophy. It was taken as
the greatest new addition to metaphysics in 300 years since Spinoza
(Dykhuizen 1973: 214–215). Then, his Gifford Lecture in 1929 and
William James Lecture in 1931 turned into important works, The Quest
of Certainty and Art as Experience respectively.
In education, he had visited the USSR in 1928 and was critical of
indoctrination in Russian schools. In 1934, when Dewey addressed an
International conference on education in South Africa, he urged for the
need of a philosophy of education. All through the 1930s, Dewey was
in support of progressive education and urged for social change through
education. With his penetrating insight in human nature, metaphysics,
science and art, and his concern about the troubling American education
362 R. LI
scene, it is reasonable to expect something new and exciting in Experience

and Education.
Coverage and Scope

This final work was delivered as an evening address in March 1938 to the
annual meeting of Kappa Delta Pi, a national honor society Dewey had
affiliated with. To start with, Dewey points out that progressive educa-
tion is “a product of discontent with traditional education” (LW13: 6).
There is a need for reform in the three domains of education: subject
matter, moral training and school organization. He tries to explain how
traditional education fails: traditional/old education teaches the past and
cannot relate it to the future. It gives poor education experience. New
education/progressive education is a reaction against the old and tries
to give positive experiences (Chapter 1). This criticism is substantiated
with the criteria of experience, in which Dewey exploits the idea of conti-
nuity and interaction (Chapter 3). To move forward, we need freedom:
freedom of observation, thinking and intelligence (Chapter 5). We also
need to clarify the meaning of purpose, which is how experience grows in
the taming of impulse (Chapter 6). The subject matter should be orga-
nized in a progressive manner (Chapter 7). This little volume ends with a
note on the means and goal of education, which is “the potentialities of
education when it is treated as intelligently directed development of the
possibility inherent in ordinary experience” (LW9: 61).
Criteria of Experience
In Chapter 3, Dewey engages himself in a critical examination of the
criteria of experience. Here, Dewey postulates two principles: the principle
of continuity and the principle of interaction. According to Dewey, “the
principle of continuity of experience means that every experience both
takes up something from those which have gone before and modifies in
some way the quality of those which come after” (LW 13: 19). Based on
this principle, the category of continuity, or the experiential continuum,
we can “attempt to discriminate between experience that are worthwhile
educationally and those that are not” (LW13: 17). Dewey points out that
some experiences are educative but some are mis-educative. For example,
“a child who learns to speak has a new facility and new desire… he has…
widened the external conditions for subsequent learning” (LW13: 20).
In this sense, learning to speak is an educative experience. On the other
hand, to force a child to learn something he has no interest in will simply
result in hostility to learning, which is mis-educative. This is important

because experience influences the formation of attitudes of desire and
purpose (LW13: 22).
The second is the principle of interaction. According to this principle,
“any normal experience is an interplay of two sets of conditions, the objec-
tive and internal conditions” (LW13: 24). The objective conditions are
the environment, the physical conditions and existence outside the experi-
ence of the learner. It interacts with the internal, psychological conditions
of the learner. Taken together, they form a situation and Dewey postu-
lates a transaction model: it is not only that the external conditions affect
the experience but that the internal conditions of learner may affect the
external conditions as well. Dewey illustrates his case with the issue of
freedom and restriction to a baby (LW13: 25).
The two principles are “the longitudinal and lateral aspects of experi-
ence.” Continuity and interaction in their active union with each other
provide the measure of the educative significance and value of an experi-
ence (LW13: 26). Seen in this way, it is the responsibility of educators to
create objective conditions that can enhance a child’s existing capacities
and provide worthwhile experience for a child’s growth.
New Terms and Ideas

In explaining the two principles, Dewey invokes some new terms he
seldom used in his earlier writings, for example: needs and capacities of the
individual, teaching effectiveness, stage of growth attained by the learner,
quantitative grading (LW13: 27) unlearn (LW13: 28), social enterprise
(LW13: 34), mutual accommodation and adaptation (LW13: 38). He also
paraphrases Lincoln on democracy, creatively turning it into education of
experience, by experience and for experience (LW13: 14). Clearly, Dewey
is keeping update with changing terms and ideas in education.
When he discusses social control in Chapter 4, his approach is not how
the ruling class exercises social control over other social classes. Instead,
he examines the social dynamics in a classroom setting and suggests “that
control of individual actions is effected by the whole situation in which
individuals are involved, in which they share and of which they are coop-
erative or interacting parts.” In other words, “control is exercised by
situation” (LW13: 33). Dewey observes and concludes:
(In) the traditional school…, the order which existed was so much a matter
of sheer obedience to the will of an adult was because the situation almost
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forced it upon the teacher. The school was not a group or community held
together by participation in common activities. …… in what are called the
new schools, the primary source of social control resides in the very nature
of the work done as a social enterprise in which all individuals have an
opportunity to contribute and to which all feel a responsibility. (LW13:
34)
When “learning by doing” and “life is activity” are Dewey’s signature

phrases, he is aware of its pitfalls. Action and activity must be constrained
by purpose, thinking and judgment. Points out Dewey,
Overemphasis upon activity as an end, instead of upon intelligent activity,

leads to identification of freedom with immediate execution of impulses
and desires. …… there is no purpose unless overt action is postponed
until there is foresight of the consequences of carrying the impulse into
execution – a foresight that is impossible without observation, information,
and judgment. …… An idea then becomes a plan in and for an activity to
be carried out. (LW13: 45)
Dewey Repeating Himself

Other than the above exposition of the criteria experience (Chapter 3),
social control (Chapter 4) and some new terms, Dewey does not seem to
have anything new to offer in Experience and Education. His criticism that
the traditional way of education with its subject matter and instruction
leads to docility, receptivity and obedience among students (LW13: 6)
had been raised in The Child and The Curriculum in 1902. The organic
connection between education and personal experience (LW13: 11) has
its roots in the first article of My Pedagogic Creed in 1897. That “educa-
tion is essentially a social process” (LW13: 36) is his basic tenet. When
Dewey argues that “(a) genuine purpose always starts with an impulse”
(LW13: 43), it is traceable to Chapter 6 of Human Nature and Conduct
in 1922, even his Psychology (1887). When Dewey stresses the role of
teacher to give guidance, such as “guidance given by the teacher to the
exercise of the pupils, intelligence is an aid to freedom” (LW13: 46), he is
repeating his observation in How Much Freedom in New Schools in 1930
as well as his Pedagogic Creed (1897). Examples abound that Experience
an Education contains ideas found mostly in Dewey’s previous writings
in education.
In my opinion, Experience and Education is not so much an old wine in
a new bottle but almost an old wine in an old bottle. However, it is a small
nice bottle which can serve as a summary of Dewey’s complex educational

thought. Thus, it is not surprising that Experience and Education has been
widely quoted among educators after its publication.
Democracy and Education in the World Today (1938)

This was the first annual lecture delivered in October 1938 in honor of
Felix Adler, a professor of ethics in Columbia and the founder of Ethical
Culture Movement.2 It was a time of political chaos and uncertainty.
In the USSR, Stalin continued the socialist revolution and began the
“Great Purge” in 1932–1933. In Germany, the Nazi Party won the elec-
tion in 1932 and Hitler moved the country into one-party dictatorship.
In Italy, Mussolini found the National Fascist Party in 1921 and created
a totalitarian military state in the 1920s. International political conflicts
escalated as Italy invaded and controlled Eritrea, Somalia and Ethiopia in
1936, Japan annexed Manchuria in 1931 and invaded China in 1937, and
Germany annexed Austria in 1938. More wars and conflicts could only be
expected.
It was clear that Dewey sensed the looming threat to democracy and
spoke in vigorous defense of it. Twenty years earlier, Dewey had already
formulated his notion of democracy: it was not just a political system but
a way of living in modern society. When Western democracy was under
siege in Continental Europe in the 1930s, it was no exaggeration to say
that democracy in the West had never faced such an imminent threat
before.
To start with, Dewey points out that the relation between democ-
racy and education is a reciprocal one, in which “democracy is itself an
educational principle, an educational measure and policy” (LW13: 295).
On the one hand, education is for democracy, a way of life with free
communication and exchange of ideas. On the other hand, democracy
cannot endure without education because it is through education and
schools that the democratic ideal is passed on. “The school is the essen-
tial distributing agency for whatever values and purposes any social group
cherishes” (LW13: 297). When we take democracy seriously, we should
2 Felix Adler (1851–1933) was a social reformer and religious leader. He came from a
rabbi family but preached “deed, not creed.” He formed the Society of Ethical Culture
in 1877 and started the Ethical Culture Movement on public service projects, including
kindergarten, nursing service and tenement houses.
366 R. LI
take “steps to make our schools more completely the agents for prepa-
ration of free individuals for intelligent participation in a free society”
(LW13: 298).
For Dewey, democracy means every individual is consulted as a part
of the process of authority, with his needs and wants taken into account,
“so that the final social will comes about as the co-operative expression of
the ideas of many people” (LW13: 296). In the process of free exchange
of ideas and intelligent participation, it will lead to the building of a
genuinely democratic society.
Dewey condemns the tragic racial intolerance in Germany and Italy,
objects to the “false propaganda that is put forth in the states for the
suppression of all free inquiry and freedom” (LW13: 302), and deplores
“the dependence of the authoritarian states in Europe upon the use of
force” (LW13: 303). To combat the ideology of anti-democratic states
in Europe, Dewey urges that “we should take seriously, energetically and
vigorously the use of democratic schools and democratic methods in the
schools; that we should educate the young and the youth of the country
in freedom for participation in a free society” (LW13: 297).
With a sense of urgency, Dewey cautions that we cannot take democ-
racy for granted and see it as our inheritance. It has to be practiced again
and again and to be gained generation after generation. Explains Dewey:
We have been so complacent about the idea of democracy that we have

more or less unconsciously assumed that the work of establishing a democ-
racy was completed by the founding fathers or when the Civil War
abolished slavery. …… I think, to be worth-while if we learn through
it that every generation has to accomplish democracy over again for itself;
that its very nature, its essence, is something that cannot be handed on
from one person or one generation to another, but has to be worked out
in terms of needs, problems and conditions of the social life of which, as
the years go by, we are a part, social life that is changing with extreme
rapidity from year to year. (LW13: 299–300)
In closing, Dewey mentions that
the cause of democracy is the moral cause of the dignity and the worth
of the individual. Mutual respect, mutual toleration, give and take, the
pooling of experiences, is ultimately the only method by which human
beings can succeed in carrying on this experiment …… of humanity.
(LW13: 304)
Earlier in Education and Social Change (1937), Dewey had made a similar
but even more persuasive pledge for democracy:
Democracy also means voluntary choice, based on an intelligence that is

the outcome of free association and communication with others. It means a
way of living together in which cooperation instead of brutal competition is
the law of life; a social order in which all the forces that make for friendship,
beauty, and knowledge are cherished in order that each individual may
become what he, and he alone, is capable of becoming. These things at
least give a point of departure for the filling in of the democratic idea and
aim as a frame of reference. (LW11: 417)
Summary and Conclusion:

Dewey’s Enduring Impact
Intellectual Giant
In nineteenth-century Britain, Herbert Spencer was known as the philoso-
pher (Francis 2007). The same was alluded to John Dewey in twentieth-
century America. John Shook and Paul Kurtz called him the philosopher in
their volume of collected presentations celebrating John Dewey’s 150th
birthday (Shook and Kurtz 2011: 9). This is no coincidence of flat-
tery. Both are intellectual giants who encapsulated ideas and knowledge
of their times, Spencer on evolution and Dewey on pragmatism. Their
writings went beyond philosophy and covered major domains of human
endeavor: society, politics, education, science, ethics and culture. They
both made lasting and enduring impact on modern Western culture, when
their countries succeeded one after the other to become the world’s most
dominant power.
In studying John Dewey the philosopher, I try to follow his life and
career, alongside his works. All his life, he was a professor in the academia,
interacting and contributing to the human knowledge enterprises. He had
made enormous impact on American society through his ideas, as much
by writings, teaching, lectures, speeches as by his active involvement in
social action, politics and education. His disciples propagated his ideas in
education, and his supporters elaborated his systems of thought in philos-
ophy and politics. His ideas have permeated into America, so much so that
“Dewey stands out in a real sense as the philosopher of American culture;
for he was able to capture and define the spirit of America” (Shook and
368 R. LI
Kurtz 2011: 9). That his face appeared on the American postage stamp
in 1968 in the Prominent Americans Series is an honor well-deserved.
Pioneering Spirit and Hard Work

Dewey’s rise to eminence appears to be a straightforward story of Amer-
ican pioneering spirit and hard work. He began as a precocious village
school boy in Vermont and finished college there. In college, he read
Spencer, Comte, Huxley, Marsh and was introduced to Kant and Spinoza
by his teacher H. A. P. Torrey. His interest in philosophy was turned into
a professional career when William Harris published Dewey’s first philo-
sophical paper in 1882. Then, he studied Hegel and Leibniz under his
teacher George Morris in graduate school at Johns Hopkins. Simulta-
neously, he learned German psychology from another teacher, G. Stanley
Hall, who was a student of Wilhelm Wundt. Thus, Dewey was well-versed
with modern philosophy and psychology by his mid-twenties. At the same
time, he knew ancient philosophy thoroughly, as evidenced by his being
invited to teach history of philosophy to his fellow classmates in Johns
Hopkins.
The young and aspiring Dewey became an assistant professor in the
University of Michigan after obtaining his Ph.D. in 1884. He was inter-
ested in philosophy but he was much more in demand in psychology.
He had a vision of The New Psychology (1884), and he worked hard
to integrate philosophy with psychology, producing Psychology as Philo-
sophic Method (1886), at a time when philosophy and psychology were
moving on separate ways. To meet the strong demand for psychology in
his teaching, Dewey read thousands of pages and turned out a textbook,
Psychology, in 1887. Next, he worked on Leibniz’s psychological ideas
(1888), Ethics (1891, 1894) and other papers on psychology, notably the
Psychology of Infant Language (1894) and The Theory of Emotion (1894).
For Dewey’s first 10 years of academic output, he was much a psychol-
ogist as a philosopher. By then, his ideas on psychology were mostly in
place, based very much on German psychology of an active human mind
with consciousness, volition, desire, will and the emerging self.
A Career-Driven Knowledge Enterprise

In a sense, Dewey’s knowledge enterprise is career-driven. In his
Michigan years (1884–1894), he was sought after in psychology, so that
he wrote much psychology although his personal interest was in philos-

ophy. When he moved to Chicago (1895–1905), he was much in demand
in education, psychology and philosophy. President Harper’s ambition for
innovation and expansion affected Dewey’s career path, as shown in the
founding of Dewey School and his writings in psychology and education.
Most of Dewey’s essential works on education appeared in that period:
Interest in Relation to Training of the Will (1896), Ethical Principles
Underlying Education (1897), My Pedagogic Creed (1897), The School
and Society (1899) and The Child and the Curriculum (1902). When he
was busy traveling, lecturing and promoting his theory on education, he
never lost sight of his philosophy, as noted in his Studies in Logical Theory
(1903), among other papers.
In the University of Chicago, Dewey was also working on psychology,
having recruited James Angell to establish a psychological laboratory
there. His most acclaimed paper on psychology, The Reflex Arc Concept
in Psychology, appeared in 1896, followed by his papers on develop-
mental psychology, such as Principles of Mental Development as Illustrated
in Early Infancy (1899) and Mental Development (1900). When he
became president of American Psychological Association in 1899–1900,
he made a presidential address, Psychology and Social Practice, focusing
on education, himself a practitioner. By then, Dewey had made his lasting
impact on American psychology; he was a pioneer in psychological theory,
educational psychology, developmental psychology and the founder of
American functionalism.
In 1905, Dewey made his final destination to Columbia University,
New York, where he stayed until his death in 1952. It was a new envi-
ronment with new people and new stimulation. In the first thirteen years
from 1905 to 1918, he focused very much on philosophy, writing on
Darwin, logic, ethics and pragmatism. In education his two masterpieces,
Schools of Tomorrow (1915) and Democracy and Education (1916) were
published. In psychology, he finished his first edition of How We Think
(1910).
But Dewey was more than an academician. He became acquainted with
the New York avant-garde intellectuals and took part in social activism,
founding and joining many organizations for social causes. As a public
intellectual he spoke on politics and democracy. Unbelievably, he tried to
involve himself in the independence of Poland.
I would say that 1919 was an important year in Dewey’s life. He visited
China and stayed there for nearly three years, distancing himself from
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American academics and politics. It looks like he was taking an intellectual

retreat to refresh himself, so to speak, while busy lecturing and spreading
his ideas in China. When he returned to the USA in late 1921, he entered
the final phase of his academic career. He was productive as ever, deliv-
ering four important lectures and turning out nine books in 20 years.
His last major work in psychology, Human Nature and Conduct , was
published in 1922. All his major philosophical treatises were produc-
tions of that period, notably Experience and Nature (1925), The Quest
of Certainty (1929) and The Theory of Inquiry (1938).
In education, Dewey was harvesting on his ideas developed in his thir-
ties to fifties. He wrote many short essays and gave talks. He became the
icon of progressive education in America and his ideas spread worldwide,
notably China, Turkey, Mexico, the UK and Europe. With the advent of
Nazism and the outbreak of the Second World War, Dewey’s defense of
democracy and liberty was too important to neglect; he was the most
popular American in China and thousands of leaflets under his name
were scattered all over China by US warplanes to fight against Japanese
invasion.
Integrating and Enriching Human Knowledge

Such is the life story and academic career of an intellectual giant. His
knowledge enterprise is an interaction with the existing human knowl-
edge, mostly intellectual ideas of the West. They focus mainly on four
domains: philosophy, psychology, education and political theory. Dewey
turned out about eight million words which is added to our stock of
human knowledge.
Apparently, the pioneering spirit, the hard work and his circumstan-
tial career path cannot fully explain Dewey’s eminence. It seems to me
that he had had an inner urge to think, to create and to go beyond
his predecessors. As a young man in college and graduate school, he
was already reading and in deep dialogue with the Western philosophic
tradition: Spinoza, Kant, Leibniz, Hegel. Influenced by Spencer, Mill,
Comte and others, Dewey showed an incessant urge to integrate, to make
sense, to build on contemporary European thought. When he landed
in Michigan, his career demanded him to study German psychology
seriously. All these experience and circumstances thrusted Dewey into
creating his own theory of psychology. It was based on the German tradi-
tion, and the ideas had landed in America, a promised land of innovation,
social experimentation and practical living. Dewey and other American

intellectuals, notably William James and Charles Peirce, caught that spirit
and zeitgeist and formulated pragmatism and progressivism. The indus-
trial revolution brought about social change and the need for education.
With this background, social experimentation and innovation became
possible and Dewey’s psychology was able to reformulate into a theory
of education for practice. In so doing, he went along by studying and
writing about developmental psychology and educational psychology, plus
European pedagogy. His study and dialogue with Herbart, Rousseau,
Pestalozzi, Frobel and Montessori was unveiled in Schools of Tomorrow
(1915). The publication of Democracy and Education (1916) made him
the spokesman of American progressive education. In retrospect, Dewey’s
whole life was propelled to integrating and enriching the Western human
knowledge enterprise. He was a hardworking and creative philosopher in
a new era on a new land.
Dewey’s Impact on Education and Philosophy

Philosophy of Education
Dewey’s impact on education and philosophy has been enormous and
enduring. Earlier I have quoted Herbert Kliebard (2004) seeing Dewey
as a towering figure over the American school curriculum (Chapter 11).
This is to be expected, as Dewey’s influence in the first half of twentieth
century was unsurpassed by any other philosopher of education. Even
in the second half of twentieth century and the twenty-first century, his
influence has not declined. Anyone studying the philosophy of educa-
tion must read Dewey. Howard Ozman’s Philosophical Foundations of
Education (1995, 2012) devoted a whole chapter to Dewey (Chapter 4,
Pragmatism and Education), followed by another chapter on his junior
colleague, George Counts (Chapter 5, Reconstructionism and Educa-
tion). The same is true for Sheila Dunn’s textbook (2005), Philosophical
Foundations of Education: Connecting Philosophy to Theory and Practice.
Dewey appeared on three chapters and My Pedagogic Creed was quoted
as a sample for readers, presumably future teachers, to show how to write
their own personal philosophy of education (pp. 251–252).
But Dewey did not survive only in textbooks. He stays in the minds of
many philosophers, educators and practitioners. As early as 1972, when
Edgar Faure published the UNESCO Report, Learning to Be—The World
of Education Today and Tomorrow, the views were entirely Deweyan:
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“modern democratic education… requires a revival of man’s natural drive

towards knowledge” (1972: xxix). Two decades later, Jacques Delors,
President of European Commission (1985–1995), elaborated the ideas
further into the Four Pillars of learning: learning to know, learning
to do, learning to live, learning to be (Delors 1998). As a vision of
twenty-first-century education in Europe, Dewey’s ideas never wane.
In the philosophy of education, Dewey was dismissed by linguistic
philosophers in the 1950s but there was a strong revival of interest on
him since the 1980s. For example, existentialist educator Maxine Greene
talked about wide-awakeness, “perspectives to be sought consciously and
critically and for meanings to be perceived from the vantage points of
persons awake to their freedom” (Greene 1978: 166). She was using
terms, such as meaning, critical, consciousness, dialogue, freedom, all
too familiar to students of Dewey. Paddy Walsh, in his Education and
Meaning, Philosophy in Practice (1993) took Dewey’s proposition of
philosophy as the theory of education seriously (p. 39). He reinterpreted
Dewey’s position of “education as a laboratory for testing the human….
significance of philosophical theories” (p. 49), and that “Dewey does
incorporate the ethical significance of education in his position” (p. 109).
In Walsh’s mind, all these “make Dewey still the educational philosopher
most worth reading” (p. 109).
Postmodernism
More recently, many scholars try to relate postmodernism to educa-
tion, notably Michael Peters (1995), Kenneth Wain (2004), Lars Løvlie
et al. (2003) and Ivana Milojević (2005). Specifically, Kenneth Wain
(2004) wrote a book entitled The Learning Society in a Postmodern
World—The Education Crisis. He scaffolded the idea of a learning society
from Dewey’s vintage, such as defining education in Deweyan terms
(2004: 21), seeing schools as instruments of change and social recon-
struction (2004: 24) and criticizing the irrelevance of curriculum (2004:
26). When Wain evaluated MacIntyre’s education public, Habermas’s
rational society, Rorty’s liberal utopia, Foucault’s politics and domination,
Dewey’s position on freedom, participatory democracy and reconstruc-
tion was always invoked as important points of departure for debate.
More emphatically, Larry Hickman, an authority on Dewey, gave
answers on postmodernism as if Dewey were alive. Hickman (2007) saw
postmodernism as raising problems and discontents but was not leading
to anywhere. He gave the answer that classical pragmatism was “waiting

at the end of the road” to give rescue. Pragmatism can help to define
and promote global citizenship because it “discover(s) a strain of human
commonality that trumps the postmodernist emphasis on difference and
discontinuity” (2007: 2). Dewey’s view on technology is functional and
is based on social constructivism, not the “Heideggerian type of roman-
ticism” or “critical theorists’ notion of technology as ideology” (2007:
4). And Dewey’s notion of warranted assertability in the epistemology
industry can be related to the social dimensions of inquiry, so that the
function of inquiry is “the production of new artifacts, including new
habits” (2007: 9). With the above and other arguments, through Hick-
man’s words, Dewey seems to have answered the latest postmodernist
challenge.
Education Practice
In education practice, especially in America, Dewey was the high priest.
Based on Dewey’s How We Think (1910, 1933), Robert Boostrom
(2005) wrote Thinking: The Foundation of Critical and Creative
Learning in the Classroom. It is more or less like a manual to teach
thinking. Dewey was also seem as preaching multiple intelligences as
Thomas Armstrong’s (2000) Multiple Intelligences in the Classroom
pointed to “Dewey’s vision of classroom as a microcosm of society”
(Armstrong 2000: 39). When the Long Island Ross School prided its
teaching systems of reflective teachers, innovative curriculum and student-
centered instruction, the Dewey School (laboratory school) was taken
as a research school connecting research with practice (Suárez-Orozco
and Sattin-Bajaj 2010: 69–79). More importantly, two young men, Mike
Feinberg and Dave Levin, started the Knowledge Is Power Program
(KIPP) for a mission of helping the underprivileged to get into college
(Mathews 2009). It began in 1994 and KIPP has since grown into over
100 schools with over 10,000 college graduates in 2018. The success
story is another social action of education reform, education for democ-
racy and equity, an education vision more or less cherished and inspired
by Dewey.
374 R. LI
My Final Words to My Dear Readers

John Dewey lives in the heart of many philosophers, educators, practi-
tioners and the public. He offers a progressive vision of the twentieth-
century modern world. His ideas continue to stay with us, as we await for
more intellectual giants of the twenty-first century.
Further Readings of Chapter 9,

10, and this chapter
On my journey to studying and understanding John Dewey, I have come
across hundreds of books and articles that spread for more than a century:
from his writings in the late nineteen century to the evaluation of his ideas
in early twenty-first century. My focus is on his psychology and education,
but it naturally interlocks with his philosophy and his life career. Below
I pick what I deem important to help you understand him. In this sea
of scholarship, I limit myself to a list of 20 books and papers on the
interpretation of his educational ideas.
1. Archambault, R. D. (1964). John Dewey on Education: Selected

Writings. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
Reginald Archambault, a philosopher of education, compiled
this selected works 12 years after Dewey’s death. The lengthy
introduction offers a clear outline of Dewey’s theory of educa-
tion: educational aims, curriculum, the pupil and the role of the
teacher. Archambault has identified science, inquiry and ethics as
Dewey’s core concepts. His selection of Dewey’s writings covers
all important domains touched by Dewey.
2. Cremin, L. A. (1959). John Dewey and the Progressive Education
Movement, 1915–1952. The School Review, 67 (2), 160–173.
Historian Lawrence Cremin wrote this most illuminating article
which was published in the Dewey Centennial Issue (Summer,
1959). It gave a historical account from American industrialism
(1895–1914), the First World War (1914–1918) to the roaring
twenties (1920s), the Great Depression (1930–1937), the Second
World War and the rise of communism (1940s). Dewey’s role was
examined as the progressive education movement rose and spread
throughout America. Cremin was among the first to underscore
that Dewey did not lead the progressive education movement.
3. Cunningham, P., & Heilbronn, R. (Eds.). (2016). Dewey in

Our Time: Learning from John Dewey for Transcultural Practice.
London: UCL Institute of Education Press.
As noted in Chapter 10 of this book, Peter Cunningham
of Cambridge University and Ruth Heilbronn of UCL Institute
of Education gathered ten Deweyan scholars worldwide for this
volume. It was published in 2016 on the occasion of the cente-
nary of Dewey’s Democracy and Education. Readers can see how
Dewey’s ideas were received and adopted in Britain, Spain, Japan,
Taiwan and Mainland China.
4. Dworkin, M. S. (1959). Dewey on Education: Selections. New York:
Deweyan scholar Martin S. Dworkin wrote John Dewey: A
Centennial Review in 1959 and was published as an introduc-
tion to this selected works. Dworkin gave a historical account from
Dewey’s Michigan years, the milieu of the 1890s, the underlying
streams of thoughts in the Progressive Era, to Dewey’s views on
progressive education. No doubt Dworkin has selected Dewey’s
most essential works in education, each of which he gave an
introduction.
5. Fairfield, P. (2009). Education After Dewey. London: Continuum.
Himself a philosopher familiar with the continental tradition
of the twentieth century, Fairfield pointed out that Dewey is
unfamiliar with and has only scant knowledge of his Euro-
pean contemporaries (Nietzche, Husserl, Heidegger) though
he has deep phenomenological sensibility (Fairfield 2009: 9).
He is comparing John Dewey with Gadamer’s experimental
phenomenology (Chapter 2), Heidegger’s hermeneutics thinking
(Chapter 3), Arendt’s theory of judgment and Freire’s diological
education.
Based on these comparisons, Fairfield formed a framework for
the teaching of human sciences: philosophy (Chapter 4), reli-
gion (Chapter 5), ethics (Chapter 6), politics (Chapter 7), history
(Chapter 8) and literature (Chapter 9). It could be applied to eval-
uate the aims and success in university teaching and learning of
these disciplines.
6. Garrison, J., Neubert, S., & Reich, K. (2012). John Dewey’s Philos-
ophy of Education. An Introduction and Recontextualization for
Our Times. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
376 R. LI
The authors “seek to recontextualize Dewey for a new gener-

ation who has come of age in a very different world than that
in which Dewey lived and wrote” (introduction). It is a most-
welcome introduction for its innovation and novelty. Dewey’s ideas
are not presented historically nor chronologically, but organized
in three conceptual underpinnings relevant to the present-day
understanding: the cultural turn, the constructive turn and the
communicative turn. The authors also relate Dewey’s ideas to a
discourse with modern philosophers such as Bauman, Foucault,
Bourdieu, Derrida, Levinas and Rorty.
7. Hansen, D. T. (2006). John Dewey and Our Educational Prospect:
A Critical Engagement with Dewey’s Democracy and Education.
Albany: State University of New York Press.
David T. Hansen is a professor with Teachers College, Columbia
University. He served as chairman of John Dewey Society (2003–
2005), and the book is a collection of presentations in the Soci-
ety’s annual symposium together with the American Educational
Research Association. It covers education issues that Dewey is most
concerned with: communication, curriculum, growth, student,
teacher and the moral self.
8. Hickman, L. A. (Ed.). (1998). Reading Dewey: Interpretations for
a Postmodern Generation. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Larry Hickman is Director of the center for Dewey Studies at
Southern Illinois University, Carbondale. All his life he is studying
Dewey and editing Dewey’s works: logic, ethics, social and polit-
ical philosophy, metaphysics, religion, art and the human sciences.
This is a comprehensive review of Dewey’s ideas by contemporary
Deweyan scholars. Readers with a basic understanding of Dewey
may advance further in this edited work.
9. Hickman, L. A. (2007). Pragmatism as Post-modernism: Lessons
from John Dewey. New York: Fordham University Press.
In this work, Hickman reinvented John Dewey and pragma-
tism, this time in the postmodern context. “No one does better
than Hickman in translating the implications of pragmatism into
its contemporary relevance,” Praised a book reviewer. In fact,
Hickman has connected these ideas to the diverse schools of
thought in postmodernism and Dewey’s pragmatism.
10. Hickman, L. A., & Spadafora, G. (2009). John Dewey’s Educa-
tional Philosophy in International Perspective: A New Democracy for
the Twenty-First Century. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University

Press.
Another testimony of John Dewey’s impact on education world-
wide. This edited work is the collaborative effort of American and
Italian scholars with eleven contributors from countries in Europe,
North and Latin America. This volume presents exploration of
Dewey’s enduring relevance and potential as a tool for change in
twenty-first-century political and social institutions. Issues in the
changing educational trends, intelligence, ethical problems, the
scientific method and its application to educational practices are
discussed.
11. Higgins, S., & Coffield, F. (Eds.). (2016). John Dewey’s Democ-
racy and Education: A British Tribute. London: UCL Institute of
Education Press.
Steve Higgins of Durham University and Frank Coffield, a
retired UK educator, edited this title. It surely is a British
tribute because it had showed Democracy and Education’s posi-
tive reception in the 1920s (Chapter 1) and Dewey’s relevance
in today’s neoliberal times: shared goals, equality, self-fulfillment,
vs. competitive individualism, inequalities, reward the success
(Chapter 2). Higgins reviewed the role of education in society
and the nature of curriculum (Chapter 4) while Coffield argued
that teachers/students should participate democratically to eval-
uate goals (Chapter 5). When a critic showed the problem of
coherence in Dewey’s arguments (Chapter 9), it is nonetheless
clear Dewey is the dominant paradigm of education theories in the
UK today.
12. Hildebrand, D. (2008). Dewey: Beginners Guide. Oxford:
Oneworld Publications.
David Hildebrand’s book is more than a beginners guide. It
gives a deep and lucid introduction on Dewey. It is analytical:
“taking the car apart, then putting it back together” (Preface,
xi). He does not touch intellectual history. He identifies Dewey’s
two key beliefs: practical starting point and melioristic motive
(Hildebrand 2008: 4–5).
Hildebrand devoted his Chapter 5 to Dewey’s education, but
readers must understand Dewey’s ideas of experience (Chapter 1),
inquiry (Chapter 2) and morality (Chapter 3) before attempting
Chapter 5.
378 R. LI
13. Hook, S. (1980). The Collected Works of John Dewey. The Middle
Works, Volume 9 Introduction, ix–xxiv.
Sidney Hook (1902–1989), Dewey’s student and an accom-
plished philosopher, wrote much about Dewey. This is the intro-
duction he wrote for Dewey’s Collected Works, Middle Works 9,
which collects Democracy and Education (1916). Hook reassures
us that Dewey’s work is filled with “a refreshing sense of contem-
poraneity.” He tries to interpret Dewey’s democracy in education
as “openness to experience,” with insightful contribution to the
psychology of education or learning (MW9: x). The issues of moral
equality, individual differences, citizen participation and vocational
education are examined with present-day relevance. When Richard
Hofstadter criticized Dewey for giving rise to anti-intellectualism
in American life, Hook defended the latter in his How We Think
and the methods of intelligence (MW9: xxi). To my mind, it is a
lucid paper to introduce and review Dewey’s most important work
on education.
You may wish to note that Hook has also written another intro-
duction for Middle Works Volume 8 (1915). This volume includes
Dewey’s Schools of Tomorrow and other important philosophical
ideas coming to maturity: metaphysics, logic, theory of knowledge,
political philosophy. It is a helpful introduction on how Dewey’s
major philosophical ideas evolved.
14. Jackson, P. W. (2002). John Dewey and the Philosopher’s Task. New
York, NY: Teachers College Press.
Philip Jackson obtained his Ph.D. in Teachers College and
worked in the University of Chicago before retirement. He was
past president of John Dewey Society and delivered this John
Dewey Lecture in 1999. There he examined Dewey’s metaphysics
in Experience and Nature and stated succinctly Dewey’s philoso-
pher’s task: to live and examine daily issues critically, engage in
thinking for better solutions, review consequences, share free flow
of ideas and improve them through more social intelligence and
humanity. According to Dewey, education is a most important
human endeavor, and the educator is a philosopher in action in
educating the young.
15. Jenlink, P. M. (Ed.). (2009). Dewey’s Democracy and Education
Revisited: Contemporary Discourses for Democratic Education and
Leadership. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield.
Patrick H. Jenlink of St. Edward’s University, Austin, edited this

book. He gathered teacher educators, public school administrators
and college professors to focus on democratic leadership in school.
He challenged educators for “the transformation of public schools
into public spaces of democratic practice, which is a new vista of
teachers and school leaders as public intellectuals, as critical agents
of democracy” (Jenlink 2009: 393).
It appears Jenlink is a liberal passionate with democratic lead-
ership at school and nurturing/practicing democratic values in
school, thus the issue of education in a democracy, education for
democracy. Issues of 911, No Child Left Behind (NCLB), global-
ization and so forth are of concern amidst the “falling standard”
of American education.
16. Maxcy, S. J. (Ed.). (2002). John Dewey and American Education.
Volumes 1–3. Bristol: Thoemmes Press.
In these three volumes, historian Spencer Maxcy gathered the
three most renowned works of John Dewey, The School and Society
(1899), Schools of Tomorrow (1915) and Democracy and Educa-
tion (1916) and collated them with contemporary book reviews.
Readers can get some first-hand information of how well Dewey’s
books were received a century ago. In addition, Maxcy had written
a general introduction and an introduction to each volume which
contain lots of historical details.
17. Pring, R. (2007). John Dewey: A Philosopher of Education for Our
Time? New York: Continuum.
A retired Oxford professor wrote about Dewey. Richard Pring
had a youthful encounter of Dewey’s voluminous dusty books (the
Collected Works ) in the library of University College of London
in the 1970s. In this small book, Pring started from a short
intellectual biography, offered a critical exposition of his work
and arrived at Dewey’s philosophical underpinnings. He gave a
clear and simple conclusion: “a consistency throughout Dewey’s
long life both in his idea of ‘doing philosophy’, in his criticism
and suggested reforms of education, and in the integration of
philosophizing and thinking about education” (Pring 2007: 180).
18. Rud, A. G., Garrison, J., & Stone, L. (2009). John Dewey at 150:
Reflections for a New Century. West Lafayette: Purdue University
Press.
380 R. LI
Three American philosophers of education have pieced together

reflections of John Dewey at 150. The contributors reviewed
Dewey’s religious faith, pragmatism, ethics and education. Of
our interest are Chapter 4: Transforming Schooling Through Tech-
nology: Twenty-First-Century Approaches to Participatory Learning
(Craig A. Cunningham), Chapter 5: Dewey’s Aesthetics and Today’s
Moral Education (Jiwon Kim) and Chapter 6: Toward Inclusion
and Human Unity: Rethinking Dewey’s Democratic Community
(Hongmei Peng). Readers can see Dewey is alive today in issues
such as technology, learning, religion, art, ethics and global living
(cosmopolitanism).
19. Shook, J. R., & Kurtz, P. (Eds.). (2011). Dewey’s Enduring Impact:
Essays on America’s Philosopher. New York: Prometheus Books.
This volume collects the revised presentations at John Dewey’s
150th Birthday Celebration: An International Conference on
Dewey’s Impact on America and the World in 2009. It is important
because the contributors are able to reflect on the philosophical
influence of John Dewey’s thought a half a century after his death.
Among the six parts in this book, you may be most interested
in Part Three: Culture and Values, and Part Six: Education and
Society.
John Shook taught philosophy at Oklahoma State University
and the University at Buffalo. He was also President of the Society
of Humanist Philosophers. As an anecdote, Paul Kurtz was a grad-
uate student at Columbia and had met Dewey in 1948 in his talk
and in 1949 at Dewey’s 90th birthday party (Shook and Kurtz
2011: 57).
20. Simpson, D. J., & Stack, S. F., Jr. (2010). Teachers, Leaders
and Schools: Essays by John Dewey. Carbondale: Southern Illinois
University Press.
Douglas Simpson and Sam Stack Jr. added this edited title in
2010. In addition to selecting Dewey’s classics in education, the
authors met the changing trend of American schools by selecting
Dewey’s writings on teachers, school leaders and the school itself.
The introductory essays integrated Dewey’s educational writings
in light of current educational concerns. Their purpose was to
select essays for “educational practitioners (who) want to begin
thinking about educational and societal questions from a Deweyan
perspective” (Simpson and Stack 2010: 14).
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Index
A artificial neural network, 58, 151

action, 8, 9, 33, 34, 54, 87, 104, 105, attention, 36, 50, 51, 58, 64, 65, 78,
114–117, 120, 121, 124, 125, 90, 112, 114, 115, 117, 121,
129, 142, 149, 154, 155, 157, 123, 137, 142, 176, 202, 205,
159, 161–163, 177, 182, 185, 210, 214, 221, 281, 317, 319,
200, 203, 205, 214, 215, 226, 323, 325, 357
230, 234, 241, 243, 246, 254,
255, 264, 265, 268–270, 285,
313, 315, 316, 333, 347, 351, B
352, 356, 363, 364, 367, 373, Bain, Alexander, 11, 50, 51, 54, 55,
378 61, 67, 69, 83, 84, 88, 96, 108,
active mind, 59, 60, 65, 233 130, 137, 163, 200, 261
bodily autonomous reaction, 114
act psychology, 141
brain localization, 61
adolescent crisis, 3, 9, 22, 23, 33, 176
British mercantilism, 316
Alexander Technique, 243
Alice, 174, 178–183, 189–191,
193–197, 238, 239, 241, 280, C
281, 283, 286–288, 293, 351 categories of thought, 40, 41, 56, 57,
an impossible dream, 270 59, 60, 65, 66, 68
apperception, 41, 57, 58, 65, 66, 112, Chicago years, 99, 143, 173, 178,
116 183, 186–188, 199, 229, 233,
apperception mass, 56, 58, 66 234, 252, 262–265
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2020 401

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-7941-7
402 INDEX
child-centered education, 222, 228, custom, 40, 79, 154, 160, 162, 163,
320, 325, 333 166, 211, 234, 264
child-centered schools, 325, 332, 356
child development, 102, 136, 180,
215, 219, 222, 232–234, 243, D
249, 323, 328 Dalton Plan, 326, 327
Christian faith, 3, 8, 14, 17, 20, 35, defense of Russell, B., 334, 350, 351
89, 311, 320 democracy, 10, 17, 52, 53, 177,
chronology of China trip, 284, 306 182, 185, 186, 195, 209, 210,
chronology of Dewey’s major 212, 216, 217, 237, 241, 242,
psychology, 101, 189, 194, 284 244, 248, 256, 263, 267, 269,
cognition, 65, 111, 112, 141, 150, 277, 278, 286, 290, 291, 297,
226, 229, 267 299–302, 305, 318, 326, 333,
collaborative learning, 247, 257 334, 338, 339, 352–354, 359,
college years, 3, 10, 49, 53, 70, 99 361, 363, 365–367, 369, 370,
comfort zone, 240 372, 373, 378, 379
consciousness and social justice, 212, 237, 339
collective, 93 as way of life, 267, 365
Dewey’s notion of, 267, 269, 365
elements of, 110, 129, 130, 137
free exchange, 366
individual, 84–86, 88, 90–94, 111,
participatory, 195, 242, 301, 302,
112
333, 372
nineteenth century, study of, 96,
schools as agents, 256, 366, 379
138
Democracy and Education, 151, 174,
self, 32, 33, 41, 84–90, 92, 93,
186, 210, 244, 256, 259–263,
210, 324
265–267, 269, 270, 277, 295,
state of, 113, 139–141 296, 299, 300, 322, 330, 352,
streams of, 77, 90, 161, 164, 167 361, 369, 371, 375, 377–379
three aspects of, 110, 111, 113, depression, 239, 240, 280–283, 314,
117 332, 333, 353, 359, 360, 374
twentieth century, study of, 167 desire, 12, 111, 112, 116, 118, 129,
universal, 57, 82, 84–86, 88–95, 157, 159, 160, 165, 175, 176,
110, 136, 252 203–205, 210, 257, 279, 283,
universality of, 95, 136 355, 362–364, 368
contingent trip entended, 282 developmental psychology, 99, 106,
Counts, George, 329, 333, 334, 358, 143, 219, 369, 371
359, 371 Dewey, J. – education
criteria of experience, 362 address to American Association of
cultural mental enrichment, 262 Teacher College, 358
INDEX 403
address to Kappa Delta Pi, 362 character formation, 209, 227, 270
address to Progressive Education core value, 177, 211
Association, 322, 323, 325, Educational Ethics , 177, 183
334, 352, 354, 357 ethical science, 176, 177, 208, 211,
and Counts, G., 329, 333, 334, 221
358, 359, 371 Ethics (with Tufts), 27, 186, 241,
and Kilpatrick, W., 254, 261, 245, 262
329–331, 335, 336 Moral Principles in Education, 210,
and Mitchell, L., 243, 299, 329 245
and Pratt, C., 329 Outlines of a Critical Theory of
and Rugg, H., 303, 351, 359 Ethics , 164, 176, 183, 207,
child-centered education, 222, 228, 210
320, 325 The Study of Ethics, A Syllabus , 176,
head of department of pedagogy, 183, 210
University of Chicago, 177, Dewey, J. – life and career. See also
186, 190 Bain, Alexander; Hall, Stanly;
honorary president of National Johns Hopkins University;
Education Association, 352 Lost years, Dewey’s; Morris,
honorary president of Progressive George; University of Michigan;
Education Association, 352, University of Vermont
354 and children. See Evelyn; Fred;
impact on education and practice, Gordon; Jane; Lucy; Morris;
290, 371, 377 Sabino
“in love” with education, 174, 175, and father, 4, 7
177 and mother, 4
John Dewey’s page, 334, 360 and second wife. See Roberta
resignation from University of and wife. See Alice
Chicago at Columbia University
chronology, 189, 190 appointment, 238
mistreatment of Mrs. Dewey, approval of China trip, 283,
189 288
plausible reason, 197 colleagues. See Counts, George;
role in progressive education, 334 Kilpatrick, William; Rugg,
University College Elementary Harold
School. See laboratory school Gorky affair, 181
(Dewey School) professor emeritus, 351
Dewey, J. – Ethics. See also Ethical retreating to philosophy, 240
Principles Underlying Education; sabbatical leave, 237, 275, 279
morality at University of Chicago
404 INDEX
Chicago years in brief, 177 John Dewey Society, 256, 350,

hellish beginning, 179 352, 376, 378
Michigan Gang, The, 186 neck pain, 243
overworked, 192, 193 oral history, 227
personal world, 197 parent-child relations, 7
resignation. See work on personal ambition, 187
education personality, 10
social world, 184 pioneering spirit, 368
working with Harper, 177 political involvement, 276
birthday celebration replacement child, 6
60th, 285, 286 self-study, 23
70th – 90th, 330, 349, 351 Dewey, J. – philosophical writings.
Career-driven knowledge enterprise, See also Ethics; Psychology and
368 Philosophic Method; Psychology as
childhood, 6 Philosophic Method
Chinese acquaintances. See Dr. Sun, Experience and Nature, 100, 105,
Y.S.; Zhang, B.L. 145, 347, 348, 361, 370, 378
Chinese disciples. See Guo, B.W.; From Absolutism to Experimen-
Hu, S.; Jiang, M.I.; Tao, X.Z. talism, 12, 14, 16, 20, 22, 25,
doctoral dissertation, 38, 39, 284, 27, 29, 31, 33, 163
294, 305, 306 Hegel and The Theory of Categories ,
main idea of, 40 38, 39
“missing” background, 38 Kant and Philosophic Method,
emotional engagement. See 38–40, 43
Yezierska, A. Knowledge and The Relativity of
eye strain, 180, 243 Feeling , 28, 38
family drama, 239 Reality as Experience, 240
family finance, 279 Reconstruction of Philosophy, 347,
family trouble, 280 348
influences from/by The Experimental Theory of
Comte, A., 12, 15, 67, 314, Knowledge, 241
368, 370 Theory of Valuation, 350, 351
Freud, S., 77, 163, 165, 167 The Postulate of Immediate
Huxley, T.H., 12, 15, 49, 53, Empiricism, 241
368 The Quest of Certainty, 349, 351,
James, W., 21, 35, 53, 67, 68, 361, 370
77, 107, 120, 130, 137, The Realism of Pragmatism, 241
138, 163, 176, 238, 241, The Theory of Inquiry, 350, 351,
261, 280, 296, 309, 371 370
Kant, I., 14 What Pragmatism Means by
Marsh, J., 13 Practical , 241
INDEX 405
Dewey, J. – philosophy. See also Obligation to Knowledge of God,

Hegel; Metaphysical Club; The, 89
postmodernism; pragmatism religious crisis, 9
address to Philosophic Union of the Soul and Body, 89
University of California, 105, theological answer, 15
136 The Place of Religious Emotion, 9,
German idealism, 33, 108, 164 89
impact, 32 Dewey, J. – trips
influences, 3, 17, 165 trip to China
integrate psychology with informant, 291, 293
philosophy, 86, 101, 119 invitation from China, 282
interest, 11, 12, 36, 49, 99, 100, January – December 1920, 287
102, 104, 106, 143, 174, 201, January – July 1921, 289
239, 256, 309 May – December 1919, 285
philosophic method, 36, 40, 86, 88, popularization in China, 298,
136, 261, 268, 299, 301, 302 299, 301
retreating to philosophy, 240 promoting American diplomacy,
subjective idealism, 26, 32, 84 290
Dewey, J. – psychology trip to Europe, 21, 36, 177, 179,
chronology, 101 238, 239, 280, 281, 287, 349
criticized. See illusory psychology trip to Japan, 237, 260, 276, 279,
founding functionalism, 130 280, 284, 305, 323
president of American Psychological trip to Mexico, 348, 350–352, 370
Association, 34, 100, 103, 106, trip to South Africa, 349, 361
135, 136, 189, 369 trip to Soviet Union, 334
psychological laboratory, 369 trip to Turkey, 260, 302, 348, 352,
sketch from 1884 – 1933, 99 370
teaching, 21, 23, 27, 29, 32–34, Dewey, J. – works and ideas on
36, 37, 49, 82, 99, 103, 136, education
174, 177, 179, 185, 186, 219, apply psychology to education, 102
221, 229, 238, 240, 244, 245, Bearing of Pragmatism Upon
249, 250, 262, 263, 279, 288, Education, The, 245
320, 326, 368 Child and the Curriculum, The,
Dewey, J. – religion. See also 100, 174, 199, 229, 230, 232,
Rockefeller, S.C. 263, 364, 369
A common Faith, 187, 349 Class Struggle and The Democratic
Christian faith, 3, 8, 14, 17, 20, 35, Way, 354
89, 311, 320 Cyclopedia of Education, A, 265
liberation, 23, 24 Democracy and Education
406 INDEX
new ideas, 263 Need for a Philosophy of Education,

present-day evaluation, 378 The, 349, 353, 358
publishing background, 260 New Schools for a New Era, 352
scope, 262 on educational innovation, 256,
structure, 262 295
Democracy and Education in the on Frobel, F., 233, 247, 248, 252,
World of Today, 352, 354 262, 265, 371
Democracy and Educational on Montessori, M., 247, 248, 254,
Administration, 354 255, 371
Duties and Responsibilities of the on Pestalozzi, J., 177, 233,
Teaching Profession, The, 354 247–251, 320, 371
Education and Social Change, 353, on Rousseau, J., 247–249, 262,
360, 367 265, 266, 371
Education and the Health of Women, Pedagogic Creed, My, 174, 178,
174 181, 183, 199, 206, 215, 216,
Education for a Changing Social 220, 221, 230, 232, 250, 352,
Order, 353, 358 364, 369, 371
Education Share in Social evaluation, 220
Reconstruction, 353, 360 five articles, 216
Ethical Principles Underlying growth of ideas, 183
Education, 176, 178, 183, Progressive Education and the Science
199, 206–208, 210, 212, 245, of Education, 348, 354
369 Psychological Aspect of the School
Experience and Education, 174, Curriculum, The, 103, 178,
186, 322, 350, 354, 361, 362, 183, 212, 214, 216, 231
364 Rationality in Education, 353
background, 361 School and Society, The, 100, 174,
coverage, 362 178, 188, 199, 221, 222, 227,
new terms, 363, 364 312, 322, 369, 379
Health and Sex in Higher Schools of Tomorrow, 246, 247, 249,
Education, 174 251, 252, 254, 257, 259, 265,
How Much Freedom in New Schools?, 322, 325, 327, 328, 331, 352,
353, 356, 357, 364 369, 371, 378, 379
ideal school, 208, 270 collaboration with Evelyn, 256,
Interest in Relation to Training of 326
the Will , 100, 102, 175, 178, educational innovations, 256
183, 199, 202, 204, 212, 216, investigative report, 247, 331
230, 254, 263, 369 signature terms, 230
Monastery, Bargain Counter or Social Significance of Academic
Laboratory in Education, 353 Freedom, The, 354
Moral Principles in Education, 210, Sources of a Science of Education,
245 The, 349, 353
INDEX 407
Teacher and His World, The, 354 revenge, 138

Teacher and The Public, The, 354 revisiting after 14 years, 136
What are the Russians Schools storyline, 135
Doing?, 352 Psychological Standpoint, The, 83,
Why Have Progressive Schools , 353, 84, 99. See also consciousness,
356 universal
Dewey, J. – works and ideas on integrating psychology with
psychology. See also taxonomy of philosophy, 82, 86
thinking creating a unicorn, 82
How We Think, 75, 100, 143–145, Psychology. See also desire; impulses;
150, 163, 245, 262, 299, 330, reflex action; selfhood; volition;
359, 369, 373, 378 will
Human Nature and Conduct approach, 108
conduct, 152, 154 publication, 54
instinct, 151, 163
references, 107, 108
intelligence, 152, 163
three aspects of consciousness,
scientific view, 152. See also
110
custom; habits; instinct
Psychology and Philosophic Method,
Mental Development , 99, 103, 136,
103, 136, 140
143, 144, 229, 369
Psychology and Social Practice, 100,
Mental Development as Illustrated
103, 106, 136, 369
in Early Infancy, 99, 103, 136,
Psychology as Philosophic Method, 66,
143, 229, 369
75, 83, 85, 88, 99–101, 110,
New Psychology, The, 38, 43, 49, 66,
368
75, 81, 82, 99, 100, 119, 151,
175, 183, 215, 229, 368 IDEE, 87
against faculty psychology, 81 integrating Kant and Hegel, 88
psychological manifesto, 75, self-consciousness, 87
82, 119, 215, 220 title analysis, 85
psychology as science of human Psychology of Infant Language, 99,
experience, 79, 229 102, 143, 183, 368
view on physiological functional division of labor,
psychology, 79 123
psychological fallacy intellectual context, 125
melodrama, 135 Psychology of Infant Language
prescription of Dewey, 142 and psychological tasks, 128
408 INDEX
Reflex Arc Concept in Psychology, education, subject-matter of, 232, 328

The, 99, 100, 102, 119, 120, education, three premises of, 230
136, 229, 369 education, universal purpose of, 356
Theory of Emotion, 99, 102, 183, emotion, 22, 33, 78, 80, 102, 103,
205, 368 106, 108, 111, 112, 129, 145,
Dewey, J. – works on political 163, 169, 200–203, 205, 214,
philosophy. See also Democracy 229, 233, 245
and Education enduring impact, 367
Freedom and Culture, 350, 351
Ethics , 27, 186, 241, 245, 262, 349
Individualism, Old and New, 349,
ethics in education, 176, 177, 182,
351
206, 212, 380
Liberalism and Social Action, 350,
351 Evelyn, 178–180, 238, 239, 246–248,
The Public and its Problems , 348, 254–256, 281, 287, 288, 293,
351 305, 320, 326, 327, 331
Dewey’s life world, 183 evolutionary, 37, 51, 53, 54, 67, 108,
doctoral dissertations on, Dewey’s visit 128, 130, 137, 169, 266, 269
to China, 38, 39, 299, 304, 306 evolutionary theory, 205, 311
double life, 89 evolution, Dewey on, 3, 12, 19, 34,
do-with toys, 328, 329 53, 101, 103, 120, 122, 141,
Dr. Sun, Y.S., 284, 285 142, 144, 147, 208, 246, 295,
367
experience, 9, 13, 17, 23–25, 29,
E 41, 42, 79–81, 83, 84, 87,
economy, 11, 21, 220, 310–313, 316 89–93, 95, 100, 101, 103, 106,
pain, pleasure, creative, 314 109, 116, 121–123, 125, 128,
educational aim, 144, 148, 374 129, 137–141, 143, 145, 152,
educational fascist, 360 158, 166, 173, 176, 178–181,
educational reform, 241, 335 187, 213, 214, 218, 220, 227,
education as living, 148, 175, 188, 229–232, 234, 240, 241, 249,
216, 234, 264 250, 252, 253, 257, 262–264,
education as reconstruction of 266, 267, 269–271, 275, 281,
experience, 213, 231, 266 283, 295, 296, 305, 323,
education as social process, 217, 267, 327, 328, 341, 354, 356, 357,
364 362–364, 366, 370, 377, 378
education for a fulfilling life, 258 experiential continuum, 362
education, innovative practices, experimentation, 61, 66, 78, 83, 119,
256–259 206, 225, 286, 300, 371
education of the gifted, 258, 325, 357 expressionism, 328
INDEX 409
F H
facts, Dewey on, 78, 79, 81, 146, habits, 4, 55, 80, 103, 118, 152–156,
254, 352 158–163, 175, 176, 203, 208,
faculty psychology, 68, 81 209, 223, 230, 231, 243, 264,
Fairhope School, 257, 324 266–268, 338, 359, 373
falsification, 151 and action, 105, 159, 160, 209,
family history, 5, 238 266
family trip, 279, 281, 286 classes, 153
feeling, 9, 22, 23, 28, 53–55, 65, concepts, 55, 152, 153, 175, 208
80, 87, 109–113, 115–119, Hall, Stanly, 20, 32, 34–40, 44, 49,
139, 141, 145, 152, 153, 157, 55, 68, 70, 75, 81, 83, 93, 99,
159, 164, 173, 175, 192, 194, 101, 119, 130, 368
199–201, 321, 357 hands-on experience, 328, 329
formal, 112 harvesting on education, 351
qualitative, 112 Hegel, 3, 25, 28, 32, 33, 35, 37,
sensuous, 114, 115 40–43, 68, 86, 88, 89, 92, 93,
first debut, 25, 199 101, 119, 240, 262, 263, 266,
first journal article, 55 368, 370
First World War, 152, 237, 242, 260, historical inevitability thesis, 276
276, 278, 291, 314, 374 How We Think, 100, 104, 143–146,
forecasting, 147, 151 150, 163, 245, 262, 299, 330,
founding father, 120, 131, 135, 366 349, 359, 369, 373, 378
four pillars of learning, 372 human nature, 19, 54, 55, 80,
Fred, 178, 179, 238, 239, 320 94, 100, 104, 106, 135, 142,
free communication, 269, 365 151–154, 160, 165–167, 169,
functionalism, 49, 82, 99, 100, 102, 221, 248, 264–266, 299, 310,
103, 115, 118, 120, 130–132, 361
135–137, 140, 141, 369 twentieth century, study of, 168
Human Nature and Conduct , 100,
104, 106, 152, 153, 160, 163,
165, 176, 262, 348, 361, 364,
G
370
Gary plan, 325, 326
Hu, S., 282–284, 289, 290, 292, 294,
global capitalism, 358
296, 297, 299, 300, 302–306
global citizenship, 373
hypothesis, 53, 108, 147, 150, 226,
Gordon, 178, 187, 238–240, 281 246, 264
growth, 17, 32, 102, 103, 177, 183,
202, 206, 213, 214, 218, 220,
222, 225, 226, 230–234, 245, I
246, 249, 254, 257, 262, 264, ideal school, 208, 220, 270
266, 269, 270, 290, 302, 312, IDEE, 33, 87, 92
328, 337, 355–357, 363, 376 illusory psychology, 90, 91, 101, 136
Guo, B.W., 282, 290, 295, 306 impulse-action circuit, 129
410 INDEX
impulses, 63, 101, 112–117, 124, 321–323, 325, 330–334, 338,

126, 129, 137, 152, 154, 156– 347, 350, 357, 362, 368, 369,
163, 166, 175, 201–205, 208, 372, 380
209, 214, 224–226, 229–231, interest-arousal theory, 205
233, 255, 265, 299, 337, 340, international understanding, 358
362, 364 introspection, 5, 8, 9, 14, 59, 65, 66,
Independence of Poland, 277–279, 68, 81, 157
369 IQ, Dewey’s criticism, 354, 357
individual differences, 120, 257, 357,
378
individualism, 311, 316, 360, 377 J
individualized instruction, 299, 327, Jane, 6, 7, 16, 178, 238, 275, 281,
331 288
industrialization, 185, 222, 227, 312, Jiang, M.I., 284, 294–296, 303, 306
313, 316 Johns Hopkins atmosphere, 28, 29,
informant, Dewey’s Chinese disciples, 34, 38, 42, 43, 55, 82, 119, 130,
291 182, 238, 242, 277, 336, 368
Johns Hopkins University, 20, 28, 31,
inquiry, 16, 80, 103, 142, 144, 149,
32, 35–38, 44, 49, 101
156, 161, 178, 208, 225, 230,
joyful learning, 257
260, 264, 299, 302, 303, 351,
just noticeable differences, 62
366, 373, 374, 377
inquiry disposition, 359
instinct, 94, 149, 154, 157, 158, 160, K
162, 163, 169, 208, 209, 225, Kilpatrick, William, 254, 261,
233, 253 329–331, 335, 336
intelligence, 5, 24, 53, 58, 100, 103, Knowledge is Power Program (KIPP),
105, 154, 160–163, 166, 169, 341, 373
245, 278, 291, 293, 296, 353,
362, 364, 367, 377, 378
interactive unfoldment, 264, 266 L
interest, 6, 11, 12, 14, 15, 36–39, laboratory school (Dewey School),
44, 63, 67, 71, 72, 78, 95, 99, 100, 102, 120, 177, 178, 186,
100, 102–104, 106, 111, 112, 188–191, 193–197, 221, 225,
115–117, 143, 174, 186, 193, 322, 329, 369, 373
200–206, 210, 212–214, 216, law of effect, 336
219, 221, 225, 226, 230–233, learning by doing, 221, 251, 254,
239–241, 245, 248, 253, 254, 259, 325, 329, 336, 364
256, 262, 263, 267, 268, 270, learning curve, 337
271, 279, 284, 285, 290, 309, learning society, 372
INDEX 411
logical positivism, 43, 151 mutual accommodation and

Lost Years, Dewey’s, 29 adaptation, 363
Lucy, 178, 238, 280, 293, 305 My Pedagogic Creed, 174, 178, 181,
183, 199, 206, 215, 216, 221,
230, 232, 250, 352, 364, 369,
M 371
main themes in psychology, 110 mystic experience, 22
meaning, 41, 42, 57, 76, 81, 84, 85, mysticism, 67, 92
95, 102, 116, 118, 139, 140,
145, 148, 149, 163, 167, 176,
181, 200, 214, 216, 221, 230, N
231, 234, 264, 268, 269, 320, national efficiency, 318
362, 372 natural development, 248, 252, 262
measuring sensation, 61, 63 nerve conduction speed, 60, 61, 127
melodrama of psychology, 137 network of enterprise, 347, 352
mental discipline, 213, 262 new education, 222, 294, 321, 322,
Metaphysical Club, 38, 39, 43 338, 362
metaphysics, 91, 119, 139, 252, 361, new middle class, 310
376, 378 new nationalism, 318
mid-life crisis, 242 nineteenth century German
miniature community, 224, 270, 271, psychology, 219
329 measuring sensation, 61, 63
monads, 57, 58 physiological research, 59
money politics, Dewey on, 359 rational mind, 56
monopoly of learning, 223 noumenal world, 57, 142
Montessori method, 254
moral choice, 210
moral education, 262, 270 O
moral habits, 163, 209 Organic education, 324
morality, 9, 15, 24, 37, 79, 151, 152,
154, 160, 161, 166, 169, 177,
181, 182, 208, 211, 220, 233, P
241, 244, 270, 299, 324, 377 parapsychology, 67, 68, 72
Christian, 5, 12, 13, 28, 165, 166 parent-child relationship, 3, 7, 8
romantic, 165, 166 Parker, Francis, 186, 187, 189, 190,
Morris, 179, 180, 187, 238, 239, 280 194, 233, 319–321, 335, 336,
Morris, George, 12, 20, 32–35, 37, 341
38, 42, 43, 75, 82, 83, 88, 93, peer learning, 257
101, 177–179, 240, 368 Peirce, Charles, 32, 36–38, 45, 75,
multiple intelligences, 81, 373 182, 371
412 INDEX
perception, 40, 41, 50, 53, 57, 60, progressive politics, 315, 316, 322
65, 67, 78, 83, 88, 102, 104, progressivism (1860 – 1920), 311
105, 112, 116, 137, 142, 156, project method, 299, 329, 330, 336
161, 200, 212, 213 pseudo-science, 66
phases of reflective thinking, 147, 150 psychical unity, 121
phenomenal world, 57, 88 psychic phenomena, 67
philosophy as theory of education, psychological fallacy, 135, 137
268 psychologizing the curriculum, 234,
phrenology, 66–68, 81 250
physical fatigue, Dewey’s, 243 Psychology, 49, 51, 55, 94, 99, 101,
physiological research, 51, 96 102, 107, 108, 118, 119, 129,
plasticity, 264, 266, 337 136, 144, 163, 164, 176, 183,
platoon system, 325, 326 204, 229, 261, 364, 368
Play School, 254, 328, 329 psychology
Polish immigrants in Philadelphia, 277 British framework, 108
postmodernism, 71, 169, 341, 372, contemporary, 225, 226
376 old, 77, 83, 151, 225, 226
poverty, 185, 259, 310, 312, 313 textbooks of late 19th century, 132
pragmatism, 25, 37, 90, 95, 96, 100, Psychology and Philosophic Method,
118, 120, 136, 149, 160, 161, 103, 136, 140
164, 166, 173, 175, 219, 240, Psychology as Philosophic Method, 66
241, 245, 248, 253, 254, 294, psychophysics, 62, 63
298, 299, 306, 367, 369, 371, public intellectual, Dewey as, 237,
373, 376, 380 241, 242, 244, 256, 331, 369,
principle of continuity, 362 379
principle of interaction, 362, 363 purge of Dewey, China, 303
progressive curriculum, 331 purposeful activity, 330, 336
progressive education, 173, 188,
190, 237, 246, 247, 251, 311,
Q
318, 319, 321, 322, 324, 326,
Quincy system, 319–321
329–338, 340–342, 353–358,
360–362, 370, 371, 374, 375
father of, 173, 319 R
Progressive Education Association, rational society, 372
322–324, 333, 350 red scare thesis, 292
Progressive Era (1879 – 1920), reflex action, 114, 124, 125, 127–129
312–314, 338 Reflex Arc Concept , 120, 125, 131,
progressive nation, 318 140, 177
INDEX 413
reflex researches social constructionism, 333, 353

chronology, 124–126 social Darwinism, 53, 130, 314
readings, 131 social efficiency, 262, 316, 335, 354,
religious crisis, 9 357
resurrection of Dewey, China, 304 social evolution, 224
Roberta, 7 social justice, 181, 186, 188, 211,
Rockefeller, S.C., 17 212, 241, 267, 332, 339
role of teachers, 353, 364 social progress, 216, 220, 241
Rugg, Harold, 303, 329, 331, 332, social reconstructionism, 332
351, 359 Spencer, Herbert, 11, 15, 19, 26, 42,
49–54, 68, 69, 88, 95, 96, 101,
103, 108, 127, 128, 137, 233,
S 234, 311, 314, 321, 367, 368,
Sabino, 239, 240 370
school as workplace, 258 square deal, 315
schools for civic societies, 259 stimulus – response framework, 111,
Schools of Tomorrow, 246, 247, 249, 115, 120, 123, 265
251, 254, 256, 259, 265, 322, suggestion, Dewey’s, 147, 150
325–328, 331, 352, 369, 371, symbolic logic, 151
378, 379 Synthetic a priori, 57
science fiction of 19th century, 309
scientific management, 317, 318, 325,
335 T
scientific prediction, 151 Tao, X.Z., 282–284, 295, 296, 299,
scientism, 77 303–306
Second coming of Confucius, 301 taxonomy of thinking, Dewey’s
self-consciousness, 66, 86 affective thought, 145
self-directed learning, 326 qualitative thought, 144, 145
self-expression, 102, 200–205, 234, reflective thought
248, 254, 325, 326, 331 and educational aim, 148
selfhood, 117, 229 five phases, 147, 150
self-spaced learning, 326 six steps of judgment, 147
self-study, 19, 23, 42, 43, 52 to guide action, 149
sensation, 40, 50, 55, 59–63, 65, 66, teachers as facilitators, 221, 257
78, 83, 101, 102, 112–114, 118, teaching, 20, 21, 23, 27, 32–34, 36,
121–125, 127, 130, 161, 163, 37, 49, 82, 99, 101, 103, 136,
175, 200, 351 174, 177, 179, 185, 186, 200,
social activism, 237, 241, 369 212–214, 219, 221, 222, 229,
414 INDEX
231, 233, 237–240, 244, 245, V

249–251, 257, 259, 262, 263, value, 10, 42, 80, 85, 92, 93,
279, 280, 288, 316, 319, 320, 102, 121–123, 149, 176, 177,
324, 326–331, 351, 355–357, 181, 187, 201, 202, 207, 208,
363, 367, 368, 373, 375 210–212, 217, 218, 230, 234,
technological progress, 312, 313 264, 266, 268, 270, 290, 292,
testing, 147, 150, 151, 268, 372 297, 300, 311, 312, 316, 325,
The Child and The Curriculum, 100, 331–333, 339, 358, 363, 365,
174, 199, 229, 230, 232, 263, 379, 380
364, 369 volition, 55, 64, 78, 83, 110–112,
the michigan link, 173 115, 116, 118, 127, 129, 203,
the missing dissertation, 39 205, 229, 233, 368
The New Psychology, 38, 43, 49, 66,
75, 81, 82, 99–101, 119, 151,
W
175, 183, 215, 229, 368
warranted assentability, 373
The Psychological Standpoint, 83, 84,
whole child, the, 328
99, 101
wholeness, 42, 85, 87, 105, 129, 233,
The Psychology of Kant , 31, 38, 39,
234
43, 82, 99, 101
wide-awakeness, 372
the rational mind, 56
will, 53, 64–66, 83, 101, 102, 106,
the resignation puzzle, 188 108, 110–113, 115, 117, 118,
The School and Society, 100, 174, 178, 124, 126, 129, 141, 142, 151,
199, 222, 227, 312, 322, 369, 153, 163, 165, 175, 176, 200,
379 202–204, 214, 221, 229, 289,
thinking research, 100, 104, 143, 368
149–151, 168 Wilsonian idealism, 277, 302
threshold, 57, 62, 63 work on education, 378
threshold of consciousness, 58 work-play-study program, 325
transcendental idealism, 57 Wundt, Wilhelm, 34, 35, 51, 55, 56,
Trotsky Commission, 350, 351 61, 63–66, 68, 70, 78, 81, 96,
97, 108, 122, 130, 132, 137,
138, 141, 206, 368
U
University of Michigan, 33, 49, 82, Y
99, 107, 174, 177, 181, 279, Yezierska, A., 244, 245
368
University of Vermont, 4, 5, 10–16,
20, 21, 24, 29, 42, 49, 101 Z
unrestrained freedom, 356, 357 zeitgeist in psychology, 50, 67, 68,
urbanization, 222, 312, 313, 316, 75, 77
325 Zhang, B.L., 295, 296

Rediscovering John Dewey: How His Psychology Transforms Our Education

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Rediscovering

ISBN 978-981-15-7940-0 ISBN 978-981-15-7941-7 (eBook)

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2020

John Dewey: The Best Known

Dewey viewed philosophy as “a criticism of criticisms” (LW1: 298).

Part I Early Years

1 Boyhood and College Years 3

2 The Lost Years 19

3 Johns Hopkins Years 31

4 Young Dewey and Zeitgeist in Psychology 49

5 A Psychological Manifesto and Philosophic Method 75

6 Psychology, Reflex Arc Concept and the Birth

7 Psychological Fallacy, How We Think, and Human

Part III Education

8 Chicago Years, My Pedagogic Creed and Resignation 173

9 Educational Writings in Chicago Years 199

10 Educational Writings in Columbia Years 237

Part IV Involvement in Education and Impact

11 Dewey in China 275

12 John Dewey and Progressive Education 309

13 Late Writings on Education 347

Fig. 4.1 Three strands of psychological research before Wundt 56

Table 2.1 Dewey’s adolescent crisis and liberation 24

Boyhood and College Years

In Search of Significant Episodes and Ideas

Family History and Background

© The Author(s) 2020 3

Revolutionary War for American Independence (1776). In the eigh-

Siblings and Education at Home

Dewey Goes to School and the Farm

Religious feeling is unhealthy when it is watched and analyzed to see if it

Young John was sensitive, introvert, introspective, self-conscious, moral-

……a demand for unification that was doubtless an intense emotional

The Emerging Personality

5 For a critical review of Dewey’s religious craving, see Rockefeller (1998).

Year 1–2: Greek, Latin, ancient history, analytic geometry, calculus;

Dewey’s Reading Interest

… His library borrowings in his senior year included books by Richard

Inspiration from Huxley and Comte

Readers will be puzzled to ask: How can evolution theory or physi-

hard to reconcile. Marsh read Samuel T. Coleridge’s work and studied

Studying Kant Under Torrey

… Thanks to my introduction under your auspices to Kant at the begin-

From Christianity to Philosophy

His research started from Myrtle McGraw (1899–1988), an accom-

Fesmire, S. (2015). Dewey. London: Routledge.

The Lost Years

From Lost Years to Greatness

The draft of this chapter was presented at the International Conference on

© The Author(s) 2020 19

Teaching in Oil City

Adolescent Crisis Resolved

Getting into Philosophy

Table 2.1 Dewey’s adolescent crisis and liberation

Age Key Issue Key Liberating Outcome

12–15 Religious Faith Pastor Lewis O. Brastow’s “liberal

Table 2.1 (continued)

Age Key Issue Key Liberating Outcome

20 Spiritual Sincerity Himself He had answered

Major Arguments in First Debut

W.T. Harris, editor of the Journal of Speculative Philosophy. It takes me a

……[the] “matter”-molecular-property accounted for and caused the

Second, materialism assumes the possibility of ontological knowledge