Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1921-08-27
JOHN DEWEY, PHILOSOPHER
OF DEMOCRACY
By DR.. Frank Crane

l have just read an outstanding book. And
what is unusual with new books, l have read
it three times.
1t is Reconstruction in Philosophy" by John
Dewey, a professor in Columbia University.
And wish that every school teacher, every
preacher, and everybody else that loves think
ing, and loves to read what makes thought
worth while, would buy and own and devour
this little book.
1t is not easy reading. Somebody ought to
translate it. But it is worth working over.
For Dewey gets to the foundations. He I'M
covers the basic truths upon which the world,
and particularly America, is building its struc-
ture of faith and practice, wherein our children
shall dwell
w. H. Sheldon of Yale, in a review of this
book in the Journal of Philosophy, says:
GAS Whitman was the poet, so is Dewey the
philosopher of democracy. He is the epitome
of western democracy, its spirit bezme self
conscious, thorough-g going philosophy of life;
his work is the most characteristic contribu-
ton which this country has offered, and per-
haps can offer, to the spiritual history Of man.
Sheldon, by the way, does not seem to be-
leve in Dewey; but the reason is that he does
not believe in democracy; and the reason of
that is, he does not seem able to comprehend
what democracy is.
! do not blame him, for democracy is as hard
to see as Christianity. And to see the one, as
The gSt of democracy is that the key word
of the universe is Growth. And when you
have eaten dgested, and assimilated that
idea, you find that it changes your notion
of every system of thought, not only of
politics, but of sociey, of business, of educa-
ton, of philosophy, of art, of literature, of
religion and of yourself and your own purpose
on EARTH
1t is the death blow to the Superiority mi
crobe. You see that the Elect are humbugs,
which like other bugs are the natural enemies
of the human race. Ebert Hubbard said he
never knew of Chosen People who had not
chosen themselves.
And the Intellectual Glass is just as absurd
as any other Glass; as for instance, the Saints
or Holy Glass; the Proletariat, or Working
Glass; and the endowed Loafers, or Social
Upper Glass.
For any sort of Excellence is a nuisance ex-
cept the kind that excels in Service. The
Best People are not the snobs, but those that
cheer us all up the most The real Workers
are they that get us jobs and keep us at Them
and not those that get us to quit our jobs to
parade. The genuine Saints they who by
their lives are influencing us to be decent and
fair, and not naSty-minded and intolerant.
And by the same token, the real Upper Ten
or 400, of the IntellectuaS, and those who are
entitled to throw out their chests, but do not
are not the professors who juggle technical
jargon in learned reviews which are read only
by their fellow jugglers or pirate the same be-
fore students that they may make them twofold
more the children of flapdoodle than them
selves, but those who, like the Nazarene, utter
truths which sound on through centuries and
yet are heard by the common people gladly, or
Socrates, who loved to argue with street walk
erS and harness makers, or jike John Dewey,
who encourages us to hope that, after all, uni
versties and they who infeSt them may be of
some real use to The People-of, for, and by
whom this government is supposed to be.
copyright, 1924, by Frank Crane)