Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-10-13
BY HERBERT W. SCHNEIDER,

By HERBERT w. SCHNEIDER,
Professor Of Religion at Columbia University.
~ EVENLY years ago farmers boy
was born in Vermont who, If he
had followed his ancestral prece-
~ dents, would have become q sypi-
cal frontier Yankee farmer, but
who became one of Americas greatest
minds. His birthday is now being cele-
brated nationally, and his reputation is
world wide. No doubt there are many
Americans who have never heard of
him, and many more who have read
none of his writings, but even these
intellectually well insulated citizens are
scarcely safe from the indirect conse-
Quences of John Dewey's ideas, and they
must live unwittingly in the light or
shadow which his mind has cast on
practically all phases of American life.
Athens could not hear a Socrates and
remain innocent; and America cannot
produce John Dewey without feeling the
consequences.
There are. for example, thousands Of
school children today whose occupations
at school are quite baf1ling to their par
ents. The books they use, the methods
of teaching, the subjects taught, the
very desks Cor absence of desks), are all
so different from those of a generation
or two ago that many parents suspect
their children of playing truant con-
tinually. And few realize that much
of this new education" goes back d.
rectly to that experimental school which
Dewey founded at Chicago. He had
laid the intellectual foundations for this
experiment much earlier. in his books
on psychology and ethics. But in those
days both psychology and ethics were
still harmless academic sciences, unsus-
pected of practical application and I'M
related to practical problems. Consc-
cuently there was no revolution In 1893
when the young professor of philosophy
at the University Of Michigan wrote
these words:
Theories Practical.
"If 1 were asked to name the most
needed of all reforms in the spirit of
education should say: Cease conceiv-
ing of education as mere preparation
for later life, and make of 1t the full
meaning of the present life And to
add that only In this case does 1t be-
come truly a preparation, for after life
is not the paradox 1t seems. An &C
tivity which does not have worth
enough to be carried on for its own
sake cannot be very effective as a
preparation for something else. -"
It (Ghe new spirit in education) forms
the habit of requiring that every act be
an outlet of the whole self, and 1t pro-
vides the instruments of such complete
functioning." ("Philosophical Review"
Vol. 2, page 66o)
Few educators realized at the time
the practical implications OF such
theory. 1t was not until 1902, when
Dewey put these ideas into practice at
the governmental school in Chicago,
| that their revolutionary implications
were suspected. One after another the
| traditional elements OF the school sys-
| tenn were discarded. The neat rows OF
writing desks gave way to work benches
of various descriptions, the orderly,
quiet schoolroom began to hum with
activity" machines, tools, banks. stores,
gardens and what not supplanted the
| old text books. In short, Dewey con-
strlcted school which was not the So
cially isolated institution Of tradition.
but which was literally society itself in
laboratory form.
| Work Epoch Making.
Dewey's own work at Chicago was
| epoch-making In that it revealed the
| tremendous possibilities and the revo-
iutionary character Of the theory but
1t was mere beginning Of the practi-