A society with too few independent thinkers is vulnerable to control by disturbed and opportunistic leaders. A society which wants to create and maintain a free and democratic social system must create responsible independence of thought among its young.

Any genuine teaching will result, if successful, in someone's knowing how to bring about a better condition of things than existed earlier.

A child may have to be snatched with roughness away from a fire so that he shall not be burnt.

Schools should take an active part in directing social change, and share in the construction of a new social order

The spontaneous power of the child, his demand for self-expression, can not by any possibility be suppressed.

Independent self-reliant people would be a counterproductive anachronism in the collective society of the future where people will be defined by their associations.

We have advanced far enough to say that democracy is a way of life. We have yet to realize that it is a way of personal life and one which provides a moral standard for personal conduct.