The relationships of our present social life are so numerous and so interwoven that a child placed in the most favorable position could not readily share in many of the most important of them. Not sharing in them, their meaning would not be communicated to him, would not become a part of his own mental disposition. There would be no seeing the trees because of the forest. Business, politics, art, science, religion, would make all at once a clamor for attention; confusion would be the outcome.

Change as change is mere flux and lapse; it insults intelligence. Genuinely to know is to grasp a permanent end that realizes itself through changes.

There is no greater egoism than that of learning when it is treated simply as a mark of personal distinction to be held and cherished for its own sake. ... [K]knowledge is a possession held in trust for the furthering of the well-being of all

Since in reality there is nothing to which growth is relative save more growth, there is nothing to which education is subordinate save more education.‎

The plea for the predominance of learning to read in early school life because of the great importance attaching to literature seems to be a perversion.

We do not learn from experience...we learn from reflecting on experience.

Knowledge falters when imagination clips its wings or fears to use them.