The central problem of an education based upon experience is to select the kind of present experience that live fruitfully and creatively in subsequent experiences.

The aim of education is to enable individuals to continue their education ... (and) the object and reward of learning is continued capacity for growth. Now this idea cannot be applied to all the members of a society except where intercourse of man with man is mutual, and except where there is adequate provision for the reconstruction of social habits and institutions by means of wide stimulation arising from equitably distributed interests. And this means a democratic society.

Complete adaptation to environment means death. The essential point in all response is the desire to control environment.

What the best and wisest parent wants for his own child, that must the community want for all of its children.

Scientific principles and laws do not lie on the surface of nature. They are hidden, and must be wrested from nature by an active and elaborate technique of inquiry.

The school must be "a genuine form of active community life, instead of a place set apart in which to learn lessons".

Give the pupils something to do, not something to learn; and the doing is of such a nature as to demand thinking; learning naturally results.