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 three approaches at our disposal: the observation of nature, reflection, and experimentation. Observation serves to assemble the data, reflection to synthesise them and experimentation to test the results of the synthesis. The observation of nature must be assiduous, just as reflection must be profound, and experimentation accurate. These three approaches are rarely found together, which explains why creative geniuses are so rare.

I believe that education is the fundamental method of social progress and reform.

If humanity has made some headway in realizing that the ultimate value of every institution is its distinctively human effect - its effect upon conscious experience - we may well believe that this lesson has been learned largely through dealings with the young.

The importance of language in gaining knowledge is doubtless the chief cause of the common notion that knowledge may be passed directly from one to another. It almost seems as if all we have to do to convey an idea into the mind of another is to convey a sound into his ear. Thus imparting knowledge gets assimilated to a purely physical process.

To "learn from experience" is to make a backward and forward connection between what we do to things and what we enjoy or suffer from things in consequence.

Communication of science as subject-matter has so far outrun in education the construction of a scientific habit of mind that to some extent the natural common sense of mankind has been interfered with to its detriment.