If the eyes are open and there is light, seeing occurs; the stimulus is but a condition of the fulfillment of the proper function of the organ, not an outside interruption. To some extent, then, all direction or control is a guiding of activity to its own end; it is an assistance in doing fully what some organ is already tending to do.

The mere absorption of facts and truths is so exclusively an individual affair that it tends very naturally to pass into selfishness. There is no obvious social motive for the acquirement of mere learning, there is no clear social gain in success thereat.

I believe that in the ideal school we have the reconciliation of the individualistic and the institutional ideals.

As a child lives today, he will live tomorrow.

All learning begins when our comfortable ideas turn out to be inadequate.

Communication is a process of sharing experience till it becomes a common possession. It modifies the disposition of both the parties who partake in it.

Fundamental modes of speech, the bulk of the vocabulary, are formed in the ordinary intercourse of life, carried on not as a set means of instruction but as a social necessity.