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.

What nutrition and reproduction are to physiological life, education is to social life.

All genuine learning comes through experience.

The teacher loses the position of external boss or dictator but takes on that of leader of group activities

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

The notion that "applied" knowledge is somehow less worthy than "pure" knowledge, was natural to a society in which all useful work was performed by slaves and serfs, and in which industry was controlled by the models set by custom rather than by intelligence. Science, or the highest knowing, was then identified with pure theorizing, apart from all application in the uses of life; and knowledge relating to useful arts suffered the stigma attaching to the classes who engaged in them.

Schools have ignored the value of experience and chosen to teach by pouring in.