I believe that the school is primarily a social institution. Education being a social process, the school is simply that form of community life in which all those agencies are concentrated that will be most effective in bringing the child to share in the inherited resources of the race, and to use his own powers for social ends. I believe that education, therefore, is a process of living and not a preparation for future living.

Without initiation into the scientific spirit one is not in possession of the best tools which humanity has so far devised for effectively directed reflection. One in that case not merely conducts inquiry and learning without the use of the best instruments, but fails to understand the full meaning of knowledge.

The only thing that is unqualifiedly given is the total pervasive quality; and the objection to calling it "given" is that the word suggests something to which it is given, mind or thought or consciousness or whatever, as well possibly as something that gives.

Things gain meaning by being used in a shared experience or joint action.

There is no common understanding, and no community life. But in a shared activity, each person refers what he is doing to what the other is doing and vice-versa.

Even dogs and horses have their actions modified by association with human beings; they form different habits because human beings are concerned with what they do.

When "reality" is sought for at large, it is without intellectual import; at most the term carries the connotation of an agreeableemotional state.