John Dewey went to the State University in his native town and received his A. B. degree at twenty. Being then uncertain whether his liking for philosophical studies was sufficient to be taken as a call to that calling he applied to the one man in America most competent and willing to decide such a question, W. T. Harris, afterward United States Commissioner for Education, but then superintendent of schools in St. Louis. Think of the courage and enterprise of a man who while filling this busy position and when the war was barely over started a Journal of Speculative Philosophy and founded a Philosophical Society and produced a series of translations of Hegel, Fichte, and other German metaphysicians. It would be hard to estimate the influence of Doctor Harris in raising the standards of American schools and in arousing an interest in intellectual problems. When young Dewey sent him a brief article with a request for personal advice he returned so encouraging a reply that Dewey decided to devote himself to philosophy. So, after a year spent at home reading under the direction of Professor Torrey of the University of Vermont, one of the old type of scholarly gentleman, Dewey went to Johns Hopkins University, the first American university to make graduate and research work its main object. Here he studied under George S. Morris and followed him to the University of Michigan as Instructor in Philosophy after receiving his Ph.D. at Johns Hopkins in 1884. Two years later he married Alice Chipman of Fenton, Michigan, who has been ever since an effective collaborator in his educational and social work. In 1888 he went to the University of Minnesota as Professor of Philosophy but was called back to Michigan at the end of one year.
When President Harper went through the country picking up brilliant and promising young men for the new University of Chicago, Dewey was his choice for the chair of philosopher. During the ten years Dewey spent on the Midway Plaisance he had the opportunity to try out the radical ideas of education of which I have spoken. In 1904 Dewey was called to Columbia University, where he has since remained. Besides his classwork he has always been active though rarely conspicuous in many educational and social movements. One of the latest of these is the formation of the Association of University Professors, of which he was the first president.
The title of his latest volume, "Democracy and Education", gives the keynote of his philosophy and the aim of his life. In a recent article[15] he puts it in these words:
I am one of those who think that the only test and justification of any form of political and economic society is its contribution to art and science—to what may roundly be called culture. That America has not yet so justified itself is too obvious for even lament.. .. Since we can neither beg nor borrow a culture without betraying both it and ourselves, nothing remains save to produce one.. .. Our culture must be consonant with realistic science and with machine industry, instead of a refuge from them.... It is for education to bring the light of science and the power of work to the aid of every soul that it may discover its quality. For in a spiritually democratic society every individual would realize distinction. Culture would then be for the first time in human history an individual achievement and not a class possession.
HOW TO READ DEWEY
As has been said previously, Dewey's writings are scattered far and wide in various periodicals and educational series. He has never been able to say "no" to any struggling journal of socialism or school reform that begged him for an article although it meant no pay, little influence, and speedy oblivion for his contribution. The graduate student of twenty-five years hence who undertakes to get a Ph.D. by making a complete collection of Dewey's works will earn his degree. The main principles of Dewey's philosophy, imparted viva voce to successive generations of students, have never been printed in a complete and systematic form, though his ideas have interfused the schools of the country through the teachers he has trained and the educational books he has written.
The nearest thing to a short cut to Dewey's philosophy that he has given us is "How We Think" (Heath, 1910), and with this the reader may well begin. "Essays in Experimental Logic" (University of Chicago Press, 1916) requires for its complete comprehension some knowledge of current controversies in philosophy. But the review of James's "Pragmatism", contained in the chapter "What Pragmatism Means", will be of interest to any reader seeking an answer to that question.
His epoch-making work, "The School and Society" (University of Chicago Press, first edition 1899, second edition 1915), has by no means lost its value although much that was prophecy then is now fulfilled. Most readers will be more interested in the fulfillments as described in "Schools of Tomorrow" (Dutton, 1915). This contains, besides the description of the new schools by his daughter, Evelyn Dewey, several chapters by Professor Dewey on the theory and aims of the educational movement they represent. A more complete and systematic exposition of the principles of education under modern conditions is to be found in his most recent book, "Democracy and Education" (Macmillan, 1916). Professor Moore of Chicago who reviews this volume in the International Journal of Ethics (1916, p. 547) says of it: "The thinking world has long since learned to expect from Professor Dewey matters of prime importance. Of the general significance of this, volume it is perhaps enough to say that, in the reviewer's opinion, it is the most important of Professor Dewey's productions thus far. In defiance of possible imputations of chauvinism, the reviewer will also say that it would be difficult to overstate its import and value for all students of education, philosophy, and society."
The volume clumsily entitled "The Influence of Darwin on Philosophy and Other Essays in Contemporary Thought" (Holt, 1910) contains, besides the anniversary address which gives it its title, ten essays chiefly concerned with the exposition and defense of Dewey's form of pragmatism, "immediate empiricism." "German Philosophy and Politics" (Holt, 1915) is discussed in the preceding pages. Dewey's "Psychology" (Harper, 1886) has largely lost its interest through the rapid advance of the science and the altered viewpoint of the author. The "Ethics" which he wrote in collaboration with Professor Tufts I have previously mentioned (Holt, 1908).