I believe that education is the fundamental method of social progress and reform.
Interpretation
Education is essential for the advancement and improvement of society.
John Dewey emphasizes the critical role of education in driving social progress and reform. He suggests that through education, individuals can acquire the knowledge and skills necessary to bring about positive changes in society, thus highlighting its importance as a foundational tool for enhancing the community and advocating for reform.
In practice
During a speech on educational policy, one might use this quote to highlight the importance of investing in education.
Every teacher should realize he is a social servant set apart for the maintenance of the proper social order and the securing of the right social growth. In this way, the teacher always is the prophet of the true God and the usherer-in of the true Kingdom of God.
Democracy has to be born anew every generation, and education is its midwife.
It science involves an intelligent and persistent endeavor to revise current beliefs so as to weed out what is erroneous, to add to their accuracy, and, above all, to give them such shape that the dependencies of the various facts upon one another may be as obvious as possible.
For in spite of itself any movement that thinks and acts in terms of an βism becomes so involved in reaction against other βisms that it is unwittingly controlled by them. For it then forms its principles by reaction against them instead of by a comprehensive, constructive survey of actual needs, problems, and possibilities.
Any genuine teaching will result, if successful, in someone's knowing how to bring about a better condition of things than existed earlier.
The reactionaries are in possession of force, in not only the army and police, but in the press and the schools
Children are excellent observers, and will often perceive your slightest defects. In general, those who govern children, forgive nothing in them, but everything in themselves
We don't need lists of rights and wrongs, tables of do's and don'ts: we need books, time, and silence. Thou shalt not is soon forgotten, but Once upon a time lasts forever.
My books hold between their covers every story I've ever known and still remember, or have now forgotten, or may one day read; they fill the space around me with ancient and new voices.
I wrote the first book, and I thought people would say: 'Separate and unequal schools in the City of Boston? I didn't know that. Let's go out and fix it.'
Creating a world that is truly fit for children does not imply simply the absence of war... It means having primary schools nearby that educate children, free of charge... It means building a world fit for children, where every child can grow to adulthood in health, peace and dignity.
There is something irreversible about acquiring knowledge; and the simulation of the search for it differs in a most profound way from the reality.
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