Chapter I: The School and Social Progress 3

II. THE SCHOOL AND THE LIFE OF THE CHILD 31
III. WASTE IN EDUCATION 59
IV. THE PSYCHOLOGY OF ELEMENTARY EDUCATION 87
V. FROEBEL’S EDUCATIONAL PRINCIPLES 111
VI. THE PSYCHOLOGY OF OCCUPATIONS 131
VII. THE DEVELOPMENT OF ATTENTION 141
VIII. THE AIM OF HISTORY IN ELEMENTARY EDUCATION 155

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

FACING PAGE

DRAWING OF A CAVE AND TREES 40
DRAWING OF A FOREST 42
DRAWING OF HANDS SPINNING 44
DRAWING OF A GIRL SPINNING 46

PUBLISHER’S NOTE

The first three chapters of this book were delivered as lectures before an audience of parents and others interested in the University Elementary School, in the month of April of the year 1899. Mr. Dewey revised them in part from a stenographic report, and unimportant changes and the slight adaptations necessary for the press have been made in his absence. The lectures retain therefore the unstudied character as well as the power of the spoken word. As they imply more or less familiarity with the work of the Elementary School, Mr. Dewey’s supplementary statement of this has been added.

AUTHOR’S NOTE

A second printing affords a grateful opportunity for recalling that this little book is a sign of the co-operating thoughts and sympathies of many persons. Its indebtedness to Mrs. Emmons Blaine is partly indicated in the dedication. From my friends Mr. and Mrs. George Herbert Mead came that interest, unflagging attention to detail, and artistic taste which, in my absence, remade colloquial remarks until they were fit to print, and then saw the results through the press with the present attractive result—a mode of authorship made easy, which I recommend to others fortunate enough to possess such friends.

It would be an extended paragraph which should list all the friends whose timely and persisting generosity has made possible the school which inspired and defined the ideas of these pages. These friends, I am sure, would be the first to recognize the peculiar appropriateness of especial mention of the names of Mrs. Charles R. Crane and Mrs. William R. Linn.

And the school itself in its educational work is a joint undertaking. Many have engaged in shaping it. The clear and experienced intelligence of my wife is wrought everywhere into its texture. The wisdom, tact, and devotion of its instructors have brought about a transformation of its original amorphous plans into articulate form and substance with life and movement of their own. Whatever the issue of the ideas presented in this book, the satisfaction coming from the co-operation of the diverse thoughts and deeds of many persons in undertaking to enlarge the life of the child will abide.

AUTHOR’S NOTE TO SECOND EDITION

The present edition includes some slight verbal revisions of the three lectures constituting the first portion of the book. The latter portion is included for the first time, containing material borrowed, with some changes, from the author’s contributions to the _Elementary School Record_, long out of print.

The writer may perhaps be permitted a word to express his satisfaction that the educational point of view presented in this book is not so novel as it was fifteen years ago; and his desire to believe that the educational experiment of which the book is an outgrowth has not been without influence in the change.

J. D.

NEW YORK CITY July, 1915

THE SCHOOL AND SOCIAL PROGRESS