Civilization is the progressive mastery of its varied energies.
 John Dewey, Democracy and Education (1916). copy citation

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Author John Dewey
Source Democracy and Education
Topic civilization mastery
Date 1916
Language English
Reference
Note
Weblink http://www.gutenberg.org/files/852/852-h/852-h.htm

Context

“This setting of nature does not bear to social activities the relation that the scenery of a theatrical performance bears to a dramatic representation; it enters into the very make-up of the social happenings that form history. Nature is the medium of social occurrences. It furnishes original stimuli; it supplies obstacles and resources. Civilization is the progressive mastery of its varied energies. When this interdependence of the study of history, representing the human emphasis, with the study of geography, representing the natural, is ignored, history sinks to a listing of dates with an appended inventory of events, labeled "important";” source