Knowledge which is mainly second-hand, other men's knowledge, tends to become merely verbal.
 John Dewey, Democracy and Education (1916). copy citation

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

Context

“the protests against memoriter work, against cramming, against gradgrind preoccupation with "facts," against devotion to wire-drawn distinctions and ill-understood rules and principles, all follow from this state of affairs. Knowledge which is mainly second-hand, other men's knowledge, tends to become merely verbal. It is no objection to information that it is clothed in words; communication necessarily takes place through words. But in the degree in which what is communicated cannot be organized into the existing experience of the learner, it becomes mere words:” source