“ Just as the senses require sensible objects to stimulate them, so our powers of observation, recollection, and imagination do not work spontaneously, but are set in motion by the demands set up by current social occupations. ”
John Dewey, Democracy and Education (1916). copy citation
| Author | John Dewey |
|---|---|
| Source | Democracy and Education |
| Topic | imagination observation |
| Date | 1916 |
| Language | English |
| Reference | |
| Note | |
| Weblink | http://www.gutenberg.org/files/852/852-h/852-h.htm |
Context
“We incline to account for it by attributing congenital stupidity to our forerunners and by assuming superior native intelligence on our own part. But the explanation is that their modes of life did not call for attention to such facts, but held their minds riveted to other things. Just as the senses require sensible objects to stimulate them, so our powers of observation, recollection, and imagination do not work spontaneously, but are set in motion by the demands set up by current social occupations. The main texture of disposition is formed, independently of schooling, by such influences. What conscious, deliberate teaching can do is at most to free the capacities thus formed for fuller exercise, to purge them of some of their grossness, and to furnish objects which make their activity more productive of meaning.
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