Since its publication in 1916, John Deweys Democracy and Education has been a classic in the philosophy of education. Democracy and Educations enduring strength lies in Deweys extraordinary ability to instill the dynamics of a changing nation and world into his Experimentalist philosophy. Not only did the book examine education in a changing world, but it analyzed the relationships between society and education.
As America shifted from an agricultural nation to a technological society, Dewey seized on this transformation as a challenging opportunity to bridge and integrate the larger world context with the smaller setting of changing communities, neighborhoods, and schools. Democracy, for Dewey, as a pragmatic way of life was free of the often-proclaimed eternal verities and absolutes that impeded open-ended experimental inquiry. No subject, custom, or value was so sacrosanct that it could not be reconstructed, if necessary.