SOURCE: A review of Democracy and Education, in The Mississippi Valley Historical Review, Vol. VII, No. 1, June, 1920, pp. 64-5.

In the following review of Dewey's Democracy and Education, Otto focuses on the sociological aspects of the work, which Otto expresses as the need for education to reflect common experiences.

The present educational situation presents an interesting paradox. We were never so convinced of the social necessity for public education and never more uncertain what public education should be. We insist that our children must have it even though we do not know what it is they must have. Which is very natural, of course, under the circumstances. With strong vigorous groups threatening the radical reconstruction of the fundamental concepts of life, we are tempted to feel ourselves in a whirl of random movements, a whirl too complicated for analysis and movements too powerful to be resisted. Confused and...