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Value Theory as Basic to a Philosophy of Education
With Special Reference to the Educational Theories of Thomas Jefferson and John Dewey
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 February 2017
Extract
Comparison of Dewey and Jefferson as to philosophy and philosophy of education promises a fruitful field of research which it is hoped will occupy some scholar in the near future. Many have suggested it, not the least of them being Dewey himself who compiled many of Jefferson's writings for the Modern Library. The present effort attempts only to examine briefly certain similarities in their works as these works help to develop the thesis that all philosophy of education has its foundation in value theory.
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- Research Article
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- Copyright © 1963, University of Pittsburgh Press
References
Notes
1. See Curti, Merle, The Social Ideas of American Educators (Paterson, New Jersey. 1959), 44–45: “The faith Jefferson put in democratic education as the means by which democracy was to be realized suggests that of Dewey, John.”Google Scholar
2. Dewey, John, The Living Thoughts of Thomas Jefferson (Philadelphia, 1940).Google Scholar
3. Dewey, John, Sources of a Science of Education (New York, 1929), 55.Google Scholar
4. Many modern philosophers of education take the position that value theory is at the heart of philosophy and philosophy of education. See Donald Butler, J., Four Philosophies (New York, 1957), 15: “For most people the problems of value raise the curtain on reflective experience.” Harry Broudy, Building a Philosophy of Education (New York, 1954), 18, advises educators to “pick yourself a philosophy and see what kind of education you need to bring that kind of good life about.” He then continues: “If education is not a haphazard enterprise, then the most obvious question we can ask is: What is the goal, purpose, or objective of this enterprise?” (p. 29) “The agenda for a philosophy of education is accordingly outlined. It is to transcribe the good life, the good individual, and the good society into learnings that presumably will contribute to their production. This means the establishment of a hierarchy of means and ends so that ideally each educational activity, however minute, always finds its justification in the next higher level of aims.” (p. 34) Childs, John, a student of and apologist for Dewey, insists even more emphatically that value theory is basic to education when he writes that “the most significant approach to any working program of education is to examine it from the standpoint of the values it seeks to cultivate in the young.” See Childs, Education and Morals (New York, 1950), 5. Doubtless other proponents of this view could be found, but the works cited represent the educational philosophy fields of, respectively, idealism, realism, and instrumentalism, an array of viewpoints which should add fuel to the contention that any philosophy of education arises out of value theory.Google Scholar
5. Letter of Jefferson, to Blatchly, Cornelius C., October 21, 1822, as recorded in Lipscomb, Andrew A. (Ed.), The Writings of Thomas Jefferson (Washington, 1905–1907), Vol. XV, 399.Google Scholar