Review

Reviewed Work(s): John Dewey, Lectures in China, 1919-1920 by Robert W. Clopton and
Tsuin-Chen Ou
Review by: Walter Feinberg
Source: Philosophy East and West , Jul., 1975, Vol. 25, No. 3 (Jul., 1975), pp. 365-369
Published by: University of Hawai'i Press

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/1398208

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Book Reviews

John Dewey, Lectures in China, 1919-1920, trans. and ed. by Robert W. Clopton and
Tsuin-Chen Ou. Honolulu: The University Press of Hawaii, 1973, Pp. 374. $12.00.

From May 1st, 1919 to July 11, 1921 John Dewey toured China delivering a series of lectures
on politics, education, and other topics. His reflections on China were printed for American
audiences in the New Republic and Asia and then reprinted in the 1929 collection of Dewey's
Character and Events, but until this volume his China lectures have not been available to
the English reading scholarly community. This lapse in the Dewey collection was un-
fortunate especially considering the fact that the lectures were orginally delivered in
English. However, they were transcribed into Chinese, and Dewey's original notes were
lost. Thus the translators have had to translate the lectures back into English from notes
taken in Chinese. The notes were taken by professional scholars familiar with Dewey's
thought and the lectures appear to be an accurate reflection of both his style and ideas, an
achievement with in no small way must be attributed to the translator's sensitivity to
Dewey's system. The lectures in this volume comprise two series of sixteen lectures each-
one series on social and political philosophy and the other on educational philosophy.
Lectures given on additional subjects are summarized in the appendix and included also
is an "open letter to the Chinese People" written by Dewey as a propaganda leaflet, which
was dropped over China in 1942.
Dewey's China lectures should be of special interest to two distinct groups of scholars.
First, they should be of considerable value to those interested in the cultural influences on
China prior to the Communist revolution. For these scholars, the translator's introduction
traces the influence of Dewey on such Chinese scholars as Hu Shih, a professor at the
National University of Peking and a primary exponent of pragmatism in China, and Chiang
Monlin, former minister of education and once rector of the National University of Peking.
Second, these lectures should be of importance to scholars concerned with understanding
the application of Dewey's ideas in different cultural settings, and the promise or limitations
that his ideas hold for Third World nations. It is to this second concern that this review is
addressed.

In general, the China lectures draw heavily upon themes developed elsewhere in Dewey's
system, but this is significantly truer for the educational lectures than for those on social
and political philosophy. The educational lectures are essentially restatements of themes
found in The School and Society (1900), The Child and the Curriculum (1902), and Democracy
and Education (1916). The political lectures, however, systematize themes which are only
to be found at random in Dewey's essays prior to this time and some of which were not
articulated for English readers until 1927 in The Public and Its Problems.
The basic theme of both lecture series is the promise that science holds for solving human
problems. Thus, in the political lectures he warned his audience to avoid ideological
systems, whether conservative or radical, and to adopt instead a scientific, problem-solving
approach to political problems. In these lectures, he argued that in the scientist's commit-
ment to publicly verified truth is to be found the hope for man's future. In the educational
lectures, he argued for a curriculum and a pedagogy adequate to meet the needs of science
and technology, but he warned against wedding education too closely to any existent
economic structure such as laissez faire capitalism.
The translators' Introduction notes that Dewey arrived in China a few days before the
May 4th uprising of 1919, during a period when the traditional forms of Chinese life were

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366 Book Reviews

under challenge from students and liberals generally. They also note that the stron
period of Dewey's influence was between 1919 through 1927. For example, the
"Political Programme" of the Kuomingtang called for the promotion of child-cente
education, and experimental schools increased throughout China during this pe
After the nationalists came to power in 1927, Dewey's influence declined, a fact which
attribute to Sun Yat-Sen's antagonism to the anti-Confucian elements of the new cul
movement. After the Communist revolution, the editors observe, there was a mass
campaign to vilify Dewey's ideas and those of his followers.
The extent of Dewey's influence subsequent to 1927 is difficult to determine preci
and there is actually some minor ambiguity in the editors' introduction. While they
that Dewey's influence declined after 1927, they cite, without challenge, a 1950 iss
People's Education (a Communist publication) that denounced Dewey's ideas and claim
that they "have dominated and controlled Chinese education for thirty year" (p
It would be useful to clarify this ambiguity to understand whether the Communists
responsible for the decline of Dewey's influence, or whether they were simply involve
a "mopping up" campaign that had been initiated and carried out earlier by other fac
for other purposes.
Regardless of the ultimate source of the decline of Dewey's influence, the explana
of it cannot be complete without an evaluation of the appropriateness of Dewey's i
for non-Western, Third World countries; only with such an evaluation can we begi
approach a judgment as to whether the decline itself was justified. Unfortunatel
focusing primarily upon the external pressures that were brought against Dewey's syst
the translators' introduction fails to examine its adequacy. Now I will address s
considerations that are involved in making a judgment of this kind about Dewey's sy
Dewey's transitional influence on Chinese political and educational thought ma
partly understood by examining the lectures themselves, which were designed to su
the new cultural forces in China. He occasionally made favorable reference to some o
ongoing reforms such as the shift from kuo-wen to pai hua in scholarly and intelle
journals. Nevertheless, the references to the Chinese people are few and, for the most
not revealing of a deep understanding of the cultural, economic, or political life. W
but a few changes, a different example here or there, the lectures might have been deli
at any university in the U.S. Thus instead of using his visit to test his own idea
cross-cultural setting, Dewey rested content with making a few polite remarks abou
values of Chinese culture, ignoring major cultural, political, and economic variation
he transplanted his ideas without alteration to Chinese society. There is a certain i
to this approach, given that the theme of the first two lectures in the political serie
that grand ideologies should be avoided and that the problems of politics shoul
approached through the methods and insights of science. His approach is also i
from the point of view of the liberal tradition in America, of which Dewey was perhap
most prominent academic member. In general, liberals spent much of their time ar
that America could not be understood by concepts borrowed from the European traditi
because the American experience was a unique one. Yet, if America could not be unders
by concepts drawn from the European experience, it is certainly questionable whet
China could be understood through concepts and theories drawn primarily out o
American experience.
Thus, instead of directly addressing some of the traditional problems of Chinese soci

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367

such as demographic issues, peasant exploitation, sectional variation and foreign conquest,
Dewey emphasized the role of the scientific method in resolving the problems of modern
man.

One example of approaching the problems of Chinese society from

from the American experience is to be found in his proposing the intere
a way to understand the conflicts in modern society. Thus, he proposed t
understood not as the people versus the government but as a multiplicity
the members of each are held together by a common interest. He ackn
groups do achieve power disproportionate to their numbers and then o
he was unusually vague about what should be done, noting only that "we
for bringing the interests of all the groups of a society into adjustment"
here is simply that as the interest-group theory developed among Am
increasingly was cited as an alternative to the Marxian class analysis whic
was perhaps appropriate for the European experience but not for the
distinction became frequent during the 1930s, but it is questionable ju
interest-group theory could be in understanding Chinese society even in
when offered as appropriate for Chinese society, lent itself to an analysi
of Chinese society, which remained on the level of the attitudes of one gr
and the adjustment of one interest to another (see p. 79). Instead of an
structural problems of Chinese society, Dewey was more concerned t
the proper attitude revolution could be avoided and reform could be su
Further light can be shed on the influence and limitations of Dewey
society by looking at his works as representative of American liberalis
reputation which was often synonymous with the scope of liberalism
scientific method and to free inquiry was presented and perceived as a p
in political as well as scientific affairs. Dewey argued in this volume and
an appeal was thoroughly consistent with democratic values becaus
publicly verifiable procedures yielding, at least in principle, findings wh
assent to. In the lectures in China, Dewey frequently expressed this p
example he observed that: "The scientific method ... is the anti-thesis of
in supernatural mystery. The scientific attitude places emphasis on
observations and investigation of fact with a judgment about its value.
only fact and judgment based in fact; it is loyal to fact, no matter where
(p. 169). Further: "When new discoveries are kept secret or revealed only
progress is retarded. Accessibility to public examination, whether of k
basis on which authority is claimed, can be said to be a precondition of
I quote these passages at length not only to provide some flavor of the s
appeal to science and public examination, but also to argue that there
claim than is obvious from the passages themselves. First, however, it is
these passages, to understand the initial attraction that Dewey's ideas
liberals who were working to break some of the bonds of tradition an
cultural and political order in China. Dewey's ideas added fuel to t
established in Chinese society. Yet just as these passages reveal the a
system had, when placed in a different context, they also reveal its limita
is a sketch of that context.

There is no good reason to believe that scientific values necessarily s

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368 Book Reviews

ones. Whether science supports democracy depends upon how science is used and
ethical and political principles that govern it. Science may be used, for example, to repla
a traditional elite with a scientific and technological one, but it would be stretching the t
to call this use "democratic."

The very tension between science and democracy which Dewey glossed over in his formal
system are more easily seen in his political activity and also in his educational writings.
Among the most significant, although one of the least well known, of Dewey's political
activities is a study of the Polish community in Philadelphia during the World War I which
was submitted as a confidential document to the Military Intelligence Bureau of the Federal
Government. The length of the report prohibits a detailed presentation, but segments
provide a significant contrast to Dewey's assertion that realism "is loyalty to fact, no matter
where such loyalty leads" and the confidentiality of the report raises questions about the
extent of Dewey's commitment to publicity. The report was written by Dewey to uncover
conditions among the Polish community "which have a bearing upon the disposition and
morale of the Poles with respect to the war, in that they breed dissension and disturb the
unity which is desirable for the efficient prosecution of the war."1
Dewey's major interest in the report was the use of the Poles to execute the war success-
fully and the need to combat industrial unrest among them. To achieve these ends, he
proposed a commission, partly composed of prominent members of the Polish community,
to oversee Polish-American affairs. Dewey's recommendations regarding the commission
provide a sample of the general tone of the report, as he warned that the refusal of any
prominent Polish-American to join the commission should be taken as primafacie evidence
of disloyalty. His own words were: "Refusal of any faction or important Pole to join would
indicate that he put personal ambition or partisan interest before the cause of Poland, or else
that he put allegiance to some foreign group before his allegiance to the United States."2
Placed in the context of this report, the China lectures reveal the extent to which Dewey's
was a philosophy of growing industrialization and developing technology. Given his
sophisticated understanding of industrial growth, his influence is understandable but so too
its limitations. These limitations are expressed in his education writings, for in fact, pro-
gressive education became a very different enterprise for children from differing social and
economic backgrounds. For example, in Schools of Tomorrow, written with his daughter
Evelyn, Dewey supported progressive vocational programs as especially worthwhile for
black and immigrant children.3
Dewey's educational theory developed as a response to industrial and technological
growth in the United States as an attempt to alleviate the social disruptions which technology
caused while assuring continued industrial growth. To this end, the central assumption of a
liberal educational policy was also reflected in Dewey's ideas. That assumption was that
were a talent allowed to rise through the schools, then both justice and technology would be
served.4 Dewey expressed this view in his China lectures by arguing that equality of oppor-
tunity required a deemphasis on the humanistic curriculum and a heavier stress on a
scientific one (see p. 196.). This assumption was reasonable in terms of the growth of
technology, but without the guidelines of a principle of fairness to govern the distribution of
labor, goods, and knowledge, justice was served only accidently and occasionally.
In conclusion, while the translators may be perfectly correct in explaining the decline of
Dewey's influence in China, in terms of the political pressure brought to bear on his dis-
ciples, the decline is also explanable in terms of the ideas themselves and their inability to

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369

support
support the the
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WALTER FEINBERG

The University of Illinois

NOTES

1. John Dewey, "Conditions Among the Poles in the Unitd States." Confidential
(Washington, D. C., 1918), p. 2. This report is cited in Milton H. Thomas, John Dewey: A Cen
Bibliography (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962), pp. 52-53. I used a copy from the
of the Dewey project at Southern Illinois University, which in turn was obtained from the Univ
of California Library, Berkeley.
2. Ibid. p. 79.
3. For support of this point see my Reason and Rhetoric: The Intellectual Foundations of
Educational Reform (New York: John Wiley, forthcoming). See also John and Evelyn
Schools of Tomorrow (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1915), esp. chap. 8.
4. Further argumentation and evidence for this perspective on John Dewey's philos
contained in Walter Feinberg and Henry Rosement, Jr., "Training for the Welfare Sta
Progressive Education Movement" in Feinberg and Rosemont, eds., Work, Technolo
Education (Urbana, Ill.: University of Illinois Press, 1974).

Mystical Experience, by Ben-Ami Scharfstein. Indianapolis: The Bobbs-Merrill Com

1973. 195pp. $6.95.

With the rising interest in Eastern thought and religions among students of W
philosophy, it is becoming increasingly necessary to make available texts that demons
the philosophical sophistication of the thinkers and mystics of the non-Western trad
Such endeavors should make an effort to display, in a cogent fashion, the argume
attitudes of Asian thought and experience in a way that removes concerns with such
away from the occult and the salvational-qualities which may have a transient ap
"lost" college students, but repel, with some justification, most teachers of philos
our country. Scharfstein's book serves as an excellent, nontechnical introduction to su
approach. It displays a broad, yet detailed knowledge of many Eastern traditio
presents individual arguments of many of the mystics and thinkers of these traditio
Scharfstein's treatment, however, does not restrict itself to the non-Western m
traiditions, nor, more importantly, treat them in isolation from their Western counte
Indeed, the chapter divisions of his book are conceptual, rather than geographical, rel
or chronological. This allows for the creative juxtaposition and comparison of
different types of mystical experiences within one chapter, thus shedding light from
angles on the particular point under consideration. At times, Scharfstein's asso
between two different approaches seem more suggestive than genuinely illumina
either (for example, his chapter on "Freud's Psychoanalysis and Patafijali's Yoga
such a treatment is conducive to getting away from the prevailing "pigeon-hole" a
toward the phenomena he is attempting to describe.

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