Dewey, Philosophy Instructor
John Dewey, circa 1885. (John Dewey Papers, Bentley Historical Library.)
John Dewey arrived in Ann Arbor during the fall of 1884 as a twenty-four year-old philosophy instructor deeply rooted in philosophical idealism. The University of Michigan was in the middle of James B. Angell's presidency, the longest in Michigan's history, which spanned from 1871 to 1909. During Angell's presidency, the university embarked upon a progressive era of expansion and educational reform, adapting the university to meet the needs of a changing society. The admission of women had begun in 1870, and Angell built upon it as part of his effort to foster a more democratic atmosphere in which experimentation and diversity of thought were possible. It was a period when leadership in higher education was beginning a gradual shift to the public universities "of which Michigan was the acknowledged model."6 The seminar method of teaching, introduced earlier at Michigan, was increasingly employed as a means of instruction, and students were offered a wider selection of elective courses to choose from and greater voice and freedom within the curriculum. The classical curriculum was giving way to the scientific curriculum, and chapel services, which previously had been mandatory, became voluntary, a nod to an increasingly secular society. Admission requirements were changing as well. Students from accredited high schools were now allowed to enroll on the strength of their diplomas rather than through the traditional formal entrance examinations, a move that dramatically altered the means by which students gained access to education. A graduate school was also established at the University of Michigan during this time, which put advanced study and independent research on a more solid footing.7
President James B. Angell, circa 1885. (James B. Angell Papers, Bently Historical Library.)
In 1891, in the midst of Dewey's tenure at Michigan, Angell offered a retrospective of his twenty years as president. Enrollment had grown to 2,420 students, more than double the number when his presidency began. For a brief period that enrollment made Michigan the largest university in the nation. Four hundred and forty-five of the students were women, and slightly over half of the students came from outside Michigan, representing forty-four states and twelve foreign countries. In this same period Angell noted, the faculty and instructional staff increased from 36 members to 130, and course offerings correspondingly expanded from 57 courses to 378. The number of accredited high schools had grown from 5 to 82, and Angell called the connection with public schools one of the university's greatest achievements.8
Even before he arrived at Michigan, Dewey was familiar with President Angell. Angell had been a friend of the Dewey family while he was president of the University of Vermont, in Dewey's hometown of Burlington, from 1866 until assuming the Michigan presidency. Born October 20, 1859, and raised in the Congregational church, Dewey completed high school in Burlington in 1875. He enrolled at the University of Vermont, graduating in 1879. Following graduation he embarked on a brief teaching career at the high school in Oil City, Pennsylvania. But his true interest was philosophy, and in 1881, he left Pennsylvania after arranging for a year of private study with his philosophy instructor at the University of Vermont. This period of study prompted Dewey to enroll as a graduate student in the philosophy department at Johns Hopkins University in 1882.9
George S. Morris, 1880 (George S. Morris Papers, Bentley Historical Library.)
During his time at Johns Hopkins, Dewey's philosophy began to gain a sharper focus.10 While working on his doctoral dissertation on Kant's psychology, he came under the influence of several preeminent philosophers, including one of his instructors, George Sylvester Morris. Morris was one of the leading American interpreters of German idealist philosophy, and he would make a lasting impression on Dewey. He would later arrange for Dewey's first college-level teaching position at the University of Michigan.
Morris had come to the University of Michigan in 1870 as head of the Department of Modern Languages and Literature. In 1878, he began a period of splitting his teaching duties between Ann Arbor and Baltimore because Johns Hopkins provided him with the opportunity to teach philosophy, his true passion. He resigned the modern language professorship in 1879 and spent a year away from Michigan before being offered a professorship in philosophy there in 1881. He accepted the professorship with the condition that he be allowed to continue teaching one semester each year at Johns Hopkins.
When Morris began teaching philosophy at Michigan, the department was under the direction of Benjamin Franklin Cocker. Cocker's position was typical of an era when appointments in philosophy were held by men trained solely in theology. These men traditionally taught courses under the rubric of mental and moral philosophy and searched for spiritual truth rather than scientific truth. After a career in business, Cocker turned to preaching before earning an appointment in philosophy in 1869. Until Morris was appointed, no one who held the chair was trained in philosophy; instruction was "on a distinctly lower plain."11 Such an assessment isn't entirely fair of Cocker, however. His Handbook of Philosophy, a compilation of notes of lectures delivered in 1878-79, outlines an early course in psychology, which although steeped in moral philosophy and suffering from a disjointed presentation, at least acknowledged through references an awareness of the latest findings of Wilhelm Wundt and other pioneers in the newly founded field of experimental psychology.12 Religion would still have a role in philosophy, but it would now fit into the larger context of the Darwinian revolution occurring within science.
The philosophy Morris taught centered on German idealism, particularly the absolutism of G. W. F. Hegel. Morris labored to establish the spiritual nature of the universe between thought and being while also acknowledging the discoveries of science and the results of experience. Shortly after Cocker's death in 1883, Morris was made chairman of the Department of Philosophy. He began full-time teaching at the University of Michigan during the second semester of the 1884-85 academic year. Among the first actions taken by Morris was arranging to hire his former pupil John Dewey in July 1884 for a one-year appointment as an instructor in philosophy at a salary of $900.13 In his acceptance letter to President Angell, Dewey expressed gratitude and demonstrated his unassuming nature when he wrote, "I hope my work with you will be of such a character that you may not have to regret the appointment." Acknowledging their earlier acquaintance he included the personal comment, "I appreciate your good wishes, and esteem it an honor to have been remembered by you for so many years."14
Together, Dewey and Morris overhauled the Department of Philosophy, making it one of the leading centers of German scientific philosophy. They also established the modern foundations of psychology instruction at Michigan. In the developing field of psychology, with its emphasis on individual experience, Dewey was beginning to see the potential that such an area of study held for forming the scientific basis for a philosophy in which truth and experience could be applied to reason. Dewey's initial courses reflected this orientation. During his first semester at Michigan, he offered the following courses: "Empirical Psychology," "Special Topics in Psychology (Physiological, Comparative and Morbid Psychology)," and "Psychology and Philosophy; with special reference to the History of Philosophy in Great Britain." During the second semester, Morris offered more traditionally philosophical courses on ethics, "Philosophy of the State," history of philosophy in Germany, and a course in real logic sub-titled the "Science of Objective Intelligence." The logic course covered "Foundations of the Philosophy of Nature, of Man, and of the Absolute" to which Dewey added offerings on formal logic, Greek science and philosophy, and a course on Kant's Critique of Pure Reason.15
These course offerings would aid in appeasing students who had earlier complained that the philosophy department neglected "Mill and Spencer and the whole modern scientific school of Philosophy," men the students had been "taught to respect in science."16 As evidence of the lack of respect accorded Mill, one of the student newspapers at the time reported the following student complaint: "Last year in the course on Ethics, Mill was described as a man whose heart was in the right place, but whose head was wanting, or words to that effect."17 Dewey's inaugural presentation before the Philosophical Society, founded by Morris in the spring of 1884, won him some early converts. His presentation, entitled "Mental Evolution and its Relations to Psychology," was hailed in a student newspaper as "without doubt the ablest discussion that has been given in Ann Arbor for some time."18 The account of Dewey's presentation also provides a sense of the direction of his early philosophical thinking. He believed that life must be viewed as an "organic whole" and that mental growth, "individually and collectively," is determined by environment. According to Dewey, mental evolution occurred through an enlargement of that environment in "organic relation with the spiritual universe."19 His presentations and writings during this period were beginning to incorporate elements of science and experimental psychology but still remained rooted in religious belief.
Student's Christian Association lecture room, 1887 (University of Michigan Office of Religious Affairs Photographs, Bentley Historical Library)
Dewey immersed himself in the religious life of the community soon after coming to Michigan. He joined the First Congregational Church of Ann Arbor in November and became an active participant in the Students' Christian Association, one of the largest campus organizations.20 The Students' Christian Association advertised a new Bible study course "in the charge of Dr. Dewey, the new instructor of Philosophy," suggesting, "this, of itself, should insure to the class an excellent attendance and a lively interest."21 In an earlier presentation before the association, Dewey spoke on "The Obligation to Knowledge of God," stating that a purely intellectual life wasn't healthful: "science and philosophy is worthless which does not ultimately bring every fact into guiding relation with the activity of man, and the end of all his striving—approach to God."22 The talk, one of many he would present before this organization, was typical of the traditional theology that formed the underpinnings of his philosophy.23
Dewey's first semester was successful, as evidenced in a letter from Morris to President Angell in January 1885. Morris, writing from Baltimore, stated, "I was very much gratified to get so favorable a report from you in regard to Mr. Dewey and his work. I felt confident, before his appointment, that, if allowed a fair trial, he would make a solid success." At this time Morris was still awaiting final approval of his appointment as head of philosophy. His letter also included, "if the policy finally adopted by the Regents should be to make me the sole responsible head of the Department . . . I should desire and insist on the retention of Dewey as my assistant."24 Dewey earned reappointment as instructor for a second year in 1885, and in June 1886 he was promoted to assistant professor of philosophy at a salary of $1,600.25
University Samovar Club, 1885–86. John Dewey and his future wife, Harriet Alice Chipman, were founding members of the University Samovar Club, which met in the mid-1880s to discuss the works of Tolstoy and Turgenev and to drink hot chocolate made in the Samovar. Chipman is seated second from the left, while Dewey is absent from the photo. Sociology pioneer Charles H. Cooley is seated to the left of Chipman. Elsie Jones (later Mrs. Charles H. Cooley) is standing in the center ()Photographs Vertical File, Bentley Historical Library.)
The promotion and subsequent increase in salary enabled Dewey to complete plans for his marriage to Harriet Alice Chipman in July 1886. Chipman had entered the University of Michigan in 1880 as a nondegree student. She later enrolled as a regular student and graduated as a member of the class of 1886.26 Raised in Fenton, Michigan, Chipman was a free thinker and is credited by one of her daughters, Jane Dewey, as "largely responsible for the early widening of Dewey's philosophic interests from the commentative and classical to the field of contemporary life."27 When an alumnae survey asked Chipman to comment on lasting impressions of her college days, she responded that it was the "gradual transforming of the heroic, co-ed period into a more commonplace but perhaps more generally useful time of general social service."28
Newly married and recently promoted, Dewey experienced no letdown in scholarly productivity. He continued to labor with psychological concepts, publishing several articles in an effort to establish a philosophical standpoint within psychology. During this time he also introduced a lecture course on experimental psychology. His first book, the introductory college-level text Psychology, appeared in 1887. The book reported on the latest physiological research in psychology and attempted to relate these findings to philosophy. Assailed in some quarters by critics who felt it failed to distinguish where physiology and psychology ended and philosophy began, it was nonetheless an important step as Dewey began to grapple with concepts of mental development and self-awareness against a larger ethical framework. These ideas would become significant as his educational philosophy gained form. Psychology also succeeded in gaining a wider audience and establishing Dewey’s reputation beyond the University of Michigan. Despite the criticism, the book was revised in several editions and would remain a standard text at Michigan for the next decade.29 Although psychology was not officially established as a separate department at Michigan until 1929, Dewey is largely responsible for creating the department’s foundation.
< Previous | Page 4 of 16 | Next >
