Comparing and contrasting “traditional” and “progressive” approaches to education, Dewey proposes that both ways of educating are incomplete, and in many respects mis-educative. Believing that a carefully developed philosophy of education is essential regardless of how an educator or system approaches the “problem” of fostering learning, grounded in either traditional top-down methods or rooted in experience, Dewey leaves readers with the following thought:

What we want and need is education pure and simple, and we shall make surer and faster progress when we develop ourselves to finding out just what education is and what conditions have to be satisfied in order that education may be a reality and not a name or a slogan. It is for this reason alone that I have emphasized the need for a sound philosophy of experience.