It has been for want of good character, good example, and good government.” The notion that intelligence is a personal endowment or personal attainment is the great conceit of the intellectual class, as that of the commercial class is that wealth is something which they personally have wrought and possess.
Dewey critiques the notion that intelligence and wealth are solely personal achievements, emphasizing the role of character and governance.
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Systematic and continuous inquiry into all the conditions which affect association and their dissemination in print is a precondition of the creation of a true public.
The problem of securing diffused and seminal intelligence can be solved only in the degree in which local communal life becomes a reality.
We lie, as Emerson said, in the lap of an immense intelligence.
Publication is partial and the public which results is partially informed and formed until the meanings it purveys pass from mouth to mouth.