Unless these are read, they cannot seriously affect the thought and action of members of the public; they remain in secluded library alcoves, and are studied and understood only by a few intellectuals.
Dewey argues that without engagement, scholarly works will not influence public thought or action.
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More from John Dewey
We lie, as Emerson said, in the lap of an immense intelligence.
If the technological age can provide mankind with a firm and general basis of material security, it will be absorbed in a humane age.
The problem of securing diffused and seminal intelligence can be solved only in the degree in which local communal life becomes a reality.
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.