
I argue that Dewey's discussion of historical philosophers' aims of education was also designed to critique his contemporaries subtly and by analogy. Perhaps Dewey believed that an account of their views would help elucidate his own, or he intended to suggest that his own ideas rivaled or bested theirs. In Democracy and Education, in the midst of the pivotal chapter on " The Democratic Conception in Education, " Dewey juxtaposes his educational aims with those of Plato, Rousseau, Fichte and Hegel.
