In Democracy and Education: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Education (1916), John Dewey contends that the primary facts of the birth and death of each of the members of a social group determine the necessity of education.

Dewey viewed the mind and its formation as a communal process, so that the individual is a meaningful concept only when regarded as an inextricable part of their society, whilst the society has no meaning apart from its realization through the lives of individual members.

Just growing up and mastering the bare necessities of life are not sufficient to reproduce the life of the group, as a deliberate effort is required. Newborns are unaware of, and quite indifferent to the aims and customs of the social group, and, therefore, have to be made cognizant and actively interested in these. Dewey argued that education is the only way to achieve this.