Helen Parkhurst in Education on the Dalton Plan, 1922
"What does a pupil do when given, as he* is given by the Dalton Laboratory Plan, responsibility for the performance for such and such work? Instinctively he seeks the best way of achieving it. Then having decided, he proceeds to act upon that decision… Discussion helps to clarify his ideas and also his plan of procedure. When he comes to the end, the finished achievement takes on all the splendor of success. It embodies all he had thought and felt and lived during the time it has taken to complete. This is real experience. It is culture achieved through individual development and through collective cooperation.
It is no longer school---it is life."