World-renowned as a philosopher and author of many books. Ideas drawn from his educational doctrines profoundly influenced American education.
A Burlington native, Dewey graduated from the University of Vermont in 1879; UVM would have been understandably proud of his influence on education, enough to place his ashes (and those of his wife) in this alcove of the Ira Allen Chapel. It is the only grave on the campus.
The inscription on the stone:
The things in civilization we most prize are not of ourselves. They exist by grace of the doings and sufferings of the continuous human community in which we are a link. Ours is the responsibility of conserving, transmitting, rectifying and expanding the heritage of values we have received that those who come after us may receive it more solid and secure, more widely accessible and more generously shared than we have received it.
---John Dewey, "A Common Faith"
See also this Vermont Historical Marker.