The book presents three lectures and a supplemental account describing how schooling must align with social change and children's lives. It argues that education should transmit collective achievements to all citizens, reshape curricula around activity, manual training, and inquiry, and integrate subjects through projects rooted in pupils' experiences. It critiques fragmented, rote instruction as wasteful and calls for reorganization of school structures, schedules, and aims to promote economy, efficiency, and fuller growth. The supplemental statement recounts the formation and practices of an experimental elementary school that models these principles through organized activities, teacher collaboration, and curricular innovations.