I read Experience and Education when I was in college studying Philosophy, and was amazed for the same reason. On a similar note, there was a presentation at the International Reading Association’s National Conference in Atlanta two weeks ago on Edmund Huey’s work, The Psychology and Pedagogy of Reading, which was published in 1908 and currently out of print. Note, this presentation came days after the DOE interim report on Reading First, which heavily emphasizes explicit phonics instruction, determined that the $6 billion program has had no effect on reading comprehension. Here’s a quote from Huey, 100 years ago:
“Granting the care and completeness with which the method [phonics program of the period] … it must be pronounced intensely artificial and adult in its conceptions, and destructive of right habits of reading and of using language generally… Besides to burden the young pupil with the cumbersome technique of such a method and to so fill his mind with the dead products of adult analysis is a crime against childhood which cannot long be suffered. Even if perfectly attained its ideal has not taught the child to read, and is most likely to permanently unfit him for intelligent natural reading.”

It’s striking to think that many of these debates in education are a century old. Thanks for pointing that out.