A hundred years ago, Dewey lectured around China. It is the first time Chinese educational concepts confronting its Western counterpart in China. Due to strong Chinese original moral utilitarianism, an overall strategic misinterpretation of the American ideas represented by Dewey led to the so-called pragmatism and its educational philosophy loaded with a deep sense of Chinese culture. This misinterpretation kept and strengthen the traditional Chinese ideal of "academic study for the good of statecraft"; at the same time, it is also a copy and inheritance of one of the traits of the traditional Chinese culture——"seeking quick success and instant benefits". Immersed in and guided by this misinterpretation of pragmatism, Chinese ideology as well as the whole society walked through a winding modernization process, full of ups and downs, twists and turns. Today, in the context of Chinese societal revolution and the policy of reform and opening-up, in order to get out of this closed historical circle and blaze a new path for society, it is high time we face up to and surmount this original behaviorism in Chinese and western culture which is misinterpreted as pragmatism.