The child eats beefsteak because it is palatable; the mother prescribes
beefsteak and prepares it carefully with the child's health as the goal of
her interests. Moreover, she has a more vital interest in beefsteak
because she is thinking of health as the goal. For another child, she may
prescribe eggs and, for still another, milk or oatmeal, according to each
one's needs. Health is the big goal and these foods are the supply
stations along the way. The physician must assist in determining what
articles of food will best serve the purpose and to this end he must
cooperate with the mother in knowing his patients. He must have knowledge
of foods and must know how to adapt means to ends, never losing sight of
the real goal. The inference is altogether obvious. A superintendent must
write the prescription in the form of a course of study and he may not
with impunity mistake a supply station for the goal. He must have
knowledge of the pupils and know their individual needs and native
interests. Having gained this knowledge, he will supply abundant electives
in order to assist each child in the best possible way toward the goal.
If, then, the relation between major ends and minor means has been made
clear, we are ready for the statement that these major ends may be made
the common goals of endeavor in the schools of all lands. Thoroughness is
quite as necessary in the rice fields of China as in the wheat fields of
America, as necessary in the banks of Rome as in the banks of New York,
quite as essential to mercantile transactions in Cape Town as in Chicago,
and quite as essential to home life in Tokyo as in San Francisco.
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