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The nature of these aims in study can be made still clearer by contrasting them with others that are very common. The "harmonious development of all the faculties," or mental discipline, for instance, has long been lauded by educators as one chief purpose in study. Agassiz was one such educator, and in his desire to cultivate the power of observation, he is said to have set students at work upon the study of fishes without directions, to struggle as they might. Many teachers of science before and since his time have followed a similar method. Truth for truth's sake, or the idea that one should study merely for the sake of knowing, has often been associated with mental discipline as a worthy end. Culture is a third common purpose.

Each of these aims, instead of originating in the particular interests of the individual, is reached by consideration of life as a whole, and of the final purposes of education. They are too general in nature to recognize individual preferences, and they are also too general to cause much discrimination in the selection of topics and of particular facts within topics. Strange to say, however, they have discriminated against the one kind of knowledge that the aforementioned specific aims emphasize as especially desirable. Under their exclusive influence, for example, students of biology have generally made an extensive study of wild plants and have paid little attention to house plants. Such subjects as physics, fine art, and biology cannot help but impart much information that relates to man; but that relationship has generally been the last part reached in the treatment of each topic, and the part most neglected. Under the influence of these general aims any useful purpose, whether involving service to the individual or to society at large, has somehow been eschewed or thought too sordid to be worthy of the scholar.

The relation of specific purposes to those that are more general

Nevertheless, these two kinds of aims are not necessarily opposed to each other. If a person can increase his mental power, or his love of knowledge, or his culture, at the same time that he is accomplishing specific purposes, why should he not do so? The gain is so much the greater.