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Meanwhile, sensible people are convinced of the unsoundness of this theory. How often, after having read a book from no particular point of view, one feels it necessary to reexamine it in order to know how it treats some particular topic! The former reading was too defective to meet a special need, because the very general aim caused the attitude to be general or non-selective. How often do young people who have been taught to have no particular aim in their reading, have no aim at all, beyond intellectual dissipation, the momentary tickle of the thought. Thus all particular needs are in danger of being left unsatisfied when no particular need is fixed upon as the object. It is the growing consciousness of the great waste in such study that has changed botany in many places into horticulture and agriculture, chemistry into the chemistry of the kitchen, and that has caused portions of many other studies to be approached from the human view- point.

This indicates the positive acceptance of specific purposes as guides in study. They are not by any means full guarantees of an outcome of knowledge in conduct, for they are only the plans by which the student hopes that his knowledge will function. Since plans often fail of accomplishment, these purposes may never be realized. But they give promise of some outcome and form one important step in a series of steps necessary for the fruition of knowledge.

By whom and when such purposes should be conceived

The aims set up by advanced scholars are necessarily an outgrowth of their individual experience and interests. Such aims must, therefore, vary greatly. For this reason such men must conceive their purposes for themselves; there is no one who can do it for them.

Younger students are in much the same situation, for their aims should also be individual to a large extent. Text-books might be of much help if their authors attempted this task with skill. But authors seldom attempt it at all; and, even if they do, they are under the disadvantage of writing for great numbers of persons living in widely different environments. Any aims that they propose must necessarily be of a very general character. Teachers might again be of much help; but many of them do not know how, and many more will not try. The task, therefore, falls mainly to the student himself.