So far as a general idea makes us more
alive to these connections, it cannot be too general. But "general"
also means "abstract," or detached from all specific context. And such
abstractness means remoteness, and throws us back, once more, upon
teaching and learning as mere means of getting ready for an end
disconnected from the means. That education is literally and all
the time its own reward means that no alleged study or discipline is
educative unless it is worth while in its own immediate having. A
truly general aim broadens the outlook; it stimulates one to take more
consequences (connections) into account. This means a wider and more
flexible observation of means. The more interacting forces, for example,
the farmer takes into account, the more varied will be his immediate
resources. He will see a greater number of possible starting places, and
a greater number of ways of getting at what he wants to do. The fuller
one's conception of possible future achievements, the less his present
activity is tied down to a small number of alternatives. If one knew
enough, one could start almost anywhere and sustain his activities
continuously and fruitfully.

Understanding then the term general or comprehensive aim simply in the
sense of a broad survey of the field of present activities, we shall
take up some of the larger ends which have currency in the educational
theories of the day, and consider what light they throw upon the
immediate concrete and diversified aims which are always the educator's
real concern. We premise (as indeed immediately follows from what
has been said) that there is no need of making a choice among them or
regarding them as competitors. When we come to act in a tangible way we
have to select or choose a particular act at a particular time, but any
number of comprehensive ends may exist without competition, since they
mean simply different ways of looking at the same scene. One cannot
climb a number of different mountains simultaneously, but the views had
when different mountains are ascended supplement one another: they do
not set up incompatible, competing worlds. Or, putting the matter in
a slightly different way, one statement of an end may suggest certain
questions and observations, and another statement another set of
questions, calling for other observations. Then the more general ends we
have, the better. One statement will emphasize what another slurs over.
What a plurality of hypotheses d