eneral effort to devise a solution or solutions
that are the most satisfactory.

It appears from the analysis made in Chapter VI of the pupils'
capability and fitness relative to the school failures that it is
impossible to make any definite apportionment of responsibility to the
pupils, until we have first frankly faced and made an effective
disposition of the malfunctioning and misdirection as found in the
school itself. It does not follow from this that any radical
application of surgery need be recommended, but instead, a practical
and extended course of treatment should be prescribed, which will have
due regard for the nature and location of the ills to be remedied.
Anything less than this will seem to be a mere external salve and leave
untouched the chronic source of the systematic maladjustment. It is not
assumed that a school system any more than any other institution or
machine can be operated without some loss. But the failure of the
school to make a natural born linguist pass in a subject of technical
mathematics is perhaps unfortunate only in the thing attempted and in
the uselessness of the effort.

We must take into account at the very beginning the fundamental truth
stated by Thorndike,[54] that "achievement is a measure of ability only
if the conditions are equal." Corollary to that is the fact that the
same uniform conditions and requirements are often very unequal as
applied to different individuals. The equalization of educational
opportunity does not at all mean the same duplicated method or content
for all. That interpretation will controvert the very spirit and
purpose of the principle stated. Any inflexible scheme which attempts
to fashion all children into types, according to preconceived notions,
and whose perpetuity is rooted in a psychology based on the uniformity
of the human mind, simply must give way to the newer conception which
harmonizes with the psychic laws of the individual, or else continue to
waste much time and energy in trying to force pupils to accomplish
those things for which they have neither the capacity nor the
inclination. It is accordingly obligatory on the school to give
intelligent and responsive recognition to the wide differentiation of
social demands, and to the extent and the continuity of the individual
differences of pupils.

1. ORGANIZATION AND ADAPTATION IN RECOGNITION OF THE INDIVIDUAL
DIFFERENCES IN ABILITIES AND INTERESTS

If the school failures are to