In a speech before the American Educational Research Association, the author asserts that childhood education theory is going through one of its periodic over-reactions to new findings. The result is the present overemphasis on environmentally caused cognitive development. Yet a very basic biological law is the law of human variability. The overemphasis on the intellectual aspect of child development is harmful if other crucial personal development areas involving emotion, motivation, and social competence are ignored. If the general aspects of a child's development are attended to and appropriate conditions established, the child will learn because learning is an inherent feature of being a human being. The child's history of deprivation or failure, his motivation for attention and affection, his feelings towards adults and his self-concept are as important determinants of how he functions as is his formal cognition. (MS)