Longitudinal studies to clarify and validate objectives and standards of preschool education are advocated. Until the result of such research is available, studies of methods and processes have little practical or theoretical use. Preschool goals generally agreed upon by American educators are the promotion of the child's emotional and social development, and the improvement of mental processes and skills. Current strategies for further defining these goals include: (1) "bag of virtues" approach, which advocates that the child acquire self confidence, spontaneity, curiosity, self-discipline, and specific aptitudes and skills; (2) the class comparison strategy, which assumes a middle class superiority in attitudes, goals, and general life style; (3) the industrial psychology strategy, which says that in order to make it in the system, children must meet certain standards of language and skills, even though they are not termed "deprived" in terms of their own culture. In contrast, the cognitive-developmental approach, which is exemplified by Piagetian stage theory, is favored and is used in this paper to arrive at a strategy for the definition of education objectives. The child and his development, the use of longitudinal data, and some recent research demonstrating relationships between Piagetian stages of cognition and ego stages are also discussed. (NH)