In this paper it is shown that one's conception of intelligence and its development profoundly affects the formulation of educational objectives. A mechanistic conception of intelligence leads to the definition of objectives as a collection of fragmented "cognitive skills" that have little to do with children's development of intelligence. A Piagetian conception, on the other hand, leads to attempts to develop children's intelligence as an organized whole. Intelligence is not something that we can educate separately by pasting it onto the child. It is rooted in the biological origins of a whole organism and develops as a highly interdependent whole. Our comprehension of reality, or the way in which we understand reality, precedes and largely determines how we react to it. Whatever specific objective we may define in education must, therefore, support and enhance qualities such as autonomy, so that intelligence can develop as a coherent, powerful whole. If we want this intelligence to develop into something powerful enough to overcome the natural human tendencies to see reality in terms of emotional needs and to accept easy ready--made answers, we must educate children to deal logically with reality itself. By compartmentalizing academic skills and separating them from the development of intelligence, schools too often produce passive students who wait to be told what to think next. (Author/JM)