The weeklong browbeating that I've borne because of my sloppy typing served me right. For instance, at the Mohican Club's monthly lunch at The Hawkeye, two tablemates shamed me by saying they'd wasted precious time in trying to follow my botched hints. That was time that could have gone to crosswords or watching TV golf.

Well, I apologize to all, and especially to fellow writer Cathe Ellsworth, who also asked jokingly just how long I was going to stretch out this Aristotle shtick. I told her that there'd be a final column this week, but she shouldn't annoy herself with it. So, Cathe, if you're reading this: Stop. Now.

Anyway, with the hints straightened out, I'll bet you've guessed the word in a trice. Right! The word is form. And of its many definitions, the relevant one is "the interrelationship of parts in any thing." That definition figured into the two stories I told you.

It was form that the truck destroyed in knocking down the stone wall.

The individual stones stayed intact, but their previous interrelationship, the one that had formed (!) the wall, was destroyed. The truck literally deformed the wall, and now the harried farmer has to reform it. And here's a thought: Because he'll never get all the stones back in exactly the same relationships, he might finish reforming and find he has a few stones left over. What should he do with those? Chuck 'em, of course. The goal is to have a good wall, not to use all the stones.

The situation's a bit different with the squirrelly kid who wrecked the alarm clock. Presumably, all the parts he spread out on the table were essential to the clock's working; the interrelationships he destroyed were the necessary, essential ones.

And his attempting reassembly was doomed. The kid didn't have the parts' form in mind when he started his deforming, he didn't grasp it as he worked, and he didn't have it as he stared at the spread of (to him) meaningless pieces. No wonder he gathered up the evidence and hid it in the attic. (I'll bet that, sixty years later, it's still behind the chimney. Is there a statute of limitations for clockacide?)

Aristotle would say that the key to grasping anything is in 1) naming its parts and 2) seeing the way they interrelate-the way they fit and work together. And the old boy prescribed a simple process. You start with ANALYSIS; that means mentally pulling the thing apart, naming the components, pinpointing their present interrelationships. Then, he says, comes SYNTHESIS: you mentally reconstruct the object. And having done that, you've arrived at COMPREHENSION. That last word, in its Latin roots, literally means "grasping together," that is, grasping the parts and their interrelationships.

Then, says the canny Greek, you're equipped for a really crucial job: EVALUATION. For, after comprehending what a thing is, whatever its complexity, you can weigh that knowledge against what it's meant for. And then you can say just how good it is-how close it has come to the ideal, to what it's striving to be.

And if the thing is less than perfect, then you can start asking what's wrong. Missing parts? Wrong parts? Extra, unneeded parts? Parts that don't mesh? Dirt in the works? Evaluation is deciding what's right and what's wrong, and what's needed to make the thing "all it was meant to be."

Trust me, Aristotle's tools can do the job, whether you're analyzing a cranky carburetor, a Shakespeare sonnet, a fishing reel, an electrical diagram, a football play, a foreign language, the Milky Way Galaxy. That's why I said last week that grasping form is the key to all knowledge. It unlocks everything.

Even a school system trying to move from good to great.

But did you notice the other essential element mentioned? You've got to know, and precisely, what the thing is for. There's no way to grasp or evaluate, unless you know what goal brought the thing to be. And, of course, Aristotle has a name for that, too.

He calls it the Final Cause and distinguishes it from the Material Cause (what the thing's made from), the Formal Cause (you already know about that), and the Efficient Cause (the person or persons who do the making.) Oh, and instrumental causes may be involved (tools of various sorts), and even an exemplary cause (the model from which you're working.)

Clever, wasn't he? But here's my favorite saying of his. The Final Cause starts the process of making; it's why you're doing it. But it's the last thing achieved; all the work has to come first. The Final Cause is "first in the order of intention, but last in the order of execution."

Neat, huh? And it all applies to school reform: Know what you're aiming for. Figure out the parts and interrelationships. Judge what's right and what's wrong at present. Add or subtract parts as needed, change relationships if necessary. But start, oh please, with the Final Cause question: What's a school for?

OK, that's it. Next week I'm back to talking sheep. All three of our ewes are preggers, Sophie is as big as a barrel, and she is sporting an udder that's downright Dolly Partonesque. Lambing is just around the corner. I'll report back.

Jim Atwell lives in and views life from Fly Creek. He can be found on the web at JimAtwell.com.