Judge the fools will accept direction (6)
I believe the answer is:
assess
'judge' is the definition.
(assessing is a kind of judging)
'the fools will accept direction' is the wordplay.
'the fools' becomes 'asses' (ass is a kind of fool).
'will accept' indicates putting letters inside.
'direction' becomes 's' (S is an example).
'asses' going around 's' is 'ASSESS'.
(Other definitions for assess that I've seen before include "Judge the worth of something" , "'Judge, estimate (6)'" , "Appraise, estimate value" , "Estimate value (for tax)" , "Evaluate (quality)" .)