yes, strong hind legs,
split upper lip, etc., are to the rabbit?" Here the problem set was
related to the children's instinctive interest in a living animal,
appealed to the instinct of curiosity, and challenged their capacity to
draw inferences.

CHAPTER X

LEARNING AS A SELECTING ACTIVITY

OR

PROCESS OF ANALYSIS

=Knowledge Obtained Through Use of Ideas.=--As already noted, the
presented problem of a lesson is neither a state of complete knowledge
nor a state of complete ignorance. On the other hand, its function is to
provide a starting-point and guide for the calling up of a number of
suitable ideas which the pupil may later relate into a single
experience, constituting the new knowledge. Take, for example, a person
without a knowledge of fractions, who approaches for the first time the
problem of sharing as found in such a question as:

Divide $15 between John and William, giving John $3 as often as William
gets $2.

In gaining control of this situation, the pupil must select the ideas $3
and $2, the knowledge that $3 and $2 = $5, and the further knowledge
that $15 contains $5 three times. These various ideas will constitute
data for organizing the new experience of $9 for John and $6 for
William. In the same manner, when the student in grammar is first
presented with the problem of interpreting the grammatical value of the
word _driving_ in the sentence, "The boy _driving_ the horse is very
noisy," he is compelled to apply to its interpretation the ideas noun,
adjectival relation, and adjective, and also the ideas object, objective
relation, and verb. In this way the child secures the mental elements
which he may organize into the new experience, or knowledge
(participle), and thus gain control of the presented word.

=Interpreting Ideas Already Known.=--It is to be noticed at the outset
that all ideas selected to aid in the solution of the lesson problem
have their origin in certain past experiences which have a bearing on
the subject in hand. When presented with a strange object (guava), a
person fixes his attention upon it, and thereupon is able, through his
former sensation experiences, to interpret it as an unknown thing. He
then begins to select, out of his experiences of former objects, ideas
that bear upon the thing before him. By focusing thereon certain ideas
with which he is perfectly familiar, as rind, flesh, seed, etc., he
interprets the strange thing as a kind of fruit. In the sam