case presented to him. Moreover, as he analyses out the characteristics
of this case, he does not really suspend fully the generalizing process
until he has examined a number of other cases, but, as the teacher is
fully aware, is much more likely to jump at once to a more or less
correct conclusion from the one example. It is true, of course, that it
is only by going on to compare this with other cases that he assures
himself that this first conclusion is correct. This slight variation of
the actual learning process from the formal outline will become evident
if one considers how a child builds up any general notion in ordinary
life.

CONCEPTION AS A LEARNING PROCESS

=A. In Ordinary Life.=--Suppose a young child has received a vague
impression of a cow from meeting a first and only example; we find that
by accepting this as a problem and by applying to it such experience as
he then possesses, he is able to read some meaning into it, for
instance, that it is a brown, four-footed, hairy object. This idea, once
formed, does not remain a mere particular idea, but becomes a general
means for interpreting other experiences. At first, indeed, the idea may
serve to read meaning, not only into another cow, but also into a horse
or a buffalo. In course of time, however, as this first imperfect
concept of the animal is used in interpreting cows and perhaps other
animals, the first crude concept may in time, by comparison, develop
into a relatively true, or logical, concept, applicable to only the
actual members of the class. Now here, the child did not wait to
generalize until such time as the several really essential
characteristics were decided upon, but in each succeeding case applied
his present knowledge to the particular thing presented. It was, in
other words, by a series of regular selecting and relating processes,
that his general notion was finally clarified.

=B. In the School.=--Practically the same conditions are noted in the
child's study of particular examples in an inductive or conceptual
lesson in the school, although the process is much more rapid on account
of its being controlled by the teacher. In the lesson outlined above,
the pupil finds a problem in the very first word _John_, and adjusts
himself thereto in a more or less perfect way by an apperceptive process
involving both a selecting and a relating of ideas. With this first more
or less perfect notion as a working hypothesis, the pupil goes on to