=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 examine the next word. If he gains the true notion from the first example, he merely verifies this through the other particular examples. If his first notion is not correct, however, he is able to correct it by a further process of analysis and synthesis in connection with other examples. Throughout the formal stages, therefore, the pupil is merely applying his growing general knowledge in a selective, or analytic, way to the interpreting of several particular examples, until such time as a perfect general, or class, notion is obtained and verified. It is, indeed, on account of this immediate tendency of the mind to generalize, that care must be taken to present the children with typical examples. To make them examine a sufficient number of examples is to ensure the correcting of crude notions that may be formed by any of the pupils through their generalizing perhaps from a single particular. INDUCTION AS A LEARNING PROCESS