To get at the natural process it is well to observe first the action of a child's mind. By analyzing a simple case of a farmer's child we may trace the mental steps in forming a general notion. So long as it has seen no barn except that on its father's farm, the word barn means to it only that particular object. But when it discovers that one of the neighbors has a similar building called a barn, it learns to put these different objects under one head, and the general notion barn as a building for horses, cattle, and feed, gradually rises in the mind. Long before the child is six years old (school age) it may have seen enough of such barns for the general notion to be distinctly formed. By observing different objects, by comparing and grouping similar things together, it has formed a general notion in a regular process of induction, and that without any help from teachers.
At two and three years of age, or as soon as a child begins to recognize and name new objects (because of their resemblance to things previously seen) this tendency to concept-building is manifest. Another illustration: The child has seen the family horse several times till the word horse becomes associated with that animal. While out walking it sees another horse, and pointing its finger says "horse." The memory of the first horse and the similarity calls forth the natural conclusion that this is a horse, though it may not be able to formulate the sentence. More horses are seen and compared till the word becomes the name of a whole class of animals. By a gradual process of observation, comparison, and judgment the word horse comes to stand for a large group of objects in nature.
A child's mind is naturally very active in detecting resemblances and in grouping similar objects together. It notices that there are certain people called women, others called men; that certain animals are called sheep, others cattle. One class of objects receives the name book, another stove, etc. The work of observing, comparing, and classifying is a perpetual operation in the child's active moods. In this way, what may appear at first as an interminable confusion or blur of objects in nature begins to fall into groups and classes with appropriate names. It is the child's own way of bringing order out of the apparent chaos of his surroundings. All this process of classification is natural and nearly unconscious, and results in a better understanding and interpretation of the things around him.
Observe next the work of an educated adult, and how he increases and arranges his knowledge. If he is an incipient dry-goods merchant he learns by sight and touch to detect the quality of goods. He compares and classifies his experiences and becomes in time an expert in judging textile fabrics. On the other hand he becomes acquainted by personal contact with various customers and learns how to classify and judge them both as buyers and as debtors.
If a botanist finds a new plant he examines its stem, leaves, root, flower, seed, and environment. While entering into these details he is also comparing it with familiar classes of plants. Finally, he is not satisfied till he can definitely locate it in his previous system. With every new plant that he discovers he travels over the whole road from the individual particulars to the general classes of his whole system. The merchant and the scientist follow out with painstaking care and industry the same course which was involuntarily taken by the child; namely, observation of particulars, comparing and grouping into classes. The same habit of mind may be observed in all people who are growing knowledgewards and who possess any thoughtful instincts. In building up concepts, especially with the adult, induction is constantly mingled with deduction. As fast as general notions are formed they are used to interpret new objects. As the amount of this organized and classified knowledge increases, we reason more and more deductively.
In acquiring knowledge along the line of induction, we are on the road to the solution of the puzzle, that nature puts to every child. To every infant, indeed, the world is an enormous riddle or puzzle, whose parts lie in fragments about him, waiting the operation of his curious and inventive mind toward the reconstruction of the whole. Endless variety and complexity confront us all in the beginning. There is indeed an order and classification of things in nature, but it does not appear on the surface, and for centuries men remained ignorant of the underlying harmony. Nature is full of valuable secrets, but they lie concealed from the careless eye. They are to be detected by prying deeper into individual facts, by putting a thing here and a thing there together, by pondering on the relationship of things to each other in their nature, appearance, and cause. It is a remarkable fact that we not only increase knowledge best by analyzing, comparing, and classifying objects, experience, and phenomena—even into old age—but that the deeper we penetrate into the individual qualities and inner nature of objects, the more we extend and classify our information, the simpler all the operations of nature become to our understanding. The surprising simplicity and unity of nature in her varied phenomena is one of the mature products of scientific study. The most scientific thinker, then, is only trying to reduce to a simple explanation the same puzzle which confronted the infant in its cradle. The problem is the same and the method similar.
It is plain that the process of classifying objects and phenomena in nature and in society is the beginning of scientific knowledge. A child begins to learn as soon as it notices the resemblances in things and arranges them into groups. It will appear later that the mind does not follow a strictly logical method in gaining its groups, that it falls into natural errors and misconceptions; but in spite of these eccentric movements, the general trend is toward classifications and toward the language symbols that express them. In this power to associate, classify, and symbolize the products of experience in words is seen the marked difference between man and the animals. The latter have little power to compare and generalize, that is, to think. On a still higher plane, the difference between a careless, loose observer and a well-trained scientific thinker is largely a difference in accuracy, in inductive and deductive processes.
The important thing for the teacher to determine is whether this inductive or concept-building tendency furnishes any solid ground upon which to base the work of instruction. Admitting that it is a natural process, common to both old and young in acquiring knowledge, perhaps it can be neglected because it will take care of itself. If it is self-active, needing no artificial stimulus, let it alone. On the contrary, if in a healthy pursuit of knowledge it brings the varied mental powers into a natural sequence where they will strengthen and support one another, it should be studied and used by teachers. It would be very commonplace to say that each of the faculties or activities involved in the inductive process should be disciplined and strengthened by school studies. There is but little difference of opinion on this subject, though some would lay more stress upon sense training, some on memory, some on reasoning. The ground for this general conviction is the notorious fact that with children every one of these acts, is performed in a faulty and superficial manner. The observations of children are very careless and unreliable. Even adults are extremely negligent and inaccurate in their observations of natural objects, persons, and phenomena. But the mental powers brought to bear in observation are simple and elementary. The exercise of higher mental powers, such as analysis, comparison, judgment, and reasoning, is prone to be still more accidental and erroneous.
Acknowledging then the necessity for training all these powers, how can it best be done? Not by delegating to each study the cultivation of one kind or set of mental activities, but by observing that the same general process underlies the acquisition of knowledge in each subject, and that all the kinds of mental life are brought into action in nearly every study. In short, the inductive process is a natural highway of human thought in every line of study, bringing all the mental forces into an orderly, successive, healthful activity. We may yet discover that the inductive process not only gives the key to an interesting method of mastering different branches of knowledge, but in developing mental activity it brings the various mental powers into a strong natural sequence.
One of the great ends of intellectual culture is gradually to transform this careless, unconscious, inductive tendency in children into the painstaking and exact scrutiny of the student, and later of the specialist.