1. The Motive.—To read meaning into the new thing which is placed before the pupil as a problem to stimulate his senses.
2. Selection, or Analysis.—Bringing selected elements of former knowledge to interpret the unknown problem, the elements of his former knowledge being represented above by such words as six, leg, wing, hard, shell, membranous, etc.
3. Unification, or Synthesis.—A continuous relating of these interpreting factors into the unity of a better known object, the insect.
B. Is a Basis for Generalization.—It is to be noted, however, that in any such lesson, although the pupil gains through his senses a knowledge of a particular individual only, yet he may at once accept this individual as a sign, or type, of a class of objects, and can readily apply the new knowledge in interpreting other similar things. Although, for example, the pupil has experienced but one such object, he does not necessarily think of it as a mere individual—this thing—but as a representative of a possible class of objects, a beetle. In other words the new particular notion tends to pass directly into a general, or class, notion.
B. LEARNING THROUGH IMAGINATION
As an example of a lesson in which the pupil secures knowledge through the use of his imagination, may be taken first the case of one called upon to image some single object of which he may have had no actual experience, as a desert, London Tower, the sphinx, etc. Taking the last named as an example, the learner must select certain characteristics as, woman, head, lion, body, etc., all of which are qualities which have been learned in other past experiences. Moreover, the mind must organize these several qualities into the representation of a single object, the sphinx. Here, evidently, the pupil follows fully the normal process of learning.
1. The term—the sphinx—suggests a problem, or felt need, namely, to read meaning into the vaguely realized term.
2. Under the direction of the instructor or the text-book, the pupil selects, or analyses out of past experience, such ideas as, woman, head, body, lion, which are felt to have a value in interpreting the present problem.
3. A synthetic, or relating, activity of mind unifies the selected ideas into an ideally constructed object which is accepted by the learner as a particular object, although never directly known through the senses.
Nor is the method different in more complex imagination processes. In literary interpretation, for instance, when the reader meets such expressions as: