onstitutes a
distinct field of inquiry and experiment. The output of the best
experimental thinking in this direction may be called pedagogy.

The process of induction or concept-building leads the mind, as above
indicated, through a series of different acts. We may first observe
how far the mind is unnaturally inclined to follow this process, and
whether it is a mark of healthy mental action in children and in
adults. Later we may examine more closely the successive stages in the
process itself.

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 objec