If one examines a _typewriter_ for the first time, it will take some
pains and effort to understand its construction and use; but after
examining a Remington, another kind will be more easily understood,
because the principle of the first interprets that of the second.
Suppose the _Steppes of Russia_ are mentioned for the first time to a
class. The word has little or no meaning or perhaps suggests
erroneously a succession of stairs. But we remark that the steppes are
like the prairies and plains to the west of the Mississippi river,
covered with grass and fed on by herds. By awakening a familiar notion
already in the mind and bringing it distinctly to the front, the new
thing is easily understood. Again, a boy goes to town and sees a
_banana_ for the first time, and asks, "What is that? I never saw
anything like that." He thinks he has no class of things to which it
belongs, no place to put it. His father answers that it is to eat like
an orange or a pear, and its significance is at once plain by the
reference to something familiar.
Again, two men, the one a _machinist_ and the other an observer
unskilled in machines, visit the machinery hall of an exposition.
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