An example of an analogy used in teaching science:
"Young children are delighted to …be told that they are to act as a band of young detectives. For example, in studying the rusting of iron, they at once fall in with the idea that a crime, as it were, is committed when the valuable, strong iron is changed into useless, brittle rust, and with the greatest interest set about finding out whether it is a case of murder or of suicide, as it were – whether something outside the iron is concerned in the change, or whether it changes of its own accord.
A lady teacher…had been greatly amused and pleased to hear one of the girls, who was sitting at the balance, weight some iron [sic] that had been allowed to rust, suddenly and excitedly cry out, 'Murder!' This is the very attitude we desire to engender; we wish to create lively interest in the work, and to encourage it to come to expression as often as freely as possible."
Armstrong, H. E. (1898) in H. E. Armstrong and the teaching of science 1880-1930 (Ed.: W H Brock, 1973), Cambridge University Press
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