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I will offer up the idea of how we learn to speak (and other linguisitic skills).  It is by being immersed in an environment that fosters it!  Our parents constantly modeled it for us and we heard it all around us.  We tried it and got better at it.  We realized a cause and effect.  We cried and we got attention.  We asked for a bottle or motioned for it and we got it. etc.

I do agreed with your question that some things are just too time consuming or impossible to  do with inquiry-based methods ... like basic numeracy skills or maybe even meauring/calculating the atomic weight of Mercury (not practical and extremely hazardous).  Other things we know or want to learn are just too expensive to learn experientially.  Try personal inquiry learning on extended periods of weightlessness.  Well we read about them.