Steam distillation- how it actually works?
You boil the water and the product co-distills.  There is an anomalous selective interaction between steam and many hydrophobes.  If you heat the pot you deplete the water contained and may pyrolyze contents on the hot wall.  Blowing in steam limits temp to near 100 C, moves a lot of energy into the flask and out (540 cal/g enthalpy of vaporization), and maintains the water content.

You could filter off the solids, acidify the aqueous raffinate,  extract non-basics, then alkalinize and extract the aniline.  Since aniline is air sensitive to oxidation and extremely toxic by skin contact, you can appreciate advantages of steam distillation.