character. The objective, dramatic impulse was not strong in him, and he did not have the untiring and many-sided interest of Goethe or Browning in the complex world of activities and relations. His interest centered in the great spiritual questions over which he himself struggled the purpose of life, the meaning of Death, God, Freedom, and Immortality, these are the problems to which he recurs again and again, and his higher poetry is filled with the message of his answer to them. Thus the peculiarly spiritual function is fulfilled in a rare way by Tennyson. Perhaps no other great poet has ever written in immediate answer to the religious need of his time so purely and fully as Tennyson.

Equally true is it that no time has ever needed such a message more than our own. The questions that once were faced only by a rare philosopher to-day must be met by the common man. The measureless broadening of education has brought to the mass the painful heritage of doubt and intellectual struggle which always accompanies the joy and freedom of independent culture. Old faiths have disintegrated, old bases of life have been swept away in the great upheaval, and each of us must face for himself the eternal questions, and find some answer, if he is to live at all. The need is as wide as the message of Tennyson is lofty; and it is doubtful if anyone has fulfilled a greater mission as a spiritual minister to our century than Tennyson.

Both his personality and his experience fitted him for his peculiar service. His life was singularly protected as compared with other great poets. His childhood was spent in close relation to nature, and in contact with a few cultivated individuals. His retiring disposition shows throughout his boyhood, and united with external conditions in preventing any very wide contact with the world. His three years at Cambridge brought him fortunately into contact with a rare group of spirits, and in particular with Arthur Henry Hallam, with whom Tennyson formed the friendship that became the greatest single influence over his life and art. Already Tennyson had tried the experiment of publication, and in 1830 and 1833 other volumes followed. Their reception was fairly favorable, but certain criticisms stung Tennyson deeply, perhaps because there was some measure of truth in them, and made him disinclined to continue publication. This feeling was increased by the death of Hallam, which occurred in 1833. Tennyson was now brought to face in his own life, and in a new spirit, the problems over which he had always meditated.

During the next ten years nothing was published. Not that Tennyson was idle; on the contrary he was working with great consecration; but this is the period when he is occupied with the two-fold task of mastering the technique of his art, and achieving a spiritual faith in answer to the great problems he had been brought to face. The two volumes published in 1842 show a new power in art and a new depth of content; and still more is this true of "In Memoriam," which saw the light in 1850. In the same year, Tennyson being already forty-one, occurred his marriage. He had met the woman who was to be his wife twenty years before; an engagement had followed some six years later; but this had been broken off because of the improbability that Tennyson would be able to establish a home for an indefinite time. This was but the crowning one among many renunciations which Tennyson made for the sake of his art, being unwilling to do anything which would lead him aside from his consecration to poetry. After the years, the two came together again, and the marriage which had once seemed impossible was now consummated.

From this time on the story of Tennyson's life is one of an uninterrupted series of successes, of rapidly widening recognition and fame, and of quietly growing happiness. In the same year with his marriage he was created Laureate, and this marks the close of such slight struggle, or rather waiting, for recognition as Tennyson had to endure.

The homes of Tennyson, were all away from the cities, in close contact with the nature world, giving him time and peace for meditation, and the stimulus of serene beauty. We know how he hated crowds, and shunned the increasing

throng of admiring visitors, seeking personal contact only with a few intimate friends.

How different the character of Tennyson's experience from that of a Dante, and the difference is significant of the spirit of Tennyson's entire life and work. Living in a conservative society and in association with a protected class, meeting recognition without great and prolonged struggles, never forced into the severer phases of the struggle for existence, Tennyson's life developed within, unhampered and unfertilized by the storms of conflict. If we omit the loss of the friend whose memorial is Tennyson's greatest achievement, and the postponement, or to all intents renunciation of his marriage, his life of personal relations was as well unstirred by painful struggles. The value of conflict in deepening life and the content of its artistic expression is shown if we compare Tennyson's work after the death of Hallam with what went before. To be sure, the deepening is in part due to the natural maturing of his thought; but it does seem necessary that at some point a life should be stirred by a conflict which calls every potentiality of the spirit into intense action if it is to be creatively fruitful in the highest way.

As a result of Tennyson's relatively protected life and of his retiring and meditative personality, there is in him little of that catholicity of life which marks Dante and is pre-eminent in Goethe. These masters were statesmen, philosophers, men of action and of wide and varied personal experience, as well as artists, and a world of struggles gave depth to their lives and a virile content and breadth to their message. The catholicity of Tennyson on the contrary is a catholicity of art rather than of life. It was his exquisite artistic sympathy which made him receptive to so wide a range of influences, and these he interpreted.from the point of view of their value for art and meditation, rather than with reference to their immediate effect upon action and life. Goethe translated every influence into his life, Tennyson his into melodious verse. The friendship of the former for Schiller was not less vital than that of the latter for Hallam, but it does not find expression in an "In Memoriam." Thus though Goethe was so marvelously receptive, everything he gives out is instinct with his own personality, while Tennyson adorns many objects which he never assimilated into his own spirit.

It is therefore but natural that Tennyson should give us meditation upon action, or a lyrical expression of the emotions accompanying it, rather than its immediate dramatic portrayal. There are two distinct artistic methods, which can be more or less clearly distinguished in the work of different poets. In the one the artist stands without the object, secures a favorable point of view, and then sketches

The

In the other the artist enters into his characters, is lost in the latter, and they develop inevitably from within. The work of Tennyson like that of Longfellow is characteristically of the former type, while that of Dante and Shakespeare,and of Goethe in his supreme moments, is of the latter. distinction is not one of superficial method but of informing spirit. A work may be cast in dramatic form, and yet be really an artistic sketch from the outside; or it may be lyrical in method, and yet involve a creative identification of the poet and his character. Dante always creates his characters from within even when he seems to describe them, and Tennyson usually portrays his from without even when they are made to speak and act directly.

Thus the method of Tennyson is characteristically lyrical even in his most dramatic works. His art ranges from fanciful delicacy to grave pathos, from the passionate expression of despair to exalted strains of faith and hope. But the hoarse notes of tragedy are absent, the intense and virile movement of personal passion is rarely present. He could achieve the tender sadness of Enoch Arden, but not the absolute and transfigured tragedy of Francesca da Rimini ; the spiritual message of the Holy Grail, but not the psychological insight of Cleon and Andrea del Sarto; the grave and sublime majesty of the Passing of Arthur, but not the dramatic mastery of Othello and Lear.

To realize the limitation of Tennyson one need only compare his "Forlorn" with the cathedral scene in the first

L

AST spring the editor of PRIMARY EDUCATION stood before a big table full of odd little knick-knacks. They were all pretty in color and contour. They differed from the kindergarten devices in that they carried suggestions of durability and actual intrinsic value. The usual baby ribbon and thin paper were displaced by materials at once less frail and more æsthetic. The ensemble had a more business-like appearance. There was more variety of material, too. A tough, beautiful cardboard, not heretofore seen in school handicraft, occupied a large place. Leatherette was conspicuous, with now and then a glimpse of real leather. Here and there a morsel of wicker work, such as a reed napkin ring, showed itself. The question was asked, "What tools were used in making these things?" and the answer was given, "Hardly any, save pencil, ruler and shears." The editor pushed the discussion as to why primary teachers hadn't gotten hold of this line of work. A variety of reasons were uncovered.

To begin with, the uninitiated pedagogue is easily scared by the term "manual training." It calls up harrowing "auditory images" of clanging hammers and rasping saws -- things wholly impossible to the situation in hand. The first thing to be done, apparently, in shaping this work for print, was to cast about for some seductive caption which would win, at the very least, an unprejudiced reading from our clientele. We have said "Handicraft," because we do not mean either "sloyd " or " manual training," as they are commonly conceived, but something nearer the primary teacher's aspirations, nearer the children's ability, and nearer the possibilities of the primary school-room as it exists.

The second pitfall to be avoided was that excess of system which, pervading the later educational movements, has filled the green earth with rampant bugaboos for the already hard pressed grade teacher. The course here presented, while observing a general progression "from the easy to the more difficult" avoids that rigid and finical insistence upon detail which has heretofore overawed the novice. For example, while it is as well to utilize the exercises about in the order given, the starry heavens will still remain unshattered if the teacher finds it convenient to induct model four before model three.

A number of teachers have, now and again, made little explorations into this field of primary handicraft. Of these ventures little has come to light. The fault has lain, not so much in a dearth of inventive genius, as in a lack of persistence in seeking the raw material. For example, most experiments have struck aground on "tag-stock." Everyone knows that tag-stock offers no inducements as to color, and worse, is miserably brittle. No one seems to have found out, however, that there are to be had many varieties of papers and boards as tough as leather, as beautiful in color and texture as an artist could dream them, and altogether satisfactory for our purpose.

Price is another question that has not been properly opened up. I find my fellow-experimenters paying ten cents a sheet for cardboard when by a little rummaging in the wholesale districts they can have a wholly satisfactory board at from a cent and a half to two cents and a half a sheet (22 x 28). Now dividing the cost of things by four is worth while; and it can be done, approximately, in most

of the items, if you can evade your "Public Service Bureau" (!) and look these matters up for yourself.

One point remains-the nature of the models. Most of the "elementary" things published, whether on differential calculus or roller skating, are not elementary at all. They embody every twist the author knows in his subject. For example, see the Leipsig work in cardboard. It is far more difficult than a course in cabinet joinery. But the models hereafter described are really elementary. They are things little folks can make if the little folks begin at the beginning. Finally, they are real, intrinsic things, every one, to take home and use, or to use in school.

The first four items are to be had in a variety of beautiful colors. The dealers are uniformly courteous in selling small quantities. The same materials, or their equivalents, may be had in the wholesale district of any large city.

The Lessons

It is thought best not to take space here with formal directions as to the management of the lesson. Each teacher will control details after her own habit.

Of course the teacher will make each model herself before trying it with the children. Better try a small group at first, giving individual attention. After making three or four models the children will have become self-reliant, when they may be worked in larger numbers and with less super* vision.

It is a good plan to draw the model the working drawing, on the black-board, before the lesson. Teach the children to refer to these drawings. They very soon learn to do so, thus mastering a valuable knowledge and immensely lessening the teacher's further labors.

Fig. 1.

Fig. 2.

21/2"

Of course the teacher will attend to vocabulary. When the class must learn to draw lines at right angles, give the term right angle. Teach them to draw it (approximately) around the end of the ruler. In using the awl for scoring, teach class to dent the paper not "cut it part way through."

MODEL I

Bound Book No. 1

Take four sheets of any writing paper, about seven inches

This book may be used by the pupil, in connection with his language and number, or he may take it home. Its appearance is improved by smoothing with a hot iron.

MODEL 2 Tag

On bristol board or heavy manilla, draw a rectangle 3 inches by 13. Cut this into three parts, each, 1 by 12.

Fig. 5.

These will make three tags as shown in Fig. 2. Clip two corners freehand, as shown. Punch the hole with ticketpunch. Take twelve inches of string-pretty pink string such as the druggist uses. Double it. Push the loop through the hole. Pass the ends through the loop and pull taut. Knot the loose ends. These labels are useful in marking various bits of school material. MODEL 3

13/4

"

Fig. 3.

Threadwinder No. 1

Material, 120-lb. cover paper. Draw the rectangle shown in Fig. 3. Place the points indicated, respectively and inch from corners. Connect these by the slant lines. Cut out on the heavy lines shown. This threadwinder is useful for the busy work, worsteds, etc.

MODEL 4

Seamless Tray

Material, 120-lb. cover paper.

Draw the rectangle, Fig. 4. On each line place dots inch from each end. With these dots as guides, draw the inner rectangle. Connect the rectangles at their corners.