This point of view, acquired somewhat early, saves one many shocks and misconceptions in later reading. It should not be necessary to say that the discussion of Odysseus should not amount to "character-study," and should not drift anywhere near hair-splitting moral discriminations. All teachers will agree that it is better to start the _Odyssey_ with the fifth book--the experience of Odysseus himself--leaving the _Telemachiad_ unread, or to be read later. Into his few introductory stories the teacher should fit some account of the iniquities of the suitors and the fact of the journey of Telemachus--this to pave the way for the delightful story of his return. For our generation--and, one is tempted to believe, for several generations to come--Professor Palmer's prose translation of the _Odyssey_ is the ideal reading version. For the sake of the slight heightening of style, the class might occasionally hear recited a passage in Bryant's verse translation. But the poetical, musical, faintly archaic prose of Professor Palmer has caught perfectly the gentle spiritual tone of the _Odyssey_. I have known a class of nine-ten-year children conducted through the _Odyssey_ making a side interest of the _Realien_, the pottery and weaving, and metal working. Such hand-work was a part of their school tasks, and there were collections of pottery and fabrics which they could be taken to see. The experience seemed to co-operate with their own hand-work to develop in them some of that artistic love of beautiful things--things costly, but not expensive--that pervades the _Iliad_ and the _Odyssey_; and they were distinctly helped on toward that attitude we desire for every child, that of "reverence for the life of man upon the earth." The _Odyssey_ will be used, however, in schools where there is no handwork and no chance of seeing collections of suitable objects. Pictures are of some service in getting the image of objects--colored prints of Greek pottery and costume. Engelmann and Anderson's _Atlas of the Homeric Poems_ seems to help and interest the children, though there is constant danger that the archaic forms will seem merely ludicrous to many of them. The teacher may correct this by explaining them as decoration and as traditional figures. But we should not depend much upon black-and-white print to help young children to visualize objects and scenes in which color and motion are all-important.