Take, for instance the heavy reproof conveyed in the following passage:

"Death and shipwreck are less dreadful than the pleasures that attack
Virtue. . . . Youth is full of presumption and arrogance, though
nothing in the world is so frail: it fears nothing, and vainly relies
utmost levity and without any precaution."

And on another occasion, when Calypso hospitably provides clothes for
the shipwrecked men, and Telemachus is handling a tunic of the finest
wool and white as snow, with a vest of purple embroidered with gold,
and displaying much pleasure in the magnificence of the clothes,
Mentor addresses him in a severe voice, saying: "Are these, O
Telemachus, the thoughts that ought to occupy the heart of the son
of Ulysses? A young man who loves to dress vainly, as a woman does,
is unworthy of wisdom or glory."

I remember, as a school girl of thirteen, having to commit to memory
several books of these adventures, so as to become familiar with the
style. Far from being impressed by the wisdom of Mentor, I was simply
bored, and wondered why Telemachus did not escape from him. The only
part in the book that really interested me was Calypso's unrequited
love for Telemachus, but this was always the point where we ceased to
learn by heart, which surprised me greatly, for it was here that the
real human interest seemed to begin.

Of all the effects which I hope for from the telling of stories in the
schools, I, personally, place first the dramatic joy we bring to the
children and to ourselves. But there are many who would consider this
result as fantastic, if not frivolous, and not to be classed among the
educational values connected with the introduction of stories into the