ausicaa, the daughter of her
mother, the Ithacan boy and the Phaeacian girl--such are a few of these
contrasts. Finally father and son, strongly contrasted, yet having
their unity in this family of which they are members, suggest the unity
of the poem of which they are characters.

These bonds of connection are so strong that they overbalance all
discrepancies of single passages, interpolations, and inconsistencies
of detail. Still, if the mind of the critic refuses the general sweep,
and insists upon prying asunder the joints, and upon looking through
its microscope at the little things, it will find only separation,
discord, and many small Homers instead of a single great Homer. The
particular always divides, but the general unites; so the Homeric poems
will have two sets of reader, the dividers and the unifiers.

_The Education of Telemachus._ This is another name, which we have
frequently used, for the Telemachiad. The Homeric youth is also to get
his training for life; he is to find and to take possession of his
inheritance transmitted from the Past. The general statement of this
educational fact occurs frequently in the work: Telemachus wishes to
know about his father. That is his immediate inquiry, which will extend
to knowing something about the fathers and what they did; then his
investigation will go beyond the fathers and the Greek world, reaching
over into Egypt and the East. The function of education is to put into
possession of the coming man the wisdom of the Past, and specially the
means for acquiring this wisdom; then he can transmit the intelligence
of the race to those who are to follow him. So Telemachus has attained
the age when he must know ancestral wisdom. Such is his strong
instinct, he feels his limitation, he is penned up in a narrow life at
Ithaca, whose barriers cramp his free spirit. This intense desire for
education, for finding out something about the world in which he is
placed, is the starting point for the boy. He shows his spirit by
breaking through the restraint of the Suitors and his mother in order
to get an education. Like many a youth to-day, he has to leave home,
has to run away, in fact, that he may have his opportunity. What does
he get? Or, what is the content of this education! Let us see.

1. We find that he gets a fair amount of religious training. He has
been led through the misfortunes of his House to question the goodness
of Providence and the superintendence of the G