The Birmingham age-herald., 1915-09-12

suspect the need of evening schools in the country for our own people who were denied the opportunity Of an elementary education in early life.
 The establishment of moonlight schools In 15 states has created a demand for a series of readers especially adapted to their needs. The textbooks now in use in evening elementary schools were large- ly prepared to meet the needs of our city foreign population. The time has come when the people attending the moonlight schools must have textbooks which deal with the problems of rural life, and which reflect rural life.
 The Country Life readers have been planned with this pressing need in view.
 Learning to read from chiid's book is a dull task. It Is hardly fair to ecpect a mature man or woman to become deep- ly- interested in sentences dealing with such childish subjects as throwing the ball. or dressing the doll" or play ing with the cat.'' The first book in the Country Life Reader series treats, in a manner as simple as the childs first read CT, subjects that are of interest to men and women. It begins with simuple sem tences about reading and writing; then it tells about good roads and bad roads: about raising good cattle, and feeding them from a silo. There are lessons about taxes and about banks; the writing of a check is simply explained; the advan- tages of spraying fruit trees is empha- sized; lessons on corn clubs and tomato clubs are given; the value of testing seed, of blowing the land we'll and Of rotating crops is brought out: different wholesome ways of coking bread, meat and vege- tables are described; forest values and the great loss occasioned by forest fires are explained. Near the close of the book there are seven lessons taken from the oa1 ~f xx-At t.,t xl.%a or farm life. These biblical extracts cor relate in an excellent way with the va- rious subjects previously treated.
 Included in the text matter are inter- esting letters, printed in script, which the student Is expected to copy, and send to some relative or friend These letters are models of neatness and style.
 "PENELoPE's PosTscRIPTs.p
 By Kate Douglas Wiggin. Illustrated.
 Houghton, Miffin a Co.,, publishers. No.
 Park Row. Boston.
 Since Penelope is ono of the most de- liehtfully and consistently feminine char acters ever created, her admirers will not be surprised to hear of these forthcoming '.postscripts" Experiences in Vienna Switzerland, Wales, and Devon are told with characteristic charm, and in a con cluding chapter "at home" S,rs. Wiggin gathers up the threads of the \>ory and pictures the wanderers settled down at last by their own hearthstones
 Twenty odd years have passed since Mrs. Wiggin first introduced the impul. sive, amusing Penelope to the public and since then her Irresponsible "doings,' T chronicled in diary form, have been read and re-read with tremendous zest and In. terest by the reading public all over the world.
 The last chapter of "Peneiope's Post scripts" tells why Penelope. of the un- Tagging curiosity, the irrepressible in. terest. and the gay, pen, has been silent ever since. Penelope has been engaged in the serious busnss of getting married and raising a family. The four other chapters, which tell of wanderings ir Switzerland. sojourn in Venice, some goings about in Devon and certain Prints of Wales" are evidently taken from her diaries of those days before her rowing foot was tied to the "sit-fas, acres" of her New England husband They are just as vivacious and readable as the former books, and just as full of Penelope.s unexpectednesses of word and deed. Miss Van Tyck, for instance, in an Italian city gets very busy ''vaccinating herself with information" and Penelope considering the irregular verbs of almost any language, decides there is only one way of learning them. and that Is by marrying native, a method that may be radical, even illegal and bgamous, but Is not. on the whole, attended by any more difficulty than that of learning them from grammar. She sandwiches in many entertaining pictures of life and people in the lands where she travels. and even allows herself occasionally tc garnish her narrative with facts of his. tory.
 OTHER BOOKS RECEIVED. tRE-
 " VIEWS IAATER)
 "I ACCUSE"-(JAccus By "A Ger
 man." Translated by Alexander Gray,
 George H. Doran company, publishers,
 New York.