The Birmingham age-herald., 1917-07-08

of the whole volume is rare and whole some. It is a book that will call forth wide discussion because of it's religious and philosophic teachings and prin- ciples. For instance. we are told why people do not go to church, why tine mission of the church has not been greater; where A'charity should mean justice. work. instead of aims" ami common sense instead of emotional ism and sentimentalism.
 Mention should also be made of the splendid work of one Dr. Wehr, who has school for backward children. Through his method a child develops into a normal state, by the plan of building brain tissue through the use of the hands and the development of sound centers. Little "Hi-Timmy," a mite of a lad 12 years old, Is one of the boys to grow into a life of use- fulness under the skillful guidance of Dr. Wehr. This touches upon the most modern and advanced thought along pedagogical lines and is just another of the points in which the gifted au- thor shows her fine grasp of modern methods with a working knowledge Of schools of thought and progressive world movements.
 LETTERS AND DAIRY OF ALAN SEEGER."
 (THE POET OF THE FOREIGN LE- GION)
 Charles Scribner's Sons, publishers, New York.
 Alan Seeger died as he wished to die. He fell with his bayonet pointed toward those who had violated the soil of his beloved France, while her vineyards smiled at him in the July sunshine and her breezes whipped his blood. T have 8 rendezvous with death." wrote the young American soldier and poet in the poem which shares with the sonnets of Rupert Brooke first rank among the poems of this war. T shall not fail .%hat rendezvous" He did not. Overland over again. in his book of verses, published a few months ago. he shows that he felt the presentiment of death, yet never does he make your realize this more keenly than In the pages of a second book by him, prose in form but poetry in substance, a book compiled from his diary and letters and newspaper articles published un- der the title of "The Diary and Let ters of Alan Seeger.'
 The young American was in Belgium when the Germans crossed the Belgian frontier and started on the march to Paris. Without hesitation he took ship for France. hurried to Paris and there enlisted in the ranks of the Foreign Legion. After a brief spell of train ing in southern France, he set out for the front early in October, 1914 Yesterday we heard cannon for the first time," he wrote, on October A. to his mother in America. This makes drilling interesting
 In the first November of the war he got his baptism of fire, which he mar rates thus in his diary:
 November 4, 1914.-We marched away a week ago through the forests under a moonlit sky. The road was merely recent clearing through the trees to move the artillery over and was almost impassably muddy. Arrived at the outer line of trenches. I was sent forward into a little trench in the fields to stay awake all night with a half dozen others on sentinel duty. Rien Signale.
 Next day was peaceful and we spent 1t perfecting the little bombproof shell ters along the lines. It was a day well spent, for the Germans that up to this time had been content to di- rect their fire over our heads on the French batteries behind us began now to turn 1t on our trenches, informed no doubt by their airplanes that buzzed continually overhead. The salvos of shrapnel began bursting in the woods all about us, and we were compelled to stay under cover all day long.
 Darkness would hardly begin before fusillade would start from the lines nearby, the cry of Aux armes, aux tranchees!" would run from door to door. and we would hasten out into the night to wait in the muddy ditches while the bullets whistled about us But these fusillades would always die out, provoked probably only by Ger man patrols seeking to discover our position. After the first experience we were forced to stay up all night, but later we became used to 1t and were allowed to go back to our holes to sleep. In this way we would hustle out into the darkness four or five times in a singles night. at first little un- easy, but in the end only bothered. In the daytime we slept, oblivious to the shells that burst around us
 In the volume entitled Letters and Diary of Alan Seeger" we have the record of the stirring life in war time of Alan Seeger shining light of this period, who died in charge at Bel loy- -Santerre on July 4, 1916. His collected poems have made a pro- found impression. not only in merica but in France and England. These letters, addressed to his mother and friends. contain his frank expression of all his hopes and fears The diary, found in France by his father is ar ranged chronologically with the let ters, and the whole volume is the ex pression of brave and sensitive soul. meeting gladly and with superb cour age all the vicissitudes and tragedies of the great war. Alan Seeger was a poet and his prose has the emotional imagery of poetry and the force of a soldiers vigorous. direct narrative.
 The frontispiece is made from photograph hitherto unknown to his own family.
 GOLD MUST BE TRIED BY FIRE" By Richard Aumerle Maher. Frontispiece
 by J. Henry. The Macmillan company,
 publishers. New York city
 Many people regard the bishop in MT. Maher's The Shepherd of the North" as one of the most appealing and human of characters in recent fiction. In this new book the author has quite as inter- esting figure in Daidie Grattan. The story is her story-from the day when she revolts at the monOtony and drugery of her existence as mill hand, through that period when something closely akin to tragedy touches her. to that happier time which sees the fulfllment of her dreams. The novel is one of action and vivid coloring into which love theme of most engaging proportions Is woven, the solution of the problem which has kept the lovers apart bringing the volume to pleasing close.
 "THE PREACHER OF CEDAR NOUN
 TAIN"
 GA TALE OF THE OPEN COUNTRY.) By Ernest Thompson Seton. Frontis-
 piece. Doubleday, Page & Co., pub
 fishers Garden City, New York.
 ''The Preacher of Cedar Mountain"