ESSAYS FOR COLLEGE ENGLISH EDITED BY J. C. BOWMAN The essays discuss problems of country life, science, education, and problems of life in general, and are models of exposition. xix +447 pages. THE PROMISE OF COUNTRY LIFE EDITED BY J. C. BOWMAN The selections discuss the conditions and opportunities of country life, and include descriptions, narrations without plot, and short stories. xxii+303 pages. D. C. HEATH & CO., PUBLISHERS THE PROMISE OF COUNTRY LIFE DESCRIPTIONS NARRATIONS WITHOUT PLOT SHORT STORIES EDITED BY JAMES CLOYD BOWMAN, A.M. ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH IN THE D. C. HEATH & CO., PUBLISHERS BOSTON NEW YORK CHICAGO 0871779 PREFACE AGRICULTURAL education has for the past two or three decades busied itself primarily with teaching country people how to earn a living. It has succeeded so well in this that men of all the other occupations are coming to envy the farmer his ease and his independence. Few people, however, envy the farmer his rural life. Almost every one wonders how he can endure living so far away from folks, and how he can get along without the many ready-made amusements of the city. Even the farmer himself frequently feels, if he is to have any enjoyment, that he must go to town for it. The present volume attempts - by bringing together the personal experiences of a wide variety of men and women to indicate some of the more important pleasures with which country life may be enriched. It is so far as the editor is aware the first serious attempt of the kind that has been made. The first group of selections has to do with the type of individual who is most at home in the country, the second treats of the pleasures which may be found in solitude, the third shows how various types of men have found enjoyment in a rural environment, the fourth contrasts life in the city with life in the country, still another describes man's mastery over the crops of the fields and the domestic animals, one story depicts the unstinted loyalty of man's best out-of-door friend the dog, one story pitilessly portrays the meagre life of those who are too impoverished of soul to enjoy what the country has to give, finally a group of stories discuss the various sociological and economic problems of farm life. Taken together, these selections should give the reader an understanding of a few of the unlimited possibilities of life in the country. 304267 |