The James Logan Courier

Maria Montessori (August 31, 1870 – May 6, 1952) was an Italian physician, educator, philosopher, humanitarian and devout Catholic; she is best known for her philosophy and method of education of children from birth to adolescence. Her educational method is in use today in a number of public as well as private schools throughout the world.


Read The Montessori Method, by Maria Montessori, free from the University of Pennsylvania.

From wikipedia:
Count Maurice Polydore Marie Bernard Maeterlinck (August 29, 1862 - May 6, 1949) was a Belgian poet, playwright, and essayist writing in French. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1911. The main themes in his work are death and the meaning of life.

Count Maurice Maeterlinck was born in Ghent, Belgium to a wealthy, French-speaking family. He wrote poems and short novels during his studies, which he destroyed later; only fragments are left.

Read Our Friend the Dog by Maurice Maeterlinck, one of 11 of his works available free from Project Gutenberg.

From wikipedia:
Man Ray (August 27, 1890–November 18, 1976) was an American artist who spent most of his career in Paris, France. Perhaps best described simply as a modernist, he was a significant contributor to both the Dada and Surrealist movements, although his ties to each were informal. Best known in the art world for his avant-garde photography, Man Ray produced major works in a variety of media and considered himself a painter above all. He was also a renowned fashion and portrait photographer.

While appreciation for Man Ray’s work beyond his fashion and portrait photography was slow in coming during his lifetime, especially in his native United States, his reputation has grown steadily in the decades since.

See 103 of Man Ray's works of art, free from the Getty Museum.

From wikipedia:
Zona Gale (August 26, 1874 – December 27, 1938) was an American writer. Born in Portage, Wisconsin, which she often used as a setting in her writing, she attended Wayland Academy in Beaver Dam, Wisconsin. Later she entered the University of Wisconsin-Madison, from which she received a Bachelor of Literature degree in 1895, and four years later a Master's degree.

Life and work
After graduation, Gale wrote for newspapers in Milwaukee and New York City. However, before long she gave up journalism to focus on fiction writing. She then published her first novel, Romance Island (1906), and began the very popular series of "Friendship Village" stories.

Read Miss Lulu Bett, by Zona Gale, one of three of her works available free from Project Gutenberg.

From wikipedia:
Edward John Eyre (5 August 1815 - 30 November 1901) was an English land explorer of the Australian continent and a controversial Governor of Jamaica. South Australia's Lake Eyre, Eyre Peninsula, Eyre Creek, and Eyre Highway (the main highway from South Australia to Western Australia) are named in his honour, as are the villages of Eyreton and West Eyreton in Canterbury, New Zealand.

Early life
Eyre was born in Whipsnade, Bedfordshire, shortly before his family moved to Hornsea, Yorkshire, where he was christened. His parents were Rev. Anthony William Eyre and Sarah (nee Mapleton). After completing grammar school at Louth and Sedbergh, he moved to Sydney rather than join the army or go to university. He gained experience in the new land by boarding with and forming friendships with prominent gentlemen and became a flock owner when he bought 400 lambs a month before his 18th birthday. When South Australia was founded, Eyre brought 1000 sheep and 600 cattle overland from Monaro, New South Wales to Adelaide and sold them for a large profit. He also discovered Lake Eyre.

Read Edward John Eyre's Journals of Expeditions of Discovery into Central Australia and Overland from Adelaide to King George's Sound in the Years 1840-1: Sent By the Colonists of South Australia, with the Sanction and Support of the Government: Including an Account of the Manners and Customs of the Aborigines and the State of Their Relations with Europeans, free from Project Gutenberg.

From wikipedia:
Ana Maria de Jesus Ribeiro da Silva di Garibaldi (1821- August 4 1849) was the Brazilian-born wife and comrade-in-arms of Italian revolutionary Giuseppe Garibaldi. Their partnership epitomized the spirit of the 19th century's age of romanticism and revolutionary liberalism.

South American adventures
Anita Ribeiro was born into a poor family of Azorean Portuguese descent, of herdsmen and fishermen in Laguna in the Brazilian state of Santa Catarina, a year prior to that country's independence from Portugal. She was raised by her mother Aninha do Bentão, who apparently had been abandoned by her husband, Bento "Bentão" Ribeiro da Silva. Anita married Manuel Duarte Aguiar in 1835.

Read more about the lives of Anita and Guiseppe Garibaldi, free from Google Books.

From wikipedia:
Richard Henry Dana Jr. (August 1, 1815 - January 6, 1882) was an American lawyer and politician, and author of the book Two Years Before the Mast.

He was born into one of the first families of Cambridge, Massachusetts, grandson of Francis Dana, and attended Harvard College. Having trouble with his vision after a bout of the measles, he thought a voyage might help his failing sight. Rather than going on a Grand Tour of Europe, in 1834 he left Harvard to enlist as a common sailor on a voyage around Cape Horn to the then-remote California, at that time still a part of Mexico. He set sail on the brig Pilgrim (180 tons, 86.5 feet long), visited a number of settlements in California (including Monterey, San Pedro, San Juan Capistrano, San Diego, Santa Barbara, and Santa Clara), and returned to Massachusetts two years later as a deckhand on the Indiaman Alert, after making a winter passage around Cape Horn. He set foot back in Boston in September 1836.

Read Two Years Before the Mast by Richard Henry Dana, free from Project Gutenberg.