By the fall of 1918 an elaborate educational program had been mapped out by the Government and was being applied in places, but the signing of the Armistice called for a complete reversal of these plans, and for a program that would quickly turn the minds of the men to the things of peace and reconstruction. The plans were immediately shifted, and the Government sent 50,000 _Country Life Readers_ overseas for illiterate soldiers detained on foreign soil. The lessons on the clean ballot, just taxation, soil conservation and cultivation, good roads and the prevention of disease were all part of the reconstruction program, which would require no less courage, energy and patriotism than even the War itself. It is a far cry from the school-houses of Kentucky to the army occupation camps in Germany, but the moonlight schools had trailed the illiterate soldier through the camps, across the seas, through England and France to the army of occupation on the Rhine. Letters came from many soldiers. This one from a lieutenant in the army--a Kentucky boy--was the last received and made a fitting close to the part the moonlight schools had played in the War: DEAR MRS. STEWART: I suppose it will come somewhat as a surprise to learn that we are conducting moonlight schools according to your plans in far-off Germany. I’m now on outpost duty, and your book is in use in the point furthermost from Coblenz in the American area. Six months ago I don’t suppose many people expected the moonlight school movement to reach beyond the Rhine. I have a fine class, mostly Italians. They’re all anxious to learn, and I get as much pleasure from teaching as I did when I opened the first moonlight school in Camp Shelby. I wrote you about that. The teaching of illiterates is being carried on throughout our division, and I suppose in other units also. We keep records of their work and submit reports from time to time in the same manner that other work is being done in the army. Good luck to the moonlight schools and I hope that every American boy when he returns from overseas will be able to read and write. CHAPTER XI MOONLIGHT SCHOOLS IN RECONSTRUCTION DAYS