Excerpt from Roderick Hume: The Story of a New York Teacher This story is written to depict certain phases of the modern Union School. It is in no sense a satire. The author has no hobby to ride, no grievance to redress. He has merely described what he has seen, trusting his' fancy just far enough to weave into one web characters and incidents which were real but disconnected. It has been murmured that the characters and incidents are too real, that the ori ginals are readily recognized, and that in portraying them the author has taken unwarrantable liberties. Against this reproach he may be permitted a word of defence. Ten years ago it was his privilege to meet among the Catskills a group of artists, and to learn some thing of their work. He remembers particularly Mr. Gifford's sketches. They were half a dozen di rect transcripts from nature, a foot square or more, and chosen for some special effect. Here was a white birch, with peeling bark and broken 'limb. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.