PREFACE.
Reading edition
“Switch Off” is the fourth of The Lake Shore Series, and was one of the serials which appeared in Oliver Optic’s Magazine. Its principal incidents relate to the students of the Toppleton Institute, among whom the war indicated on the title-page occurred. The story is told by one of the young men, who is a prominent actor in the events he narrates. Tommy Toppleton again appears, and is even more overbearing and tyrannical than before; but the reader will be willing to congratulate him, at the end, upon the happy influence of all his trials and troubles on his character, and, perhaps, be better prepared to believe that “oft from apparent ills our blessings rise.”
It has been the purpose of the author in this volume still further to illustrate the precept of the gospel, “Love your enemies;” and the conduct of Ned towards his defeated and mortified enemy is earnestly recommended as a safe rule for life. The manner in which peace happened to be made between the rival Institutes has always been found to work quite as well in actual experience as in the story.
Harrison Square, Mass., August 24, 1869.