"You can hear their excuses, and then decide."

"Yes," said the teacher, "but here are fifteen or twenty boys tardy this
morning; now how long would it take me to hear their excuses, and
understand each case thoroughly, so that I could really tell whether
they were tardy from good reasons or not?"

No answer.

"Should you not think it would take a minute apiece?"

"Yes sir."

"It would undoubtedly, and even then I could not in many cases tell. It
would take fifteen minutes at least. I cannot do this in school-hours,
for I have not time, and if I do it in recess, it will consume the whole
of every recess. Now I need the rest of a recess, as well as you, and it
does not seem to me to be just that I should lose the whole of mine,
every day, and spend it in a most unpleasant business, when I take
pains, myself, to come punctually every morning. Would it be just?"

"No sir."

"I think it would be less unjust to deprive all of their recess who are
tardy, for then the loss of a recess by a boy who had not been to blame,
would not be very common, and the evil would be divided among the whole,
but in the plan of my hearing the excuses, it would all come upon one."

After a short pause one of the boys said that they might be required to
bring written excuses.

"Yes that is another plan," said the teacher, "but there are objections
to it. Can any of you think what they are? I suppose you have all been,
either at this school, or at some other, required to bring written
excuses, so that you have seen the plan tried; now have you never
noticed any objection to it?"

One boy said that it gave the parents a great deal of trouble at home.

"Yes," said the teacher, "this is a great objection; it is often very
inconvenient to write. But that is not the greatest difficulty; can any
of you think of any other?"

There was a pause.

"Do you think that these written excuses are, after all, a fair test of
the real reasons for tardiness? I understand that sometimes boys will
tease their fathers or mothers for an excuse, when they do not deserve
it, 'Yes sir,' and sometimes they will loiter about when sent of an
errand before school, knowing that they can get a written excuse when
they might easily have been punctual."

"Yes sir, Yes sir," said the boys.

"Well, now, if we adopt this plan, some unprincipled boy would always
contrive to have an excuse, whether necessarily tardy or not; and
besides, each parent would have a diff