“Yes, I should be very glad to excuse them, if I could find out who they are.”

The boys seemed to be surprised at this remark, as if they thought it would not be a difficult matter to decide.

“How can I tell?” asked the master.

“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 can not 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 those 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 different principle and a different opinion as to what was a reasonable excuse, so that there would be no uniformity, and, consequently, no justice in the operation of the system.”