Page:Discipline and the Derelict (1921).pdf/144

 thought they were being watched and they felt that it would be a good joke to outwit the proctor; and even when they were not caught, very few of them ever profited through a higher grade from the cribbing. Most men who are detected in the act of cribbing and who are facing discipline as a result aver that the time in question is the first time they have ever been guilty of the act. This may be from the fact that the man not caught the first time develops so much adroitness as never to be caught, or it may be that he has forgotten his past record.

A man when brought face to face with the facts will usually admit his guilt, especially if the facts are presented by a single individual. Most young women will at first plead innocence. The explanation lies probably in the fact that the man feels that he has less to lose by admitting guilt than does the woman, for, as things now are, a man's damaged reputation is far more easily repaired than is a woman's.

The cribber, unless he is detected, suffers very little remorse. I am familiar with the class of melodrama in fiction which pictures the young fellow guilty of crime or dishonesty racked and torn by the tortures of an accusing conscience; but in fact it is usually only when he is in doubt as to the success of his subterfuge, or when he knows that he has been detected and that public disgrace is staring him in the face, that he begins to think and to suffer, It is wrong only if you are caught, is his philosophy. He excuses himself largely on the ground that the examination is a game, like love and war, and that anything one does is fair and unobjectionable which circumvents the instructor. When you cheat an in-