Page:Discipline and the Derelict (1921).pdf/163

 larly helps in the practice. When you tell a student that you are so clever that you will be quite willing to have him fool you if he can, you have given him a dare, and his brain at once begins to work in a determination to outwit you. The instructor in whose classes there are more cribbers than in any other I know is the one who alleges that he takes nobody's word, and who announces that if any undergraduate cribs in his class he will find it necessary to get up pretty early in the morning. If instructors would be less indifferent, if they would use more common sense, and if they would report for discipline all students who are detected cribbing, the number of cribbers would be materially lessened.

The cribber could be discouraged if more precautions were taken in the conduct of examinations. No one can deny that, when we take into consideration what hangs upon the result of the test, the temptation to dishonesty in final examinations is not small. No faculty, therefore, it seems to me, can possibly justify itself until it makes the conditions under which examinations are given as thoroughly as possible conducive to honesty. With a little care in any institution the student undergoing examination could be so situated that even if it were not impossible for him to cheat, it would at least be difficult. As it is now in many institutions, the undergraduates at examination time are so crowded together that it is almost impossible for them to be honest if they desire to be. Students using the same questions are sitting elbow to elbow. If they look around it is easy to see what the man on each side and in front of them is writing, and communication by word of mouth or by