The case against them comes under two main headings: (1) The moral issue; (2) The expediency issue. With the moral issue I have already dealt. Most boys crib at school, but the public school man is straighter in business than the self-made man and the American. Nearly all men will boast in their clubs of the way they bamboozled 'old Moke,' of how they pinned up the rep. on the back of the boy in front, and of how they used to strip off the cover of the translation book and sew it round one of Dr. Giles's publications; but the man who has forced a young inventor into a hard contract remains silent. It is a matter that he prefers to keep to himself. I do not believe that cribbing saps the moral sense.
The expediency issue is more complicated. And, on the surface, it does seem that the use of a crib is the very worst thing for a boy who hopes to win scholarships and fellowships. It is a short cut. He does not need to use his brain. His thinking is done for him. That is true, but there are points on the other side. He is set fifty lines of Virgil to prepare. If he comes into form next morning with those lines half learnt he will derive little benefit from the hour's lesson. The whole time he will be worrying at the sense. He will not be able to give his full attention to the points of grammar and history that will arise in the course of the hour. If, on the other hand, he is free from the anxiety of failure he is able to give his full attention to what is perhaps the more important part of the lesson. Also a boy remembers what he has worked out for himself; and a crib used intelligently provides just enough struggle to impinge the result of the effort on the memory. And the wise do use a crib intelligently. They not only want to know their 'con' for the next day: they also wish to be able to remember it for the examination. They, therefore, read a sentence over first in the original. Some one wonders what a certain word means. The word is looked up. Then a shot is made at the sense, not a very serious shot perhaps, and speedy reference is made to the crib. The English is read out loud. 'Now, how does he get that out of it?' some one asks. There is a minute of tussle and explanation—then all is clear. And the next sentence is read out loud.
That is the way to use a crib. And if one has worked out for oneself, even if it be with the aid of a crib, the meaning of a long passage of Virgil, one remembers that passage. I have forgotten now nearly all my Greek and Latin, but I can still read currently and with pleasure the Eclogues, for which I used a crib. Whereas the memory of other books, through which I struggled honestly, but less successfully, has faded altogether. For the average member of the Sixth I believe the intelligent use of a crib is to be recommended. A greater number of lines could be prepared at one time, and there would be leisure for acquiring that knowledge that comes to us indirectly from the classics. Plato is a window through which we see the gymnasiums of Ancient Greece. But it will be shuttered for those to whom the struggle is ever with correct rendering and syntax.
The real scholar, whose life will be spent largely with the classics, must avoid short cuts; he should glory in difficulties that will quicken his wits: he has his whole life before him. He does not have to pass, as the rest of us do, swiftly into a world of politics and business. And, indeed, the real scholar realises this. I can recall few instances in which a boy with a really fine brain has deadened his perceptions by the use of translations. The scholar, when he reaches the Sixth, and is no longer forced to write the proses and prepare the translations of his less clever comrades, prefers to work alone, if not in the company of boys who are equally brilliant.
But the real scholar is the exception. This book is written for, and about, the average schoolboy. I know that in the matter of cribbing I am pleading a lost cause. Cribbing will always, of course, be a forbidden thing; therein lies its charm. But it is important that master and parents should realise in what light these questions appear to the boy. A boy is frequently misunderstood. He is accused of dishonesty. He resents the accusation, but he is unable to explain why his offence does not deserve so stern a label. He is tempted to lose heart, to console himself with the reflection that 'they don't understand,' and so further estrange himself from sympathy and mutual understanding. The boy stands before the house master and lets the wind of words flow over him. What use is it for him to attempt an explanation. If he argues his punishment will be increased. It is better to assume contrition; to say, 'Yes, sir, I hadn't seen it in that light before,' and to be more clever another time. It would be far more just were the master to regard cribbing as a boy regards it: as a game, to be punished effectively when discovered, but not to be associated with the welfare of the human spirit.
If school authorities wish, however, to find a lasting cure they have in their own hands the remedy. They will not achieve their ends through increased vigilance; that will only make the boy more clever. They should make work more interesting. There is little cribbing in form where boys are interested in what they are learning. Boys are not anxious to learn what a master is not anxious to teach. Laziness begets laziness, and cribbing is a form of laziness.
Systematic cribbing will not disappear till popular opinion regards as important success or failure in the class-room. Success at games is considered important; games are, in consequence played fairly. But, as popular opinion sets no value on school work, it does not seem to matter much what happens in school hours. Success in form needs to be brought into some sort of relationship with success at football. Athletic prowess will always, naturally, and perhaps rightly, be rated more highly than intellectual achievement. But that is no reason why intellectual achievement should be disparaged in the case of all save the brilliant few whose feats are received with a mild enthusiasm. At Sandhurst we used to have weekly examinations, and, as far as I remember, there was no cribbing at all in these exams. To a certain extent promotion depended on one's performance in them, and each G. C. was anxious to work out the problems for himself so as to be able to judge how much, or how little, progress he had made. This did not mean that we were more interested in topography than late cuts, but that we realised that, at this stage of our career proficiency in topography would be of service to us. I believe that a similar state of affairs would exist at a Public School were the social values to be readjusted.
Cribbing, like so much else in public school life, is a side-shoot of athleticism.