"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."