"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.
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