ou.

5. There is a practice, common to school-life everywhere, known by the
not very dignified name of cheating. There is, I fear, among young
people generally, while at school, an erroneous and mischievous state of
opinion on this subject. Deception in regard to your lessons is not
viewed, as it should be, in the light of a serious moral delinquency. An
ingenuous youth, who would scorn to steal, and scorn to lie anywhere
else than at school, makes no scruple to deceive a teacher. Is honesty a
thing of place and time? I do not say, I would not trust at my
money-drawer the boy who has been cheating at his lessons, because a boy
may have been led into the latter delinquency by a false notion of
right, which as yet has not affected his integrity in matters of
business. But this I do say. Cheating at school blunts the moral sense;
it impairs the sense of personal honor; it breaks down the outworks of
integrity; it leads by direct and easy steps to that grosser cheating
which ends in the penitentiary.

On this subject, I once had a most painful experience. A boy left school
with as fair a character for honesty as many others against whom nothing
can be said except that they do sometimes practise deceit in regard to
their lessons. I really believed him to be an honest boy, and
recommended him as such. By means of the recommendation, he obtained in
a large store a responsible post connected with the receipt and payment
of money. His employer was pleased with his abilities, and disposed to
give him rapid promotion. After a few months, I inquired after him, and
found that he had been detected in forcing his balances! I do verily
believe, the dishonest purpose, which led to this pecuniary fraud, grew
directly out of a facility at deception acquired at school. He had
cheated his teacher; he had cheated his father; he had obtained a
fictitious average; he had gained a standing and credit in school not
justly his due; why should he not exercise the same ingenuity in
improving his pecuniary resources?

Independently of the moral effect of these deceptive practices upon your
own character, is there not in the acts themselves an inherent meanness
and baseness, from which a pure-minded youth would instinctively recoil?
Is there not something false and rotten in the prevailing sentiment on
this subject among young persons at school? When by some convenient
fiction you reach a higher standard than your merits entitle you to, is
it not