he punishment may be very serious: the
annulment of the examination, which may sometimes mean the loss of a
whole year's schooling, the repetition of that year's course. A child
who can help another is kind; well, he may be punished by having to
pass the examination again, several months later, or even by having to
go back for a whole year of his life and begin over again. There are
many cases of this kind: the family of this kind-hearted child may
have been very poor, and the child may have been making a great effort
to come out well, and so to be able soon to help his family by his own
childish work; who knows how his comprehension of this family
condition may touch the heart of a child? He may have seen in his
bewildered schoolfellow another poor boy in like circumstances. How
often some quarrel in his home, or insufficient food, may have caused
him to lie in bed, sleepless and excited, for hours? In the morning
his mind was confused. Perhaps his unfortunate schoolfellow had been
in like case just on the eve of the examinations.

It is essential to understand certain situations: the mother at home
counts the days of each school year that passes, because to her these
are so many days sacrificed; she is certainly following her boy at the
examination with a heart full of anxiety; her face at the window when
the child comes in sight asks, when he is yet afar: "How did it go?"
This picture was perhaps present in the heart of the good-natured
child when he helped his comrade.

He might, of course, keep all this to himself, perfect his own work,
or hand it in first. For justice decrees that the time spent on the
work should be counted by the minute, almost as by the chronometers of
psychological experiment. Justice is rigorous. On the paper handed in
by the child the teacher writes the hour: handed in at 10.32, handed
in at 11.5. If two papers are about equal in merit, so that it can
hardly be said from the contents which is the better of the two,
though both are superior to all the rest, a difficult case arises: it
must be decided which is to be the first. It is a matter of great
weight, because the prize is in question. When there is a doubt, the
hour decides. One paper was handed in at 10.30, the other at 10.35.
The one handed in at 10.30 is pronounced the first, because the writer
was able to do work of equal merit in five minutes less than his
rival. On what may not a prize sometimes depend! Hence a diligent
child mu