st be very careful in his preparations for an examination; the
two in question were equally clever and equally quick; but one had
taken care to have good pens and flowing ink, and the other had not.
Thus his negligence cost him the prize. It is true that the parents
and not the children provide the pens. In strict justice all should
have the same pens, but here we enter into a sea of scruples which
might obscure justice. No, justice must be rigorous, but without
scruples. Now the clever child who helped his companion lost time,
and so by this alone he lost part of his merit; he therefore
"sacrificed" himself for a comrade.

No considerations, no extenuating circumstances will be allowed to
mitigate the punishment. Family conditions, the mother ... nothing can
avail against the canceling of an examination. Even in the case of
great criminals extenuating circumstances are admitted in mitigation
of punishment. But school is another matter; here we have to deal with
definite facts: there has been an infiltration of one mind into
another, and we are no longer able to judge the children individually
by their work. Moreover, the examination is the individual test. If
the canceling occurs at the final examination, the culprit must go
through the year again, and when a year is repeated it is the entire
year. It is not as with convicts, where months and weeks are taken
into account. Here the unit of measurement is the school year. And
then there is another point to consider in the case of convicts: their
crimes may have been induced by irresistible forces and conditions,
driving them to do evil.... But who is there who cannot refrain from
doing good? To do good is certainly not an irresistible impulse!

However, to obviate such inconvenient impulses, school educates
children to refrain from mutual aid throughout the year. It goes even
farther: it directly prevents the children from communicating one with
another. What a chase it is! The clever, practical teacher adopts
regular strategic tactics, and is familiar with all the child's
devices in this covert and deceitful contest. Children are "capable of
anything" to support one another and communicate one with another. If
"prompting" when one child is repeating a lesson might reach the
teacher's ear, we find a companion sitting in front of him with the
open book fastened to his shoulders, where the other is able to read
it. Or if the wily teacher makes the patient come out from am