University of Virginia Library

IX. Examinations and the Honor System

The method of examination during the Fifth Period,
1842–1861, underwent no alteration beyond the adoption
of what was known as the Honor System, which, in
the beginning, was confined to the precincts of the classroom.
It was admitted by most persons that the existence
of the uniform and early rising laws had created

a malign influence in the University atmosphere by encouraging
a spirit of resentment and insurrection among
the students; and this feeling had been only aggravated
by the progress of time. No man had perceived this
more clearly than George Tucker, who showed his detestation
of petty supervision in general by refusing to report
a student for wearing a pair of boots, or drinking
a glass of wine. Henry St. George Tucker was fully
in sympathy with his kinsman,–partly, perhaps, because
the two had a keen sense of humor. Both of these superior
men were something more than mere teachers,
whose views had tended to narrowness through long
confinement to college precincts. George Tucker had
been a lawyer and litterateur, and also a member of Congress,
before his appointment to the chair of moral philosophy.
Henry St. George Tucker too had been a distinguished
practitioner at the bar, and a still more distinguished
judge. Both had been important figures in
a larger world; and, in consequence, had acquired a
liberality in their outlook which was far beyond that commonly
observed.

Judge Tucker detected at once after his induction as
chairman a poisonous moral influence, not only in the
uniform and early rising laws,—which had caused so
much antagonism, and resulted in so little benefit to the
University,—but also in that system of suspicious surveillance
which had prevailed in the examinations since
the abolition of the oral tests and the adoption of the
written. He was not satisfied with his share in revoking
the uniform and early rising ordinances, but very
soon submitted the following resolution, which time was
to prove to be epochal in its character: "In all future
written examinations for distinctions and other honors
in the University of Virginia, each candidate shall attach

to the written answers presented by him in such
examinations a certificate in the following words, 'I,
A. B., do hereby certify on honor that I have derived no
assistance during the time of this examination from any
source whatever, whether oral, written, or in print,
in giving the above answers.'" This pledge was afterwards
extended to imparting as well as to receiving aid
under the same circumstances.

It is not at all assured that the rule thus proposed
was Judge Tucker's exclusive conception; but it was
certainly first adopted at the University through his
influence. It has been often asserted that it was suggested
to him by the modified system of a like character
which had prevailed at the College of William and Mary.
When the grammar school in that college was abolished
in 1779, and the small boy eliminated, the need of a
very stringent form of discipline vanished. After 1784,
each matriculate was required to take the pledge, in the
presence of the assembled students and members of
the Faculty, that he would respect all the ordinances,
but especially those that tended to sustain the moral
reputation, and advance the prosperity of the institution.
Judge Nathaniel Beverley Tucker said afterwards
that this venerable seat of learning, in adopting this
general rule, "had set an example to all other colleges
as a school of honor because it had substituted candid
appeals to the better feelings of the student, and a frank
reliance on his honor for espionage, severity, and the
restraints of the cloister."

In a general way, this statement was perfectly accurate;
but in a general way only. When we examine
the honor regulation of the old college, it seems to have
occupied a position that lay somewhere between the
regulation at the University of Virginia which required

every matriculate at entrance to sign a pledge that he
would observe the ordinances, and that other regulation,
introduced by Henry St. George Tucker, which, at a
latter date, required the same student to sign a pledge
that he had neither given nor received assistance in the
course of his examination. The pledge enforced at the
College of William and Mary was really nearer, in its
general character, to the pledge of the University matriculate
than to the one which the University student attached
to his examination papers,—the only substantial
difference was that the pledge at the ancient college was
taken in public in order to increase its solemnity, whilst,
at the University, the matriculate's was taken in the
privacy of the proctor's office. Apparently, there was
no ordinance in operation at the College of William
and Mary which exactly resembled in tenor the resolution
introduced by Henry St. George Tucker. This
resolution did not profess to set up a universal code of
good conduct, such as was expected of the matriculate
in the College of William and Mary,—its single aim
was to ensure upright action in the examination room
alone by reliance on the student's sense of honor. It
restricted to a single occasion that principle of correct
behavior which the Faculty of the old seat of learning at
Williamsburg, and Jefferson at the University of Virginia,
had endeavored to put in general practice in all
the relations of scholastic life, whatever the time or the
event. The latter was merely a general objurgation;
the former was a direct, concrete, and specific application
of the honor principle, and as such was essentially
original in its character.

During the years anterior to the adoption of the Honor
System at the University, fairness in the examinations
had been sought by enforcing the most rigid methods

of surveillance. The vigilance of the committee of professors
who were present in each instance was said to be
worthy of the eyes of the proverbial lynx; a majority
of its members were never permitted to withdraw from
the room at one time; and they were expected to maintain
an unbroken silence among the students in attendance,
to restrain them from leaving their seats, and to
interpose should they endeavor to communicate with each
other or with persons outside the apartment. No student
coming to the examination was suffered to bring
with him a portfolio or a book. This constant supervision,
with its restrictive rules, seems to have provoked
a spirit among some of the young men that found a keen
satisfaction in sly efforts to get around it. The sense
of obligation felt by most to act fairly was probably
weakened by the fact that the uprightness of all was
tacitly questioned by the suspicious attitude of the supervisors.
It followed that, previous to 1842, there were
some instances of cheating during the progress of the
examinations. In the intermediate for 1832, so many
students, placed in the highest grade by the excellence
of their papers, were found to have won that position
by "unfair means," that every one who had been raised
to it was compelled by the Faculty to prove that his
success was not to be attributed to improper assistance.

At one time, it was customary for the examinations
to be attended by friends of the young men who were
taking part in it. The committees, impressed with the
abuse of this privilege, asked for authority to shut these
intruders out, and to punish every student in the room
who was detected in a fraud. One of those discovered
cheating at the final examinations this year (1832) was
expelled; and three who had graduated were, for the
same reason, deprived of their honors. It seems that

a barrier which had been erected to prevent any one
from entering the eastern lecture-room for the purpose
of assisting the young men then under examination there,
had been covertly pushed aside on this occasion, and aid
given to the four afterwards found guilty. In 1839,
two members of the class in mathematics reached the
first division in the examinations by the like dishonest
means, and they were, as a punishment, reduced to the
fourth. The same penalty was inflicted on a student
who had been detected cheating in Dr. Emmet's examination.

The Faculty announced, in 1841, that they would refuse
to confer a degree on any one, who, they had
satisfactory reason to know, had committed a fraud of
this nature. Only a few days before the Honor System
was formally adopted, a student who had given aid in
an examination in the School of Moral Philosophy, was,
on that account, not allowed the privilege of reexamination
for which he had asked Dr Howard also reported
two instances of the like cheating about the
same time. These young men were punished by refusing
to give them their certificates of proficiency. The
leniency of the penalty shows that there was a lurking
impression that, if any student could obtain assistance,
the act of doing so was not so dishonorable after all,
simply because he had not bound himself by an oath to
receive or confer aid. The act was admitted to be
wrong in itself, but, should it be successful, the examining
committee were thought to be open to blame because
they had failed to prevent it The instances of
cheating on record are not very numerous, but they would,
perhaps, have occurred more frequently had the committees
refrained from exercising such strict oversight.

It is quite possible that the Honor System was adopted

as the policy of the University because, as the size of the
classes grew, the difficulty of preventing the use of unfair
means by unscrupulous students in examinations also increased.
The cases of cheating brought to light gave
warning that, should the vigilance be relaxed for any
reason, the trustworthiness of the examinations would
be jeopardized. The adoption of the Honor System
was designed at the start, not to remove at one stroke
all the perplexities of the situation,—this must at first
have been thought impossible,—but simply to create an
additional means of minimizing those perplexities. Why
had this supplementary lever never been used before?
"The human character," Jefferson had said, "is susceptible
of other incitements to correct conduct more worthy
of employ than fear, and of better effect."Why had
not this impressive utterance been recalled just so soon
as the examinations passed from the oral form to the
written? Why should it have been remembered only
after half a generation had elapsed? The sentiment
which these words proclaimed was the foundation stone
of the Honor System. Unhappily, there had, during
many years, prevailed such irritation and such exasperation
in the relations of the young men and the professors,
that it was very difficult for those among the latter
who had been long connected with the University,—and
these formed a large majority,—to conceive that it
would be a genuine guarantee of honesty to leave the
students to the dictates of their own consciences. It
was natural enough that the Honor System should have
been first proposed by a man who had only recently become
a member of the Faculty, for when the resolution
was submitted by Tucker, he had been associated with
the institution too short a time to be biassed by the
suspicions which had been aroused in the breasts of his
colleagues by their personal knowledge of so many acts
of wantonness and lawlessness on the part of their pupils.

It was one of the peculiarities of the spirit behind
these acts that it had its springs most often in a perverted
sense of manliness and independence. The young men
seemed to think that, as students of the University, they
stood upon a footing of equality with the members of
the Faculty; and that they had a positive right to be
insubordinate as a means of protecting themselves against
supposed tyranny. It was not always the headiness and
intemperance of youth that caused them to boil over so
constantly. Rather, it was most frequently a distorted
idea of what they considered was due to their own manhood.
When they fell to rioting, they rioted boldly
and in a large way. The sense of chivalry, however
perverted in all on occasions, remained firm and vigorous
in the hearts of the great majority; and it was in
this responsive soil that the Honor System at the University
of Virginia was first planted. That institution
was an institution for men and not for boys. The preposterous
claim which the students made so often to the
right of independent action,—as in the case of the military
company of 1835,—demonstrated that they grasped
this fact, although in a confused way. The system could
not have taken root in a community of mere youths.

It would be very erroneous to suppose that the Honor
System, from its adoption in 1842, was relied upon as
the only guarantee of honesty in the examinations.
These continued, during many years, to be hedged about
by numerous restrictions. Indeed, throughout the Fifth
Period, 1842–1861, they were still conducted in harmony
with the original rules: (1) only those students who
were to stand the examination were to be permitted to
enter the room; (2) these were to be forbidden the use

within its bounds of all portfolios and books, unless allowed
by the special committee in charge, and they were
to be supplied with paper, but not with ink and pens;
(3) all communication between the members of the
class under examination was to be frowned upon; (4)
each member of that class was to appear in the designated
room within ten minutes after the bell rang; (5) each
was to forfeit his right to be examined should he leave
the apartment without the committee's consent; and (6)
each was required to append to his examination papers
the pledge prescribed by the Tucker resolution. The
entire list of these restrictive regulations was always read
to the assembled class; and a copy was also handed to each
member.

It is quite probable that, from the start, each student
felt under a strong moral obligation, not only to observe
the terms of his own pledge, but also to see that every
other student was faithful to his. Under the influence
of this very natural attitude of mind, the enforcement
of the system in time passed from the members of the
Faculty to the members of the student body. Indeed,
that body, in time, grew jealous and resentful of even
the smallest suggestion of interference by the Faculty
in inflicting punishment for an act of fraud in the examination
room. It became ultimately the duty of every student
who had detected a fellow student to report this fact
to such members of the class as he should select for
consultation; and a full investigation was made by them
as a self-appointed committee. If the charge was apparently
proved, the culprit was asked to defend himself;
and if he offered no satisfactory explanation, he
was warned to leave the precincts. Throughout the
Fifth Period, 1842–1861, however, a student who was
accused of violating his pledge possessed the right of

appeal to the examining committee of his class. In one
such instance, seven witnesses were summoned by that
committee, and all the circumstances thoroughly sifted
and the young man acquitted.

In 1860, a student whose unfairness in his examination
had been exposed, was forbidden by the Faculty, and not
by the young men, from returning to the University, the
ensuing year. This case demonstrates that the Honor
System did not reach its full development until the remarkable
period that followed the war. It was not
until then that it could be correctly asserted that the function
of the presiding professor at an examination was
that of a chairman rather than that of a vigilant, and
even a suspicious, overseer; not until then could it be said
of him, as has been recently said with perfect accuracy,
that his presence was not to restrain, but to testify to his
interest in the occasion, and to lend it the dignity of his
impartial countenance. Many years passed before the
right of appeal was restricted to the presidents of the
several academic and vocational departments; but a warning
from the students to their cheating classmates was
doubtless as effective before 1860 as it was after 1865;
and there is no evidence that the right of appeal to the
Faculty, which then existed, was often exercised at any
time subsequent to the adoption of the system. The
guilty student usually left in silence, and often so hurriedly
as to be unaccompanied by bag or baggage.[6]