The Red Cross Girl by Richard Harding Davis

Of some college students it has been said that, in order to pass their examinations, they will deceive and cheat their kind professors. This may or may not be true. One only can shudder and pass hurriedly on. But whatever others may have done, when young Peter Hallowell in his senior year came up for those final examinations which, should he pass them even by a nose, would gain him his degree, he did not cheat. He may have been too honest, too confident, too lazy, but Peter did not cheat. It was the professors who cheated.

At Stillwater College, on each subject on which you are examined you can score a possible hundred. That means perfection, and in, the brief history of Stillwater, which is a very, new college, only one man has attained it. After graduating he "accepted a position" in an asylum for the insane, from which he was, promoted later to the poor-house, where he died. Many Stillwater undergraduates studied his career and, lest they also should attain perfection, were afraid to study anything else. Among these Peter was by far the most afraid.