The measure of a man’s real character is what he would do if he knew he would never be found out. —Thomas Macaulay

Some thirty years ago, I was studying in a public school in New York. One day, Mrs Nanette O’Neill gave an arithmetic _ 26 _ to our class. When the papers were _ 27 _ she discovered that twelve boys had made exactly the _ 28 _ mistakes throughout the test.

There is nothing really new about _ 29 _ in exams. Perhaps that was why Mrs O’Neill _ 30 _ even say a word about it. She only asked the twelve boys to _ 31 _ after class. I was one of the twelve.

Mrs O’Neill asked _ 32 _ questions, and she didn’t _ 33 _ us either. Instead, she wrote on the blackboard the _ 34 _ words by Thomas Macaulay. She then ordered us to _ 35 _ these words into our exercise-books one hundred times.

I don’t _ 36 _ about the other eleven boys. Speaking for _ 37 _ I can say:it was the most important single _ 38 _ of my life. Thirty years after being _ 39 _ to Macaulay’s words, they _ 40 _ seem to me the best yardstick(准绳), because they give us a _ 41 _ to measure ourselves rather than others.

_ 42 _ of us are asked to make _ 43 _ decisions about nations going to war of armies going to battle. But all of us are called44 daily to make a great many personal decisions. _ 45 _ the wallet, found in the street, be put into a pocket _ 46 _ turned over to the policeman? Should the _ 47 _ change received at the store be forgotten or _ 48 _ ? Nobody will know except _ 49 _ . But you have to live with yourself, and it is always _ 50 _ to live with someone you respect.