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.
The marking system at Stillwater is as follows: If in all the subjects in which you have been examined your marks added together give you an average of ninety, you are passed "with honors"; if of seventy-five, you pass "with distinction"; if Of fifty, You just "pass." It is not unlike the grocer's nice adjustment of fresh eggs, good eggs, and eggs.