High school diplomas and truth

Today while at the museum I took a picture of a diploma that makes me laugh every time I see it. It belonged to Max Vines, who was born in the house we now own, and who lived in it with his parents and his sister and her family until he died (sometime in the 1930's or 1940's). Max graduated from high school in 1908, and I think he was about 16 at the time.

The diploma reads: "This Certifies That Max Vines has completed in a satisfactory manner the studies prescribed for the High School and by proficiency in scholarship and integrity of character has merited honorable Graduation and is therefore entitled to the award of this DIPLOMA... ."

And in between "the studies" and "prescribed " someone inserted the phrase "except geometry."

Because the handwriting isn't like that of the signatures at the bottom of the diploma, I'm guessing Max himself inserted those words after he received the document. But whether he wrote it, or whether a teacher dedicated to being brutally honest about her pupil wrote it, I find it funny and it makes Max more real to me. So I'm thinking he did not major in math when he went to college... .