To Kill a Mockingbird Ch. 26: School and Hitler

Summary

Scout is in the third grade, old enough for current events and not old enough for the trial to have become history. She still walks past the Radley house, but the place no longer works as a haunted stage. Atticus tells the children to leave Boo alone. The old sport of making Arthur Radley come out is finished. Scout obeys in action even when her mind still glances towards the house. The street has changed because she has changed, and because the trial has taught her that real harm does not need a ghost story.

In class Miss Gates assigns Adolf Hitler and the persecution of Jews in Germany. She is clear and warm. What Hitler is doing is wrong. America, she says, is a democracy, and in a democracy people are not hunted for their birth. The children copy the contrast as a simple map: cruelty over there, fairness here. Scout has no brief for Hitler. What she cannot fit is the ease with which Miss Gates separates a European crime from the county they all live in.

After the trial Scout heard Miss Gates coming out of the courthouse. The teacher who now condemns prejudice overseas had said the Black people of Maycomb were getting above themselves. Scout carries both voices: the classroom hymn to democracy, and the street voice that resents Black neighbours for wanting a hearing. When she brings the mismatch to Jem, he explodes. The verdict is still a raw place. He will not unpack Miss Gates. Atticus does not scold him. He says Jem is storing the whole business until he can make sense of it. Scout is left with her puzzle and a brother who needs time more than debate.

In this chapter: Terms Characters Modern Story

Why This Matters

Holding Two Speeches Side by Side

A warm public lesson can hide a colder private one. Miss Gates condemns Hitler in class, then Scout remembers the same teacher on the courthouse steps saying Maycomb's Black people were getting above themselves.

When praise of fairness arrives, set it next to the speaker's last local remark before you copy the hymn.

Coming Up in Chapter 27

Bob Ewell gets a WPA job, loses it, and blames Atticus. He follows Helen Robinson to work until Link Deas stops him, and someone disturbs Judge Taylor on a Sunday night. Scout is cast as a ham in the school pageant.

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Chapter overview

287 wordsexcerpt

Chapter 26

School and Hitler

Critical Thinking Exercise

10 minutes

Set the Board Beside the Corridor

Write Miss Gates's classroom sentence about democracy in one line. Under it, write her courthouse sentence as Scout remembers it. Draw a line between them and note what a child is supposed to do with both. Then add one pair like that from a teacher, manager, or public voice you know.

Consider:

•What does the far-off villain do for the room's picture of itself?
•Who would be harmed if the corridor remark were written on the board?
•If the person you asked for help exploded, was that storage or dismissal?

Journaling Prompt

Write about a lesson you copied that later failed when you remembered the speaker's other voice. What did you do with the mismatch, and who could not talk about it yet?

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School and Hitler

Summary