What is the argument between Miss Caroline and Scout about?

Miss Caroline is Scout's teacher in Harper Lee's classic novel To Kill a Mockingbird. In Chapter Two, Scout, the book's protagonist, attends school for the first time. Scout is so bright that she has already picked up reading naturally by looking through her father's papers. As Scout explains in the book, "I never deliberately learned to read, but somehow I had been wallowing illicitly in the daily papers." This remark is funny because it...

Miss Caroline is Scout's teacher in Harper Lee's classic novel To Kill a Mockingbird. In Chapter Two, Scout, the book's protagonist, attends school for the first time. Scout is so bright that she has already picked up reading naturally by looking through her father's papers. As Scout explains in the book, "I never deliberately learned to read, but somehow I had been wallowing illicitly in the daily papers." This remark is funny because it implies that Scout is doing something wrong by looking at the papers. Miss Caroline assumes that Scout's father, Atticus, has instructed her to read, and she tells Scout that she must stop reading until she is older. Scout, who is a natural reader, takes an immediate dislike to her teacher when she hears this remark.

Miss Caroline, who is new to the town of Maycomb, also assumes that Walter Cunningham, one of Scout's fellow students, has forgotten his lunch when she hears that he has no money or food for lunch. However, as everyone, including Scout knows, Walter's family is too poor to afford lunch. Miss Caroline innocently offers to lend Walter money, committing a tactless mistake because Walter can never pay her back. Scout tries to explain the situation to her teacher, but Miss Caroline punishes her.

Scout's entry into the world beyond her house is troubled. Her failure to understand the ways of people around her will continue, in part because she has grown up in a fair house and the world around her is not as fair or open-minded. Later in the novel, Atticus tells Scout that he will continue to teach her to read but that she must not tell her teacher about it. Atticus's forms of educating his children are far more progressive and fair than those practiced in the Maycomb school.