In Chapter 25 of the novel To Kill a Mockingbird, how does Jem show that he is becoming more compassionate and empathetic?

In the beginning of Chapter 25, Scout is playing with a 'roly-poly.' Scout begins poking the small creature and decides that she will smash it. Just before Scout smashes the 'roly-poly,' Jem intervenes and tells Scout not to smash the bug. Scout protests and asks why she couldn't smash it. Jem tells Scout that the 'roly poly' doesn't bother anybody, and she should leave it alone. Scout chastizes Jem and says, "Reckon you're at the...

In the beginning of Chapter 25, Scout is playing with a 'roly-poly.' Scout begins poking the small creature and decides that she will smash it. Just before Scout smashes the 'roly-poly,' Jem intervenes and tells Scout not to smash the bug. Scout protests and asks why she couldn't smash it. Jem tells Scout that the 'roly poly' doesn't bother anybody, and she should leave it alone. Scout chastizes Jem and says, "Reckon you're at the stage now where you don't kill flies and mosquitoes now, I reckon." (Lee 320) Scout thinks the Jem is becoming more like a girl every day. In reality, Jem is maturing and becoming more compassionate. Jem shows empathy and compassion for the 'roly poly' by stopping Scout from smashing it. One of the main themes throughout the novel deals with protecting innocent beings. The 'roly poly,' is similar to the mockingbird, which doesn't harm anybody or anything. It would be wrong to kill something that does bother anything. Jem's actions show that he is maturing and recognizes that it would be wrong to harm something that doesn't deserve to be injured.

For the article, "The State of the South", The Nation (1872): 1. How does the author of this article in The Nation describe the economic...

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What the author means by “universal amnesty” is a law that would allow all white men to be able to vote again.  The author is claiming that white men are not being allowed to vote.  Because of this, the blacks and the carpetbaggers are able to dominate government and, the author says, harm the South.

The...

We request that you only ask one question per post here .  I will answer your second question.

What the author means by “universal amnesty” is a law that would allow all white men to be able to vote again.  The author is claiming that white men are not being allowed to vote.  Because of this, the blacks and the carpetbaggers are able to dominate government and, the author says, harm the South.

The author is saying that black voters are being used by carpetbaggers to allow the latter to have control of the government.  He says that the government is ruining the South for the benefit of the carpetbaggers.  Therefore, he says, a universal amnesty is needed.  We can see what this means by looking at the next line.  There, he says

We have given the negro the ballot to protect him against his old master; we need now to give the white citizen the vote to protect him against the carpet-bagger.

This clearly shows that the “amnesty” is something that will give white citizens the vote.

After the Civil War, some whites were deprived of the right to vote.  The Radical Republicans in Congress wanted to punish the most important ex-Confederates.  They also wanted to prevent the whites in the South from simply voting for all of the same leaders who had led them before and during the war.  Therefore, they took the right to vote from some whites.  We do not know exactly how many whites were banned from voting and/or holding office, but it seems unlikely that it was a large enough number to have the effect that this author claims.

The “universal amnesty,” then, is one in which all white men are forgiven for having been Confederates and in which they have the vote and the right to hold office returned to them.

In The Great Gatsby, what is Jordan Baker's conflict and how does she deal with it?

Jordan Baker's conflict seems to be whether or not to have an actual relationship with Nick Carraway.  He is not her type.  Nick tells us that she "instinctively avoided clever, shrewd men" because she "wasn't able to endure being at a disadvantage."  He also describes her as a liar, and this is probably another reason that she avoids really astute men: a discerning man would be able to tell when she's lying, and Nick can tell, so we'd likely expect her to avoid a relationship with someone of his intelligence.  She confesses, though, that she likes him at the end of Chapter III.  

Then, in Chapter VIII, after the nasty business between Gatsby and Tom and Daisy in the city, as well as Myrtle's death, Jordan and Nick talk on the phone.  He says that her voice is usually "cool, as if a divot from a green golf-links had come sailing in at the office window," but today, it was "harsh and dry."  In their conversation, she claims that Nick wasn't very nice to her the night before but she admits to wanting to see him now.  When he is unwilling to drop his plans for the day to see her, she turns icy with a cold, "Very well."  She seems hurt, and perhaps regretful.  She has broken with her typical pattern of dating rather inept men, and the decision is coming back to bite her now.  

The couple speak once more in the final chapter, and Jordan tells Nick that she's engaged to someone else, though he doesn't believe her.  It seems like a ploy to prove her claim that she doesn't "give a damn about [him] now," and because she references the fact that he was the one to "throw [her] over" it sounds even more like she's bitter about being rejected.  I think Jordan was always at war with herself about how much of herself to give, how far she should let him in, and she seems never to have chosen right.  In the end, she deals with her rejection by trying to wound him and protect herself by saying she doesn't care about him anymore.

What are some important vocabulary words to know when reading the book Hatchet?

Gary Paulsen's Hatchet is considered 5th- to 8th-grade reading level. As a student reads, the student may find some new, advanced words to learn to improve vocabulary and reading-comprehension skills. A few words worth getting to know are amphibious, grimacing, and instinctive.

We find amphibious in Chapter 5, soon after Brian's plane has crashed into the lake. Brian is eagerly anticipating being rescued. As he thinks about being rescued, the narrator reveals Brian's following thoughts:

Yeah, they would probably come today.
Probably come in here with amphibious planes.

The narrator also defines for us exactly what an "amphibious plane" is in the rest of the sentence: "small bushplanes with floats that could land right here on the lake." An amphibian is an animal that can live both on land and in water; therefore, anything that we call amphibious, like a plane, has the capability of being both on land and in water.

We find grimacing in the opening chapter as the narrator describes the pilot beginning to have a major heart attack:

Brian turned again to glance at the pilot, who had both hands on his stomach and was grimacing in pain, reaching for the left shoulder again as Brian watched.

Based on this description, we can tell that to grimace is to make an extreme, even ugly facial expression that shows pain or any other intense negative emotion.

Instinctive is another important word because, all throughout the book, Brian realizes he must control his instincts, by thinking carefully before he acts, in order to survive. However, by Chapter 18, while trying to retrieve the survival pack from the plane, a pack he'd forgotten all about for the past two months, Brian has a fright that nearly causes him to drown:

Too much. Too much. His mind screamed in horror and he slammed back and was sick in the water, sick so that he choked on it and tried to breathe water and could have ended there ... . It was instinctive fear more than anything else, fear of what he had seen.

Anything instinctive relates to instincts; instincts are natural impulses we are born with, such as the impulse to eat when hungry or to run when scared. Animals usually act upon their instincts.

What was a positive contribution of Andrew Carnegie?

Andrew Carnegie was a multimillionaire steel magnate and a remorseless competitor as a businessman, but he was also a philanthropist who believed that the very wealthy should use their wealth for the benefit of society as a whole. In what he called the "Gospel of Wealth," he argued that the wealthy should, during their lives, administer their wealth in such a way as to benefit society as a whole. Carnegie was self-educated and attributed much...

Andrew Carnegie was a multimillionaire steel magnate and a remorseless competitor as a businessman, but he was also a philanthropist who believed that the very wealthy should use their wealth for the benefit of society as a whole. In what he called the "Gospel of Wealth," he argued that the wealthy should, during their lives, administer their wealth in such a way as to benefit society as a whole. Carnegie was self-educated and attributed much of his success to the ability to borrow books from a benefactor in his youth. As a result, much of Carnegie's wealth went to establishing hundreds of public lending libraries around the nation. This, he thought, would allow ambitious, bright people of any social class to educate themselves as he had. Carnegie also donated millions to universities, organizations to promote world peace (he was an anti-imperialist), and financed the construction of Carnegie Hall, a world-renowned center for the performing arts in New York City. So his philanthropic efforts certainly qualify as a positive contribution to society.

Hypothetical scenario: How would one rebut the false testimony of a police officer who claimed that someone had been drinking because he smelled...

If you had not, in fact, consumed alcohol, especially because of the risk of adverse interactions between alcohol and your medications, then you should have demanded a sobriety test at the moment of the traffic stop. Presumably, the police officer pulled you over because he observed erratic behavior on your part and suspected that the driver of the vehicle being driven was under the influence of alcohol or drugs. A police officer can use the...

If you had not, in fact, consumed alcohol, especially because of the risk of adverse interactions between alcohol and your medications, then you should have demanded a sobriety test at the moment of the traffic stop. Presumably, the police officer pulled you over because he observed erratic behavior on your part and suspected that the driver of the vehicle being driven was under the influence of alcohol or drugs. A police officer can use the "smell test" to demand further evidence of a potential driving-under-the-influence case, but that further evidence involves some form of sobriety test, usually a series of physical movements on the part of the driver to test that person's coordination, which would be adversely affected by alcohol. Also, the police officer would typically administer a breathalyzer test, which is more fact-based that field sobriety tests that involve demonstrations of the driver's coordination. A driver's inability to execute a field sobriety test involving a series of physical movements is not absolute proof of guilt; on the contrary, many suspects can legitimately claim that their coordination is impaired by virtue of some form of physical disability, such as those that involve muscular movements. A breathalyzer test, however, is scientific evidence of the presence of alcohol in a driver's system. Your question did not specify whether any of these tests were administered, only that the officer claimed to have smelled alcohol, which is reasonable cause but not definitive proof.

An appeal of a conviction based solely upon a police officer's claim to have smelled alcohol should not be difficult, as a deposition or statement from your physician attesting to your medical condition and history of sobriety would be sufficient, given your age and presumably clear driving and criminal records, to cast reasonable doubt upon the officer's statement. All of this should have come up during the hearing, especially if the driver is represented by legal counsel. Additionally, if you have a "witness" to the officer's deceitful statements -- and, it goes without saying, any statements known by the officer to be false would constitute perjury -- then a statement or deposition from this witness, combined with the statement by your physician, should be more than enough to rebut the police officer's claims.

How did Boo know Jem and Scout were in trouble?

The most likely explanation is that Boo heard the children screaming (Jem yells "Run!"). Since the children had been playing games, pretending to be the Radley's, Boo had taken an interest in them. He put gifts in the tree until his father put an end to that. So, there is the distinct possibility that Boo was looking out for them, from his home. 

It is likely that he heard them because they would have been...

The most likely explanation is that Boo heard the children screaming (Jem yells "Run!"). Since the children had been playing games, pretending to be the Radley's, Boo had taken an interest in them. He put gifts in the tree until his father put an end to that. So, there is the distinct possibility that Boo was looking out for them, from his home. 

It is likely that he heard them because they would have been close to the Radley house when Bob Ewell attacked. The high school and elementary school are at the south end of town. Going north, coming home from the pageant, the children would go from the schoolyard, make a turn in the road, and this leads to the Radley house and eventually the Finch's home. 

In Chapter 28, when the children are on their way to the pageant, they pass the Radley's house. It is so quiet that they can (symbolically) hear a mockingbird. So, it might have been just as quiet when they were returning. Atticus didn't hear anything because he had the radio on. But the Radley house was quiet. On a quiet night, with only the birds to be heard, it is likely that Boo heard Jem tell Scout to run. They are attacked when they are near one of the two oaks near the Radley's home. This offers further proof that they were near Boo's house and makes it more likely that he would have heard their screams.