Getting at Books

"The remainder of my schooldays were no more auspicious than the first.  Indeed, they were an endless Project that slowly evolved into a Unit, in which miles of construction paper and wax crayon were expended by the State of Alabama in its well-meaning but fruitless efforts to teach me Group Dynamics.  What Jem called the Dewey Decimal System was school-wide by the end of my first year, so I had no chance to compare it with other teaching techniques. I could only look around me: Attticus and my uncle, who went to school at home, knew everything--at least, what one didn't know the other did.  Furthermore, I couldn't help noticing that my father had served for years in the state legislature, elected each time without opposition, innocent of the adjustments of my teachers thought essential to the development of Good Citizenship.  Jem, educated on a half-Decimal half-Duncecap basis, seemed to function effectively alone or in a group, but Jem was a poor example: no tutorial system devised by man could have stopped him from getting at books."

                       --Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird