Jem shows that he is a protective brother on Scout's first day of school. Scout is offended when Miss Caroline tells her to instruct Atticus to stop teaching her to read, and Jem responds, “Don’t worry, Scout...Our teacher says Miss Caroline’s introducing a new way of teaching" (page 17). Jem mistakenly calls this new method of instruction the Dewey Decimal System, but he is trying to reassure Scout about Miss Caroline's strange methods of teaching and to be comforting on Scout's first day of school. Later, in Chapter 4, Jem pushes Scout in a tire until she stops right in front of the Radleys' house, which they fear. Jem, out of ignorance about the Radleys but also out of a sense of protection, yells at Scout to run away as quickly as she can from the Radleys' place. He clearly cares about her safety.
At the very end of the book, Jem is also protective towards Scout when she fails to come in on cue during the Halloween pageant. Jem reassures Scout about her performance, and Scout thinks, "Jem was becoming almost as good as Atticus at making you feel right when things went wrong" (page 262). Jem also waits for Scout backstage until everyone else goes home so that Scout can be spared seeing anyone in the audience; that is why they head home alone and fall prey to Bob Ewell.
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