Learning to Read and Write by Frederick Douglass Quizlet
The book, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass is an eloquent memoir written by Frederick Douglass. In it, Douglass shares the hardships he endured as a slave and his heroic escape to the gratis country of Massachusetts. One function of his story that I found peculiarly fascinating was how he taught himself how to read and write, and how he used those 2 skills to impact the lives of millions.
Let'southward start from the beginning
Frederick Douglass was born in Tuckahoe, Maryland effectually 1818 and had a life that was anything but easy.
Douglass was separated from his female parent before he was a year old (a mutual practice by slave owners during those times). She was moved to a subcontract that was 12-miles abroad and Douglass simply saw her four or five times earlier she got ill and passed away.
As a slave, Douglass was treated poorly. He was ofttimes overworked and underfed. He was given almost no clothing and slept in a sack to stay warm, "In the hottest summer and coldest winter, I was kept nearly naked...I had no bed," Douglass wrote in his memoir.
One would think growing up in an unjust world would break a person, just Douglass survived, and would soon thrive.
When Douglass was eight-years-former, he was sent to live with another master in Baltimore.
His new master's married woman had never had a slave before and taught Douglass the alphabet before the main found out and told his married woman that such an activity was illegal. Not only was information technology unlawful, but the master added that if a slave learned to read, "Information technology would forever unfit him to be a slave. He would at once become unmanageable, and of no value to his primary."
That moment was an inflection signal in Douglass'southward life and those words would change his destiny forever. "These words sank deep into my heart...and called into existence an entirely new train of idea," Douglass wrote.
""From that moment, I understood the pathway from slavery to freedom.""
Learning How To Read
Douglass knew that reading would pb to his freedom, and although he had lost his teacher, he was determined to acquire how to read: "I gear up out with loftier promise, and a fixed purpose, at any cost of problem, to learn how to read."
So how did he do it?
Douglass carried a book with him anytime he was sent out for errands, and if he had extra time, would brand friends with young white boys and ask them for lessons.
""The plan which I adopted, and the one by which I was most successful, was that of making friends of all the piddling white boys whom I met in the street. As many of these as I could, I converted into teachers.""
Sometimes the boys would offering lessons for gratuitous, and other times Douglass would pay them for lessons with staff of life.
""This breadstuff I used to bequeath upon the hungry lilliputian urchins, who, in render, would requite me that more valuable bread of cognition.""
After learning how to read, Douglass came across a book containing speeches by Richard Sheridan. Sheridan'southward work produced in Douglass a deep love of liberty and hatred of oppression. He read them over and over once more, and became inspired to get involved in human rights.
""I read them over and over again with unabated interest...What I got from Sheridan was a assuming denunciation of slavery, and a powerful vindication of human rights. "
Learning How To Write
Once Douglass learned to read, he ready out on to acquire another valuable skill, writing.
He first learned how to write while working at a ship-yard. He watched carpenters write on timber the part of the transport the slice was intended for, and copied information technology down.
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"L." was for larboard.
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"South." for starboard.
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"A." for aft.
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"F." for forrad.
"I immediately commenced copying them, and in a short time was able to make the iv letters named," Douglass wrote. Later on learning those four letters, Douglass once over again sought out white boys for lessons, this fourth dimension for writing.
Douglass told white boys that he could write too as them, withal, they wouldn't believe him and told Douglass to prove it. Douglass would then write the letters he knew and tell the white boys to write messages that they knew. Thus learning new letters every time he played the game.
""In this way I got a adept many lessons in writing, which it is quite possible I should never have gotten in any other way.""
Not merely was Douglass clever, he was as well resourceful.
" "During this fourth dimension, my copy-volume was the lath fence, brick wall, and pavement; my pen and ink was a lump chalk. With these, I learned mainly how to write.""
He also waited until everyone had left the house to practice writing in his master's son's old spelling books.
""When left thus, I used to spend the time in writing in the spaces left in Main Thomas'south re-create-volume, copying what he had written. I continued to practice this until I could write a paw very similar to that of Principal Thomas.""
All in all, it took Douglass seven-years to teach himself how to read and write.
""I lived in Master Hugh'southward family nigh seven years. During this time, I succeeded in learning how to read and write.""
Education Others How To Read
But it wasn't enough that Douglass had taught himself these valuable skills, he wanted others to accept the ability of reading besides. He created a potent desire in his fellow slaves to learn how to read and taught lessons every Sunday.
""Instead of spending the Sabbath in wrestling, boxing, and drinking whiskey, we were trying to learn how to read.""
Slaves from neighboring farms establish out about the lessons and Douglass'southward class grew from a handful of individuals to well-nigh twoscore people.
""I had at one fourth dimension over 40 scholars, and those of the correct sort, ardently desiring to larn....They were great days to my soul. The work of instructing my dear fellow-slaves was the sweetest engagement with which I was ever blessed.""
Douglass was making a positive influence on his local community, but he had bigger dreams in mind.
Life as a gratuitous man
He planned an escape and successfully fabricated it to New York, and then upwards to Massachusetts. As a literate, free human being living in the N, Douglass connected to brainwash himself and networked with others working for the abolitionism of slavery.
He read The Liberator, an abolitionist newspaper, and became more than acquainted with the anti-slavery motility. He attended speeches past William Lloyd Garrison, publisher of The Liberator, and eventually Garrison became a mentor to Douglass.
Douglass would get on to go a national leader of the abolitionist movement, a respected American diplomat, a counselor to four presidents, a highly regarded orator, and an influential writer. He achieved all of these feats without any formal education.
In 1845, Douglass published his autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass , which became a bestseller. Douglass stood every bit a living counter-example to slaveholders' arguments that slaves lacked the intellectual capacity to office equally independent American citizens. Even many Northerners at the time institute information technology difficult to believe that such a great orator had in one case been a slave.
Douglass ends his volume by proverb, "Sincerely and earnestly hoping that this little book may do something toward throwing light on the America slave system, and hastening the glad day of deliverance to the millions of my brethren in bonds."
And past teaching himself how to read and write, Douglass was able to write his "little book" and impact of the lives of millions and steer America towards a amend order.
Source: https://alexandbooks.com/archive/the-incredible-story-of-how-fredrick-douglass-learned-to-read-amp-write
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