Frederick Douglass Impact On Education

Over the course of Douglass’s life, he came to realize that slavery was a “poor school for the head and heart” (Douglass 4) and steadfastly attempted to transcend the education barrier built up against slaves. After his timely departure from Colonel Lloyd’s plantation, Douglass was transported to Baltimore where he met the Auld family and learned to read. When Mr. Auld heard about his wife’s private sessions he became enraged because education was thought to be linked with autonomous thought processes, which could rival the established authority and potentially lead to insurrection. Although Mrs. Auld was reprimanded for teaching Douglass and was forced to stop, this only increased his desire to read and so he took to the streets and manipulated