Learning to Read
Adapted by Studio AM.
Adapted from Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave (1845), a public-domain work. Sentences are omitted, and racist terms in the reported speech are replaced with “slave.” This is not a verbatim transcription.
Source: Adapted excerpt from Frederick Douglass (1845)
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Very soon after I went to live with Mr. and Mrs. Auld, she very kindly commenced to teach me the A, B, C. After I had learned this, she assisted me in learning to spell words of three or four letters. Just at this point of my progress, Mr. Auld found out what was going on, and at once forbade Mrs. Auld to instruct me further, telling her, among other things, that it was unlawful, as well as unsafe, to teach a slave to read.
To use his own words, further, he said, 'If you give a slave an inch, he will take an ell. A slave should know nothing but to obey his master — to do as he is told to do. Learning would spoil the best slave in the world.' These words sank deep into my heart, stirred up sentiments within that lay slumbering, and called into existence an entirely new train of thought. It was a new and special revelation, explaining dark and mysterious things, with which my youthful understanding had struggled, but struggled in vain.
I now understood what had been to me a most perplexing difficulty — namely, the white man's power to enslave the black man. From that moment, I understood the pathway from slavery to freedom. Though conscious of the difficulty of learning without a teacher, I set out with high hope, and a fixed purpose, at whatever cost of trouble, to learn how to read.
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Questions
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Question 1 of 4
Why did Mr. Auld forbid his wife from teaching Douglass to read?
The answer is B: He believed literacy would make an enslaved person harder to control
Auld said learning would "spoil" a slave and that one taught an inch would "take an ell"; he feared literacy would undermine his control.
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Question 2 of 4
What realization did Auld's words spark in Douglass?
The answer is B: That reading was the pathway from slavery to freedom
Douglass writes, "From that moment, I understood the pathway from slavery to freedom": the very thing Auld feared revealed reading's power to him.
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Question 3 of 4
In the saying quoted in this adapted excerpt, an “ell” (an old unit of length) represents:
The answer is B: a much greater amount
An ell is far longer than an inch; the saying means a small concession will be stretched into a large one.
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Question 4 of 4
According to the passage, what had Mrs. Auld taught Douglass before her husband forbade it?
The answer is A: The alphabet and spelling short words
She "commenced to teach me the A, B, C" and then assisted him in spelling "words of three or four letters" before Mr. Auld stopped the lessons.
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