perpetuity of the institution of slavery, Fee maintained that
sealing up the mind of the slave, lest he should see his wrongs, was
tantamount to cutting off the hand or foot in order to prevent his
escape from forced and unwilling servitude.[2] "If by our practice,
our silence, or our sloth," said he, "we perpetuate a system which
paralyzes our hands when we attempt to convey to them the bread of
life, and which inevitably consigns the great mass of them to unending
perdition, can we be guiltless in the sight of Him who hath made us
stewards of His grace? This is sinful. Said the Saviour: 'Woe unto you
lawyers! for ye have taken away the key of knowledge: ye entered not
in yourselves, and them that were entering in ye hindered."'[3]

[Footnote 1: Fee, _Antislavery Manual_, p. 147.]

[Footnote 2: _Ibid._, p. 148.]

[Footnote 3: Fee, _Antislavery Manual_, p. 149.]

CHAPTER IX

LEARNING IN SPITE OF OPPOSITION

Discouraging as these conditions seemed, the situation was not
entirely hopeless. The education of the colored people as a public
effort had been prohibited south of the border States, but there was
still some chance for Negroes of that section to acquire knowledge.
Furthermore, the liberal white people of that section considered these
enactments, as we have stated above, not applicable to southerners
interested in the improvement of their slaves but to mischievous
abolitionists. The truth is that thereafter some citizens disregarded
the laws of their States and taught worthy slaves whom they desired to
reward or use in business requiring an elementary education. As these
prohibitions in slave States were not equally stringent, white and
colored teachers of free blacks were not always disturbed. In fact,
just before the middle of the nineteenth century there was so much
winking at the violation of the reactionary laws that it looked as if
some Southern States might recede from their radical position and let
Negroes be educated as they had been in the eighteenth century.

The ways in which slaves thereafter acquired knowledge are
significant. Many picked it up here and there, some followed
occupations which were in themselves enlightening, and others learned
from slaves whose attainments were unknown to their masters. Often
influential white men taught Negroes not only the rudiments of
education but almost anything they wanted to learn. Not a few slaves
were instructed by the white children whom they a