Mr. Auld was shocked beyond measure when he heard his wife had been teaching me to read. He ordered her not to give me any more lessons and proceeded to give her a lecture on the philosophy of slavery.

He told her it was unlawful and unsafe: "If you give a nigger an inch, he will take an ell.^* Learning will spoil the best nigger in the world. If he learns to read the Bible it will forever unfit him to be a slave. He should know nothing but the will of his master, and learn to obey it. As to himself, learning will do no good, but a great deal of harm, making him disconsolate and unhappy. If you teach him to read, he'll want to know how to write, and this accomplished, he'll be running away with himself."

^*An English unit of measure equal to 45 inches. Originally it was the distance from the elbow to the fingertip.