Education: Slavery in the United States and Education Essay

Submitted By nidhion16
Words: 1232
Pages: 5
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Nidhi Shah
McCaffery, Patrick
AP Lang/Comp
14th October 2012 Various perspectives of education.

What is a good education? If one were to define it then, it would be: “the act or process of imparting or acquiring general knowledge, developing the powers of reasoning and judgment, and generally of preparing oneself or others intellectually for a mature life” (dictionary.com). There are and have been various ways to define what education is but there is nor been anyone, who could actually find the real meaning behind it, since everyone has their own way of defining what education is. Education involves different perspectives such as; freedom, practicality vs. real life experiences, personal experiences and student – teacher relationship. Foremost, Fredrick Douglass was a former runaway slave of the 19th century. Most salves at that time had no rights and had to obey their masters. Douglass however was not weak, apart from him being a slave, he wanted to learn how to read and write. His main motive behind learning how to read and write was freedom from slavery. “The moral which I gained from the dialogue was the power of truth over the conscience of even a slaveholder. What I got from the Sheridan was a bold denunciation of slavery … brought forward to sustain slavery” (Douglass’178-179). Douglass here reveals that, how one of the books inspired him, which was about, a slave and his master and in the same book: it included the Sheridan’s speeches. From these speeches, he got the courage of fighting for those slaves who could not stand up against their masters. Even though he felt disheartened at times, but his primary motive was to make people realize how vulgar slavery was and how cruel their masters were, he then decided to do something that could permanently ban slavery in United States. Therefore, his secondary motive was, through his book, he wanted spread the word around the world especially that “England, was where the abolitionist movement was the strongest”. (directessays.com). Besides, “he also became an ardent campaigner against slavery and for the rights of free blacks” (Douglass’176). In other words, Douglass wanted to educate himself in order to fight and stand against those brutal slaveholders and more importantly to attain freedom. Similarly, Francis Bacon, Of Studies explains his outlook of education.
Likewise, Francis Bacon, also considered at the father of English essays, ‘explains on how and why study-knowledge- is important’ (Bacon’52). Bacon’s Of Studies essay discusses the benefits of studying which is fairly based on practical terms. It is the essay to inform the audience about the benefits of studying. Francis Bacon thus tries to points out that, “Studies serve for delight, for ornament, and for ability” (Bacon’52). Here, Bacon is trying to explain how, for instance the first part, says how studies serve for delight, which, could mean how studies are for one’s pleasure and fun; to make one feel superior/good. Ornament, which means decoration - studies serves for one to look intelligent or reputable in front of people and, last but not the least, ability that shows the talent within someone of how capable he or she is, particularly in studies. Nevertheless, Bacon was a practical person, but according to his observations, he explained that, education not only means to study endlessly but instead one should go out into the real world learn and experience the real life issues. Further, to explain his point clearly he states, “to spend too much time in studies is a sloth; to use them too much for ornament is affection … humor of a scholar” (Bacon’53). The author here tries to explain that, spending too much time in studying makes one lazy. In addition, as described above, “studies become sloth when you stay in school to avoid doing what you ought to be doing in the real world” (answers. yahoo). The author says that doing something in which one is interested is more
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