In Emile: or A Treatise on Education by Jean Jacques Rousseau, he states an important quote, “We are born weak, we need strength; helpless, we need aid; foolish, we need reason. All that we lack at birth, all that we need when we come to man’s estate, is the gift of education. This education comes to us from nature, from men, or from things. The inner growth of our organs and faculties is the education of nature, the use we learn to make of this growth is the education of men, what we gain by our experience of our surroundings is the education of things. (1). Rousseau emphasizes here is that we are born without any knowledge, which is obtained through education. He further explains that education comes to us through nature or experiences.

This is applicable to the novel The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass by Frederick Douglass, a man who was born into slavery during the 1800s. Immediately after Douglass was born, he was separated from his mother and was placed into a family to work. Truly, Douglass did indeed lack education. However, he did not let his status as a slave, deter him from obtaining an education. His great desire was to learn how to read. However, his owner strongly opposed when his wife started to teach Douglass how to read, because he feared that Douglass would be educated and learn how to rebel. The owner Mr. Auld, stated, “”If you teach that nigger (speaking of myself) how to read, there would be no keeping him. It would forever unfit him to be a slave” (6). Mr. Auld distinguishes the importance of education and how it could even lead slaves to be disobedient to their masters. Douglass relates to the quote by Rousseau because he made use of his surroundings to obtain knowledge, and therefore education. Douglass stated, “The plan which I adopted, and the one by which I was most successful, was that of making friends of all the little white boys whom I met in the street. As many of these as I could, I converted into teachers. With their kindly aid, obtained at different times and in different places, I finally succeeded in learning to read” (7). Ultimately, Douglass was born into a situation where he was helpless and bound to his master. However, he made use of his surroundings and through experience, he taught himself how to read and eventually, escape slavery.