I agree with Jessica’s statement in her post that Frederick Douglass didn’t let his status as a slave hinder his desire of acquiring an education but instead, “made use of his surroundings to obtain knowledge, and therefore education.” With the advantage of having learned the alphabet from Mrs. Auld before she learned the “duties of a slaveholder” and her “tender heart became stone” under the influence of slavery (Douglass 7), Douglass continued striving toward his goal to learn how to read and write by making the most out of living in the city. At Baltimore, he was “almost a freeman” who was a step closer to freedom than when he was a slave on the plantation (Douglass 6). Through Mr. Auld’s strong disapproval of Mrs. Auld teaching Douglass how to read and write, Douglass “understood the pathway from slavery to freedom” (Douglass 6) which was, undoubtedly, through education since slaveholders were certain that “education and slavery were incompatible with each other” as it poised a threat to their supremacy and authority over slaves (Douglass 7). With a clear purpose to learn how to read and write, Douglass often made friends with “little white boys” on the streets and looked up to them as his teachers (Douglass 7). Sometimes, Douglass even brought along bread from the house to feed “the poor white children in [his] neighborhood” in return for the “valuable bread of knowledge” and Douglass eventually learned how to read (Douglass 7). Similarly, Douglass learned how to write from the ship carpenters in Durgin and Bailey’s ship-yard who “[wrote] on the timber [ready for use] the name of that part of the ship for which it was intended” and also from boys who he knew could write (Douglass 7). After continuous effort in learning from the good lessons from the boys and “copying the Italics in Webster’s Spelling Book…until [he] could make them all without looking on the book,” Douglass also succeeded in learning how to write (Douglass 7).