"BREAKING UP A NEGRO SCHOOL.--The officers at Norfolk made a descent on Tuesday upon a negro school, kept in the neighborhood of the Stone Bridge, by a Mrs. Douglass and her daughter, and the teachers, together with their sable pupils, were taken before his Honor. They acknowledged their guilt, but pleaded ignorance of the law, and were discharged, on a promise to do so no more; a very convenient way of getting out of the scrape. The law of this State imposes a fine of one hundred dollars, and imprisonment for six months, for such offenses; is positive, and allows no discretion in the committing magistrate." If a free negro in North Carolina attempt to teach a slave to read, or if he give to a slave a religious tract, a spelling book or the bible, he may be imprisoned or take _thirty-nine lashes_! If a white person attempt to teach a slave the laws subject him to a fine of $200 for each offense. "In Georgia, if a white teach a free negro or a slave to write he is fined $500, and imprisoned at the discretion of the Court; if the offender be a colored man, bond or free, he may be fined or whipped at the discretion of the Court. This law was enacted in 1829." (_Jay's Inquiry._) "In Louisiana the penalty for teaching slaves to read and write is one year's imprisonment." "In North Carolina, the patrols were ordered to search every negro house for books or prints of every kind. Bibles and hymn books were particularly mentioned." (_Goodell._) "We have," said Mr. Berry in the Va. House of Delegates, "_as far as possible closed every avenue by which light may enter their minds. If we could extinguish the capacity_ to see the light, our work would be completed; they would then be on a level with the beasts of the field and we would be safe! I am not certain that we would not do it, if we could find out the process, _and that on the plea of necessity_." When Frederick Douglass was a slave and belonged to Mr. Auld, his mistress, who had been lately married, manifested toward him true womanly kindness and commenced to teach him the art of reading. "But when my master heard of it," says Douglass in his Narrative, "he at once forbade Mrs. Auld to instruct me further, telling her among other things, that it was unlawful, as well as unsafe to teach a slave to read. To use his own words further he said, 'If you give a nigger an inch he will take an ell. A nigger should know nothing but to obey his master--to do as he is told to do. Learning would spoil the best negro in the world. Now, said he, 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. He would at once become unmanageable, and of no value to his master. As to himself it would do him no good, but a great deal of harm. It would make him discontented and unhappy.'"