On the record
The father, who is a slave, may see son or daughter scored, mangled, mutilated, or ravished before his eyes, and he must be dumb as a sheep before its shearers.
Source
gutenberg.orgEditor's note · Context
This passage illustrates the profound helplessness of a father witnessing the abuse of his children under slavery.
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More from Horace Mann
They cannot do otherwise with laborers who work by compulsion, for the benefit only of their masters, and whose sole interest in the matter is to do as little and to consume as much as possible.
Mere knowledge, without the moral sense, can take no cognizance of the everlasting distinctions between right and wrong; and so the blind instinct, unguided by knowledge, will be forever at fault in its conclusions.
Yet, by denying education to the slave, you destroy not merely the right, but the power, of personal examination in regard to all that most nearly concerns the soul’s interests.
But the impious hand of man divorces these twin capacities, wherever it denies knowledge.
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