Date: 1789

"You stupify them with stripes, and think it necessary to keep them in a state of ignorance; and yet you assert that they are incapable of learning; that their minds are such a barren soil or moor, that culture would be lost on them; and that they come from a climate, where nature, though prodiga...

— Equiano, Olaudah [Gustavus Vasa] (c. 1745-1797)

Date: 1798

"On the contrary, if, to entice him to enter the paths of knowledge, we strew them with flowers, how will he feel when he must force his way through thorns and briars?"

— Edgeworth, Maria