Answer:
The mistress was at one point teaching Douglass how to read, but threw it into discontinuance due to the warnings of her husband, which urged her to follow status quo of maintaining illiterate slaves. In the aftermath of this event, the mistress strongly upheld these practices, and exercised her beliefs through the increase of intensity of which she handled the slaves; almost as if to prove her understanding. She disliked when Douglass read newspapers--which he continued to do on his own, despite her break off--as she feared two major possibilites: he and the other slaves would become smart enough to plan a rebellion, paired with the fact that slave rebellions were written in the newspapers and Douglass could have easily read about them.
