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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Mark Metzger, post: 3564193, member: 86472&quot;]I completely agree. Typically I would never own such relics of human greed and depravity, but it will be used in an educational setting so an exception will be made. I teach high school literature and have sought to obtain a coin to correspond with each work I teach, be it contemporary to the novels’ setting or the novels’ era of publication. It allows my students to make a tangible connection to the literature, and, hopefully in the case of the Manilla, a deeper connection altogether. The way I see it, the study of literature can be many things, historical, intellectual, rhetorical, etc.; however, I see its most important trait as a tool for the development of empathy. </p><p>Literature asks us to consider the experience of others. It is one thing to ask a group of students to read Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness and analyze the manner in which the author characterizes the native Africans. It’s another thing altogether to put an artifact of the very slave trade they are reading about in their hands, ask them to close their eyes and listen to the sounds of actual human suffering. Hopefully these artifacts will transport my students across the thresholds of time and fiction to gain a greater understanding of the consequences of our behavior.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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