This paper examines three interrelated kinds of activity from a historical anthropological perspective: (1) invisible or seemingly extraneous aspects of schooling and efforts to orchestrate school-like activities; (2) hidden and not so hidden literacy acquisition; and (3) expressive practices with educational dimensions for participants that remained largely invisible to outsiders. "Hidden education" in the Quarter involved a double language that addressed both the world as it "is" and the world as it could or should be; the world that outsiders control and the one that insiders are continually educating each other to make. Thus, it seems the enslaved have contributed a more complex theory of education than that which informs much of today's schooling. Similarly, they have left a legacy of valuable educative skills that schools today often undervalue.