This is Enos Hitchcock, (1745-1803) a clergyman whose life intersected the U.S. Revolutionary War and who was an ardent champion for the role of religion in the public sphere. He was concerned — *concerned*, I tell you, about the Direction of the Youth in his time.
One of his works had the extraordinarily long title _Memoirs of the Bloomsgrove Family. In a Series of Letters to a Respectable Citizen of Philadelphia. Containing Sentiments on a Mode of Domestic Education, Suited to the Present State of Society, Government, and Manners, in the United States of America: and on the Dignity and Importance of the Female Character_. Oh, my.
A quote from this 1790 work might, if phrased in more modern terminology, sound like it comes out of the book-banning pushers making headlines right now:
“The free access which many young people have to romances, novels, and plays has poisoned the mind and corrupted the morals of many a promising young youth; and prevented others from improving their minds in useful knowledge. Parents take care to feed their children with wholesome diet; and yet how unconcerned about the provision for the mind, whether they are furnished with salutary food, or with trash, chaff, or poison?”
Indeed, I am more concerned about the good Reverend Hitchcock’s lack of knowledge about the proper use of a semicolon than for the so-called corrupted youth getting contaminated by sordid reading materials — whether from the 18th-century, or from today.
Sources: Quote from _Mental Floss _ Jon Seder, Aug 15, 2013 updated July 6, 2021, “14 historical complaints about young people ruining everything.” “Enos Hitchcock,” @Prabook.com.
