THE MORALS OF YOUTH IN 1805 AS DESCRIBED IN AN EDITORIAL IN ONE OF OUR MOST RESPECTED NEWSPAPERS
Since newspapers were first published in this country, editorial writers have never seemed to tire of writing about the moral deficiencies of our young people. The quotation below, from an editorial published in a well-known newspaper in 1805, could have appeared (in a less ornate style) in the paper we read this morning. To a person of reflection and sensibility, there cannot be a subject of more painful thought, than that which the morals of our youth present. In many of them, we observe the brightest colours of the human character almost totally eclipsed by the foulest immoralities. We see them triumphing in vice as a proof of distinguished spirit and refinement, and permitting their passions to shoot wild in all the dreadful luxuriance of folly and guilt. Let us limit our remarks within a narrow sphere, and select from the cluster of youthful lusts, one which is more fashionable and perhaps more detrimental to them, in every point of view, than any other with which the present age is scourged: I mean the illicit indulgence of that passion which was given to us for the preservation of the human species. Considered merely with reference to this life, I know not a more deadly antidote to bliss than this lawless tyrant over man. How often does it dig the grave for genius and character! How are all the energies of the mind unstrung by its excess; all the affections of the heart deadened or empoisoned; every virtuous propensity put to flight, and all the charms of chaste society lost and forgotten.