“All prohibitions, they contend, should be avoided, as much as possible, in moral education; for prohibitions may often become the cause of greater immorality, than they were intended to prevent.  The fable of the hen, whose very prohibition led her chickens to the fatal well, has often been realized in life, there is a certain curiosity in human nature to look into things forbidden.  If Quaker youth should have the same desires in this respect as others, they cannot gratify them but at the expence of their virtue.  If they wish for novels, for example, they must get them clandestinely.  If to go to the theatre, they must go in secret.  But they must do more than this in the latter case, for as they would be known by their dress, they must change it for that of another person.  Hence they may be made capable of intrigue, hypocrisy, and deceit.”

“Prohibitions, again, they believe, except they be well founded, may confound the notions of children on the subject of morality; for if they are forbidden to do what they see worthy and enlightened persons do, they may never know where to fix the boundaries between vice and virtue.”

“Prohibitions, again, they consider, if made without an allowance of exceptions, as having a tendency to break the spirit of youth.  Break a horse in the usual way, and teach him to stop with the check of the reins, and you break him, and preserve his courage.  But put him in a mill to break him, and you break his life and animation.  Prohibitions therefore may hinder elevated feeling, and may lead to poverty and sordidness of spirit.”

“Prohibitions, again, they believe, if youth once depart from the right way, render them more vicious characters than common.  This arises from the abruptness or suddenness of transition.  For having been shut up within narrow boundaries for a part of their lives, they go greater lengths, when once let loose, than others, who have not been equally curbed and confined.”

“But while they are of opinion, that prohibitions are likely to be thus injurious to Quaker-youth, they are of opinion, that they are never to be relied upon as effectual guardians of morality, because they consider them as built upon false principles.”

“They are founded, they conceive, on the principle, that ignorance is a security for innocence, or that vice is so attractive, that we cannot resist it but by being kept out of the way.  In the first case, they contend that the position is false; for ignorant persons are of all others the most likely, when they fall into temptations, to be seduced, and in the second, they contend that there is a distrust of divine providence in his moral government of the world.”