"I had fallen into the company of boys...who showed me how to sin..."

Theodore Dwight Woolsey (1801-1889) - President of Yale University, 1846-1871; U.S. scholar and educator. Woolsey Hall at Yale and Woolsey St. in New Haven named for him. A nephew of Timothy Dwight (1752-1817).

Autograph letter signed, "Theodore D Woolsey", New Haven, March 22,1882, 4pp., 5" x 8" on folded quarto sheet, ink.

In an amazing content letter to Rev. S[amuel] W[ard] Boardman, Woolsey writes four pages on his concern about m*sturbation in young teenage boys -- and the best way to keep them pure. Most surprisingly, he writes candidly of his own early sexual experience. Excerpts: 

"I have two sons grown up and I made it a matter of conscience how to act in the case of foul and nasty sins which boys may learn at an early date of their development from others. I asked a Christian friend on this matter how one ought to act, particularly in regard to preventing masturdation [sic]; and found out from him that he had never given instructions to his children on such subjects."

"On reflextion I decided that I was bound to speak to my sons; and a leading consideration with me was, that, although purely ignorant until the age of twelve or thirteen, I had fallen into the company of boys in one of the best families to be found any where, who showed me how to sin and did me most evil."

"The evil is without doubt a great one."

He writes additional content on the subject and states that a Christian physician or minister or book on the subject but be of assistance. However, Woolsey writes that he is unable to write one:

"I am also over eighty, can do little, and have slated things to do demanding all my time, which I am strong enough and have eyesight enough to devote to thinking."

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