New England Puritan leaders held children in low regard as inherently miserable

Evidence

Unlike our modern educational critics, the intellectual leaders of the New England Puritan communities thought little of children. “You are all naturally in a miserable state and condition,” preached the cheery Jona­ than Edwards. “In a little while you will be in eternity, some sooner and some later. — Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis, Schooling in Capitalist America, 474

Categorization

• SEED: Angle: contrasts Puritan contempt-for-children pedagogy against modern child-centered rhetoric as a throughline in US educational history.
• XREF: connects to: Massachusetts established public schooling in 1647 to counteract Satanic influence — Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis, Schooling in Capitalist America:…, 477; A dreary, rigid countenance has been a constant across US schooling history — Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis, Schooling in Capitalist America:…, 463